S&S: A Post Mortem

[Ebiris]

Okay, now that the game's definitively ended, and I might wind up running another game in the near future, it seems like a perfect time for some post-game analysis, as well as a chance to maybe clarify a few things.

So, here I invite you not only to give feedback on my running of the game, but also perhaps ask some questions about any plot-elements you might want explained or suchlike.

I'll start with a quick explanation for the last quest. The idea was that the overwhelming conjuration orb was actually an artifact that when used correctly would summon all sorts of Far Realm horrors at the command of the user. When used incorrectly it would transport the user to the Far Realm and then start randomly summoning hostile creatures whenever in the presence of intelligent beings. Whether you guys would keep it as a risky but powerful item to enjoy, sell it to a certain half-fiend, or drop it into the ocean for the Sahugin to worry about, I left to you. Had we ever got that far, anyway.

Regarding the soul-eater nymph and the crazy evil blighter druid in the Moonwood, it was the blight spreading through the North that had forced the Malarites to move South and into conflict with Moonhaven. Had you disabled but not killed a werewolf, it likely would have explained more, and given a possibility for them teaming up with you guys to deal with the druid. Since he was still at large when you left that quest behind, I'd planned to have him in the background for a while, then at level 15 or so there'd come word of a massive army of the undead threatening Silverymoon itself, with vast portions of the North blighted all to hell by the druid and his disciples. Would've made a pretty cool epic quest as well as providing continuity.

Funnily enough, the big 'Goddess of Entropy' quest wasn't fully fleshed out on my end. It was big enough in scope, and sidelined in favour of Mulhorand, that I was happy enough with just a flexible outline I could play with on the fly depending on how things turned out.

So, anyone got any comments/questions/criticisms they want to explore? I'll keep this board up for a few weeks before oldgaming it, as I want to post a bunch more in the NPC thread, so this is kind of a speak now or forever hold your peace bit.

[Ebiris]

A further continuity note, remember those missing rangers from the very beginning who got referenced in the werewolf quest? They got killed by Fey'ri who were using the Moonwood as a base of operations. Never really got followed up on, though. I imagine they'd relocate once the blight started directly affecting them, so they never had much chance to appear in game.

Also, since I rather liked some of these, here's full details of all of Vrischika's inventory:

Rusty Iron Flask - 20,000gp
This rusted metal flask is covered in faded sigils and glyphs, and appears to vibrate slightly whenever anyone steps too close to it. Radiates strong conjuration and overwhelming good. If opened it will release an Astral Deva and the magic will dissipate. Deva will act according to its alignment and offer some help to a good person who releases it before returning to the upper planes.

Codex of the Inconceivable - 10,000gp
This thick leather bound tome bears an image of an unblinking eye atop a pyramid on the cover, and has a padlock sealing it shut. Radiates moderate enchantment. When read, roll 1d20 and consult the following table. The book can only be read once.
1: Book and reader both disintegrate (no save for book, reader saves at DC 22)
2-3: Reader suffers 2d6 Int drain
4-5: Reader suffers 2d6 Wis drain
6-7: Reader suffers 2d6 Cha drain
8-10: Reader gains +1 inherent bonus to Wisdom
11-12: Reader's alignment shifts as per Helm of Opposite Alignment
13-15: Reader gains +1 inherent bonus to Intelligence
16: Reader can understand and speak all languages
17: Reader suffers from permanent Insanity
18: Reader gains +1 to all saving throws
19: Next desire expressed by Reader comes true as a Wish
20: Reader and book are both Plane Shifted to a random plane

Illithid Cephalometer - 15,000gp
This appears to be a set of iron calipers, two long curved projections connected to a bolt in the middle. Radiates moderate divination. When applied to a willing or subdued subject's head, the user can telepathically ask a single question, the answer of which will be extracted from the subject's mind and telepathically relayed to the user, and will be true to the subject's knowledge. Each question asked in this manner has a 20% chance of Feebleminding the subject.

Gauntlet of Disintegration - 26,000gp
This unassuming white leather glove looks unremarkable, but radiates moderate transmuation. Once per day, the wearer can affect a target as if via the Disintegrate spell (DC 19) upon a successful touch attack.

Dust of Negation - 3,300gp
A shimmering purple dust fills this unassuming brown paper sachet. Radiates moderate abjuration. When cast into the air, functions as an antimagic field within a 10 feet radius of its origin. Lasts 2 minutes (or 2 rounds in windy conditions)

Horn of the Blood War - 5,000gp
This metal horn bears images of horrendous demons and devils all around its surface, and is deathly cold to the touch. Radiates strong conjuration. Once per day When blown it will summon a Demonic horde of 1d10 Dretches, 1d3 Glabrezu, and a Devilish battallion of 1d10 Lemures and 1d3 Ice Devils. The Demons and Devils will immediately fight each other to the death, caring nothing for anything else. After 1 minute, all creatures summoned by the horn will return to the lower planes. The horn has a 50% chance of turning to dust after each use.

Crystalweave Full Plate - 30,000gp
This suit of full plate is made of a shimmering silvery substance that features crystalline refractions which slowly undulate across its substance. Radiates strong abjuration. Functions as Mithril Full Plate +3 and grants Spell Resistance 15. However, it offers no protection at all against non-magical attacks.

Aegis of Deflection - 15,000gp
This brightly burnished heavy steel shield is almost mirror-like in its reflective sheen. Bears moderate abjuration. Every time the wielder is struck with a ranged attack, there is a 40% chance that the attack will be deflected to a random target within 30 feet of the wielder. If there are no targets in range, this does not function. Otherwise functions as a +2 heavy shield.

Amulet of the Immortal - 5,000gp
This skull shaped amulet is made of dark and stained silver, and feels oddly warm to the touch. Radiates moderate necromancy. When worn the wearer is immune to any Death effect. However, if the wearer is ever reduced to below 0hp, his remaining life force is immediately sucked out, and he is reanimated as a ghast within 1d4 rounds. After this, the amulet loses all of its magic.

Boots of the Coward - 2,500gp
These soft leather boots have been dyed an alarming shade of yellow, and their soles are oddly slick despite having a normal looking grip. Radiates faint transmutation. Provides a +10 enhancement bonus to movement when worn, but also give a -2 penalty to attack rolls.

