Parallel containment thread for out of character discussions related to the roleplay thread.
2019 replies and 252 files omitted.
>>186248>>186250No, am the Floofster. I'm coming up with plans for distracting the DIA and escaping the island.
Okay Seriously. I would like responses. What do you want me to do when characters are not taking an action that I think is an obvious solution and next step, AND in situations where the consequences will be something the player will consider not desirable? Seriously. What should I do? Because if you don't tell me the answer is almost certainly going to be that I will just not respond for several days and do nothing.
I would say that it should just be played out as is and the characters get whatever end they are heading towards - but I'm afraid that If I do that, I'll either be blamed for it, or it will result in a generalized disappointment. I thought I could just hint things strongly enough, but I don't feel confident about that anymore.
How would you want me to handle it? Do an intelligence roll and spell it out? Have an NPC say something even if that would not be something the NPC would normally say? Drop more hints even if it isn't entirely sensible in context? Just outright say it? Do nothing and then what happens, happens? How should I handle this?
>>186257>Do an intelligence roll and spell it out? Have an NPC say something even if that would not be something the NPC would normally say? Drop more hints even if it isn't entirely sensible in context? Just outright say it?Any of these are appropriate.
You could also just remind players that their characters should, given skills and background, know to do things that aren't necessary obvious to the player.
Whatever works.
>>186257I think the DMG1 and DMG2 both have pages on how to handle these sorts of situations. Maybe flip through them again.
If you don't have the DMG2 I can link a PDF.
>>186263>Instead of us telling you what we want in three sentences, why don't you go read this book while you're on vacation in France and still being harangued by workSure. Whatever
>>186265Just saying that Monte Cooke probably has a better answer than I do.
Overall, it really depends on what the situation is, what the preferred action is, what the consequences are, and what your goal is for the desired content. It's a case by case thing.
Also, I'm off my meds and severely jetlagged rn, so I can't formulate a long-winded, geeky response like usual.
>>186259This
>>186257>your character might know to>roll an insight (or whatever check)Are good, and
>Youre reminded of a time in yournpast when you made a choice you wound up regrettingOr
>Help me out here, go with thisAre all in *my* acceptable thresholds
>>186257Are you perhaps also referring to Vir and the bap?
>>186284No, it was for the Mended Horn group.
I was always going to let Vir's bit play out
>Wakes
>its 1:07
This is why I said it early. Fucking nelw year,....
>>186356>inb4 theyre both maresYes, it was an implied paraphrase/parallel
>tactics
If we see a group of enemies within 180 ft, I would like to cast Kelgore's Grave Mist on them. This is preferable to use on enemies who can't move away easily, like those manning heavy artillery.
Kelgore's Grave Mist is a spell that does little damage, but the Fatigue+Exhaustion debuffs can end fights on its own if used strategically. The reason why I haven't been using it up until this point is because I didn't want to cripple fellow party members.
Posey is immune to the effects of Grave Mist, so she can use it at close range, but she can't avoid snapping the strength of other PCs if they are near her targets.
If someone with high perception spots a group of several enemies before they spot us, Posey could cast Grave Mist at medium range, while the rest of the party shoots into the AoE. Just don't enter the range of the spell unless you want to be crippled for the rest of the day.
I didn't use it last encounter because the melee character said that they would moving in, and I didn't want to screw them (Exhaustion is no joke). If I had access to Animate Dead I would normally animate a large/huge None Lurker to grapple the enemy and hold them down within the most, but alas, I have only a single scroll.
Wait... I guess I could animate two large bone lurkers using those leviathan bones, if I used up the rest of the castings/components in my scroll.... Yeah, those would be large sized flying creatures, that could carry non-flying PCs aboard the ship.... It would, however, mean that the Day Low Rain's sister at the manor would become uncontrolled though, although Baka is still there to rebuke her if things get ugly.
Thoughts?
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Bone lurkers could also aid our extraction, since they're large sized creatures that could carry non-fliers to distant vessels.
It would piss off Dust, but Posey could excuse herself and run off to the leviathan skeleton while Kira leads the others to the Marines.
Because Posey is undead, she can take the Run action indefinitely: she can cover land twice as fast as another character could while hustling (four times regular travel). A bone lurker can fly at the same speed, so if she rides one back she could reconvene with the party in the time it takes for them to find the marines.
It subjects Posey to extra risk, but with the Traveller distracted she could avoid encounters.
Thoughts?
>>186379>>186380My plan for extraction following killing the Traveler involves using a spell to broadcast Silver's voice across the island, warning the newly-freed Kostroma crew members that the Defense Intelligence Agency has landed on the island with the goal of killing all witnesses to the Traveler's powers and that they need to get to the Kostroma before the GRU does and before high tide causes the boat to become unstuck. Once it does get unstuck and as many defecting soldiers and sailors get on board as possible, then them, the party, the marines, and the griffons will sail away to freedom aboard the Kostroma.
>>186380>leviathan skeletonI'm striggling to recall that being mentioned, unless that was part of the untranslated Russian
Did I mention Lacey speaks 12 languages just for tjis reason?
>>186379If you intend to use this move, I would have to it as her "Gas" attack.
Or, if you (or anyone) wants to use an AoE attack/spell/effect, just tell Brie to
"Hold off, and draw their fire". He wont know what you have planned, but he'll (probably?) divert from his plans for a round.
Alot of Brie's maneuvers involved chained-round actions. Improved feint allows him to feint as a move action or a full round action, so if he's within 5' of a target, he can close with his 5', move action feint, and sneak attack in the same round.
Dodge being a full round action, he also has a strategy of literally fluttering around in midair, to draw enemy fire (full-round dodge action)
In order to sneak-stab 2 opponents without any initial flanking requires a full-round feint action (risky without his dodge), followed by 2 stabs.
His grapple technique youve seen. If solo he CAN turn a grapple into a murder (you recall the face stabbing? I was proud of that technique, slapping a blade into THEOR hand right before the pin maneuver so you can turn their weapon on them, while removing their dex bonus making it a sneak attack, where theyre forced to stab themselves,... I mean yeah it's raw,... still cool tho)
In a more chaotic battle, his tumble-dodge allows him to disengage and maneuver far more.readily than most, so of someone ISN'T getting flanking, he.can adjust to give it to them: Prior to Brie's turn, if any character wants flanking, let me know and I'll try
Other than THAT, hes a skill monkey, so alot of usefulness is contextual and strategic.
"I do not fear the pony who knows 10000 types of stabs, nor the pony who practiced 1 stab 10000 times. For I am the Bat who has practiced 10000 stabs, 10000 times." He would say, if this universe had a Bruce Lee equivalent to paraphrase.
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>>186382That sounds like it involves a bit too many Diplomacy/Bluff checks to be foolproof.
We have no reason to assume that the liberated thralls will be in any condition to man the ship after the Traveller is removed, or that they would defect just from a story about the special forces supposedly coming to attack them. They ARE communists, and they're no more likely to trust us than their own country.
Besides, this is supposed to be a covert operation, with the party disguised as pirates. Stealing a ship full of defectors is plausible, but can we really sail an entire Stalliongrad freighter back to Baltimare covertly?
We still have the Swan Feather token, so we could leave using that.
On another note, how many languages are there in this setting? I'm revising my character sheet, and trying to decide which languages I know, and how many I have access to without skillpoint investure.
>>186388Or it could involve no Diplomacy/Bluff checks. We'll have to see what GM pone decides, but something tells me the liberated thralls will quickly come to our side when the GRU starts killing them one-by-one. I think we can do it, and it's certainly the best/only plan that's been actually formulated beyond just a basic idea, and so far I haven't heard any outright criticisms or major concerns from GM pone so I'm
assuming he's okay with it?
>languagesBasically if you can think of a real world language, there's probably a language for it in the setting. For languages that actually have common use in the current setting, you have Ponish (English), Feathesian (Dutch), Wechselbalg/Herzlander (German), Aquileian (French), and Severyanan (Russian). You might occasionally come across a character who speaks a different language, like Blue Skies who also speaks Nimbusi (Greek), or if/when we have an adventure somewhere else in the world we might hear the local language, like with Silver's plan to go search for the Tree of Life over in Zebrica.
>>186384Back at the Whaling Station, an oversized whale skeleton was described, as well as a journal entry that described the griffons hauling it up from the ocean to the station in order to harvest it's meat and blubber.
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>>186389Oh, my bad. The responded-to statement seemed to imply we were walking toward such a skeleton
>>186390No prob, right now we're walking towards where Kira *thinks* she detected the marines from her Survival roll.
>>186391Was Silver able to determine what the thrall experience is like? Like, are they in some way conscious? Are they trapped in a state of madness while their body is controlled?
>>186392While he doesn't know anything for absolutely certain, it's clear these ponies have been completely mentally dominated, with the Traveler taking full control of their bodies to speak and act through them. They're still in there, helpless and trapped in their own minds, and horrifically it's possible they might be stuck watching their bodies act without them being able to do anything about it. Certain extreme stimulations such as fear seems to be able to at least temporarily allow the pony's consciousness to "fight back" against the Traveler's influence, such as the pony that Kira constricted seemingly returning to normal during the act.
All of this is conjecture, as Silver doesn't know anything for a fact, but the evidence he's gathered seems to be leaning towards this possibility.
>>186393Thats kind of what I had imagined, a basically null state of paralysis while something else gets to decide what the body does. And it probably doesnt shut off sensory/pain perception either.
Im trying to grasp the state they're "in" and to intuit what their reaction to liberation might be
If GM wanted to make it super-perverse, it could be a scenario where they can still control their body "ish", but any bodily commands are forceably exerted.
For example, imagine trying to hold your hand on your chest, with muscles and tendons and ligaments, but something forces against your resistance, and now your arm is ruined. And boy do it scream with pain. And more pain, cuz the sadistic fuck whos controlling you doesnt feel the pain (or doesnt care)
>>186389I only start with "common" (Equestrian?) + 3 languages (because 16 Int). Idk which ones I should know.
Maybe I should invest in a Helm Of Comprehend Languages... Or find a way to cast Tongues.
How many languages does Silver speak? Did you invest any skillpoints to learn more?
>so far I haven't heard any outright criticisms or major concerns from GM pone so I'm assuming he's okay with it?That doesn't mean it will work.
>>186393>Certain extreme stimulations such as fear seems to be able to at least temporarily allow the pony's consciousness to "fight backFear is Posey's specialty, especially in the context of breaking chains of enemy command.
>>186380>>186379That could work. You can animate skeletons now?
>>186382The downside of this involves the operatives also hearing it and beelining for the Kostroma, or sinking it if it looks to be sailing away.
>>186396You also get a native language if Equestrian is not your native language.
>>186400>You can animate skeletons now?No. Posey can't do that until she reaches lvl 8
(so probably never...), but she has a scroll of deathmaster Animate Dead, part of which she used to animate that zebra jenny at the beginning of the game. It had "enough to make six friends" (up to 12 HD). I think considering the stakes of this battle now would be a good time to use it.
Also, I would get to use those leviathan bones, and I would feel very validated as a Necromancer getting to do actually necromancy in a meaningful context for the first time in this game.
>>>186382The downside of this involves the operatives also hearing it and beelining for the Kostroma, or sinking it if it looks to be sailing away.
Yeah, I really don't think we're equipped for naval battle.
>You also get a native language if Equestrian is not your native languageWhat language counts as Native to the Dread League? Can I take Abyssal (Hebrew) or Infernal (Sanskrit) as one of those languages?
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>>186401>I really don't think we're equipped for naval battleNot with that attitude,.... Xp
Are we doing things this weekend?
I'm going to have next week off
https://srd.dndtools.org/srd/classes/prestigeCChamp/fistOfTheForest.htmlFist of the Forest is a great prestige class for Multiclass barbarian/monks.
It's also only 3 levels long, so you can easily fit it in any build.
