Nioca

Well, he isn't always there... make sure to check back occasionally.

If I'm right (and it's been a while), there's a secret room somewhere in the town's southeastern wall. There should be a sleeping pad in the room, and the mage should pop up there sporadically.

Sarachim, I think that just might be the trick.

Originally Posted By: Lilith Originally Posted By: Dantius The way to get around that for mages would be to simply dump points into STR and your magic skill. Sure, it would create a mage tank, but I could see that as a viable way of munchkining. Actually, come to think of it, is there any real reason we can't get rid of stats altogether and just have skills? Simple. Attributes handle a wider variety of things they can handle than skills, and several base statistics (dodging, HP, etc.) are based off those attributes. However, they're also more powerful; hence they need to be regulated a bit more tightly. Originally Posted By: Lilith One way to deal with this would be to have skill costs increase in proportion to the value of the skill. Maybe on each level-up you get skill points equal to your new level, and raising a skill costs skill points equal to the current level of that skill? I like this idea, but there's a catch. What happens at low levels? You get 2 skill points to invest in... the skills you don't really care about? Odds are, any skills you want to invest in are already above 2 skill points. Or look at the other end of the spectrum. What happens at level 20? Or level 30? Sure, it'd regulate skills and keep them from getting to high... but you could also turn around and proceed to go bonkers on low level skills you haven't been paying attention to till now.

Originally Posted By: Tullegolar Sorry to see Steve go, but we must press on. Leadership of the party will be up for grabs, so that should be interesting. This might be a good time to allow new players to join, as well! If anyone is interested, just look at the instructions at the beginning of the topic and roll a new character! Don't worry, they won't be underpowered, they'll just have less abilities than veteran characters at first. If anyone new joins, I'll work them into the story and the party can grow and evolve as the game flows. It would be a great opportunity to show some of the remaining classes (there are 27 total) and unleash new abilities upon foes! -Emperor Tullegolar

Originally Posted By: Dantius Originally Posted By: Ephesos Also, watch out Blood Marsh. Gulp. I say, bring it! I also say, use Kurex as a shield!

The next session of Brigandage will launch with the Periot in T-Minus 2 Hours... 1 Hour 59 Minutes 59 Seconds... 1 Hour 59 Minutes 58 Seconds...

Originally Posted By: Ephesos 4. Combat Combat Combat. Hey, I'm not the one who told everyone to only level up their attack skills. When people start doing that, what am I supposed to do? Keep including skill challenges that everybody always fails? A lot of the time, I would prepare the results for skill rolls that nobody ever used... and that kinda ticks me off. So as people keep investing in attack power, I tend to assume people want combat. If people hadn't scaled it up so quickly, maybe combat would've been more reasonable, and we could've had more skill usage. So that is not entirely my fault, and in fact, I would say that the majority of the problem is not my fault. I hate to sound mean, but dang... look at some of your skill ranks! If you leave your Thievery at 1, do you honestly expect me to include a bunch of Thievery checks in the game, when the rest of the party can outdo you untrained? It's part of a vicious cycle, really: Combat tends to be the deadliest thing to fail in, so players tend to invest heavily in it. To keep things interesting, the DM scales the monsters to the combatant's skill level. Players fight those monsters and think, "Oh, crap, I need to stay current in combat skills", and put levels there... Furthermore, if these skill challenges never come up in the first place, the players will likely never use those skills anyway. Therefore, no points go to those skills... Catch my drift? Selos is an interesting case because yes, the only thing they actually ever seemed to invest in WAS combat. But there were still some opportunities to use, say, History a bit more often. Furthermore, you also have Bloodmarsh that has quite a few different skills that could be challenged, but only rarely are. As for untrained skill checks: Personally, I've been employing a "No Attribute Bonus" penalty to those. That way, no matter what your base attributes are, the only way you're going to beat someone actually trained in that skill is if you roll a natural 20 (or they roll a natural 1, which is more likely). (And as for including skill challenges that everybody always fails because of low non-combat skills... Hell, I'd do it. )

On another note, I'm dropping out. I'm getting busy with other campaigns, and this one... Well, it doesn't quite mesh with how I usually RP. I'm still willing to convey messages, though.