Abyssal Prophylactic - 500gp
This strange little circle of white elastic appears quite pliable and stretchy. Radiates faint abjuration. When worn provides immunity to the Energy Drain ability of a succubus. Lasts 1 hour.

Dragonslayer - 20,000gp
This composite longbow appears to be made of bone, but is as flexible as wood, while the string on it has an odd fleshy consistency to it. Radiates Moderate Conjuration. Functions as a Composite Longbow (+2) +2 Dragon Bane. The wielder gains +2 to all saves against spells or abilities caused by dragons, and immunity to a Dragon's Frightful Presence ability.

Harpoon Bow - 50,000gp
This composite longbow is made of pitted and rusted iron, with large rivets seen adorning its surface. Nonetheless, it is flexible and light, thrumming ever so softly with power whenever its string is drawn back. Radiates strong evocation. Functions as a Composite Longbow (+4) +1 Wounding Exit Wound. (Exit Wound deals an extra 1d6 damage, and arrow continues in a straight line through target to hit any targets behind it with the same attack roll, each additional target gaining a cumulative +4 AC bonus against said attack)

Rod of Wonder - 42,000gp
This sceptre appears to be a rod of green metal surrounded by a spiral of yellow, and radiates strong conjuration. Functions as a Rod of wonder rolling on the following table:
1-4 - Wielder and everything within 100 feet are plane shifted to a random plane (DC 25)
5-8 - A 200-ft. wall of stone appears wherever the rod wielder wishes it.
9-12 - Mass invisibility affects every creature within 900 ft. of the wielder.
13-16 - Antimagic field centered on the rod wielder.
17-20 - Brilliant light from above illuminates random creature (DMs choice) granting a +3 circumstance bonus on all ranged attacks against that creature.
21-24 - Baleful polymorph (DC 25) affects a creature of the rod wielder's choosing.
25-28 - Summon monster VIII. Each monster summoned can make a DC 25 will save to act according to its own nature, otherwise will function as per the spell.
29-32 - Delayed blast fireball, at target or 100 ft. straight ahead, causes 15d6 points of fire damage (DC 25).
33-36 - Forcecage affects an area selected by the rod wielder.
37-40 - Nearest pool of standing water becomes stagnant and undrinkable.
41-44 - A random creature within 50 ft. of the rod wielder is affected by eyebite (DC 25).
45-48 - The nearest plant is affected by blight.
49-52 - Wielder becomes a member of the opposite sex.
53-56 - Wielder is encasted in a Resilient Sphere for 1 hour (DC 25).
57-60 - Hold monster (DC 25) is cast against the monster nearest the rod wielder.
61-63 - Greater teleport to the nearest city (or place of interest if there are no cities on the plane where the PCs are currently at).
64-67 - The creature nearest the rod wielder is afflicted with insanity (DC 25).
68-71 - Reverse gravity affects 150 ft., centered on the rod wielder.
72-75 - Move earth affects the surrounding area as instructed by the rod wielder.
76-79 - Nearest structure house-sized or smaller constructed primarily of wood crumbles.
80-82 - Flesh to Stone is cast upon the wielder (DC 25).
83-86 - The rod wielder or the creature of the wielder's choice is affects by moment of prescience (caster level 20).
87-90 - Project image of the rod wielder.
91-93 - Transmute rock to mud affects thirty 10-ft. cubes in the locations specified by the rod wielder.
94-97 - Power word blind against a creature of the rod wielder's choice.
98-100 - Creates a Sphere of Annihilation wherever the wielder desires which remains for 1d4 rounds.

Ring of Agony - 7,500gp
This bone ring is set with a marble sized stone of white onyx. Radiates faint Necromancy. 3 times per day, as an immediate action when struck by a melee attack, the wearer can inflict 4d6 nonlethal damage to the opponent. This also inflicts 1d6 nonlethal damage to the wearer.

Simulacrum Elixer - 21,000gp
This small vial is filled with a white fluid flecked with motes of pale blue. Radiates strong illusion. Can be poured over a body part and will quickly grow into a simulacrum of the creature from which the body part came. Cannot duplicate a creature of more than 26hd, and its likeness to the original is crude at best.

Celestial Wolfskin Cloak - 1,000gp
This cloak is of steel grey fur that occassionally shimmers with golden light. Nonmagical. Provides resistance to Acid, Cold, and Electricity 1.

Lethe's Lash - 22,300gp
This black leather whip seems to glisten with a faint oily sheen, but feels dry to the touch. Radiates moderate enchantment. Functions as a +1 whip, and any spellcaster struck by it loses 1 spell or spell slot from the highest spell level they can cast. If two or more spells fit that criteria, the caster decides which one is forgotten.

[Ebiris]

As requested by Amonet:

For Amonet's conquest of Mulhorand, my plan was that upon reaching Tesherit, things would become pretty clear that Sutekh was rapidly gaining momentum in his plan for seceding from Mulhorand. I'd have played him up quite a bit as a deadly warrior (he'd have been a dervish, and reasonably powerful), with a large number of devoted followers. Once the party started making waves, I'd engineer things for him to challenge Amonet to a duel over their conflicting views.

In the course of said duel (preferably with Sutekh winning), he'd suddenly get wtfpwned from offscreen, and the charismatic Mulhorandi prince, Gilgamesh, would reveal himself. He'd be a paladin/sorcerer who specialises in telekinetically tossing powerful magic weapons around, and would (unsurprisingly, given his name), declare that not only is the rebellion over, but that he intended to make Amonet his bride to cement Mulhorandi control over Tesherit.

How things went here would be up to you guys, of course, but I'd play Gilgamesh up as a colossal dick so that hopefully things would get violent, possibly forcing Amonet to take a leadership role in preventing her country being annexed, and then possibly counterattacking to take over Mulhorand if she felt epic enough.

Or she could've married the dude and became Queen, whatever.

[Dracos]

Well, obviously I'm sorry to see it go.  It had its ups and downs, but overall I found it fun and worth waking up at godawful o'clock for.

