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Ephesos

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Everything posted by Ephesos

  1. ...man, I really need to get all of that stuff in order and publicly posted.
  2. Originally Posted By: Tirien Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Originally Posted By: Microvenator flames... flames... the flames on my body as I tried over an over to reach them... burn scars... even on his face I knew curry was hot, but I didnt think it caused fire. I just know that we didn't start the fire. I guess I'll save my monk-like character for a future campaign.
  3. A fair point. Basically, all I wanted to do was avoid the absurdly high numbers and bookkeeping we've been dealing with in Rumors, and tweaking the modifier won't run counter to that.
  4. Bear in mind that the HP re-scaling would be accompanied by totally ripping out how I currently do damage. You wouldn't be getting hit for 15 anymore unless you really, really screwed up. Tanking isn't for everyone. I really, really enjoyed playing Granius in Theressa Expedition, and I've enjoyed playing a monk in my Pathfinder games here, but I'm generally more of a ranged kind of player.
  5. Responding to some earlier things I forgot about: Originally Posted By: Rowen As for future ideas, (months maybe years down the road) would be to have a coming together campaign. There seems to be a connecting thread of your campaigns that is building up to something. I think it would be fun to have a campaign or many campaigns take place all at once and all end in the same place. For the record, I would never want to do the coming together idea using other people's storylines without an extensive briefing at the beginning, and would likely only feel comfortable doing this with my own campaigns. And I certainly wouldn't do it with a party larger than the ones we've had so far... that just gets unmanageable quickly. Now, a campaign where we wound up with, say, 2 Selos PCs, 1 Blood Marsh PC, 1 Rumors PC, and a Labyrinth PC? That could potentially be awesome. Or just stupid. There are certainly enough threads to connect the plots, but I for one don't think it's at a point yet where a meta-campaign is possible. As for the idea of multiple DMs running campaigns that occur on the same island or something... I'm intrigued. It would take twice as much effort as usual, but it could indeed be awesome. Or, we could get the Head of Vecna. Which would still be awesome. Originally Posted By: Dantius I've always loved epic level gaming. I know that in many senses of the word, "epic" is simply a synonym for "bigger numbers", but you must it admit that hitting a arch-lich with a Meteor is way, way more satisfying than tossing a Force Bolt at a goblin, even if both only do 10% HP damage. And, of course, the feeling that the decisions made by your characters will affect not only this campaign and the epilogue, but also all campaigns run by all other DM's in the setting is certainly one that raises the stakes quite a bit, and things way more fun with higher stakes. See... I like epic level stories. But in terms of making it a meaningful play experience, I'm not sure I agree that it's more satisfying. Epic level gaming suffers from one major hindrance in my mind, and it's outlined by your example. So throwing meteors around should deal a lot of damage, correct? But unless everything just becomes trivially easy or a coinflip for survival (do I get to cast Meteor Swarm before the lich uses Finger of Death?), then you have to scale it similarly to throwing a force bolt at a goblin. To me, that cheapens the epic-level experience. Now, when I finally get around to doing some of the Far Expedition stuff, I'll see if I can work around this problem (mechanically, it'll be totally different from AIMhack at present). I think the far more interesting challenge is devising campaigns and adventures that are low-level, but will have far-reaching implications for future stories. And that's how I roll. Originally Posted By: Neon God An HP cap would, I think, go a long way towards homogenizing character builds, which is probably not what we're looking for. This is essentially why I'm against a hard cap, though I do want builds to become a bit less extreme... so I will likely give the HP=10+(2*STR) formula a chance in the next thing I do, along with a damage re-scaling. Originally Posted By: Triumph Character level: any, perhaps levels similar to those that began the Rumors campaign; start out feeling competent; however…it’s fun to make new characters, and it’s fun to continue established characters, so either way works See, if I re-work skills/leveling a bit, then level 1 characters will still be competent. But yeah, I'm feeling better and better about running higher-level stuff after Rumors.