>>186396>Fear is Posey's specialty, especially in the context of breaking chains of enemy commandHold up a second, maybe theres something here thats been overlooked. Perhaps we might stop a moment with one of the thralls and Posey could try scaring the gay out of it
I know I argued against splitting the party earlier, but I would really like for Posey to run off alone and do spooky necromancy stuff while the party saves the marines. I believe that my plan may be pivotal in helping us defeat the Traveller and evade the Special Forces.
Posey can cover ground more quickly than most creatures can due to being able to run indefinitely (double-hustle).
Since the floating disk is tied to Posey, I would like to take the enthralled prisoner with me to test a tactic to break the Traveller's mind control, a tactic that is rather ugly and best done away from the good-aligned party members.
I will accept the consequences if Posey runs into an encounter alone while racing to the leviathan skeleton.
>>186408>>186409Unironically, I can see this working out well for a number of reasons and would be interesting in helping develop the idea
Lacey's newly minted CM (tks Dark Star's player <3)
>>186408You can sneak away one of the captives if you want. If other PCs spot you they may raise some questions. Getting away from the island on skeletons is not viable in my opinion. Sending a signal for seaplanes to arrive and using dinghies to reach them is conventional but likely to work.
>>186415Something Brie would like to try:
Improved feint (cause flat-foot) is a move action.
Attacking defensively (+3 ac) is part of a single-strike standard-action.
If Brie did an improved feint as his move action, could his standard action be a not-full-dodge, but comparable to fighting defensively? No attacks, but +3 ac and causing flat foot depending on bluff/perception?
Pleeeeeease? :3
>>186420Note, the flat foot comes on Brie's next attact at that opponent, on principle that the deceptive nature of the bluff would prevent the opponent from realize when the attact comes
>>186420>PicShe's a Big Mare
>>186423Pretty sure shes inspired by a meme porno
I was reading Frostfell looking for a creatable monster for my plans, and I remembered they had Golden Compass armored polar bears there.
Would make great stats for the polar bear nation:
https://equestriaatwar.wiki.gg/wiki/Polar_Bear_Communities
Frostburn has a lot of great monsters. I'm partial to the aberrant ice dolphin thingy.
I have this statblock for a Huge sized advanced Bone Lurker, based on the one that the demon made for me from the hydra bones. It doesn't have as much HP as the demon's, but it's as good as Posey could possibly make with her scroll.
Hone Kujira (advanced Bone Lurker)
Huge Undead
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Initiative: +3
AC: 13 (-2 size, -1 Dex, +6 natural), touch 7, flat-footed 14
Hit Dice: 9d12 (68 HP)
Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +6
Speed: 20 ft., fly 30 ft. (poor)
Space: 5 ft. by 15 ft./15 ft.
Base Attack +4; Grapple +22
Attack: slam +12 melee
Damage: Slam 2d6+15
Special Attacks/Actions: Constrict 2d6+15, improved grab, paralysis
Abilities: Str 30, Dex 8, Con -, Int -, Wis 10, Cha 11
Special Qualities: Immunities, undead traits
Feats: Improved Initiative
Skills: -
Constrict (Ex): Hone Kujira deals 2d6+15 points of damage with a successful grapple check.
Improved Grab (Ex): If Hone Kujira hits an opponent that is at least one size category smaller than itself with its slam attack, it deals normal damage and attempts to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity (grapple bonus +21). Hone Kujira has the option to conduct the grapple normally, or simply use its body to hold the opponent. Either way, each successful grapple check it makes during successive rounds automatically deals slam damage and constrict damage.
Paralysis (Ex): Any creature hit by Hone Kujira's slam attack must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 14) or be paralyzed for 1d6+2 minutes.
Immunities (Ex): Hone Kujira has cold immunity. Because it lacks flesh or internal organs, it takes only half damage from piercing or slashing weapons.
(This should probably be corrected to DR 5/bludgeoning)
Hone Kujira attacks by dropping onto its prey and wrapping itself around its victim. Dropping down in this fashion is considered a charge attack from higher ground. If Hone Kujira misses its initial attack, it often flies up and tries to drop on the opponent again.
https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/block/Bone_Lurker%7Calpha%7CAll%7CUndead [Read more]
>>186442So, I'm not here to poop on people's parades, I like being able to do cool stuff with my characters, but...I'm not sure riding a huge flying whale skeleton is exactly the most
subtle way to get to the Kostroma. Like, we were worried enough already about Brie or Garv flying and getting shot out of the air.
Also, how does it fly?
Oh! What if you used it to prevent the enemy ship from pursuing the stolen Kostroma? Like, have it swim in the water and damage the ship's propulsion or engines, or even just beach it on the island like the Kostroma.
>>186442Bone Lurkers don’t have DR/5
>>186454Okay, half damage from piercing and slashing then. The parentheses was a suggestion based on the updated version of damage resistance that WotC published.
>>186455What do you think of the idea in
>>186451 ? I think it could mesh well with Silver's plan, and it means Posey still gets to do her cool raising the dead thing.
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htmFor Lacey, I would like to take 2 flaws: Shaky (-2 on all ranged attacks), and Meager Fortitude (-3 on Fortitude saves)
Bringing her sum total of feats to 5. ^_^
Did one of my posts get deleted? Weird.
Anyway, I'm pretty excited to do necromancy stuff, but it it's too complicated to deal with I'll abstain from it. I just really wanted to use my character's outlook and knowledge to contribute to the mission. I feel like I haven't really been doing very much to contribute as of late.
>>186463>tfw no thoughts on my ideaAwwwwww
>>186456>>186468>>186451Pardon, I was distracted playing an IRL game with family.
Your idea sounds great. Using the bone lurker as a distraction is a great way to get use of it after it has exhausted its combat application. Posey could be persuaded to do so after the fight with the Traveller is done. Whatever contributes best to the mission.
>>186450>I'm not sure riding a huge flying whale skeleton is exactly the most subtle way to get to the Kostroma.The whale flies as fast as Posey runs. She only needs to ride the whale part of the way. I really just wanted it to take Posey to the tip of Mended Horn.
>Like, we were worried enough already about Brie or Garv flying and getting shot out of the air.Every shell directed at the whale is a shell not directed at the rest of the party.
>Also, how does it fly?Magic.
>>186469>>186470Well, I'm thinking the distraction should hold the GRU and the Traveler up long enough that, if Posey asked the party to make a detour to the nearby leviathan skeleton after we rescue the airponies and blow up the airship's propulsion system, we could probably do so without Posey splitting off from the rest of the party.
>>186471>>186471Well, I also wanted it to fly me to the peak of mended horn to make a Binding Of Isaac reference and an Icegaunt, but....
>>186472It might be worth having Posey explain her ideas to the party and how she wants to implement them. That way the party members (especially in character) can figure out how to work them into the plan we've got going on to complete the mission in the best way possible.
Okay, first of all, I am
not done with IRL matters that have me very busy.
>>186442That thing is a CR 8 or a CR 9. It’s definitely, on its own, more powerful than any encounter the party has faced. Could you imagine the party fighting it? Cavaliere and Brie would be close to useless against it. Kira would be ineffective. The only party member to have any effective use against it would be Dust… except actually no. Actually Dust would be less useful than Brie or Cavaliere, because it flies. So it’s out of reach of Dust and all the party can do is hope that it targets the tanks rather than picking off the weaker party members while they whittle down its massive health bar. The DR/5 is a black and white difference on any monster and you know this. Do not bullshit me and say it isn’t. Bludgeoning is so rare of a form of damage here as to be almost irrelevant. Yes yes yes, I get it. It’s a Bone lurker that is enlarged to 9 HD, which theoretically maybe should be possible from a scroll that reanimates 12 HD worth. Is that within the rules as written? I don’t know, but it sounds cheesy as fuck, because the bone lurker is a CR 2 monster and has the stats of one. 3 bone lurkers do not equal one of these things. I don’t think that even 6 bone lurkers equal one of these things.
There’s an argument to be made that in this case, yes. Posey should have a levitating tank. That isn’t what I’m concerned about. I’m concerned about what it means more broadly.
Those fucking dreads…
I haven’t said anything about the dreads, but yes, they do bother me. They were first mentioned back in like May or whenever. There was absolutely no explanation as to what a dread is or does, except that it was a reanimated arm. There was no link to any page to explain it, there was no explanation of intent, it’s just “hey I made dreads.” I had no idea what a dread was or does. But I saw no reason to say “no” at the time, so I said nothing.
Then the truth came out. A dread, apparently, is two free attacks per turn. It’s two extra limbs. And apparently it’s proficient in weapons Posey isn’t proficient in. Basically Posey just gave herself the attack power of a ranger in the same attack round, entirely for free. This is 100%
not what I was expecting a dread to be, and I don’t think I would have approved it if I knew. But I didn’t say anything because… so what if Posey has two extra attacks? It isn’t hard for me to just add another enemy to the encounter. There was no real need to police it, so I didn’t. The one time I probably should have policed it was when they were being used for PvP. Brie outright said “I’m not acknowledging the attacks by the dreads because these things are cheesy as fuck and came out of nowhere.” You didn’t understand that that was what he was saying in context because he wasn’t explicit enough, but I knew. Sometime after that I found out that apparently the dreads have fucking DR/5 and are invincible.
That irritated me.
And then “they fly now.” You said to make the dreads fly at 100 ft and attack with ranged attacks. I do not have the ability to articulate just how horrifically
gay and
cheesy this is, to use Posey’s two free extra attacks per turn to be invulnerable turrets. If this is within rules as written, if this is what was meant by “flying” - I don’t think it was, I think that just meant it levitates kind of close to the ground - then this is the equivalent of getting an enemy in a video game stuck on an invisible wall and then shooting at it from a distance. This is cheesier than any cheese board I have ever had or any grocery store cheese aisle I’ve seen. This is gayer than any Tamers video, or than any gay stallion art on any booru. This is Silver Star levels of gay. I need Elway here to write a paragraph on just how faggy this is, because I cannot. By the way, a bolt action rifle requires two hands to operate.
And then the Bone lurker that’s buried in the forest is evidently somehow stronger than the CR 9 posted here? What the fuck? What the
actual fuck? You didn’t say how many HD it was, or post a link to any page, or really explain what a Bone lurker is. Instead you just name drop a creature that if I had looked it up had been a CR2, and then when you started to use it in combat it would have the stats of a CR 12, and that would have been my first time to learn about it. I don’t like being ambushed like that. It’s like everything you do is some kind of “gotcha” game where “lol you’re an idiot for not foreseeing that this would be a problem. Like I’m the frog in the parable of the frog and the scorpion, who is a complete dumbass for not questioning and investigating everything you do.
When I heard “necromancer,” what came to mind was large numbers of skeletons or zombies. Sure, it’s a decent number, but still relatively weak thralls. Or maybe something like the time in the swamp that Posey sent her two ghasts to kill the enemy. Two CR3’s. This is basically the level of control that Posry has already done with the amoebas or as I imagine a cleric would do. (No. I don’t need or want a paragraph explaining that Ackshually a level 6 cleric can make 20 CR6 summons at a time. Stop. I don’t fucking care and that isn’t my point. My point is that no one else who plays this game would try to control 20 CR6 monsters at once). No, I didn’t think that 2 CR3 thralls could or should be the limit. Doubling that isn’t unreasonable. But instead what I get is that Posey controls a ghast
and those two dreads
and apparently a fucking CR12 with an undisclosed number of hit die in the forest
and this flying tank. It occurs to me that I don’t honestly know what the upper limit is. I would have thought it was.. 8HD at once? 12? Now apparently it’s 30 or more.
I know what you will say. “Why don’t you already know all of these things? Why don’t you already know what my character’s limits are and that of course these are advanced versions of the monster manual?”
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>>186475>Brie would be close to useless
"Are are, kashō hyōka desu."
[YouTube] Ichigo's plan to destroy Menos
[Embed]
With the moderate min-maxing Im planning for Lacey, its more appropriate that she's lvl 5. That means 4 feats (still enough), and a few other details. But also keeps her from being unstoppable.