Goods:

It was fun interacting with the other players and I think we had a reasonably good group mechanic.  It was kind of funny that Gourash never got shrunk despite wearing cursed bracers for a good half the game.  It was also funny that I managed to play an illiterate character for that long without ever having to have him admit he couldn't read.  Win there =)

A lot of your custom monster creations were pretty neat.  Good going =)  They often made for interesting sessions just on them.

It succeeded pretty well at what it was and largely sidestepped the 'WE MUST BECOME EPIC CONTINUITY' that drags down more weekly games than I can count.  It even looked like it was doing that with maintaining followers, which is stunning but we didn't continue long enough to really see.  This was really win as aside from rare pushings, all of the players and the GM seemed to be on the same page of 'no, we're playing during this timeslot and thats it'.  Very win there.

Many of the fights were pretty fun.  They've been commented on earlier.  Albeit, I think the best of the lot ends up going to the very early devil fight where Amonet ended up getting killed.  While it was a pain in the neck, the whole including terrain and positioning generally helped a lot and added considerable to the strategy of it.  I felt it was kind of missed later and some battles there was very little more decision making to do than to squish the squishy thing closest to me.

You got pretty good about taking feedback.  Yeah, things weren't always good, but more importantly and one of things that made it worth sticking around is there was generally the sense that there was an open communication front on that, even if we didn't always agree (as we shouldn't ;)).  Keep up on that.  Generally my opinion is folks let too much be taken as heat and drama and ignore the goal is to have fun.

The game's flexibility was pretty good.  I generally find this always a plus, but I know it benefited from players not feeling like idiots and being able to replace bad design decisions late in the game. 

It was fun being rich.  In general there was lots of money going around and even when the money differences were nutsy, it generally didn't matter as the sensation of plenty was nice.

It was nice finally getting a crit after so long and (hopefully) breaking Varul's wicked hold on the greatest overkill.

The stats were fun.  They always are but it was good you kept them. =D

Would play with you all again.  =-P

I'll add some more here later too. =)

Bad:

Rogues were just not happy friends here.  Which is fine, but I'll just state my own observation that you don't really enjoy running the rogue archetype, so should probably advise players not to play it in your games.  Yeah, it leads a bit more to combat monkeys and being unable to deal with traps at all, but similar as to the lack of real archery necessity, it was how the game flowed.

Being in debt sucked.  I shouldn't have borrowed so much and it made it even more of a pain when others were whining about there shares for a bit when I was looking and going "I just was the only one who took damage that whole encounter and I get 0 gp out of it and you're complaining?"  Just not a good thing and really should be avoided/discouraged as much as it is a natural part of gaming.

The wealth got out of control.  Meaning, out of your ability to balance.  We were slightly stronger than average PCs with triple (or more) wealth for our level.  The result of this generally was that you had great difficulty putting in enemies that we wouldn't swat like flies.  The attempts to do so varied from the way too weak to the totally overwhelming with sometimes it feeling almost binary on both enemies and player side (I know most things certainly didn't last a round of Gourash being close to them and there really wasn't much you could do about that).  As sometimes is mentioned, CR becomes less and less accurate as we differ from that level in stats and in wealth.  Stat wise we were all slightly above that average distribution.  Wealth wise we were way above it.  The result was largely characters that were very skewed and hard to balance encounters for.  Amonet and my ACs differed by over ten points in practice.  Anything that could even remotely think of hitting her was going to nail me every time.  Similar with her saving throws (but that's paladin's shtick and all).  Meanwhile, on the opposite end of things, anything that was sensible damage wise for her was something that either I would barely feel (sensible for her would be 10-20 damage, or 1/4th to 1/3rd of her hp per hit).  Also anything that was in a reasonable hp/ac bracket for challenging her was something that was as fragile as paper before Gourash, who could quite reasonably lash out with 20 per hit and generally was over 30 in practice with power attack and nobility in play.  Pushing up levels and things to handle this generally left lots of possibilities where enemies were overall too powerful in return because they were 'just barely strong enough' to match us/survive against us on our strengths and basically left a lot up to the chance of the dice.  This ideally would be fixed by removing items or providing wealth sinks (the boat for example) but various things (Wealth drains suck, one character (mine) having wealth deeply tied into his reasons for traveling) would've made this hard, which I'm sure you considered when trying it.  Amonet's lance was clearly something you were regretting from early when you gave it and its just one of those classic problems: If you get legendary treasure from any early quest ... it doesn't LEAVE the scope.  So you gave one that was far more awesome than we should've had access to for ten levels and some, and even when drumming it down it was staying solidly in 'worth more by itself than the entire wealth amount for a character of this level' with it genuinely sucking for Cor as he watched his uberneat plot item get smashed slowly on the rocks.  As we lived pretty hand-to-mouth, there wasn't much backup for enemies destroying our stuff or looting us as that's generally hard to do without going too far and really sucking.

Nobility was a nutsy move.  I don't know where it came from, but it was way too easy/awesome, there was exceedingly few things it didn't stack with and equally few things it didn't apply to.  It felt like it was basically a pretty strong bard ability in the hands of a mighty paladin.

There was somewhat of a problem (probably caused by the wealth thing) where it really felt like some things just really weren't very usable.  I started divesting of items and even abilities towards the end when I noticed I'd been carrying around an uber weapon that was never ever relevant.  As soon as we got it, nobody was wearing armor (in fact I doubt there was anyone coming up for a while that wore armor).  This felt weird as we'd literally just gone through regular spatterings of armored folks showing up.  It felt like often there was a fair bit of work going into working around the abilities we had, rather than a nice mixture of folks that rewarded by letting us use such mixed in with folks that pounded us.  Some of this really was a side effect of moving away from lots of enemies for a while.  Some of it was just genuinely trying to give an interesting challenge.  Outside of amonet's anti-evil stuff (Always a safe bet, I've never seen the campaign where someone wasn't consistently rewarded for taking anti-evil stuff), I don't recall many things where abilities got to come into play.  Sneak attack stuff either never occurred or was specifically the stuff that ignored the ability.  Traps weren't an issue.  Keylin's skillmonkiness was really pointless as they just didn't come into play.  Folks didn't really use direct damage spells at us, so I can't recall key getting a chance to use evasion.  Basically, looking at that, it really favored proactive stuff that always would work, which is no surprise that amonet and my sheets both have gotten to being favored towards that (which in turn pushed it further that way).  I actually find this pretty common, which is why I rarely go for consumables or passive stuff.  The rules are generally rare enough in letting one get wins there and suffer worse because such things are often just overlooked as they aren't happening all the time.