  6. Blarg. I forgot to make a character. Oh well.
  7. Harsh? Nah. Legitimate criticism? Most definitely. Originally Posted By: Lilith - the fight-a-delver-to-get-climbing-gear thing felt a little disconnected from the rest of the campaign, although the battle itself was fun enough while we were actually playing through it. still, putting a sidequest like that so close to the climax of the campaign sort of risks doing weird things to momentum. You have no idea how happy I am that I scrapped another mini-dungeon before the fortress. Like a day before the session, too. Quote: - i felt like everything after the escape from the stronghold at the end of the last session fell a little flat. at that point the players were exhausted in real life and wanted an ending, and then you spring the ring thing on us, which not only makes us run off to deal with something largely unrelated to the rest of the campaign, it sets us arguing about what to do with the ring (and the Knot). I agree, and I apologize. I did not expect Adira to put on the ring as you all were crossing the bridge on the way out, but yes that could've been handled better. Re: Rolling 20s. I totally agree, and this is what I almost always aim to do. In order: Kurex's sword was the Sword of the Buffoon (+1 in melee, -10 composure, with the additional detriment that lies tend to backfire spectacularly). Cursed item. The Dagger of Healing* activation was luck. I'd been asking spectators odd-or-even to determine if it activated. On an activation, it healed 10 hp to whatever it stabbed. Aurora could not deal enough damage, even on a crit. Cursed item. Exploding altars are better than altars that finish casting Rikkla's ritual. Re: Railroading... yeah. This campaign was not the best example of that, and I went a bit overboard in the metathread. Though in those two instances, going after the minotaur would have very likely resulted in a TPK. Very very very likely. In terms of going around the jungle, it would have just been boring fluff in a section of campaign that was already dangerously close to fluff. You're right, I sorta need to make peace with the amount of linearity I'm aiming for early on. But then that means I need to plan campaigns out in more detail earlier on. * - Sidenote on the Dagger of Healing. It effectively arose from my Pathfinder games with friends, where we had come to refer to our wands of Cure Light Wounds as the Dagger of Healing, since we spent so much time stabbing one another with them.
  8. Alright... hands up. Who in this thread is planning on running their own campaign in the none-too-distant future? Enough of the secrecy! *raises hand*
  9. As per usual, I applaud a new DM entering the ring! I plan to submit a character, and may just have to step up to the plate when it comes to being human.
  10. Originally Posted By: Rikkla the Sage "Some things are better forgotten." That's right everyone, it's time for the postmortem thread for Rumors of My Death. While we're still ironing out the conclusion, I figured it's better to start the thread before everybody forgets what happened. After all, we're not all like Rikkla... these are events that we want to remember. There are many things to take care of now that the final die has been rolled. First and perhaps most importantly, it's time to think about character epilogues. I welcome any and all players to submit an epilogue for their character, one which can be posted to the my site. However, you might want to bear in mind the fact that future campaigns might call for higher-level characters, such as the ones you have now. Don't write up your happily-ever-after retirement if you want to join in the next campaign... or be ready to have your vacation interrupted. Second, I welcome any and all questions and comments about the finished campaigns. Pretty much everything is fair game. I want to know what you liked, what you hated, what could be better, what intrigued you, any and all opinions. And remember that I have huge piles of .txt files crammed with campaign info, so fire away. (I reserve the right to give cryptic/unhelpful answers if you ask about things that influence future/current campaigns) Third, there are some things I intend to do for the next campaign(s) I run. These are just going to be procedural changes, but they bear mentioning:HP totals are coming down. I'll be updating the spell compendium, and linking it somewhere so people can actually see it. The skill list will be revised. Leveling might change. Finally, and this one is kind of important, it's time to start thinking about future campaigns. I'm open to any suggestions, and while I have thoughts as to where the plots of previous campaigns can go in the future, I am not bound to continuing them. But, there are a few specific factors to consider with new campaigns:Character Level (affects whether past characters can join) Setting (obviously somewhere on Mote... for now) Theme (horror, gritty, survival, exploration, dungeoncrawl, intrigue, etc) Plot Requests ("Imaunte's disciples", "Land Shark hunting", "Gaunik-Da's sanctuary", "that rock over there", etc) ...so, yeah. That's it for now, so let the discussion begin. As always, I'm happy to have DM-ed for you all, and here's to many more successful campaigns ahead!