>>186475I ran out of characters
So I know you’re thinking “why don’t you already know everything I am doing and trying to do and going to do? Why don’t you spend hours of your life carefully studying every fucking one of the 58+ books that have been made for this game, carefully think through every possible combination or action, carefully read every word I post and look for key words like “large” or “huge,” then apply math to the book version, and then anticipate what I am going? You’re an idiot for not knowing what I am doing.”
I have a question for you. Why are you the only player out of 7 I can’t trust to just do their own thing? I don’t
need to know the ins and outs of every published book for any other player. I don’t
need to think “Oh God, what is this player going to build with this if I say yes to this?” with any other player. I don’t
need to be suspicious or untrusting of the other players, because are always both upfront with their intentions
and it’s reasonable for the level. Why do I need to police you? Why do I need to question every action you do because it’ll turn into a “gotcha”? Why do I need to play out the parable of the frog and the scorpion, with me as the frog, every month? Why are you like this? Why can’t you just be normal?
Letting you do things is like stories of making contracts with demons where you have to read every single word carefully and think of every possible scenario, because they
are trying to fuck you over.
Yes, I’m sure that when you asked for the advanced bone lurker that you used some kind of key word like “huge,” and I was supposed to study the bone lurker, the rules of monster advancement, apply the math, and figure out that it was overpowered for the level, rather than just trust you to ask for things that are reasonable. Mea Culpa, Mea fucking Culpa. I had no idea that letting you do things was a Mephistopheles bargain every time.
I appreciate that you’ve posted the stats here. I really do. You didn’t do that for the I-don’t-know-how-how-many-HD bone lurked in the forest, or for bone lurkers period. You never did that for the dreads. And further, within the context of the quest, the whale isn’t that unreasonable of an ask. If ever there were a time to say yes to “hey GM, can I make a tank?” It’s probably now. In fact, if you hadn’t used the key word “DR/5” there’s a damn good chance I would not have been set on a tirade at all. If you haven’t caught on by now, “DR/5 nothing relevant” is a trigger phrase for me, and changes the chances of me saying “yes” from something like an 80+% chance to more like 0%.
The problem is what it meant going forward. Power does not scale linearly in 3.5 and you know it. That thing is more powerful than 3 bone lurkers, and you know it. So I realized that 1. Being a necromancer doesn’t mean zombies or ghasts or level appropriate monsters, it means spending all of your charges to make the biggest super monster you can 2. The number of hit die of undead that can be controlled at a given time is greatly higher than I realized and I do not actually know what that limit is, except that Posey is now at… 10+9+3+2+2=26 HD if control, and 3. Given that the Dreads have DR/5 Not Relevant, and this has DR/5 not relevant, this is what I have to look forward to in the future, and I’m going to have to either entirely redesign the game or force you to entirely redesign your character, because making 9+ HD of DR/5 Not Relevant is going to entirely break the game.
Am I making any sense? I don’t feel like I am being understood. I wouldn’t mind the ghast, the dreads, or even the whale all at once if I thought it were a one time thing or if I knew where the limit was. But all it does is prove that I don’t know where the limit is, I don’t know where this is going, and it just keeps growing and growing and growing and I don’t know if it will stop. This isn’t the limit, this is precedence for something even bigger in the future.
I know that technically, the whale
is a one time thing because Posey will have used up the last of her one scroll, and she can’t create undead herself. But it’s far from unreasonable to assume that Posey would have the power to make undead in the future, whether she had a scroll or gets the powers herself. Hell, apparently I was tricked into making some kind of super monster for free for posey through the priest, rather than something more reasonable like the CR2 bone lurker that’s in the monster manual.
It’s sometimes reasonable to ask for a tank, and this might be it. But I want to control when it is so that I can make sure it is right for the mission and the mission is right for it. When things sneak up on me it shows me that I’m not in control of my own game. And it’s not a good feeling.
>>186463Yes. I deleted my post because where the discourse was going was toxic. I thought that you would delete the orphaned reply eventually. You didn’t. That reply contained multiple lines that the reasonable answer to was “Go Fuck Yourself” like “i aM not suPpoSed tO be aFraId of level 1 fighters!” What was I supposed to say to that? Was I supposed to say “You lying fucking nigger, you know the enemies are level 3, and that’s irrelevant”? Would you have rather I responded like that rather than just delete the passive-aggressive post I made that provoked you to say that? Is everything supposed to be a fight? Does every spat need to be up? Do we need every emotionally charged post in this thread? Can we not delete emotionally charged posts and just move on with the game? Is it wrong to keep our emotional arguments off of the board? Do you want every one of those posts cluttering the thread? Does every post have to stay up? Do you want me to keep up the constant arguments with Brie in the thread? Is that how you want things? Do you want me to keep up your sneed spam when you shit all over the thread with sneed spam rather than just let Brie cool himself off?
Can we not accept that some posts are better off never having been made?Honestly, I am likely to delete my post here at some time in the future because I’m more angry in it than I want to be. I don’t want to be angry. I just don’t want to feel like my players are trying to sneak in overpowered weapons and I need to actively be suspicious of them because I don’t know what they’re going to do.
I appreciate that you posted the stats to the whale. But the post made me realize that while I had been thinking “yeah, posey probably needs to get the power to create undead at some point in the future” I don’t actually know what that means.
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>>186442>>186476Another thing. I don’t speak fucking Japanese. You two both bitch about NPCs speaking Dutch or Russian, but then you try to talk to me out of character in British zoomer slang or Japanese or Acronyms. Speak English, please.
>>186479Okay. If I do zoomer/japanese at, I'll translste. It was a meta joke about how frustrating language barriers are.
What I attempted to say was "My my (are are), underestimation (the latter part, which I did pull from google.translate).
In my weenishness I thought "you csn slap them together snd out a 'desu' and youre good, right?"
You cannot slap them together, it means "Is there one".
In context of a giant skeletal whale and a meme about Ichigo chopping down a menos loke a minecraft tree, its kinda funny
>>186478>>186475I have a suspicion that one of the responses is going to be “But DR/5 Not Relevant is fine actually.”
Let’s do some math. We have a 68 HP creature with let’s say DR/5. A rifle bullet does 2d8 damage for a statistical average of 9. That means each bullet does 4 damage on average, for an average of 17 bullets to kill. If 40% of shots land, which may be low given its low AC, that’s 43 bullets to kill. A magazine and a half of a light machine gun. Or, take a submachine gun, which does 2d6 damage, or 7 damage on average, which is 2 damage after reduction. That’s 32 bullets to kill, or 80 bullets if 40% hit. More than two and a half magazines. That means that the thing could presumably run havok over any patrol, but would eventually die against a fortified foe. Actual anti aircraft guns - like a .50 cal of the anti-aircraft variety that shoots 1100 bullets a minute - would probably kill it very quickly.
Basically it functions kind of like a vehicle, which is strongly resistant against small arms fire but rather vulnerable to larger weapons. This contrasts against infantry, which are vulnerable to small arms fire and even more vulnerable to larger weapons, but the difference is linear and without a cliff face. Now, sometimes vehicles are fine, and there are many first and third person shooters that have vehicle sections. But that’s exactly the thing. They are sections. They are not constant or at will. Games where you play in vehicles the entire time are up front about what they are.
If it had 50% reduction on everything, rather than 5/DR, it would be much more vulnerable to short swords, pistols, arrows, and submachine guns. However it would actually be more resistant against .50 calls and larger weapons, a more linear approach to damage rather than the cliff of DR/5. Is that better? Is that worse? I’m not certain, but I can say for damn sure I prefer to have that discussion before it is decided, rather than only after the battle discovering “lol it took no damage.”
This is the first time that you’ve actually told me “hey this thing has DR/5 Not Relevant” in a post on a thread before introducing the monster. With Posey the DR/5 was mentioned for the first time on the board a year and a half after she came into the game, only after “lol that attack didn’t land.” Yes yes yes, the DR/5 probably was hidden somewhere in some small line somewhere on page three of the Myth Weavers document - it wasn’t posted on the board or in a visible portion of the character sheet. The Dread never had stats or a link posted, and neither did the original bone lurker. It was just “lol that attack did no damage” after a battle was already over. Do you have even the slightest idea how infuriating that is?
I appreciate very much that this stat block is actually posted. Seriously, I do. I suspect, however, that the reason that this was posted is because it’s technically a home brew since you wanted the Japanese mythic flavoring on it rather than a true Bone Lurker, and not because you were trying to be transparent. Either way, it does signal that you really want that fucking DR/5, and that’s what I have to look forward to if I give Posey another scroll or “create undead,” like I had originally planned…
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Okay, I see. You have reasons to be frustrated.
Give me time to respond to individual points.
>>186475>That thing is a CR 8 or a CR 9No it isn't. It is CR 3, based on the math of monster advancement. It only gained 6 undead HD, which means it rose from CR 2 to CR 3.5 (rounded down to 3). You could argue it's CR 4, based on the size increase.
A Gauth, from the monster manual, has a CR of 7: This flying pile of bones doesn't hold a candle to a small beholder. The dolphin-thing in the screencap above is also CR 7, but much more dangerous, imo. A Remorhaz is CR 7, and could probably kill half the party if it got a surprise attack.
>Could you imagine the party fighting it?Well, being a mindless undead, Command Undead would neutralize it instantly.
Even without Posey, I believe the party would be able to handle it. It's basically a huge flying ghast.
>Brie would be close to useless against it. Kira would be ineffectiveWe should buy Brie some Deathstrike Bracers for undead monsters.
>CavaliereCavalier and Brie can fly. Cavalier deals bludgeoning damage as a Monk.
>The only party member to have any effective use against it would be Dust… Dust could turn it with a good roll, and functionally prevent it from attacking us. In fact, it's mindless attack routine is to charge, which means so long as it can't charge it can't really do anything.
>Actually Dust would be less useful than Brie or Cavaliere, because it flies.It has no mind, and therefore should not use complicated evasive tactics.
>out of reachIt may fly, but it only has melee attacks, which means you can just take readied actions to attack/turn it when it attacks you.
Dust also has ranged spells, like Searing Light, Magic Stone, etc.
>The DR/5 is a black and white difference on any monster and you know this.GM, I don't actually care about the DR/5. Go ahead and remove the DR/5. I made a note that the halving of damage should be corrected to DR/5 like skeletons were, but RAW, it doesn't have any DR, only halving of
I intended to use this thing as a short-term mount and shocktrooper/kamikaze bomber: its destiny is to be destroyed. The real reason I wanted it was to fly me to the top of the mountain so that I could attempt to make an Icegaunt.
Also note that even with the out-of-the-box damage halving, d20 modern guns do "ballistic" damage, which is neither piercing nor slashing, so their guns would do full damage to the bone lurker.
>Bludgeoning is so rare of a form of damage here as to be almost irrelevant.Clubs cost 0 gp. Slings cost 0 gp. Quarterstaffs cost 0 gp. The most common natural weapon is a bite attack, which deals bludgeoning, piercing and slashing at once.
>3 bone lurkers do not equal one of these things. I don’t think that even 6 bone lurkers equal one of these things.Tbh, I only made the effort to create this advanced statblock because I thought it would be less annoying to deal with than three smaller ones.
I didn't think you had an issue with it, because another one of these huge-sized bone lurkers, the one that the demon made, is already flying around in the swamp.
>I’m concerned about what it means more broadly. This is a reasonable sentiment. No GM likes being surprised by PC capabilities. Let's talk about it and work it out.
>Those fucking dreads…GM, if you don't like the Dreads, just be aware that Posey doesn't actually control them, they are controlled by a demon who gifted them to Posey (like how Posey ordered the Zombie to obey Day Low Rain). If you feel like confiscating then at any moment, note that if the Demon casts animate dead again in Tartartus (which it might just do every day), the dreads, and the bone lurker in the swamp, would become uncontrolled.
>Basically Posey just gave herself the attack power of a ranger in the same attack round, entirely for free.A low-op ranger, maybe, but I see your point.
