Sarachim

Boon of Fellanis is approved. Five hours, people!

Ten thousand thanks to Nioca for doing logs. I'll have a look at your techniques tonight.

I've started a new game, too! This one allows players to message (and nag) each other freely. http://webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=88713 EDIT: Almost forgot, the password is geneforge.

Change of plans! The next session is Thursday, May 24th!

Bad news, guys. I hate to keep doing this when y'all have been so good about showing up, but I can't do the session tonight. Instead, we'll do it Tuesday, May 8th

Level! Click to reveal.. (Chantico) Player: Sarachim Name: Chantico Race: Lacewing Female Occupation: Sage Alignment: Explosive Level: 4 Strength: 3 Dexterity: 2 Intelligence: 8 HP: ?/22 STM: ?/10 Speed: 5 Magic (Evocation): 6 Magic (Conjuration): 5 First Aid: 3 Nature: 2 Artifice: 2 History: 2+1 racial Religion: 2 Perception: 1 Thievery: 0+1 racial 1 point banked

Next session is Wednesday, May 2nd!

Nalyd and Nikki, calendar please.

Originally Posted By: Actaeon (Two more needed for game 2.) Is doubling up now allowed?

Calendar: http://whenisgood.net/ddygk8i Everyone gets 12 skill points.

Originally Posted By: Dantius Holy crap you people are intense. Not building a specialist character is a moral failure on the part of the participant? Designing a generalist character is equivalent to an assault on your fellow players? Claiming that a character who stabs other players in the back is better for the party than one who happens to be bad at combat? Wow, I'm starting to be glad I have no time to play anymore. AIMHack got craaaazy since I left. You never bought into the idea that you had obligations toward your fellow players in the first place. That's why everyone stopped inviting you to their campaigns.

Originally Posted By: Nioca Yes, one-stat builds are going to have a lot of raw firepower with their chosen weapon, but there's two catches to this: First, defenses are spread across all three stats, which means there's going to be some gaping holes in a single-stat-character's defenses. This is bad, because combat in this system is geared to be fast and bloody (I don't have weapon stuff up yet, but your average melee weapon does 5Dmg a hit, and your average ranged weapon does 4Dmg a hit). But they'll compensate for poor defense against some things with superb defense against other things. And, of course, superior offense in every situation. This is only a problem for specialists if the GM decides to counter their choice by loading fights with the thing they're weak against. I am mean enough to do that, but the rest of you are not. Quote: Second, the character's ability to use other weapons and strategies will be seriously limited, meaning that if they come across something that straight STR or DEX or PER can't handle, they're going to be up a creek very quickly. As it stands now, I think the system favors two-stat builds more than one-stat builds. This would be true if this were a single-player game. Since it isn't, being excellent at some tasks and worthless at others is more useful to the party than being mediocre at all of them. Three specialists with non-overlapping specialties will be better at everything than three generalists.

16th and 17th are great, 19th is okay but my last preference. Also I just realized I would have had to cancel Friday, so yay! I'm off the hook!

We're starting, better late than never. Anyone who wants to watch, come to SWAbyss!