Originally Posted By: Tullegolar The log for Session 6 is up. Players who missed it will want to read up on what happened, otherwise you might be a bit confused at the start of the next one. Oh, also titles for the two people that participated: Outer Order Probationer, Initiate of the Casting Circle, Special Lord Darklord Sharrath Naalaar the Ingenius the Lucky of the Nega Lord Pen Artifex of the Nega I will have new character sheets (for those who actually had changes) as well as new pictures of action ready when I post the schedule for the next session. -Emperor Tullegolar

REMINDER! The next session of Brigandage is tomorrow! Furthermore, all submissions of shopping lists are now closed. If you've already submitted a shopping list, please conclude any shopping that's being done by 4:00 PM EDT tomorrow. If I don't hear back by that time, it will be assumed that you bought nothing. Originally Posted By: Yealto, Historian The frequent pilgrimages to Saris Peak resulted in some bright individuals creating the town of Nikorom, a place where pilgrims could rest before heading up the mountain. Unfortunately, as time went on, the religious factions of the city started gaining greater influence. The resulting temple-run city is divided between the main churches of Phol-phoram, Sliros, Liea, and Tanann, with each of these main religions perpetually at each others' throats. Throw in some Kyrophians and your occasional Hurak-worshiper, and you get some very good reasons why anyone within their right mind should stay away.

I had a lot of fun with the finale, and can only hope Bloodmarsh is just as fun. That said, I do have some thoughts. 1) Magic. There's just too many classes, each of which tend to be strait-jacketed into a singular role. Abjuration? Nice, but investing in it takes away from other classes that can have a bigger impact on combat. Illusion? Good in theory, but someone specializing in it tends to get steamrolled by others. Evocation? An excellent blasting class, but it's about limited to just that. There tends to be five ways in each class to do things that belong in other classes, and if you want variety, that's pretty much what you have to do. So my thought is to condense the magic classes down a bit. My personal choice would be to meld Abjuration into the other classes (e.g. physical barriers go to conjuration, force shields go to evocation, etc.), and assimilate Illusion into Evocation. That brings the number down to six. Or, forego the D&D style classes entirely and do something else. 2) Healing. I still don't quite like how it works, especially being on the DM-side of it. To break it down a bit: -2A) It Might Cost Stamina. I'm sorry, but that part really bugs me. It's not that there's a potential stamina cost; it's that there's a stamina cost that's only partially applied. I'd personally be happy if it was just a flat stamina for each healing spell (stamina potions are becoming more common, so it's not like a person would be strictly limited to 9 heals per day, plus there's healing potions...). It'd force the healer to act more strategically with the heals, rather than throwing them out there and hoping to get lucky. -2B) Healing Is Conjuration-Only. This one also bugs me (and my conversations with you suggests it bugs you too). Healing spells could easily get spread out to a few classes, rather than confined to just one. Transmutation and Necromancy could easily have just a flat heal spells, and I imagine Abjuration could have some sort of Healing Shield that ran off hostile spells or some sort. -2C) The Black Knight Effect. You know, that guy that was shrugging off missing limbs as, "Only a flesh wound!" I feel that the parties are sort of acting the same way. What does it matter that I just got knocked down to 1 HP? The healer can just patch me up in a jiffy... This isn't really a complaint as much as an observation, but still, it's odd. 3) 2D Warriors. Let's face it: 100% of my characters have been mages. About 75% of all characters have been mages, and 90% of all characters have had at least some training in a magic school (also, about 90% of these statistics are rough guesstimates). And while I can't speak for the other players, I know why I avoid warrior classes like the plague: They're linear. They only do the one thing, and that's hit an enemy with a piece of metal. And I know that by session 3, I'd be going out of my mind with boredom. Boregloaf got spiced up by learning some techniques, but I say, why not treat techniques like spells and martial classes like magic classes? Basically, my thinking is this: EVERYONE gets a number of spell slots equal to Intelligence. However, non-mages can fill those slots with techniques based on the weapon skill they're using. Naturally, the stronger the technique, the more skill they need in the weapon to use it. And some epic techniques have to be taught, rather than just selected. IMO, it'd do a lot to spice up a rather drab class. 4) Combat Gets Priority. And everything else is just flavor. Seriously, Martial and Magic make up two skills in the skill list, yet they get more screentime than all other skills combined. Basically, in the future, I'd like to see some of the other skills actually come up as useful on a regular basis. Perception shows up fairly often, and Diplomacy... Well, it's used, but we suck at it anyway. Anyway, none of the other skills seem to get a chance to shine, and I'd sorta like to see them show up more often. Otherwise, it just feels like I should have put all my points into Martial (Beat People Up).