>Sometime after that I found out that apparently the dreads have fucking DR/5 and are invincible.GM, think of enemy tactics: why would intelligent enemies attack the flying animated skeleton arms, instead of the grounded sorceress who controls them? The logical action is to attack Posey instead of her mindless minions.
>they fly nowGM, more than half of the humanoid enemies in this game fly. Is a minion flying that hard to deal with?
Posey herself still can't fly. Anyone who can't reach a flying minion can just attack her instead.
>And then the Bone lurker that’s buried in the forest is evidently somehow stronger than the CR 9 posted here?It was animated with Desecrate, so it has slightly more HP.
>it would have the stats of a CR 12A full sized Beholder is CR 12.
Look at the stats for a beholder: does it look more dangerous to you?
> I don’t like being ambushed like that.Oh, okay. Sorry about that.
>Posey controls a ghast and those two dreads and apparently a fucking CR12 with an undisclosed number of hit die in the forest and this flying tank.Posey only control a single zebra zombie (not present), and a ghast (not present). The Dreads and the Bone Lurker are controlled by the demononic cleric who created them, who told them to obey Posey. The demon may animate new monsters Posey may lose control at any moment.
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>>186478>So I know you’re thinking “why don’t you already know everything I am doing and trying to do and going to do?I wouldn't really say that.
>Why are you the only player out of 7 I can’t trust to just do their own thing?Well, for starters, I'm the only character who is a full spellcaster, so what Posey can do isn't always obvious.
Idk what to say though.
>Why can’t you just be normal?[YouTube] "Why can't you just be normal?!" | The Babadook (HDR)
[Embed]>Letting you do things is like stories of making contracts with demonsWell, she did get those dreads from a demon. The demon might feel like fucking her over soon.
>You didn’t do that for the I-don’t-know-how-how-many-HD bone lurked in the forest,Yeah, I probably should have done that... I just got distracted halfway through making the statblock, and then I forgot that I made it.
I only remembered a few days ago that I had the advanced statblock in my journal.
>In fact, if you hadn’t used the key word “DR/5” The DR/5 was a recommendation in parentheses for updated damage resistance. It does not have DR/5 RAW.
>Being a necromancer doesn’t mean zombies or ghasts or level appropriate monsters, it means spending all of your charges to make the biggest super monster you can 2.Look at it this way, GM.
Either a lvl 7 Necromancer can animate 28 skeletons with 1HD, and by extension take 29 turns, or it can animate two 14 HD zombies, taking only three turns. Which sounds like less of a chore to deal with?
>It’s sometimes reasonable to ask for a tank, and this might be it. But I want to control when it is so that I can make sure it is right for the mission and the mission is right for it. When things sneak up on me it shows me that I’m not in control of my own game. And it’s not a good feeling.Well, this is probably a bad time to ask, but for the sake of full disclosure, the reason I wanted a flying mount was to fly me to the top of mended horn so I could ritually freeze the prisoner to death as a sacrifice to the winddigos and create a CR 6 Icegaunt, a creature depicted in one of the above screencaps.
Worth noting that Posey cannot easily control an icegaunt unless it rolls a bad saving throw vs Command Undead, and intended create it tied up so that it could be unleashed on the enemies, and then leave it on the island once it has served its purpose.
That was my actual plan for how to fight the traveller: to animate the equivalent of a lvl 5 Druid to help fight them.
>Is everything supposed to be a fight? Does every spat need to be up? Do we need every emotionally charged post in this thread?I would really prefer to avoid that.
I don't actually care if the post stayed up. I was just concerned that the site was glitching. Player posts have been disappearing lately, but now I think that's most just from Brie's player weirdly deleting his posts immediately after he makes them.
>I appreciate that you posted the stats to the whale. But the post made me realize that while I had been thinking “yeah, posey probably needs to get the power to create undead at some point in the future” I don’t actually know what that means.Well, I would like to have a more in-depth conversation about this with you and what your expectations are, because I have a vested interest in dispelling any concerns that discourage you from letting me level up, so let's try to work out a solution so that nobody is surprised or frustrated.
>>186479The Japanese name was just based on the yokai monster I was inspired by. It translates to "Bone whale" or "Ghost Whale".
>>186483GM, as stated above, the monster does not actually have DR/5. I said it "probably should be corrected to DR/5".
Go ahead and remove the DR/5. It takes full damage from ballistic attacks.
>This is the first time that you’ve actually told me “hey this thing has DR/5 Not Relevant” in a post on a thread before introducing the monster. Okay, I should have mentioned that and made it clear.
I'll let you know something though: nearly every undead monster that isn't a ghoul or a wight (those being "humanoid" body types) has some form of damage reduction. Skeletons have DR/5 bludgeoning. Zombies have DR/5 Slashing.
A universal trope about undead is that they are notoriously hard to kill. Corporal undead without damage reduction are the exception, not the norm, so please know this going forward.
If it's made of bones (skeleton, bone lurker, lich, etc), chances are that it has DR/Bludgeoning.
>I appreciate very much that this stat block is actually posted. Seriously, I do. I suspect, however, that the reason that this was posted is because it’s technically a home brew since you wanted the Japanese mythic flavoring on it rather than a true Bone Lurker, and not because you were trying to be transparent. Either way, it does signal that you really want that fucking DR/5, and that’s what I have to look forward to if I give Posey another scroll or “create undead,” like I had originally planned…It is not homebrew. It is an advancement of a published monster, albeit a 3.0 monster with an archaic form of damage reduction which I believed was supposed to be updated to DR/5, but not necessarily.
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>>186478>So I know you’re thinking “why don’t you already know everything I am doing and trying to do and going to do?I wouldn't really say that.
>Why are you the only player out of 7 I can’t trust to just do their own thing?Well, for starters, I'm the only character who is a full spellcaster, so what Posey can do isn't always obvious.
Idk what to say though.
>Why can’t you just be normal?[YouTube] "Why can't you just be normal?!" | The Babadook (HDR)
[Embed]>Letting you do things is like stories of making contracts with demonsWell, she did get those dreads from a demon. The demon might feel like fucking her over soon.
>You didn’t do that for the I-don’t-know-how-how-many-HD bone lurked in the forest,Yeah, I probably should have done that... I just got distracted halfway through making the statblock, and then I forgot that I made it.
I only remembered a few days ago that I had the advanced statblock in my journal.
>In fact, if you hadn’t used the key word “DR/5” The DR/5 was a recommendation in parentheses for updated damage resistance. It does not have DR/5 RAW.
>Being a necromancer doesn’t mean zombies or ghasts or level appropriate monsters, it means spending all of your charges to make the biggest super monster you can 2.Look at it this way, GM.
Either a lvl 7 Necromancer can animate 28 skeletons with 1HD, and by extension take 29 turns, or it can animate two 14 HD zombies, taking only three turns. Which sounds like less of a chore to deal with?
>It’s sometimes reasonable to ask for a tank, and this might be it. But I want to control when it is so that I can make sure it is right for the mission and the mission is right for it. When things sneak up on me it shows me that I’m not in control of my own game. And it’s not a good feeling.Well, this is probably a bad time to ask, but for the sake of full disclosure, the reason I wanted a flying mount was to fly me to the top of mended horn so I could ritually freeze the prisoner to death as a sacrifice to the winddigos and create a CR 6 Icegaunt, a creature depicted in one of the above screencaps.
Worth noting that Posey cannot easily control an icegaunt unless it rolls a bad saving throw vs Command Undead, and intended create it tied up so that it could be unleashed on the enemies, and then leave it on the island once it has served its purpose.
That was my actual plan for how to fight the traveller: to animate the equivalent of a lvl 5 Druid to help fight them.
>Is everything supposed to be a fight? Does every spat need to be up? Do we need every emotionally charged post in this thread?I would really prefer to avoid that.
I don't actually care if the post stayed up. I was just concerned that the site was glitching. Player posts have been disappearing lately, but now I think that's most just from Brie's player weirdly deleting his posts immediately after he makes them.
>I appreciate that you posted the stats to the whale. But the post made me realize that while I had been thinking “yeah, posey probably needs to get the power to create undead at some point in the future” I don’t actually know what that means.Well, I would like to have a more in-depth conversation about this with you and what your expectations are, because I have a vested interest in dispelling any concerns that discourage you from letting me level up, so let's try to work out a solution so that nobody is surprised or frustrated.
>>186479The Japanese name was just based on the yokai monster I was inspired by. It translates to "Bone whale" or "Ghost Whale".
>>186483GM, as stated above, the monster does not actually have DR/5. I said it "probably should be corrected to DR/5".
Go ahead and remove the DR/5. It takes full damage from ballistic attacks.
>This is the first time that you’ve actually told me “hey this thing has DR/5 Not Relevant” in a post on a thread before introducing the monster. Okay, I should have mentioned that and made it clear.
I'll let you know something though: nearly every undead monster that isn't a ghoul or a wight (those being "humanoid" body types) has some form of damage reduction. Skeletons have DR/5 bludgeoning. Zombies have DR/5 Slashing.
A universal trope about undead is that they are notoriously hard to kill. Corporal undead without damage reduction are the exception, not the norm, so please know this going forward.
If it's made of bones (skeleton, bone lurker, lich, etc), chances are that it has DR/Bludgeoning.
>I appreciate very much that this stat block is actually posted. Seriously, I do. I suspect, however, that the reason that this was posted is because it’s technically a home brew since you wanted the Japanese mythic flavoring on it rather than a true Bone Lurker, and not because you were trying to be transparent. Either way, it does signal that you really want that fucking DR/5, and that’s what I have to look forward to if I give Posey another scroll or “create undead,” like I had originally planned…It is not homebrew. It is an advancement of a published monster, albeit a 3.0 monster with an archaic form of damage reduction which I believed was supposed to be updated to DR/5, but not necessarily.
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>>186485>No it isn't. It is CR 3I do not believe you, but that’s a larger argument and I don’t care to go back through the math.
> Well, being a mindless undead, Command Undead would neutralize it instantly.Does Dust have that prepared?
> Cavalier and Brie can fly.They use weapons that are rendered largely ineffective by DR/5 and undead traits like pistols, knives, and sneak attack. See my math above
> It has no mind, and therefore should not use complicated evasive tactics.I’m saying Dust is too short to hit it with his flail.
> Clubs cost 0 gp. Slings cost 0 gp. Quarterstaffs cost 0 gp. The most common natural weapon is a bite attack, which deals bludgeoning, piercing and slashing at onceYou say that, and in the same response seem to understand that I’m talking about adversaries countering it rather than if the party actually countered it
> Posey doesn't actually control (the dreads), they are controlled by a demon who gifted them to Posey Where the hell was this established? This is new to me.
> GM, think of enemy tactics: why would intelligent enemies attack the flying animated skeleton arms, instead of the grounded sorceress who controls them? The logical action is to attack Posey instead of her mindless minions.Nigger, just two responses above you just claimed that Posey doesn’t control them at all. Why would an intelligent enemy assume that they will stop if this one PC that isn’t even necessarily near them is dead? Why wouldn’t they want to stop the thing that is hitting them? Why would they not assume that it’s an easier target than the beefier PC that is hitting them with an equal attack? You often shoot turrets off of helicopters and drop ships in video games, don’t you, or saw the tentacles or arms off of a monster? Same idea.
> GM, more than half of the humanoid enemies in this game fly. Is a minion flying that hard to deal with?It makes melee much less effective
> Posey only control a single zebra zombie (not present), and a ghast (not present). The Dreads and the Bone Lurker are controlled by the demonic cleric who created them, who told them to obey Posey.sighI really was tricked, wasn’t I? I need to be more careful when dealing with you
Silver has taken entire cars and houses that were never intended as loot. But I knew what he was doing in the moment that he was doing it. It wasn’t a surprise “hey, this is what happened you made all of that fluff” six months later.