Double-post for our supplemental items. So far, I have rules for alchemy and armor. Click to reveal.. (Alchemy!) The same ingredients exist as in the Avernum series, and they're used to make the same potions. You can use Alchemy, Arcana, or Nature to search for potion ingredients in the wilderness, and get a small synergy bonus for knowing more than one of those skills. Anyone who knows Alchemy knows how to make generic potions (healing, energy, curing, speed), but for stronger/more obscure ones like Graymold Salve and Knowledge Brew your character needs to find the recipe (and, without an epic-level alchemy skill, any attempt to make them will probably fail). If you want to invent new ingredients or recipes, run them by me. Click to reveal.. (Armor!) Armor In these rules, "armor" refers to all the protective gear a character is wearing. A character's armor can be light or heavy. Non-magical light armor adds 1 to Evasion, but gives a -2 penalty to Athletics and Acrobatics. Non-magical heavy armor adds 2 to Evasion, but gives a -3 penalty to Athletics and Acrobatics and -1 to speed. In addition, heavy armor tends to be conspicuous in the iron-poor world of Avernum. This can be a good thing if you're trying to look tough, or a bad thing if you're trying not to be noticed. Click to reveal.. (The Bandits!) In the aftermath of the last battle, Yemirrr takes some time to review the bandits you're travelling with. Combined with your experience of the past few days, you now know the following: Excluding the party, there are 21 bandits in the group. That seems a little smaller than the group that left the hideout two days ago, and some faces are definitely missing. By species and specialty, they break down as follows: 8 archers: 6 nephilim, 2 human 4 slith fighters armed with spears and javelins 8 human fighters with a hodgepodge of melee weapons Devos, the human priest and healer The big nephil who dislikes Urgdnebbot is named Porrom, and seems to be the unofficial leader of the nephilim bandits. You learn most of the other names, so anyone that comes up during the session will be at least slightly familiar. Based on the fights you've observed them in, there's a great deal of variation in the bandits' skill in battle. Some are noticeably more skilled than most, more eager to throw themselves into the thick of battle, and well-armed with captured Empire weapons. At the other extreme are a few that are poorly armed with old bronze weapons, crude wooden clubs, and- in one case- a pitchfork. This latter group tends to linger at the sides of a fight, ganging up on enemy stragglers and wounded. You ask Sieberr about this, and she explains: "It's what you humans call a chicken and egg prroblem. The brravest fighterrs arre entitled to the best loot from a battle, but having a betterr weapon would make anyone brraver. It worrks out well, though, because everryone plays the parrt they'rre suited to- some of us are borrn hawks and some are borrn vulturres. Stewarrt was successful because he underrstood this, and didn't ask his vulturres to hunt or his hawks to scavenge." After this, there's a short digression in which she explains to the lifelong Avernites in your group what hawks and vultures are. Apart from the leadership challenge, the customs of the bandits mostly revolve around the division of loot. As chief, you have the authority to distribute and re-distribute, but you're also responsible for making sure everyone has what they need. You don't trade, you give and take as needed. It's a delicate balance to keep everyone satisfied; Sieberr tells you the three chiefs before Stewart all had their leadership challenges start over the division of loot.

Originally Posted By: Nioca Originally Posted By: Sarachim Logs and supplemental stuff coming this weekend. It's a holiday weekend, so Monday is technically part of it. If it helps, think of the past month as an intermission between Chapter 1 of the campaign and Chapter 2.

The next session will be Tuesday, April 10th, gods and ancestors willing. Logs and supplemental stuff coming this weekend.

All the dates you listed work for me.

Bad news, folks. I'm not feeling up to a session tonight. I put off deciding for a while in the hopes that I'd feel better, but I doubt that's gonna happen. I'll look at the calendar tonight and reschedule. Sorry for the new delay.

Originally Posted By: Nioca Also, I'm hoping there's last minute brigand and armor supplements to go with Nikki's last-minute level. Working on them now. I've been in Oklahoma for the past six days, but now I've got the whole day to devote to this session. As for Nalyd being grounded. . . hmm. Yeah, I have to think about how to deal with that.

Sadly, something's come up for me tomorrow night. The next session will be Wednesday, March 28th instead.

Thanks, guys. The next session is Wednesday, March 21st at the usual time.

Speaking of bumps, I'm still waiting on calendar responses from Nalyd and BJ! http://whenisgood.net/tjfs4ds Also, watch out for some supplemental stuff soon, including armor rules and more details about the bandits you've been traveling with. Also, logs.

Originally Posted By: Jerakeen Is it available for Mac? The originals are. I don't know whether the thing that will be announced in two hours will be, because it's still shrouded in mystery.

Originally Posted By: BMA Originally Posted By: Nightwatcher What is this all about I'm equally at sea. The site shows a skull with a running timer, and nothing else. Very mysterious. Could someone please explain ? The skull is the logo for the classic Baldur's Gate series of RPGs, the last of which came out in 2000. Some people think that when the timer runs out, Bioware will announce a sequel or remake of them. They are excited, because Baldur's Gate was awesome and you should go play it.