  11. Consider that new spell and combat technique approved, pending minor mechanical tweaks that will happen some time down the road.
  12. S'okay, Sarachim covered for you admirably. Click to reveal.. (Spoilers relevant to the final session...) ...And he blew up another altar, once more almost killing Josun. But that's probably a conversation the two of you need to have.
  13. Originally Posted By: Triumph Was there some reason, Eph, why you never posted for public reading the letters Gotay sent to the party, or anything about their meeting? Are you go post that sort of thing now that this campaign is over? Likely, those will be posted in the Postmortem.
  14. Originally Posted By: Mistb0rn Ephesos: is "10 or (2x level) skill points, whichever is higher," an accurate description of your leveling system? At the moment, yes. As with everything, I reserve the right to change it for practically no reason at any time. Also, I'll update the races sheet at some point in the near future. Also also... about that log... Click to reveal.. (It's the FINAL QUOTE-DOWN) Mal: "Should we take the goat with us? We might need a snack later." Kurex: "I solemnly swear to incinerate the next thing we come across before it kills me." Adira: "What? I'm not secretly evil, what gives you that idea? Just because a cat takes offense at some junk from Rikkla's lair, now I'm a bad guy?" Josun: "Argue after the battle!" Aurora: "I knew stabbing someone with a dagger that had healing powers was going to backfire eventually!"
  15. The final session is over! We'll be sorting out some conclusion-related stuff in a PM thread, and I'll get the log posted ASAP. Everyone who survived levels up, and gets 16 skill points to spend. (I might end up swapping everything around anyway, just know that.) There will be a proper postmortem thread as soon as we get the conclusion smoothed over, so for now hang on to your postmortem-like comments. In other news, I'm tired.
  16. Originally Posted By: Lilith At first I was worried that I was the only person here who would be interested in all this high-minded theory stuff, and that everyone else would be like "hey dude I really just want to pretend to be an elf and beat up some goblins, what's all this Creative Agenda stuff you're going on about", but I've been really pleased with the response in this thread so far. I don't necessarily want to make AIMhack more like Polaris, but I think that kind of highly focused narrativist RPG is something we can still draw inspiration from. I am flabbergasted that anyone else has heard of Polaris. But yeah. I look forward to trying a few one-shots, maybe finally working on Tales of the Far, to try and experiment with some of this stuff. Also, just saw this idea over at Penny-Arcade, which abstracts damage to where players no longer track it themselves. I like this idea, but it's probably impractical with the system as it stands (at least for Rumors, with its ever-growing hp totals).
  17. Lilith, that's an interesting spin on it, and something I've always wanted to do more of. At the very least, I want to let people narrate their own kill-shots in the future. And now all of this is reminding me of Polaris, my favorite system that I've never been able to play. It has no DM, and honestly in structure can resemble a lot of the play-by-post RPs back in the archives here (and at Polaris, so I can no longer think of one without the other). The entire system revolves around that kind of give and take between protagonist and antagonists, essentially becoming a negotiation for the most epic story. Oh, and every player character dies at the end, in a beautifully tragic fashion.
  18. Originally Posted By: FnordCola Also, if characters gain skill points at level up, these points should increase with level. I've been doing this in Rumors, and I believe other DMs were doing it before I was. That said, I'm off to go update my site.
  19. Hey all, the next session is TOMORROW, 6PM CST!!! We'll be in "spidwebRPrumors". Be there! It's going to be important! Very, very important! Possibly the finale! Originally Posted By: Grom Oredrinker, Talon Mining Company "My men have been hearing singing coming from the peaks. It's not the ale, it's something else. I'm doubling patrols until we can find whatever is causing it."
  20. Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity We mods never rest in our pursuit of socks offenders. Well, darn.