> Well, she did get those dreads from a demon.You know so much more about what I do than I do
> Well, this is probably a bad time to ask, but for the sake of full disclosure, the reason I wanted a flying mount was to fly me to the top of mended horn so I could ritually freeze the prisoner to death as a sacrifice to the winddigos and create a CR 6 Icegaunt, a creature depicted in one of the above screencaps.>Worth noting that Posey cannot easily control an icegaunt unless it rolls a bad saving throw vs Command Undead, and intended create it tied up so that it could be unleashed on the enemies, and then leave it on the island once it has served its purpose.>That was my actual plan for how to fight the traveller: to animate the equivalent of a lvl 5 Druid to help fight them.This is exactly what I mean by “please tell me your intentions ahead of time” so I don’t have to pause the game and figure out “does this change things? Should I say yes or no?”
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Okay, so yes, I knew that the demon created the dreads and that other thing. What is new to me is “oh, Posey can command them but they don’t count towards her command limit because she didn’t create them.”
>>186488>Does Dust have that prepared?No, but Posey does.
>Where the hell was this established? This is new to me.At the time they were created.
She requested the demon to cast animate dead to make them, and then command them to obey her. Demon did the same thing for Posey that Posey did for Day Low Rain.
Posey, at the time, was only level 3 and could not natively control such creatures, but now she can by casting Command Undead.
>Posey doesn’t control them at all.They only her commands. They would do nothing if she were not in the picture.
>all. Why would an intelligent enemy assume that they will stop if this one PC that isn’t even necessarily near them is dead?Well, the Dreads are responding to Posey's verbal commands, so to any enemy she is obviously pulling the strings.
>Why would they not assume that it’s an easier target than the beefier PC that is hitting them with an equal attack? You often shoot turrets off of helicopters and drop ships in video games, don’t you, or saw the tentacles or arms off of a monster? Same idea.I guess it varies by enemy, but enemies with any familiarity with sorcerers (they should hope they have protocols for dealing with unicorns) might have relevant tactics.
>It makes melee much less effectiveI agree. Flight is powerful.
>I really was tricked, wasn’t I? That really wasn't my intention. I should have been clearer. Sorry.
>>186489If you don't like the Dreads, you can just say that the demon animated something else in the abyss and tenders the dreads uncontrolled: that way, Posey would either have to use two of her precious lvl 2 slots to get them back, or lose them.
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>>186490You’re missing the point on all accounts
With regards to the whale, I’m saying that it’s overpowered as an allied creature at least under normal circumstances because the types of enemies likely to show up are ineffective against it. Mentioning how the party would or could fight it was just an example to prove that point. No shit it won’t cause a TPK, I was saying it was more powerful than the previous encounters and thus overpowered as a kind of mount.
With regards to the “tactics on attacking the dreads,” this is irritating. All of this shit about “wEll ACksHaULy it’s coMManDed bY posey bUt it’S controlled by a deMOn” - all of that shit is new to me, was not explained to me until just now. I didn’t know this shit when the battle using them happened. I had no idea how the fuck a dread worked because none of this shit was explained to me. I had NPC enemies target the dreads because:
1. There were so many enemies I thought it was more fair, or would look more fair, to have one target a floating arm than to have several gang up on a PC.
2. The general method of targeting I’ve used has been based on how much if a threat the PCs present to the enemies. The dreads presented a threat and thus it made sense to target them
3. The dreads were pissing me off so if they died I wouldn’t be sad
That’s it. That’s the whole fucking set of reasoning I used in that battle for having one enemy attack the dreads. All of this “
of course they would have stopped working when posey died” - all of this shif is new to me, because you never stopped to explain what the fuck a dread is or his it works. I had no fucking clue it was a “”””gift”””” to posey. I had no fucking clue she was claiming it as an NPC command without adding it to her limit. I had no fucking clue it gave her two extra attacks per round until that battle when she started to do it. I didn’t know what the fuck a dread was. Why the fuck are you all up in my ass and sniffing your own farts on “Ackshually this isn’t a good tactic” when you never explained what the fuck a dread is or how it works before the battle? Jesus Christ. It’s not the fact that the dreads are ridiculously hard to kill it pissed me off, it’s the “oh by the way it takes no damage” after the battle is already over that pisses me off. I don’t care about the tactics. I care about the lack of transparency.
Except for the putting the dreads 100 feet in the air. That shit is gay as fuck, and I’d really rather do something, anything, less gay, like erotic roleplay with another dude where I play a male cartoon horse based on a little girl’s TV show, being fucked in the ass by another stallion. Because that’s much less gay.
Thirdly, and very much related to the second point:
I don’t hate the dreads because I hate what they are. I hate how opaque every single portion of their creation has been. I hate the lack of basic communication. I hate the rug pull. Brie once complained about the Dreads (he’s complained more than once) and you responded “what does it matter to you? All that needs to be done to fix the balancing is to add one more enemy.” And that’s basically been my approach the dreads. If you want to have them, then okay. The problem is the communication around them.
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>>186491Okay, GM, I see now that you are not fond of what I have been doing or what I planned to do.
Might I ask instead, what would you rather I do now? What is a good thing for my character to do? Is there a preferred tactic you would like going forward?
>>186494Yes.
1. Don’t assume I or anyone else here has read whatever 3rd party supplement you got any given feat, spell, or summons/creation from. Because you know by now that you are the only one.
2. When you intend to do something, for example, sacrifice a prisoner to windigos to summon an ice giant or whatever it is, please announce this ahead of time so that way I can have time to decide if this should be accepted, if it should be modified, or if it is accepted, how to react to it and to work with it in the encounter design and the narrative. If you don’t do this, you are more likely to get a rejection, or me stopping game play because I don’t want to make a decision yet.
Furthermore, you’re a lot more likely to get to your end goal if I know where that is. Don’t ask “is there a chandelier in the house?” And “where is that chandelier located?” Ask “I want to drop a chandelier on an enemy in a surprise round. Can I do that?”
3. When using a new feat, race, class, spell, potion, or monster, please post the description and stat block if you can, and a link to the relevant page. This is because no, I don’t know what this new feat, spell, race, potion, or monster is.
4. Please don’t use acronyms to refer to the name of 3.5 supplement books. I don’t know what that acronym means.
5. I get spooked or irritated when I see sone new power that wasn’t disclosed or is completely new. Think if it like petting a horse or barely domesticated animal, that will be afraid of your touch if it feels your hand on it without knowing it is coming. Instead, let the horse see your hand approaching, then touch.
I can reduce this to a single word:
communicate [Read more]
I just noticed a continuity error on my part.
Brie is supposed to have taken Combat Expertise prior to Improved Feint. I can rectify this easily by applying the flaw Meager Fortitude, which on it's face makes sense for Bats, and applying CE as the bonus feat.
This would also give me a possible 24 ac for brie while making a (sneak?) Attack :3
>>186496Okay, I can do this
Also reminder, Brie does (-1) as much damage with his hooves as with his blades, so bludgeoining isnt a problem
>>186499Ngl, he could prolly solo the whale
I felt these videos, that I liked, were relevant to your discussion, however, I might just be pouring fuel on the fire. But maybe it could provide some perspective or something or just be entertaining if nothing else.
[YouTube] D&D Discussion: Rules Lawyering Video
[Embed][YouTube] Dungeons and Dragons Power Balance Issues
[Embed]
>>186475>I need Elway here to write a paragraph on just how faggy this^^
>>186501Counterpoint, see this video
[YouTube] What it's like to give your players an overpowered NPC friendo
[Embed]I wasn’t sure if I had seen the power balance video, but then when I saw the tall people, I remembered.
>>186502I think I may actually ask him to do that
>>186503Just make a leviathan gobble up the kraken.
>>186483>If 40% of shots land, which may be low given its low AC, that’s 43 bullets to kill. A magazine and a half of a light machine gun. Or, take a submachine gun, which does 2d6 damage, or 7 damage on average, which is 2 damage after reduction. That’s 32 bullets to kill, or 80 bullets if 40% hit. More than two and a half magazines.Visualizing it like a FPS, that's actually pretty weak. With an automatic weapon one could easily kite it and gun it down. On this relatively low-powered mission, where the PCs are armed with bolt-action rifles and revolvers, it could be overpowered. I don't know if Cavaliere can attack it in the air, as he doesn't have fly-by attack. If it doesn't have DR5 then it's much less of a threat. Thematically I do think undead should have damage resistance since they shouldn't be squishy mooks but real (and scary) threats.
I simply don't have enough knowledge of the game to know a solution to this. Having a mystery draw of some 3.5e monster to deal with an enemy tailored to give the PCs a challenge doesn't look like one to me however.
>That shit is gay as fuck, and I’d really rather do something, anything, less gay, like erotic roleplay with another dude where I play a male cartoon horse based on a little girl’s TV show, being fucked in the ass by another stallion. Because that’s much less gay.Damn, Silver missed an opportunity by not bringing Paper Clipping along.
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>>186506Don't worry, Clip will get his chance soon enough.
>With an automatic weapon one could easily kite it and gun it down.I don't know about GM pone, but I've been giving automatic firearms in this game a lot of thought. It's GM's game and he decides the rules, but it feels kinda wrong to just allow a character to magdump an entire SMG in a single round. I've been playing a lot of Wasteland 2 lately, wanting to complete it so I could start Wasteland 3, and I kinda like how they handle automatic weapons in those games. It's given me ideas on how they would work in D&D where you have actions rather than action points.
>>186473What a novel idea
>>186507Heres hpw that works. You can take 1, MAYBE two shots on target, or you can magdump and deal with the erratic ballistics of recoil in a desperate attempt to (as they say) spray and pray.
Just curious, who has an automatic weapon for this magdumping?
Just to provide perspective, how silly would I be to have Brie suddenly say "I have an idea, trust me," and then have him run off with no explanation
Having deliberately waived the 6th level that would have given her Improved Initiative, Lacey's strategy will be to take whatever initiative roll she gets, and... wait. Yes, regardless of her actual initiative roll, she will willfuly go last in the combat round. Upon observing what her teammates are doing or seeming to be attempting to do, contrasted with what the adversaries are likewise 'doing', then she will act.
Her preferred tactic is to use her chain whip to do a 10' improved disarm and then talk the opponent out of resisting, but also isn't afraid to put her (proposed) jewelled adamantine barbed stilletto (nonmagical) to good use, with or without poison applied. There tends to be better but more nuanced means to profit from not killing, especially in the dry-cleaning bills.
>>186510>cuz I waived lvl 6Unless GM is feeling permissive, on principle that henceforth it isnt about trying to "win" the game, its about scripting memorable stories and narratives. Get back to me ^_^
>the Kurenai (Crimson) technique of the Row family (and Brie cuz reasons) really isnt THAT technical. The trick to it is, when stabbing, youre not trying to draw the blade out, you're just punching it in and leaving it for a sec. This causes bloodflow to build, so when at end of turn one DOES 'retrieve' their blades, theres a (sadly non-mechanical) brilliant display worthy of Dexter ^_^
>>186510For clarity, I said
>improved disarmBut that isn't accurate. Its a regular disarm, with a +2 circumstance bonus on a regular disarm, because chain whip (spiked chain, but lets be real).
Since it's at 10', unless the opponent has a likewise reach weapon, they dont get the attack of opportunity standard for a disarm or trip attack, so while her disarms/trips arent improved, they're still less consequential than when done from threat range.
Just gonna throw a little meta out there for consideration:
https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Polar_BearOur good friend the polar bear is listed as a cr 4 creature. For one, it's underpowered, and doesn't list the x3 or x4 multiplier, nor the increased crit threshold that an actual Polar Bear would have. Not to downplay the possible raping of being grappled and getting 2 claws and a bite, but imagine being grappled by a PB irl and getting monched. Yeah. Just something to consider when contemplating stat blocks.
The FIRST time Lacey of the family of Row met Brie she simply walked up, smelled him, and walked off without a word.
This was about 6-7 years prior. Weeks later was the 'incident', forever emblazoned on her flanks
>>186498So, I think I've figured out why you're so insistent on Posey going off on her own with one of the captured, possessed ponies. You can correct me if I'm wrong but I'm feeling pretty confident about this. You're planning on sacrificing the captive in order to summon the assistance we'll need to kill the Traveler, right?