Amonet has the strongest build by far, for all mathematically I think she loses to me in direct melee (or at least did at one point, who knows now).  Part of it of course is that the reach weapon weakness is really not a weakness at all outside or with plenty of space (which is where we always fought out after a time, only challenging her on that during the low levels) and she could carry a shield while doing which left her difficult to approach with a powerful charge move, high ac, and near immunity to spells by virtue of saving throws (And later spell resistance).  Admittingly part of it also is she has double the wealth value of anyone else in the party as well and managed to an extraordinary number of feats (Nearly twice what she should have at that level going straight paladin).  Most of it though also is that stacking got way out of control, and a lot of it was introduced items.  +4 dodge bonus on full attack is nutsy, especially for such a low price.  Two spots for armor enhancement bonuses to come from has always been an ugly thing in 3rd, which ends up letting ac get pumped up far cheaper then it should: 35000 gp for 15 ac is 'wowie'.  I wish gourash could've gotten a piece of that with some fancy 'Wear a shield with your two handed weapon' feat too.  This wasn't a problem in the game persay as something I reference to watch out for and somewhat of an issue with D&Ds current handling of armor: Getting it from any source other than solidly wearing armor is outrageously more expensive as is and someone doing an armor build really doesn't need any help grabbing AC beyond baseline.  The 'downsides' to being armor based really don't come up often, and in a non skill using campaign like this are almost non-existant (ooh climb, jump, and swim minuses).  Equally, two handed weapons have a lot of advantages and should never be mixed, feat or not, with shields and things.  They've fixed it a good deal in 3 and 3.5 versus 2nd eds nutsy Gavin type build (Gavin the tank~) but yeah, still something to keep an eye on and sometimes play off of "Look, here's a neater armor...but you lose some AC in tradeoff~"  She also definitely demonstrated what I've always said that it doesn't matter the stat, none of them are less or more valuable than any other.  Her entire character was powerfully supported by charisma in every step of the way.

Rat poked on this earlier, but there really needed to be more 'objectives that weren't just kill everything'.  Especially given how off kilter we got wealth wise, the only thing either side tended to fight for was death.  There was little 'its not worth fighting these maniacs' or other types of combat challenges.  We rarely even had to stand and defend Alvie, which totally could've been a challenge on its own but at the same time, was hard to do as anything that could hurt either of the front liners totally could shred Alvie like a paper napkin.  Just something to think about in future games, by changing up the battles structure, they don't always have to go up in difficulty to be interesting.  This also can go into using abilities folks have.  Key has a stack of neat ones that simply never come up in straight slogfest fights.  Intelligence on the enemies side also requires it.

Death: Death happens and sometimes its random in the games but when so, its always good to make it quick or some kind of decision game out of it.  The worst part about dying in the game wasn't even how much of a penalty it was, but that when it occurred, it felt very trite and meaningless, without narrative consequence or consideration and equally without any mechanical interest: Avoid getting into situations where if you put yourself in the player's shoes, there's no valid choices to make.  It really was interesting mostly considering how that could've been made more interesting gameplay wise as I don't think how it played out it was very interesting.  I wonder how Amonet's death played out, I should go back and check.  Overall, this really isn't a comment on the game but something it inspired me to think on.  If it has to end, end quickly, if not quickly, make it an interesting game if at all possible.

I know it was your call, but I think that was kind of a sharp way to end it.  I dunno what could've been done there, but I didn't really like just logging on and finding 'game over' up.

I think that's  enough yammering from this crotchety fellow :)  Especially as I got distracted dozens of times during the yammering and thus its probably incoherent :)

[Ebiris]

A lot of your custom monster creations were pretty neat.  Good going =)  They often made for interesting sessions just on them.

I had a lot of fun statting up various monsters and NPCs to oppose you guys with, so I'm glad they were well received.

It succeeded pretty well at what it was and largely sidestepped the 'WE MUST BECOME EPIC CONTINUITY' that drags down more weekly games than I can count.  It even looked like it was doing that with maintaining followers, which is stunning but we didn't continue long enough to really see.

Yeah, it felt like the game was on the cusp of moving to another level with you guys gaining a group of reasonably powerful followers, and being really powerful enough in your own right, to really shake things up. Would've been interesting to see how you'd have fared against Mulhorand.

Many of the fights were pretty fun.  They've been commented on earlier.  Albeit, I think the best of the lot ends up going to the very early devil fight where Amonet ended up getting killed.  While it was a pain in the neck, the whole including terrain and positioning generally helped a lot and added considerable to the strategy of it.  I felt it was kind of missed later and some battles there was very little more decision making to do than to squish the squishy thing closest to me.

I wish I hadn't stopped making the gridmaps. They were a tremendous pain to make, and I deliberately stopped making them because I felt it was trapping me into forcing you guys to fight in a certain place because that's where I'd made the gridmap for, but the benefits far outweighed these drawbacks. Really did make fights more interesting and tactical instead of me just eyeballing it and saying "Yeah, you can charge that guy. Now you can charge that other guy," and so on. Also eliminated any dissent about what moves were do-able or not since it was all right there for everyone to see.

If I do D&D again, I probably will ensure there's a map for every battle that involves more than a handful of participants.

You got pretty good about taking feedback.  Yeah, things weren't always good, but more importantly and one of things that made it worth sticking around is there was generally the sense that there was an open communication front on that, even if we didn't always agree (as we shouldn't ;)).  Keep up on that.  Generally my opinion is folks let too much be taken as heat and drama and ignore the goal is to have fun.

Got to listen to concerns if I want to keep people playing. That's why this is a good exercise, since I can still take the points raised here into my next game.

Rogues were just not happy friends here.  Which is fine, but I'll just state my own observation that you don't really enjoy running the rogue archetype, so should probably advise players not to play it in your games.  Yeah, it leads a bit more to combat monkeys and being unable to deal with traps at all, but similar as to the lack of real archery necessity, it was how the game flowed.