  21. First off, my apologies for delaying this response. It's been a very weird week. Now, to respond to EVERYONE!!!!!!!!1111!! (Also, with all the issues the system has, and the fact that I've run the most campaigns in it, I realize that I can sometimes come off as a bit defensive and/or bitter in these types of discussions. I apologize for this in advance, and really do want to improve future campaigns with all of this feedback.) Originally Posted By: Lilith The big exception here is hit points. Characters really do get a lot better at surviving damage between level 1 and level 6, especially if their primary stat is Strength. A simple if somewhat radical solution to this is to get rid of automatic hit point gains with each levelup: your HP is just 10 + twice your Strength or something similar, and to get more HP you have to keep raising your Strength. (This also has the neat effect of meaning that you're no longer encouraged to front-load Strength in order to be most effective: a Strength point is worth the same 2 HP whether you buy it at level 1 or level 10.) I like this so much I almost want to retrofit Rumors to it. No, seriously. I wish I'd done this from the start. It would remove some of the absurd power creep, and make it far easier for me to balance fights without having to recalculate everything at every level. This is what I like to call a win/win. And about the retroactively gaining HP thing... well, it was sort of a... well, okay. I just kinda forgot. Originally Posted By: Triumph rather than bestowing level-ups as often as has been typical so far Hey, Rumors hasn't leveled very much at all! In fact, I get so much grief about it that it's getting a little old... Originally Posted By: Lilith Here's a rough rundown of the damage system I've been using in City of Hope: when an attack by a PC on an enemy succeeds, it does at least 1 damage. When an attack succeeds by a margin of 5 or more above the required roll, it does 2 damage. A natural 20 does 3 damage. Spending a stamina point on an attack will add +1 damage to each of these figures, or turn an attack that failed by a margin of 3 or less into a successful attack for 1 point of damage. Most regular enemies have 2-4 HP, while bosses have 10-20. I used something like this in the final fight with Chak-Tha in Selos and the Oracle, but have generally been messing around with other systems. I might move back to something like this, particularly if paired with the aforementioned HP nerf. In Rumors, I've been doing something sort of like 3.5 D&D gone horribly, horribly wrong. Spells and weapons all have a die size, and then you add the relevant stat to the damage. In hindsight, that is a pretty horrible idea, so forget I mentioned it. Odds are I'll revert to something like the above for the tail end of Rumors. Originally Posted By: Sarachim The other problem is that so far perks have been chosen by the DM, and most players like to have control over the direction of their character's growth. If we make perks a more prominent part of the system, we should probably have some or all of them chosen by the player in consultation with the DM. Having the two of them negotiate over just what a perk will do also creates an adversarial system that will hopefully promote balance by making it so that each perk is carefully worked out by two people with different perspectives. I agree. It's been difficult to come up with interesting ones, and I usually feel pressured to try and dole them out to everyone. Or, worse, I get to the end of a campaign and go "aaaaah, hardly anybody got one of them perk thingies". If the PCs in Rumors manage to make it back to Selaneus, they'll probably get the chance for some training like that, courtesy of Gotay. Originally Posted By: Everyone (stuff about STR and DEX skill checks) Gah, I always hated how old D&D had Climb, Swim, Tumble, Balance, Escape Artist, Endurance, etc etc etc. Remember how we had that talk about cutting out the worthless skills? Hey, let's put all of them back in! As an original proponent of those worthless skills, I should say I told you so, but I just feel kind of sad now. And for the thief/gymnast distinction, thus Thievery. Originally Posted By: Everyone (stuff about Composure and social skills) Overall, meh. I kinda want to bring back Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate to be honest. Maybe drop Intimidate because I liked the model of "tell me how you're intimidating someone, and roll that". I don't want to make the party roll for social skills in every conversation, but I do feel like players tend to fall out of character the second they see an opportunity to reason with an NPC. Irrational berserkers become studied diplomats, and monosyllabic mercenaries become eloquent orators. Thus my occasional dependence on a social roll. I want to see if the fighter can say all of that without stumbling over the word "argumentative" or if the bard can keep a straight face while lying to the NPC. Originally Posted By: Nikki (AntiHack) Brilliant! Originally Posted By: Nioca On a non-statisic based note, one thing I'd really like to NOT see