>>186567That is what I said ooc, yes
Posey has her secrets to keep though, so she wouldn't be so open to say it in-character.
>>186569I've got an idea for how she can summon the help we'll need without sacrificing one of the poor possessed ponies, if you're interested.
Still not too late to have Rosie try scaring the thralls into getting another saving throw against the mind control
>>186573I've already given up on it, but shoot your shot.
I am not aware of any way to make an icegaunt other than a Binding Of Issac reference. Undead are, as a rule, made from formerly living creatures.
>>186576So, we retcon the the event where that talking skull on the boat takes away some of Posey's powers. The party rescues the marines, goes with Posey to raise the leviathan skeleton, and then goes with her to the mountaintop to raise an icegaunt (whatever that is). When the party learns that she intends to sacrifice a possessed pony to do so, they're horrified and attempt to talk Posey out of it. She gives it some thought and introspection, and decides to instead offer up a portion of her own power (the portion that previously would have been taken away on the boat) to summon the icegaunt. It's a moment of sacrifice and character growth for Posey, no innocent ponies die, you get to do your cool thing, and Posey can still as she grows in power naturally later regain those powers she gave up, and as a bonus for GM pone it fixes one of the gripes he had earlier.
>>186578It also avoids me having to indicate what that 26 skill check Brie did was about
>>186578That's an idea, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to do those things in-character, either to forfeit her own powers or to expose herself in front of the party.
I do like the idea of being compensated for the gold and XP costs I spent for spellstitching, but I only wanted the icegaunt as a short-term ally, not a long-term one.
And icegaunt is a freeze-mummified undead created from a person sacrificed atop of a mountain. It makes no sense for it to exist without the person being killed.
It's also not a creature that Posey could natively control. I intended to use the sacrifice reward for the opportunity to control it for just one night.
I thought the idea of the icegaunt "freeing" its former crewmates by raising as icegaunts at midnight would be poetic, because then Ended Horn would no longer be no-mares-land: it would be their land, to haunt in rugged peace for all eternity. It doubles as a convenient way for the sailors to stay behind, since they've been labeled as deserters.
I really just wanted to create this monster for fun, because i didn't anticipate being in a biome (mountaintop) where I could ever create this monster again. Unleashing different kinds of undead upon the world to is just so fun to me. It's why I raised Agire as a ghoul, for example.
Let's just go find the marines. I can think of another way to make monsters later.
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>>186580If you're absolutely certain, I suppose, though it kinda feels like you'd rather give up than try to work with us to help you do the cool things you want to do with Posey. I'd still ask though that we go to the leviathan skeleton after rescuing the marines, it would be a tremendous help to this plan I've come up with, and it's still a chance for Posey to do something cool.
>>186581Im with Silver on this. Suddenly running off on an unexplained and undeclared sidequest is kind of like trying to jump across a multi-lane highway to an exit during rush hour. You MIGHT pull it off, but you will DEFINITELY piss off the other motorists, as well as any law/traffic enforcement. When one wants to exit, they notify everyone else by using their blinker and being mindful.
>>186580I know you want Posey to do something cool but Cavaliere already does not trust her and, being lawful good, would never permit harm to be done to the captives.
I set up a potential sidequest for Brie with GM before the mission started. It's that "Day Chaser" pony Brie has mentioned once or twice. I established that with GM before the mission briefing at customs. Months ago. And who knows if anything will come of it, I do 't assume that it will even be something explorable. Just cuz something is set up doesn't mean it will play out.
So yes, I'm unsympathetic for sudden, random, unestablished detours and personal quests.
The premise is/was, Brie has an operative to his smuggling operation that is onboard the Kostromo. During the mission briefing, his curiosity was peaqued at the mention of the KS-19, as the Kostromo was the chosen shipping frieghter precisely because the presence of a military craft in the area to prevent against piracy and such things.
So beyond the established and adopted mission parameters (clap them traveler cheeks) Brie has the additional mission parameter of attempting to find his beloved operative.
But he is also appreciative that that might not be feasible, and they mey just have to sink the freighter with everyone onboard. Just gonna have to wait and see. And not assume.
>>186640Let's see if we can avoid sinking the Kostroma if possible. I'm still planning on using it to escape the island with everyone in tow.
>>186650>not sink itYes, of course, that would be wonderful. I'm saying it hasn't been ruled out yet. And don't pretend that sinking the freighter was my point of emphasis
>>186651I know it wasn't, but I've gotta make sure I state my own plans for getting off the island clearly otherwise someone is going to something stupid that gets the party killed.
>>186650We have the swan feather token. What use is the ship to us?
>>186652Okay, then here's a detailed breakdown of Brie's motivations and plans in order:
1. See to the Traveler's demise
2. Survive
3. Escape the island
A. With completed mission objectives
B. Including Day Chaser
C. And as much loot as possible
D. And maybe an airship
E. And yes, the freighter if doable
Yes, he's already thought of 3 different ways to kamikaze. Remember when he stabbed the pony in the face? Imagine it's a hoof grenade.
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>>1866531.) It's big enough to take the party, the griffons, the marines, the sheep (if you're still interesting in taking it with us), and as many of the defecting commies as possible back to safety.
2.) We can use it to take the Traveler's corpse back with us as proof of its existence so we can get paid more.
3.) We're pirates, what kind of pirate wouldn't take to opportunity to hijack a ship?
>>1866551) The swan feather token is big enough for all of us, the griffons, and the sheep.
2) The Swan boat should be big enough for that as well
3) It feels like I have been the only one taking the pirate disguise seriously so far, based on the translated dialogue
Saving the communists was not part of the job description, and taking the Kostroma exposed us to potentially being chased and gunned down by the commie special forces. Furthermore, Captain Waters said that this is supposed to be a discreet operation, and riding a stolen enemy freighter back is not discreet.
....On the other hand...
The Kostroma, a Soviet era freighter ship, would be worth about 7,500,000 gp. If we sold it for half that much, and split the proceeds equally, we would be very rich ponies. It would be all the funds I need to begin my army.
This is definitely a great payout, but it's risky.
Baltimare is a metropolis sized settlement, so selling the Kostroma would be within the merchant wealth limit.
This is the one reason I would consider risking pirating the ship. Otherwise I say don't bother.
If we CAN get away with the freighter, we dont need to sell it, we can just ransom it make arrangements with the shipping coporation
>>186657>>186658>>186659Selling/ransoming it is one option, we can also potentially keep it to use for sailing across the ocean for worldwide adventures or even make money off of it through shipping and trading.
>>186660I would much rather sell it. I'm trying to raise and army.
>>186660A multi-million $ shipping company isnt going to just let us 'keep' it, it would be an international incident. Our group doesnt have the logistics or infrastructure
or morale/trust to be able to maintain a ship like that in a piracy capacity. Freighters arent fast. The airship is also iffy on being able to keep in any capacity, but theres a greater shot than the property of a seemingly very wealthy group of ponies.
>>186662This is why I say we should just go on the feather token and leave the commies to their fate on the island: it's too risky and complicated, and I have my doubts that GM is going to give us a 3.7 million gp payout for this adventure even if we succeed.
The communists are not our problem. Our only priority is the Marines.
If we turn them into ice-mummies, they can live happily ever after on the island.
And another thing. Why exactly are we maintaining the piracy pretense? Piracy was our cover for the 'simple' mission of rescuing marines and sabotaging equipment, likely against commies. It was to prevent Equestria from being implicated in a technical act of war.
No one said anything about mind-controlling eldritch abominations, or actually NOT killing commies. I think it's safe to say that the terms of our contract are a bit more flexible given the circumstances.
>>186663I'd also prefer it if we kept the commies alive and escaped with as many as we could. With Silver's Leadership feat, I want to recruit them as Silver's followers. And yes, I've already talked with GM pone about that possibility.
>>186662Yeah, but it's a communist ship. Does anyone really care what happens to a ship owned by a bunch of communists?
>airshipWe can see about it, but I have my doubts the airship is going to be in an air-worthy state and I'm doubting we'll have the means or know-how to fix it before either the GRU or the Traveler defeats the other and conquers the island.
>>186664This is true but our good aligned-characters would have more to say on that.
>>186665>its a commie shipThat is true,... they'd be far enough removed that it would be a logistical nightmare for them to even try taking back the ship. Okay, Im more open to keeping it in light of that, and having a freighter to dock the airship on is badass.
>>186665>defeats the other and takes the islandOhhhh nononono, the Traveler dies, this is non negotiable
>>186666Those quads
I agree, even though it means less killing. Even Brie agrees that this is an exceptional circumstance, and not one that warrants the subterfuge initially prescribed.
Instead of it being a scenario where the Equestrian military contracts a team of mercenary paramilitary to rescue their servicecolts and ensure sensitive technology isn't appropriated while disguised as pirates, its a heroic band of mercenaries stepping in against a horrifying threat to all of ponykind. We're like the A team (or the Expendables, if you have no culture)
>>186666Easy there, Satan.
>>186665You can get followers from other sources too.
You should have gained them when you took the feat.
>airshipWe are being paid to destroy the airship. We should destroy it.
>>186670Point of order
We're paid to ensure the commies don't get the airship, and were supplied explosives. Technically speaking, the co tract allows for us to take the airhip outright, as it was alredy written off as lost by the military.
>>186671That's true, the explosives supplied were specifically meant for the airship's propulsion systems which are far in advance of what Stalliongrad has access to at the moment. As long as Stalliongrad doesn't get the propulsion, we're in the clear.
>>186668Oh we're all in agreement on that. I'm just saying that if the repairs needed look to be too intensive that we would run out of time, we might just have to scuttle the engines and leave it behind.
>>186672Okay. Then yes, we seem to be in agreement about marines first, assess the airship if we can, kill the traveler, and run off with everything not nailed down, on whatever method(s) of transport we are able to render effective.
>>186672I think we are even less likely to get away with the airship than we are to get away with the Kostroma, but if we can I need some time to research the value of the vehicle to see if the risk is worth it.
What type of airship is this again?
>I'm just saying that if the repairs needed look to be too intensive that we would run out of timeThis.
If the airship were in any condition to be repaired in one day, the Marines themselves would have fixed it already.
Okay, crunching numbers, the zeppelin, assuming it costs about as much as a K-3 blimp, should be worth at least one million gold pieces.
>>186676And this is factoring how much it cost to produce in WWII, not it's selling price. It should be worth maybe 3 million gp, and sell for half of that.
>>186677Don't forget the sensitive navigation and propulsion systems
Anyway, there's no way this airship is flying if it crashed. I didn't bring 250,000 cubic feet of helium to inflate it with.
Let's just torch it like we're being paid to.
My understanding is that it isnt known to have crashed, it was spotted as having landed
Btw, I only considered this now:
There is a nonzero chance that the airponies we are looking for have already thralls of The Traveller. That could even be the reason they crashed in the first place.
The Traveller seems to be able to remotely dominate creatures from across the island. Logically the Marines could also be affected.
>>186682>they could be thrallsYou're just now grtting there?
I probably should have considered this earlier. It makes sense, now that I think of it. I low-key thought the The Traveller was unrelated to our mission, like the cursed crown, but it might be the cause of our mission to begin with.
Yeah... I'm seeing now why it would be so important to keep the party together. Posey may be of some use with the Marines.
Without knowing the Traveler's abiloty to access the intelligence, skills, etc of the thralls, I would assume that the Traveler is trying to get their way to the largest population center they can, which means using the airship, which means enthralling the marines.
Can we make haste now?
Also, where exactly is this goat being stored?
>>186693Kira has a big one in her belly
>>186709Is that the one that spoke bat? Dont think its getti g away, Im just biding my time
Just a quick calculation. If y=5-20 Im assuming an equation of 2d8+4
[2d8+4 = (8+4) = 12]
And for bored posterity, heres 3d6+2 [3d6+2 = (12+2) = 14]
>>186713Nah, this one was called Hopper. Poor Hopper...
>>186766His sacrifice will
not be remembered.