Honestly, I could have dealt with a rogue if there was one in the party. The real issue was the game grinding to a halt and everyone else having to sit around while a rogue scouts out the entire dungeon solo - when we only have 3 hours a week, there's no way I can tolerate that. Since for the vast majority of the game we didn't have a rogue, I just decided not to punish you guys by flinging in loads of of traps that you had no way to deal with.

The wealth got out of control....  Amonet's lance was clearly something you were regretting from early when you gave it and its just one of those classic problems: If you get legendary treasure from any early quest ... it doesn't LEAVE the scope.  So you gave one that was far more awesome than we should've had access to for ten levels and some, and even when drumming it down it was staying solidly in 'worth more by itself than the entire wealth amount for a character of this level' with it genuinely sucking for Cor as he watched his uberneat plot item get smashed slowly on the rocks.  As we lived pretty hand-to-mouth, there wasn't much backup for enemies destroying our stuff or looting us as that's generally hard to do without going too far and really sucking.

Yeah. She only had a slim chance of getting the lance through luck of the dice when it appeared. In retrospect I should have handwaved it and just had her fail anyway, since it was meant to be a teaser of something cool that she'd want to come back to that dungeon for, later. As for the overall wealth, a big part of that simply came from having you guys fight lots of enemies that were decked out like PCs - this is part of why I made a big move towards monsters that relied on innate abilities rather than equipment to challenge you in the latter part of the game. Too little, too late, I guess.

Nobility was a nutsy move.  I don't know where it came from, but it was way too easy/awesome, there was exceedingly few things it didn't stack with and equally few things it didn't apply to.  It felt like it was basically a pretty strong bard ability in the hands of a mighty paladin.

Honestly, I don't really mind this. It's probably one of the better domains, but it does stack up with others. This ties into your later part about AC bonuses, but dealing with stacking bonuses from different sources is a big part of D&D, and it'd involve too much of a system overhaul to fix that for me to even try patching it with some house rules.

There was somewhat of a problem (probably caused by the wealth thing) where it really felt like some things just really weren't very usable... ....I actually find this pretty common, which is why I rarely go for consumables or passive stuff.  The rules are generally rare enough in letting one get wins there and suffer worse because such things are often just overlooked as they aren't happening all the time.

To tell you the truth, this kind of annoyed me. You guys were AMAZINGLY rich, and yet you still constantly thumbed your noses at fun novelty items or flavourful stuff that makes sense but doesn't confer some immediate mathematical bonus, or stuff that's handy for that one weird situation. I couldn't even GIVE you a bag of holding. You'd think with as much money as you had floating around, you could stand to spend some of it on diversifying.

Regarding Keylin's skills, firstly they're still useless because Scouts don't get Trapfinding. Any trap with a DC higher than 20 is invisible to her. Secondly, its hard to cater towards players that don't contribute anything - either Merc was taking a break from the game for a few weeks, or he just wasn't paying attention/contributing during the session that whenever Keylin was put on the spot, we'd sit around twiddling our thumbs for five minutes before I got annoyed and checked her sheet so I could resolve the matter myself.

As for the lack of reflex saves, there were a couple (like that evoker gnome in Xaos), the two dragons, a few Githyanki fighter/mages... eh. As far as I can tell, reflex saves came up just as much as fort saves. Will saves probably came up a bit more thanks to all the scrying going on for a long stretch.

Rat poked on this earlier, but there really needed to be more 'objectives that weren't just kill everything'.  Especially given how off kilter we got wealth wise, the only thing either side tended to fight for was death.  There was little 'its not worth fighting these maniacs' or other types of combat challenges.  We rarely even had to stand and defend Alvie, which totally could've been a challenge on its own but at the same time, was hard to do as anything that could hurt either of the front liners totally could shred Alvie like a paper napkin.  Just something to think about in future games, by changing up the battles structure, they don't always have to go up in difficulty to be interesting.  This also can go into using abilities folks have.  Key has a stack of neat ones that simply never come up in straight slogfest fights.  Intelligence on the enemies side also requires it.

Well, what about the soul eater nymph? Her goons were quite clever, I thought, in seperating Gourash and Amonet from Alveria so they could get a clear shot at her. And she herself was quite happy to flee if she could. The Githyanki, too, would often flee to regroup and come at you again at a later time.

Also, you guys didn't really have a very 'prisoner focused' mindset. Someone who tried fleeing would often be run down and killed if they couldn't teleport, and you guys (or Alveria, specifically), weren't shy about couping disabled enemies. So really, it was quite often 'to the death' as far as your enemies were concerned.

I know it was your call, but I think that was kind of a sharp way to end it.  I dunno what could've been done there, but I didn't really like just logging on and finding 'game over' up.

Yeah, I didn't really want to drag things out when the game was already doomed, and I didn't really see it as worth continuing with so few players.

[Dracos]

Rogues were just not happy friends here.  Which is fine, but I'll just state my own observation that you don't really enjoy running the rogue archetype, so should probably advise players not to play it in your games.  Yeah, it leads a bit more to combat monkeys and being unable to deal with traps at all, but similar as to the lack of real archery necessity, it was how the game flowed.

Honestly, I could have dealt with a rogue if there was one in the party. The real issue was the game grinding to a halt and everyone else having to sit around while a rogue scouts out the entire dungeon solo - when we only have 3 hours a week, there's no way I can tolerate that. Since for the vast majority of the game we didn't have a rogue, I just decided not to punish you guys by flinging in loads of of traps that you had no way to deal with.

Could be.  Just was my observation.  And yeah, I agree that was largely a good move on your part, and definitely what I would've done in your shoes.  I'm personally big on looking over the abilities folks have and trying to mesh the challenges based on what they can do as much as what should be there.

The wealth got out of control....  Amonet's lance was clearly something you were regretting from early when you gave it and its just one of those classic problems: If you get legendary treasure from any early quest ... it doesn't LEAVE the scope.  So you gave one that was far more awesome than we should've had access to for ten levels and some, and even when drumming it down it was staying solidly in 'worth more by itself than the entire wealth amount for a character of this level' with it genuinely sucking for Cor as he watched his uberneat plot item get smashed slowly on the rocks.  As we lived pretty hand-to-mouth, there wasn't much backup for enemies destroying our stuff or looting us as that's generally hard to do without going too far and really sucking.