in future campaigns is more jungle. Seriously, peoples, there are other biomes, and failing that, other kinds of forest. Maybe a trek in the desert or an arctic tundra. Or perhaps a coniferous forest. I mean, there's nothing wrong with a jungle, but it's starting to get a bit overused here. My apologies, I just like Selos and have enjoyed fleshing out the island. I hope you enjoy your trek into the ice-covered mountains, just try not to fall to your doom. Originally Posted By: Lilith (Same Page Tool) ...I love it, using it for the next campaign. Originally Posted By: Everyone (continued ruminations on combat/noncombat skill "balance", potential d10 rolls) I do not want to reduce the dice to d10s. With leveling the way it works right now, it would be trivial for players to get a marked increase in skill roll results with a single point. Of course, that might just mean that leveling needs to change. Now as for the combat/noncombat skill balance, or rather lack thereof, let me explain my dilemma: As a DM, in order to keep things interesting, I need to have interesting consequences for failure that don't just grind things to a halt. If I can't do this, then whatever skill or roll is at stake feels meaningless. Combat always has stakes for failure, i.e. dying. But let's say we look at a lockpicking check, like Lilith used in an example earlier. If the party fails to get through the Clearly Important Door, well then we're kind of stuck. Okay, maybe a trap goes off and they get through anyway, but then why even have the lockpicking? Let's say that as Lilith said, reinforcements arrive just as the door is opened. Well then we're back to combat being more important than lockpicking, since if you can handle whatever shows up while you're failing, then you still win. In essence: If I ever make a skill check vital to progress, then any potential for failure requires a backup plan (if there's no potential for failure, I am a horrible DM). If that backup plan is a combat, then skills mean nothing and I am a horrible DM. If that backup plan is another skill check, then we hit the same problem again and I am still a horrible DM. If I make something plot-related happen as a consequence, everyone just assumes I was going to do it anyway, and I am an even worse DM for railroading the party (which I am so sick of hearing). So while I love the discussion of how this about skill checks should all pan out, as a DM I still see the end result being people complaining about how I run things, with a side helping of invalidating much of the work that I try to do. And while I'm eternally grateful that by and large people don't do this (to my face at least), I still have trouble envisioning a solution that doesn't just trap DMs in another lose/lose situation. ...anyway, that sort of meandered away from the point. To sum it up, as much as I want to add in more skill checks, I am essentially worried that PCs will just ignore whatever skill challenge I've rigged up and kit themselves out to tank the Ungodly Difficult Combat that is the other way through. Thus, I see myself going the social contract route in the future. Also, honk. And I plan to use a displacer moose somewhere now.
  22. Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Will Martial (Cat) enable one to wield the legendary catberd? You know... I forgot about the catberd. That should've been in Rikkla's lair. But anyway, next session is February 2nd, 6pm CST!!! Be there, or freeze to death in the mountains! Originally Posted By: Nath of the Braid "Perfection lies in honing one's self to the point where no challenge can best you. That is the true path to godhood."
  23. Guess what? I finally decided to stop procrastinating on the log, and it's done! Available here for your reading pleasure. Also, if you have not filled out the calendar yet, please do so here at the earliest possible time. Click to reveal.. (Session 10 Quotes!) Kurex: "Oh look, an ancient artifact of arcane power! No, wait, that's a rock." Mal: "Well, to be fair, it's just plain good sense to avoid someone who's trying to kill you." Adira: "How should I know, I'm just a shrub." Grom Oredrinker: "Never know what you're gonna find, but it's usually good. Or, like I said, it tries to eat you." Aurora: "Just so nobody gets the wrong idea, this is the kind of problem that we're going to be solving with violence, right?" Josun: "Five gold says the mountains have giant eagles or dire goats or something." In other news, that was our tenth session!!! That, given that the campaign is still going, makes it the longest-running in AIMhack history. Yes there's not much history to AIMhack so far, but I'm still pretty dang happy with how this campaign has run so far, and I'd like to thank everyone involved for making it as awesome as it is.
  24. I've got to agree with pretty much all of Slarty's points here. I've been down the sleep deprivation road an awful lot (probably still there), and those are solid bits of advice. Also tea is good. Make sure it's the kind without caffeine. Only had to make that mistake once.
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