Frenly reminder: the party still has 2 shaped explosive charges (easily activated), 1 smoke canister (Dust took, iirc), and the explosive harpoon charge that Brie lifted from the safe. Go on, make some noise *waives a dismissive and mildly condescending bat hoof, thats really a veiled gesture of affection, if you know how crazy Brie is*
[YouTube] Fallout 3 Soundtrack - I dont want to set the World on Fire
[Embed]When playing a character in a group roleplaying setting, it is good to have character convictions. Its alsobgood to have a handful of "previously undecided on misgivings" from which to abort from their previous convictions, if better
So I look at the location, or pair of locations, that are the real life inspiration of the location here, and see that it's incredibly detailed and absolutely fascinating, and I think "wow, why can't my fantasy island be as interesting as this real world location?" The real-life location has not one, not two, but three different WW2 plane crashes on it besides costal defense batteries and other things, so I think "well maybe my fantasy world can have two on it?" And then when it's there I discover that only Silver wants to do any kind of exploration or talking to NPCs, and when I thought that the problem was that the NPCs spoke foreign languages and the player characters couldn't, but nope, the issue is that no one except silver wants to do anything except proceed to the next objective. Nope, they don't want to go find the commissar and interact with him or figure out what his deal is, which, fair enough I guess because that should be optional for the party anyways, but the thing is that there is information which was intended to come out through him. I could have had it come out from the scientist, but when people were actually interacting with her I thought they were going to the commissar, so she didn't say things that I thought would come out from the commissar, but now that no one wants to go to the commissar they don't want to talk to her either? So it's just never going to be said...
Instead it's just "nah, it'll be fine, I'm sure Posey can kill a god with 36 points of charnel touch damage because obviously it can't possibly have very many hit points, and I'm sure that the elder horrors that knocked it unconscious in the first place never tried that.' Or maybe it's "by the way, Posye has an attack that does infinity damage and can easily kill a primordial god. Did I mention she's sooooo under powered for level 4? She's so weak and useless. Anyways, on to the next thing because I'm bored with this area." Maybe it's my fault for actually trying to impose a time limit so no one thinks exploring is worth anything? That's kind of the eternal dilemma, I think. If there is a strict time limit then you shouldn't explore. If you have time to explore there is no tension and it's boring. I had thought I had a sort of incentive to think that maybe, you know, getting out of here alive with killing the traveler and rescuing the airmen is probably going to require more resources than what you already have. Apparently that idea isn't obvious and isn't really shared by most of the party... only Silver.... I basically designed this questline for Silver specifically apparently...
Even the torpedoes. One was supposed to be found at the base of the hill having broken off, rolled down, and rammed into a storage hut. But no one wanted to look at that, so... okay... I could easily have said "yeah, one is on an external mount under the wing..." but no one cares to look at the wings, so the only one is the one that is hardest to get to inside of the plane hanging 10 feet above the ground, only precariously held into position. That warhead is 550 pounds...... And then the only time any one gave a shit about any of the .50 cal machine guns was when Posey was like "can my dreads dual wield them?"
It's disheartening, and really makes me wonder "was it worth not loading up that save of stellaris?" I guess this is just what it's like to be a GM, but I want to just put everyone on notice that when you get to the Traveller you will find that 1. No. You cannot in fact, kill a god, and 2. It's been holding back on its attacks. You can fail the quest for all I care now
And yes, losing out on that millennial post is genuinely disheartening. This is only the third time in the entire history of the game that it has happened, although admittedly the other time was caused by posey, and was pretty recently. And Jesus Christ, you've been told repeatedly to stop making three+ sequential posts and.... Alright I'll go back to Stellaris
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>>187043I know it doesn't mean much, but I personally think it's an interesting location. I didn't know about the torpedo that broke off. Maybe I managed to gloss over it when I was reading your description of the location, which I feel really bad out if that's the case because I think you make excellent descriptions. Also, I'd like to go to the Commissar. It sounds like he's an actual good leader who cares about the ponies serving underneath him.
It has never been that investigating things and people is uninteresting, and I'm sorry if that is what I have made it seem that my attitude has been. Fwiw, this is central to why I'm retiring Brie and introducing Lacey; Brie is intended for a combat-centric game, and doesn't into dialogue unless is a power play, intimidation, a bluff, etc. Im aware of how shit of an excuse "its what my character would do", so spending however many sessions 20 minutes amounts to observing how the other players get along - and yes, I'm being quite deliberately self-depricatingly patronizing - doesnt seem inapropriate.
>>187043>I discover that only Silver wants to do any kind of exploration or talking to NPCsIt's not that, it's just that I haven't had a lot of time lately to think of serious responses, and do I just haven't been responding all that much. Sorry if I come off as bored, but it's more like I just don't have a lot of energy to engage seriously. I low-key don't even know what's going on lately, just because real life has me so drained, but I try to put in the minimum effort to drive the story forward.
>Nope, they don't want to go find the commissar and interact with him or figure out what his deal isI do want to do that, I just thought that strategically the Marines should be out priority.
>Posey can kill a god with 36 points of charnel touch damageIt was just one plan. Charnel touch is a low-damage touch attack, not a god killer.
I don't really know how else to harm it though, that was just my idea on the matter.
>talk to herAt first I was really intent on talking with her, but then halfway through I realized I misunderstood the entire situation, and I was embarrassed and wasn't sure what to say anymore.
I do appreciate an NPC that can speak our language though
>torpedoI did notice the torpedo, although at the time I was too tired to mention it.
>Anyways, on to the next thing because I'm bored with this area.I just thought the issue of rescuing the Marines was time sensitive. Silver said earlier that if we tried to fight the traveller or to other things before finding the Marines, it would result in a partial failure.
Maybe I should have paid closer attention though.
.
.
.
Everything aside, I should probably apologize. I haven't been taking this game as seriously as I should lately. I will try harder to pay attention.
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>>187044The only reason I wanted to find that airponies first was because I believed that they would die if we delayed rescuing them. If that's not an issue, I don't care what order we do things.
>>187049This. I also thought the lives of the marines was time sensitive and of greatest importance/consequence
>>187043>the issue is that no one except silver wants to do anything except proceed to the next objectiveSorry, but this is a consequence of the urgency which you've (very reasonably) pushed upon the characters. Logically it should already be night by now and our characters have the imperative of finding the lost airponies before it is actually night. These are interesting locations and characters, but even if you suspend the passage of time it would not be acting in-character to behave like tourists. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either the party has the liberty to dawdle infinitely in one place like a 90s adventure game, or we have to rush to get important things done first.
Also, at least Cavaliere believes there will be time to talk with the scientist in-depth later. He does want to find the Commissar because it's on the way, but he doubts New Mareland would appreciate a scientist and a political officer from Stalliongrad being shown their precious zeppelin. This is why he wants to leave all of them behind while the party gets the airponies.
>charnel touchI very much don't like Posey actually having knowledge of "outer gods" or whatever she claims to have personally experienced. It's one thing to have a mad cultist who can't quite express the things he's seen, but a calculating
femme fatale who treats this as just another Wednesday is a little irksome. Nevertheless, as Posey is written, her confidence is in-character. Whether her scheme would really work is up to you.
>Maybe it's my fault for actually trying to impose a time limit so no one thinks exploring is worth anything? That's kind of the eternal dilemma, I think. If there is a strict time limit then you shouldn't explore. If you have time to explore there is no tension and it's boring.Exactly my thought. It doesn't help when there are distractions for characters who would actually be interested. That nothingburger of hoofsteps in the fog drew Cavaliere away for some time when he was about to explore and search the plane. Now that the party has found the most important things there, he doesn't have that time anymore. And no, the mysterious hoofsteps weren't scary if that's what you were going for.
>One was supposed to be found at the base of the hill having broken off, rolled down, and rammed into a storage hut. But no one wanted to look at that, so... okay... I could easily have said "yeah, one is on an external mount under the wing..." but no one cares to look at the wings, so the only one is the one that is hardest to get to inside of the plane hanging 10 feet above the ground, only precariously held into position. That warhead is 550 pounds...... And then the only time any one gave a shit about any of the .50 cal machine guns was when Posey was like "can my dreads dual wield them?"The characters were pre-occupied with exploring the inside of the plane. Maybe I should have had Cavaliere look around the outside, but I'm always late to these nights. Brie looked about to have wandered down the hill, but he wanted to insert himself into the conversation instead so nopony was left outside.
As for the .50 cals, I thought about taking one of them but Cavaliere couldn't carry it because of his weight limitations. A mount and ammunition would also be needed, meaning there would have to be setup to use one and two ponies would have to work together to use it, sacrificing their preferred combat styles in the process. Point taken however.
>And yes, losing out on that millennial post is genuinely disheartening.Small things do get to you, especially when it's on top of other unpleasantries to deal with.
>>187047>I just thought the issue of rescuing the Marines was time sensitive. Silver said earlier that if we tried to fight the traveller or to other things before finding the Marines, it would result in a partial failure.This is why I hate spoilers. Give us the freedom to fail, please. That's half the fun of DnD.
>Everything aside, I should probably apologize. I haven't been taking this game as seriously as I should lately. I will try harder to pay attention.It's not your fault. Don't feel obligated to put in extra effort, since just showing up to announce your attacks is enough to help the game along. You also roleplay as Posey well even when tired.
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>>187053>Sorry butWhatever it was you were trying to say in this post, it’s been thoroughly and decisively sabotaged by the shitty insulting attitude of the first two words, to which I can only reply “go fuck yourself.”
Maybe I should have excluded Garv from my earlier statement? I don’t know. The mood is ruined for tonight
>>187054GM, try to hear him out. He's not being adversarial.
>>187053>the hoofsteps were a nothingburgerUh, I'm just coming to that realization,... just saying, some of these red herrings work better than you might think
>double-posting
I'm not trying to make excuses, I'm quite content to take my licks and stfu, but I would like to declare that at every interval that I was being stupid and hyperfixating on something was an instance where I THOUGHT I was following your cues, clues, a direction
When you're a player with an absurd fixation for deciphering secrets and subtext, you spend alot of time exploring absurd ideas and theories. Sometimes, you end up wasting alot of time on something you THINK you were SUPPOSED to, but only afterward do you realize "No, that was just dumb".
I very much appreciate GM's frustration, am probably the biggest contributor, and am only posting now because there's no benefit to me not.
Having said, I believe Brie is balls deep in a high explosive, so Ill go back to STFU
I can think of other points to make, but they boil down to:
GM, we're DnD players. You can give us crayons and construction paper to make pretty pictures, and we will end up eating the crayons and turning the construction paper into confetti.
Ffs which one brought glue?
Anyway, am sorry 4 retarded
Garv has a point about the sense of urgency and time sensitivity, I thought that was a major concern as well, and it informed my motivation in "getting on with things". Im not adversarial to fun and things EXCEPT when I think I'm SUPPOSED to be. I dont have a good idea of how to prevent this in the future, so I'll leave it out.
>a 4th post, you triple-nigger?
Xp I rule the night
>6?! You giga faggot?
Last post, I swear
Have you ever played a game where how many people survive is a function of how quickly you get through it? I thought that this wasone such game.
Maybe the party
should go find the airmen first and ignore everything else. That is a fairly sensible thing to do. I don't know. I would not have been spurred to post anything at all if it hadn't been for the millennial post being lost. It's like waking up to shit on the floor. But whatever
>>187053>>187053>it would not be acting in-character to behave like tourists. You can't have your cake and eat it too.Okay. Great. I don't care any more. Just do whatever.
>And no, the mysterious hoofsteps weren't scary if that's what you were going for.No. It was the science mare using a low level illusion spell to make a distraction so that she could escape. It was rather effective. But your vote of confidence in my abilities is much appreciated
That's sarcasm if it wasn't obvious>[Posey's player shouldn't] feel obligated to put in extra effortThen why should I?>>187047>I low-key don't even know what's going on latelyI noticed....
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>>187062>u promisedGames like Zelda and others have Navi/guide fairies to be like "Hey, listen" BECAUSE players are retarded.