Probably. Just a simple one-shot to figure out what works, and what... doesn't.

You know, you could take the five seconds to just backtrack and locate the previous redirect. Of course, than you miss my egregious wit.

Man, I wish I had thought of a practice session. Would have made things easier. Then again, the only one who really needed practice was me, so it may have been moot in any case. Still, a practice session or unofficial test run sounds intriguing.

How's this coming along? I know you don't want to start this before Mote finishes, but the thread's been pretty inactive, and you don't want the campaign sinking in obscurity.

Originally Posted By: Ephesos See, when I leave dates off the calendar, I have a good reason. In this particular case, it is because I will be out of town and unable to DM. I will be unavailable from the 21st to the 23rd, and I apologize for that. Ah, damn. A part of me was hoping it was dates set aside for Selos, which were now free. Quote: Look, the calendar is just downright stupid. And for now, unless I suddenly get word that people can make dates they couldn't make before, the final Blood Marsh session remains slated for Friday the 28th. I know it just means I'm stupid, but I'd rather try and have everyone show up for the final session. The last thing I want is for someone to miss out on one last chance to do epic things. No, it means the scheduling is stupid. You're caught in a lose-lose; either you go ahead and do it early, in which case people are almost guaranteed to miss out, or you do it late and hope [censored] doesn't come up last minute. Again, that's just what I'd do in this situation. You're more patient than I am, so... *shrug*

Oh, yeah, I stand by my claim that greater calendar difficulties = greater awesomeness. I feel my theory has been proven by the difficulties I'm encountering with scheduling the next Brigandage session, since I've gone from having roughly a quarter of the calendar to choose from to having absolutely no clear days at all.

Originally Posted By: Dantius Originally Posted By: Nioca At any rate (and I know this is going to sound callous), I'd recommend using an earlier date. Yes, the entire party should be there, but the problem is, setting a date that far ahead runs the risk of things popping up in the interim. Meaning we could end up approaching the 28th, only to find out that no, the entire party won't be able to make that date. Ridiculous. You're proposing that we select a date where we know party members will be absent in exchange for a date where party members might possibly in the future eventually have conflicts? Makes no sense. ...Except that Bloodmarsh Players' track records with attendance has been spotty, at best. How many times have we had a date people said would work, only for said people to drop off the face of the earth when the session actually arrives? More times then we ought to have, at any rate. If the party could get all its members together consistently without last-minute problems, I wouldn't even suggest this in the first place. At any rate, I can't see the calendar myself, so there may be other factors I don't know about. If I were running this campaign, though, I'd probably pull the trigger on this early. But then, Eph's running it, so it's ultimately his decision.

Wait. Why's May 21st and May 22nd out on the calendar? There may be a potential spot there for the final session we're overlooking. At any rate (and I know this is going to sound callous), I'd recommend using an earlier date. Yes, the entire party should be there, but the problem is, setting a date that far ahead runs the risk of things popping up in the interim. Meaning we could end up approaching the 28th, only to find out that no, the entire party won't be able to make that date. Just my two cents here.

I do! It's nice for small files, or for computers that have difficulty with flash drives (or don't have USB ports).

Did I say the next session would be on the 16th? I meant it'd be on Thursday the 13th. Session 8 will still be on Tuesday, barring other problems. And I hope this is wrong, but it looks like Session 9 will take place on the 30th. Ouch. Originally Posted By: Yealto, Historian Saris Peak is a common destination for pilgrims on a religious journey. Nestled on the mountain's summit, the village is a fortress of solitude and peace. However, braving the mountain itself is a treacherous and draining task.

See no evil, hear no evil, redirect tons of evil. (36 minutes out to the World)

Also, if there's any shopping you want to do, now's a good time. Originally Posted By: Tark, Dwarven Ship Captain Thar be nasty fish in these watarrrs. You may want an umbrella.

...See, if you had voted in the calendar, that wouldn't be a problem. (Actually, it probably would be, but as it is, it's shaping up to be a royal mess. I already know Tuesday doesn't work for everyone either. Guess it's time to call in the subs!) Originally Posted By: Erratis, Necromancer Nations are crumbling, madmen are rising, and everyone is descending into madness. A storm is coming, and I can only hope that my efforts to weather it are not in vain.