Yeah. She only had a slim chance of getting the lance through luck of the dice when it appeared. In retrospect I should have handwaved it and just had her fail anyway, since it was meant to be a teaser of something cool that she'd want to come back to that dungeon for, later. As for the overall wealth, a big part of that simply came from having you guys fight lots of enemies that were decked out like PCs - this is part of why I made a big move towards monsters that relied on innate abilities rather than equipment to challenge you in the latter part of the game. Too little, too late, I guess.

Yeah, definitely the wise thing in retrospect.  One thing to remember with overpowerful 'holy' items though is that they are sliiightly easier to get out of the picture in the right circumstances.  Offering a scenario where there is an uber demon and it can regenerate unless it is pinned with some powerful holy weapon for 10 years is one where the choice is given there, but the result is obvious.

Nobility was a nutsy move.  I don't know where it came from, but it was way too easy/awesome, there was exceedingly few things it didn't stack with and equally few things it didn't apply to.  It felt like it was basically a pretty strong bard ability in the hands of a mighty paladin.

Honestly, I don't really mind this. It's probably one of the better domains, but it does stack up with others. This ties into your later part about AC bonuses, but dealing with stacking bonuses from different sources is a big part of D&D, and it'd involve too much of a system overhaul to fix that for me to even try patching it with some house rules.

Agreed.  I suppose this faltered a bit to the same thing that faltered my rage stuff: We never had things long enough to make it a choice whether or not to use it.  There was once I think more fight occurances than I have rages, but I never ran out ever, and rarely ran out of rounds.

There was somewhat of a problem (probably caused by the wealth thing) where it really felt like some things just really weren't very usable... ....I actually find this pretty common, which is why I rarely go for consumables or passive stuff.  The rules are generally rare enough in letting one get wins there and suffer worse because such things are often just overlooked as they aren't happening all the time.

To tell you the truth, this kind of annoyed me. You guys were AMAZINGLY rich, and yet you still constantly thumbed your noses at fun novelty items or flavourful stuff that makes sense but doesn't confer some immediate mathematical bonus, or stuff that's handy for that one weird situation. I couldn't even GIVE you a bag of holding. You'd think with as much money as you had floating around, you could stand to spend some of it on diversifying.

It's a fair point, and sometimes can be helped just by poking on the GMs side "I gave you guys a lot of money so that you could comfortably get neat things."

For me, it was really three fold:  One, the major one, is just on a personality side, I don't go for consumables/disposables.  It says "Blows up in 20 percent chance" I read "Don't buy this".  Its a bad habit I'm slowly adjusting in these days but yeah.  The second is I was really trying to stay within a narrow mercenary paradigm and a lot of the offered options either came when I couldn't afford them (rhino armor was one which then was made pointless later) or really didn't fit that paradigm I was trying to build, generally being of a more estoric magical sort than something that fit with a martial culture.  That said, there was still basics that should've been gone for.  Some of them weren't because they never came up (I think I once had a "you can't carry everything moment") and some really was just my third issue: There was very rare points in the latter half of the game where I felt at all safe playing Gourash.  So my mentality whenever I went to the shop is "How can I avoid Gourash getting horribly raped without changing the "I get up in front and be the party shield.""  Every thing I bought after the scythe fell into that.  "What if I had more hp?" didn't help.  "Oh they dropped an AC item, get it, your AC is too low, that'll help." Too little.  "Get a cloak of resistance so you stop failing all the saves".  etc.  I tend to get like that in games when I don't think that it can be afforded for the character to casually be spending money elsewhere.  When I feel "Yeah, I'm safe here" then I start going for flavorful stuff since there's opportunity to be fancy and if I waste a round or more doing silly stuff it isn't going to kill us (whereas a lot of the time here, we were often within a turn much less a round of someone dying at the end of combat).  Anyhow, that's me personally on that. 

Regarding Keylin's skills, firstly they're still useless because Scouts don't get Trapfinding. Any trap with a DC higher than 20 is invisible to her. Secondly, its hard to cater towards players that don't contribute anything - either Merc was taking a break from the game for a few weeks, or he just wasn't paying attention/contributing during the session that whenever Keylin was put on the spot, we'd sit around twiddling our thumbs for five minutes before I got annoyed and checked her sheet so I could resolve the matter myself.

As for the lack of reflex saves, there were a couple (like that evoker gnome in Xaos), the two dragons, a few Githyanki fighter/mages... eh. As far as I can tell, reflex saves came up just as much as fort saves. Will saves probably came up a bit more thanks to all the scrying going on for a long stretch.

Yeah, that's fair or rather, something for merc to comment back on if anything.

Rat poked on this earlier, but there really needed to be more 'objectives that weren't just kill everything'.  Especially given how off kilter we got wealth wise, the only thing either side tended to fight for was death.  There was little 'its not worth fighting these maniacs' or other types of combat challenges.  We rarely even had to stand and defend Alvie, which totally could've been a challenge on its own but at the same time, was hard to do as anything that could hurt either of the front liners totally could shred Alvie like a paper napkin.  Just something to think about in future games, by changing up the battles structure, they don't always have to go up in difficulty to be interesting.  This also can go into using abilities folks have.  Key has a stack of neat ones that simply never come up in straight slogfest fights.  Intelligence on the enemies side also requires it.

Well, what about the soul eater nymph? Her goons were quite clever, I thought, in seperating Gourash and Amonet from Alveria so they could get a clear shot at her. And she herself was quite happy to flee if she could. The Githyanki, too, would often flee to regroup and come at you again at a later time.

Also, you guys didn't really have a very 'prisoner focused' mindset. Someone who tried fleeing would often be run down and killed if they couldn't teleport, and you guys (or Alveria, specifically), weren't shy about couping disabled enemies. So really, it was quite often 'to the death' as far as your enemies were concerned.