[YouTube] navi hey look listen hello.mp4
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Yes. Idk about anyone else, but GM, I am genuinely scared of what youre going to say next. Im literally resorting to distraught kitten pics
>>187054Not my intent but I can't fault you for thinking otherwise. My wording elsewhere was also overly critical as I didn't know how you were feeling.
>>187061I interpreted it as a balancing match, and if we were to get the "golden ending" (saving the airponies, the griffons, and as many Kostroma crew as possible) we had to be both quick and careful in how we did things. This is why I was a little impatient during the whole first part of the mission. The downside is that neat little details can go unnoticed, especially when we're tired or multitasking during a game night.
>>187062>I would not have been spurred to post anything at all if it hadn't been for the millennial post being lost. It's like waking up to shit on the floor.patsIt's not easy to wrangle retards day after day, particularly when your efforts seem to go unappreciated, and especially when it's supposed to be your fun and escapism. If you want a hiatus of a couple of days to take the edge off we can wait. Having you on a short fuse creates an air of anxiety in a bad way.
>No. It was the science mare using a low level illusion spell to make a distraction so that she could escape. It was rather effective.Okay that was actually clever and I regret not asking Pipette about it in-character. I thought it was to create an atmosphere of unease, because that was the effect on Brie.
I can see what you mean about your efforts feeling wasted, and I'm sorry…
>>187067[YouTube] Navi 10 hours
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>>187062<it would not be acting in-character to behave like tourists. You can't have your cake and eat it too.>Okay. Great. I don't care any more. Just do whatever.For all I know, your players might deserve your harsh words but it's better if you articulate why you disagree with his point than imply that it's faulty without addressing why. That way the two of you will have an easier time moving forward.
This situation also sort of mirror the situation with Poesy. In that, Poesy was advised to speak of what she wants and her intentions beforehand so you could adjust to it and perhaps enable it. While one doesn't want to spoil, maybe in the future(Obviously, it's easy with hindsight); you could tell the players (in vague and general terms to avoid spoilers) what you want from this session so that you also can get some fulfillment from being the GM. Maybe you did that though, idk.
Just my two cents. I get getting mad in games. I play league and sometimes I rage myself into head ache. So I'm not acting as if I'm better than you. Just saying what the ideal approach would be, imo.^^
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>>187076Ive been mulling it over all day. Here's the thing. I want to blissfully into whatever GM has in store/story, but I also appreciate thatthat gets fucking lame for the GM. In some of my irl games - both as player and GM - we just end up saying "do you guys wanna ask/do anything" and the answer is often "no, we're good, lets go to the next place". Additionally, while it fun/exciting to innovate or come up with creative solutions to problems, oftentimes those innovations and creative solutions end up volunteering GM for a headache that could have been avoided. I want to explore what can be explored, but I don't wanna be the little kid who asks what everything they see is.
>>187072For me, the balance is between asking enough questions toward getting the best understanding of things, and asking as few questions as possible to avoid being a nuisance to GM, especially outside my turn when applicable. And as we have seen, I have misinterpreted things on several occasion, both fixating on something stupid and obliviously ignoring something relevant. Im not complaining, I'm pbserving how without intending anything to go awry, things still did. Its a similar situation with the millennial post. I was completely oblivious, and if I had realized what was up, I would have stopped posting to allow for it. But I also get why GM is disheartened, and I wish theres something I could do.
So I'll just end with the puc I was GONNA post the. Ext time somepony tried to do the cutsie "Looks up at"
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I wonder what those six consecutive spam post said. Too bad I didn't read them.
>>187086Here, for ease of viewing. The first post was too old
>>187076Ive been mulling it over all day. Here's the thing. I want to blissfully into whatever GM has in store/story, but I also appreciate thatthat gets fucking lame for the GM. In some of my irl games - both as player and GM - we just end up saying "do you guys wanna ask/do anything" and the answer is often "no, we're good, lets go to the next place". Additionally, while it fun/exciting to innovate or come up with creative solutions to problems, oftentimes those innovations and creative solutions end up volunteering GM for a headache that could have been avoided. I want to explore what can be explored, but I don't wanna be the little kid who asks what everything they see is.
>>187072For me, the balance is between asking enough questions toward getting the best understanding of things, and asking as few questions as possible to avoid being a nuisance to GM, especially outside my turn when applicable. And as we have seen, I have misinterpreted things on several occasion, both fixating on something stupid and obliviously ignoring something relevant. Im not complaining, I'm pbserving how without intending anything to go awry, things still did. Its a similar situation with the millennial post. I was completely oblivious, and if I had realized what was up, I would have stopped posting to allow for it. But I also get why GM is disheartened, and I wish theres something I could do.
So I'll just end with the puc I was GONNA post the. Ext time somepony tried to do the cutsie "Looks up at"
In the interest of transparency, let me be clear as day.
It bothers me that I'm such a nuisance. I dont tey to be (you will know when I'm trying, and some of you can vouch).
I know alot of the things that have happened has soured people's disposition toward the game. And yeah, I'm at the center of pretty much all of it. I wonder if I should even be welcome
That wasnt a manipulation statement btw, I legit wonder. I am a sociopath, but I'm not trying to gain points rn. Theres no game like this one, I've looked. Maybe its the people, maybe its the board, maybe its any number of compounded things; I would rather the game go on without me then for it to end now.
Fuck it, i'll even tell you about the 26 roll.
The 26 roll was a sleight of hand check. A 20 or more is required to lift something off someone else - pickpocket style - and a 15 risks detection.
Regardless, Brie got a 26.
Technically speaking - cuz this occurred when Posey was pissing both me AND GM off - Brie stole Posey's precious tiara.
Oh yes. Theres been alot of speculation as to how, when, and if to use that to make things spicy.
But I dont care anymore. It was supposed to be a piece of leverage to try and either incentivize more conducive party activity, or to punish less conducive. But again, I dont care anymore. It didnt happen, Im not trying to 'own' anyone anymore (except the traveler) and like I said, I'm perfectly okay with sitting out multiple sessions if everyone else can get back to more or less how things were.
(I did have a crazy scenario where to teach Posey a lesson about not putting the tiara on, Brie would put the tiara on, and his nonmagical and UNABLE to mind control-ass would ALMOST body the whole party, but GM obviously didnt wanna)
And this isnt the beginning of my ideas. I have scenarios where Brie uses the tiara to basically get advantage on a grapple check to put Posey in handcuffs. I have DOZENS of scenarios for how to batman-esque disablr each character. But thats why I wanna retire Brie. Cuz I dont wanna play that character anymore.
Here, horsepussy
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P.s. I could ALSO roast all of you like a cornish game hen,if THATwere my objective
>>187089>I know alot of the things that have happened has soured people's disposition toward the game. And yeah, I'm at the center of pretty much all of it. I wonder if I should even be welcomeI don't think you're chiefly responsible for the GM feeling disillusioned at the moment
Okay, maybe rushing Pipette's conversation along, the spam posting, and stealing the millennium get was the straw that broke the camel's back, and drama you were in the past couple of months has contributed to it, but still but it's a multitude of factors including irl stressors, sessions being repeatedly slow and frustrating instead of fun, and players (including myself) being too matter-of-fact about all of it. I think we all can stand to improve, though precisely how I'm not sure about. I suppose I could stop multitasking during sessions and seriously think about every response I make so my characters miss less and can be more involved.
The game really was in a precarious position after the nadir we went through, and the rocky/slow going since has not helped. If you do something for fun but a bad taste is left in your mouth, it's hard to keep going.
GM Pone probably would have stopped a long time ago if not for a sense of obligation for the players>The 26 roll was a sleight of hand check. A 20 or more is required to lift something off someone else - pickpocket style - and a 15 risks detection.>Regardless, Brie got a 26.>Technically speaking - cuz this occurred when Posey was pissing both me AND GM off - Brie stole Posey's precious tiara.>Oh yes. Theres been alot of speculation as to how, when, and if to use that to make things spicy.I like this because it's precisely something that Brie would do. What he would do with it is another question altogether. He seems to have just enough of a moral compass to want it to not fall into the wrong hands, but he might still want to pawn it off to some collector.
>I have DOZENS of scenarios for how to batman-esque disablr each character.That's good, that sounds exactly like what he would plan for. Real-life Marines are trained to do exactly this. I imagine Lacey would do the same thing, if for self-defense reasons.
>Here, horsepussyThat is one of the few thing I know that will cheer him up. There has been a dearth of it in the game lately, and I don't think it's a coincidence.
>>187091You're doing it again. If you want my advice, write down what you want to say on your computer and then post it all at once after a couple of hours. It might help.
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>>187092>youre doing it againYes I know, but its late night, and I rule the night. What happened with Nadir??
Im going with this image cuz Nadir is like Zeela,... Zala,... the coot zigger filly, to my understanding of canon
>>187096Holy shit are we Nadir posting?
>>187098I would, but I'm still waiting for a full rundown on Nadir ._.
>>187092Wasn't PvP supposed to be prohibited? Doesn't that include stealing from PCs?
>>187098Ah heck yeah, butterzeeb!
>>187110She's a cutie pie.
>>187161
Gladly. Medium-grey pelt, black and white mane/tail, toxically yellow eyes.
Often fetchingly dressed with a sharp vest hiding throwing knives, hes utilitarian kn hes day to day appearance. At the moment, hes in a skin-tight bodysuit designed for killing things tho
>>187167Dope, appreciate it
Can one really say a DnD party exists if party members aren't repeatedly robbing each other?
>>18718199/100x, its toxic af and a dick move UNLESS both players have a solid rapport. Hes not wrong to be upset, and if allowed to proceed he would have every reason to lose his shit.
>>187181There's a meme dating back to the invention of the thief class of thieves having short lifespans because the party would kill them for stealing from them (especially back in the day when the XP mechanic encouraged them to).
Stealing from PCs is the oldest taboo. In terms of acceptability it ranks below killing party members.
>>187139
>Implying you could easily win with a supposedly weak character.
Not to take sides, I don't really even know what's going on or why the game is imploding but you know, it's a discrepancy. Though, I haven't read it, it was probably unnecessary of Brie to ponder on how he would steal from you in the first place, or whatever happened.
Anyway, I get it. Conflict between people happens and what are you suppose to, just roll over? But it's been unfortunately so that every time I have time to play the game, there's some drama going on so the GM doesn't feel up for playing and whenever I don't have time the game is rolling on.
It hurts me. However, if I get mad, then I don't really add anything new to an already frustrated group. So here are my thoughts:
Firstly, I like to begin that I like all of you, as in I don't have anything against you and while you might have you problems seem like nice blokes. I feel like that's important to start with.
Secondly, I think we need to calm down, perhaps do like GM has and take a step back from the game a while. Idk. But at least not fight, probably.
Thirdly, how about Brie's player, since he has plans to retire Brie and Brie and Poesy are the players that are usually in conflict with each other; give Brie to the GM to handle while he switches over to Lacey now rather than later. I'm pretty sure both my character and Lacey is in the same town, we could group up if the idea of playing in a group is something you find appealing (I might enjoy it too). It seems that Amber and Dark too have no problems in playing a group. This way, you won't keep stepping on each others' toes.
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>>187198>hand over Brie to GMI'm not ready to sign yet, but am amenable to this idea
>you're doing it again
This is kinda what I was trying to setup by way of Brie fixating on the torpedo. But, while it wasnt something I had assessed, Im not opposed to relinquishing ALL playable characters minimally but VERY spitefully noting how many other players would never IMAGINE doing such a thing
>>187198>it's been unfortunately so that every time I have time to play the game, there's some drama going on so the GM doesn't feel up for playing and whenever I don't have time the game is rolling onI should apologize to you for contributing to that. It's been draining on me too...
>>187201>oh gosh, Im so sorry svenFuck off, where have you been? Seen the oekaki thread lately?
>>187198>give Brie to the GM to handle while he switches over to Lacey now rather than laterI do not see any reason to believe that his behavior will improve if he switches characters. 80% of the problems with him are how he posts OOC.