Man I was incoherent on that chunk. Absolutely the fights were to the death as far as the enemies were concerned, but that doesn't mean their primary objective has to be us.  And yeah, the Soul Nymph was good there, the only issue really being that it didn't push for a paradigm/strategy shift.  As I saw it, there was no point in being defensive because the enemies had insane reach and attacks that left you less capable of fighting them off after each, just not something you can play defensively off of as they can easily walk and stand out of my reach and whack at Alveria.  Yeah, they did a good strategy of separating us, but the strategy of us staying together wasn't horribly valid in the encounter.  15 foot reach is crazy awesome.  Basically, good direction, but go further that way.  Ask when you make it "How will this really encourage any paradigm shifts in how they approach enemies.  Will it nail on a weak point that will cause them to go "If we'd approached  the battle differently, we could've had a better outcome".  At least in my mind, I didn't see the Undead Treant battle going much other ways had we clomped and done anything but flying and taking advantage of raining fire on them, but I don't think we were aware of them before the encounter as it was.

Anyhow, there rarely was the feeling of asymmetric objectives.  As you said, our goal was always kill them.  Their goal was always kill us.  Neither side had any sensation that it was anything but a death match.  Us because many of the enemies either declared it if they were intelligent, were monsters (No discussion), or we were hired to kill them (the one edge case).  Asymmetric objectives allow us to kill things...and lose the bigger picture.  Or not kill things and win it.  Their goal might be to keep us busy for the bad guy to perform a rite, or kidnap everyone in town while we're distracted, or any number of things.  Our goals could've included protecting folks, bringing some villian back alive, creating a peaceful accord, etc.  Yeah, after a while, it was worse because once we were in the habit of 'everything is a nail and we got hammers' even something that could've provided diplomacy  (like the Malar Cleric as you stated) doesn't because we're far more ready to just accept that these guys aren't going to talk and will just stab us when so.  Momentum there can be hard to break simply without some strong IC and subtle OOC hints.  It also was always an increasing difficulty thing.  It was rare that it was casual banditry or something, so there was little room to afford experimenting since the enemies could often push the fight to being near over in response.  Having enemies far too strong and some too weak in the mix helps with not always addressing things by physical prowess.  When it doesn't feel like there's the opportunity And/or incentive to handle things differently, it doesn't get handled differently.

Example, with the Gith, they could've tried to make an offer to Varul or Gourash or Amonet.  Saying they don't want to fight but instead just want to retrieve what's theirs safely.  Suddenly, they are people rather than teleporting mobs shouting death threats.  They could be lying or whatnot, but recognizing that their actual objective is getting the stuff in Alvie's head and not just killing us.  We were obstacles to the objective not the objective itself.  The NPC bad guys rarely had any scenes outside of combat.  Soul Eater Nymph, Devil-Mousse, and the Fallen Angel being the three I can remember.

What I was trying to refer to with my last lines is: To be intelligent rather than just bash us down, they need abilities that apply outside of the slogfest, whether it is illusions or backstabbery or collapsing passages, or Talking or other ways in which we may be hindered, frustrated, or disarmed outside of when we  actually make the roll for init.  Once we are in melee, provided nothing else has been done leading up and the enemy isn't actively breaking the setup, we're going to rush up and try to kill the enemies until we think we're going to lose, which is when we'll run.  The enemies, provided they have no other objective, have no reason not to do the same.  Even random monsters can have objectives outside of killing us all.  The undead plant thing had a good one: Grab one, drag it off, convert it.  Ignore the others as you can't handle them.

[Carthrat]

My plan worked. Now that someone else has replied, I can say 'I agree with what XYZ says' instead of actually thinking or contributing.. I mean, hi!

<->

How to talk about this? First things first; the game was all about the violence, in what usually amounted to short bursts, as befits the weekly nature of the game. This is pretty ok, but I agree that the goals needed shaking up a bit. Races to get the (thing), insurmountable odds we can't easily take on and must work around, etc. etc. What the 'fight or die!' theme notably did was shake things up when we wanted to avoid fights (re: the anarchy calamari). Towards the end of the game, as well, I did have all these hax wizard options which I wasn't using as part of that social contract, but if things had taken a different, less episodic and more, I dunno, long-term view, I would've started using these far more to avoid violence on anything but my terms, slaughter my foes when they're resting, etc. etc.

This was the first time I've ever played a wizard of around this level, and it really is dead easy to play one; I could've so easily been a little more paranoid and never been touched during the few occasions in which I was attacked. The dialouge about 'frontline combatants defend mages' actually doesn't work in a lot of fights except on faith; it's really easy for enemies to get around that in most circumstances. The class really is crazy good when you have time to prepare and have even an idea about your enemies, and even so, if you have the right selection of spells handy, there's very little you can't evade, even if you don't anticipate it. By the end of the game, I was looking at situations and thinking about how I could solo them. When you take into account the added diversity of scrolls and stuff... well, let's just say I'm really appreciating the way the game changes around 7th-8th level at the moment.

The last thing is that, yeah, fighting to death just seemed to be the only real option most of the time. Taking prisoners seemed generally pointless (we didn't REALLY have a pressing need for information usually, githyanki excluded, and he was being sassy, and I was insane!). I think that one way to avert this is having bad guys surrender; this kind of sends a message that we can do that too and not expect to die for it. And, well, the bandits in the first adventure did surrender! We didn't kill them all!

With regard to not buying 'cool items' and stuff, you've got to remember that when you have heaps of gold and a limitless shopping arcade, your sights will always be set on the stuff you can't quite get yet. Think about it; when you have heaps of gold and you're flipping through a book or whatever, don't you start at your top price bracket and start going down? The kind of gold being thrown out leads to power creep, and as far as 'utility' items go, we didn't really need any because a lot of stuff was (rightly, imho) handwaved.

I really don't think I like having such open ways to get magic items and stuff. When it's there I feel obliged to take advantage of it, and it turns gold exclusively into a materials thing. Finally, displaying some of those utility/unique items as 'on special' and relatively cheap (compared to the raised prices of high-demand magical gear) could be another way to work things.

<->

I liked the actual running of the game for the most part. The maps were a great help and I was sorry to see them go. For the most part the prose was pretty snappy (with some notable exceptions which don't bear repeating) and it was usually clear anyway what was going on. Things obviously slowed down when we went into different rooms and there's not much to be done about that. My only real complaint is that monsters were often acting deliberately stupid to help us survive, and even so, I can't really fault you too much for misjudging relative power levels. The githyanki plot was interesting (even if it had to rely on kindness and such) and worthy of investigation.

One thing here was the way the episodic nature of the game seemed to blend with actual plotlines and stories, too. I'm starting to think that games should really go one way or the other entirely, here, as switching between relatively meaningless episodes and plot-ridden stuff creates a kind of discontinuity. It makes me want to play more (and often outside actual sessions) to get more done, but it also makes it kind of hard to really get drawn into any long-term plotline that requires us to make many real decisions apart from 'which way' and 'who do we kill first'. I would've *liked* intrigue. I would've like it a lot. But I understand this may not've been the game for it.

<->

I really wish I could've played Alveria more like a true psychopath, but that is not conductive to group play. Her turning evil when she read the codex was a secret I intended to keep for a long time. It seems there's no way for her to have become a happy, normal, contributing member of society. :(

[Dracos]

Mmm, I think a good deal of it is simply that we often play without maps.  In a standard dungeon environment, a fighter in front of a mage is a phenomenal defense.  One in front and behind pretty much means that anything without 15-20 foot reach, ranged attacks, or area effect blasts is not going to hit you, something that in general, most enemies don't actually have or aren't very effective with until pretty high CR.  Moreso, many GMs (quite reasonably) play enemies going after the big burly tanks causing immediate pain rather than trying to go through them.

  Even with that, I felt Alvie primarily felt safe in the fact that I can run through a fair number of battles and zero attacks were even rolled on Alvie, much less had to deal with defenses.  Yes, there is that problem that denying mages their magic by closing with them is non existent and all, but I dunno.  I don't really think Alvie could've solo'ed most of the encounters we were up against.  Mages were more powerful than normal (and generally are highly powered) from the fact that paying out for what should be expensive ingredients was pocket change and while we generally got to buff up (lasting hours), enemies rarely did (wolves are the only ones I remember Eb mentioning). 

Mages though, being swiss army knives, do really get a huge advantage with any preliminary notice.  Whereas most nonmage classes can choose how to approach a scenario with what they have, mages get a rapidly expanding (and by tenth in this one huge) library of variable powers, of which they generally get to pull twenty-so in the ready setup.  So yeah, I can see it starting to feel like 'yeah, it really doesn't matter, I can handle it unless they oneshot me'.  And with safe stoneskin casting, one shotting really isn't a worry.  If a player can afford a 100-200 hp buffer every adventure/fight, then they really aren't in danger.  If a player can fly, unless the enemy can too, they're generally at a huge disadvantage.  If a player has a "I vanish into a safety hole for 8 hours or teleport away" as a one round thing, then it pretty much needs to be both intelligent and obsessed to compete.  There's really not a whole lot most enemies (or classes) have in their repitoire to debuff what a mage or cleric can toss up in a couple of minutes.  The logic generally is that the counter to them is another of them.

I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that of all characters, mages are augmented the most when the casual stuff is hand waved and things are set above average.  When its only one encounter, someone who gets x abilities per day really never has to worry about conservation, and mages and clerics have more of those than anyone else.  When ingredients, scrolls, and money are no object then the primary choosing doesn't come into play, and a mage or cleric's repetoire is not only every spell they want, but a chunk of backup spells for any situation.  When cover is taken out of the equation, then a mage with fly can simply obliterate any grounded set of foes and if recovery is mostly one sided, then they don't even have to do it in one go.  Without space being a consideration, a mage never has a reason to worry about area effects hitting party members or damaging equipment.  When surprise simply isn't a factor, a mage is always ready.  And this is on top of the fact that even the default mage with all those things in there can add on a stack of spells that last an entire dungeon right at the start of it and usually still have 10-15 spells remaining.

  Man, level 10 mages get like 30+ spells a day, of which a ton of them scale to their level so aren't even weak to use if need be.  Not a ton if divided among 10-20 encounters, but certainly a bit nuts to have accessible on one and way better than a warrior's bag of tricks that they can do infinite times that is only 2-4 deep.  If divided, then you got a guy with a bunch of powerful one shot abilities versus a guy who can continue to dish out their entire small set of stuff.  It kind of makes me think really of the added side rule on 'charges' stuff on oneshots, suggesting they should cost 5 times as much as they're way more powerful when they're no longer consumable resources.

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Hey rat, if you were going to adjust mages to leave them both interesting to play and to avoid the situations you saw where you felt that you could almost handle everything on your own, what would you do?

[Carthrat]

Quicken the plot so they don't have time to prepare. Restrict spells that will break your game, based on the style; this includes mainly divinations and transportation spells (teleport, scrying, I'm looking at you), or create credible defences against them. Don't allow wizards total freedom of spell selection, perhaps. Create costly material components for certain spells. Make people play sorcerers and tune adventures to fit in with their selection. Make the only challenges worth taking against enemies who are ultimately savvy about such matters; their minions may not be, but the boss sure is. Increase the durations of many spells or create spells that favour the defender as well as the attacker, OR make sure that defenders are in entrenched positions that grant them an advantage. Raise the level of offending spells, particularly invisibility, fly, dimension door, teleport etc, or change their parameters to make them unfeasible for casual use (rofl 5% chance of death every teleport).

<->

As an aside, while I am in favour of removing/changing these unfair (and, quite frankly, boring) options from play, I'm also for buffing the HD of wizards and staggering some of their 'save-or-die/lose/suck' spells. Optimally, I think that the degree to which you fail your save should affect the spell, but I suppose it's rather a lot of bookkeeping.

[Dracos]

Yeah, that's probably the nastiest thing about wizards and clerics.  To 'fix' them, you really have to go through a long laundry list of things.  Meanwhile, to fix other classes, you can focus on an ability or suite of abilities that are too weak or strong.  All of those are good thoughts, but if I thought on how to implement them in practice, it'd be as long a rules list for wizards only as the entire rest of the rules for other classes.  I suppose it is also a side effect that for every 30 pages on any other class, there are 40 pages just for wizards, mostly documenting abilities.

Mmm...