Triumph

Actually, with the setting-on-fire reference, I was thinking more about the jungle of Selos (which I know technically Zarusa set on fire, but it was, practically, an action of the party). Kurex...well, his ability to set things on fire is certainly not in doubt. His choice of targets...

Personally, I LIKE it when the party gets to experience to the adventure and explore the dangers of Mote, rather than creating dangers for themselves by lying ineptly, stealing ineptly, talking ineptly, setting things on fire ineptly, and breathing ineptly. I hope I'm not the only one who gets tired of one's party shooting itself in the foot head multiple times. Competence really is more fun! And in DB, the party and DM still managed to be witty despite not hating each other, so you get the best of all worlds.

Wow! Xiriatl's spells rock! Those look really cool. I had been hoping someone would try to exploit the untapped power of Divination, and now I am glad Xiriatl has. I'll look forward to his further adventures. And Eva...crazy. Just crazy. Overall, I think this looks like a really interesting party. Having now read the first log, I think campaign looks exciting as well. I'm also impressed that this seems to be the LEAST dysfunctional party in the history of AIMHack. They didn't start any riots or brawls or burn down jungles or otherwise cause trouble for themselves the entire first session! Congratulations to you all! Thanks for posting, Sarachim!

Oh, will the magic-using characters' spells get posted somewhere anytime soon? I'm especially curious to exactly what Xiriatl and Eva can do.

Well, that could easily be fixed by simply making single-wielding fighters more effective... I think dual-wielding is probably more the "rule of cool," than anything else.

Originally Posted By: Ephesos (Or we can come to some agreement about Harosh disappearing.) Perhaps Harosh can have an unfortunate encounter with a mysterious type of portal of known as a "Plothole" and vanish from the campaign... Although...I'm halfway hoping I get to substitute as Harosh, and also Xuan, so that I can claim to have played as every character in Brigandage (so far I've done Casper, Iliau, Erika, and even the now-defunct Anthony).

Originally Posted By: Randomizer Melee attacks by the ice wraith are less damaging than missle. Thank you! That did the trick! It was doing 80 or 90 damage with it's ranged attack, but only 20 when I kept my mage-priests out of sight casting heal while my two dual-wielding melee fighter ran up and whacked it. Oh, for anyone who is curious, I did this at level 11.

What level might be recommended for the ice wraith under Patrick's Tower? Any particular strategies recommended for it? Thanks.

Interesting observation: Popularity of Races This is the population of PC races in Mote, based on active characters as of the finales of the Bloodmarsh and Selos campaigns, and characters currently active in Brigandage and Dust Bowl (basically I didn’t count characters who just dropped out of campaigns). That's four campaigns of characters. Human 7 Elf 5 Lacewing 4 Goblin 2 Dragonborn 2 Dwarf 1 Considering the hypothetical scarcity of humans in the Mote setting, this is interesting to note. I would assume so many people choose human simply because, assuming all users of the Spiderweb forums are human, it just seems more natural and comfortable to play humans. But I am curious what thoughts people might have about the races, their characteristics, or why people do or don't like certain races. Does the way Eph characterized them initially, or the racial skill bonuses, have any significance? Personally, I made a lacewing because at the time there were no lacewings in play, and because I wanted to make a historian character, so I took advantage of the racial bonus to history. Although I didn't realize they could "fly" a little, once I found that out, I had fun using it to make Lanrezac a bit acrobatic.

Originally Posted By: The Mystic Originally Posted By: Triumph Originally Posted By: Randomizer Averforgegate Alternatively, Averforgegate could be the name of the political scandal that erupts when it turns out high ranking government officials tried to combine Avernum and Geneforge. So you're saying that the Avernum mayors' council and the Shaper council are actually the same people? I knew it! It's a Spiderweb government conspiracy, man! And Sylak leaked information to them to orchestrate the whole thing!

Originally Posted By: Ephesos Of course, then they elected to not bribe the guy when given the horribly obvious chance, so the fail went through anyway. Speaking of that bribe opportunity, it reminds me...I didn't offer a bribe because I didn't think Lanrezac, with his in-character background up to that point, would have any idea what offer. I even rolled a Streetwise check trying to figure it out (it didn't help, unsurprisingly). So I hoped that some of the more street-savvy characters would suggest something...yeah, that didn't work either. I also worried that if I offered too little or too much, something bad would happen. My question: was I over-thinking the whole situation? Does my character I need any special knowledge to bribe the slaver-driver, or would something terrible have happened if I'd over- or under-paid in my initial offer to the guy?

Originally Posted By: Randomizer Averforgegate Alternatively, Averforgegate could be the name of the political scandal that erupts when it turns out high ranking government officials tried to combine Avernum and Geneforge.

Originally Posted By: Ephesos Crafting (Zeppelins) Wait, is it possible to take Crafting (Zeppelins)? Now I know what my next character will be! On a more serious note (not that I wouldn't love to have a strange airship-building character if that's possible!), thanks for insights, Eph. That really helps things make more sense me, and gives me a better idea of what will be appropriate in the future.

Thank you for clarifying, Nioca; I'm not all that familiar with the different terms, so that was ignorance showing through. I agree with your comments, though. Ooh, another question that I'd love to hear from you DM-ish people: when things go south in a social situation (whether because a player said something stupid or got a bad roll...how much/should other characters intervene? Examples: I got the impression (afterward) that with the mob in Quera other party members should have intervened somehow to try to stop Vitze from inciting mob to attack Zarusa. On the other hand, I got the impression (afterward) that when we several of us were trying to talk when we got to Sarden, we made things worse than if we'd let just one's person story, however flawed, stand. I feel like I (or Lanrezac) probably handled it the wrong way both times, and I'd like to get a better sense of how I'm "supposed" to play. This really has nothing to do with stats and everything to do with roleplaying/ the DM's expectations, and I would appreciate anything that could help me better understand it. Another question: is there any kind of definite policy yet regarding attempting something in which one has no skill points? Example: it was the Quera mob incident that inspired Lanrezac to take up diplomacy. Since at the time he had no skill in area, I made no effort to participate in that challenge, assuming he wouldn't be any good at it. On the other hand, everyone rolls perception all the time, whether or not they have the skill, and the results seems to hinge more on the roles than on whether someone has the skill. Again, I'd just like to understand the expectations better, whatever way they are, and I'll be fine going along with it.

One thought I had before is that it seems like one gets so many more chances to fail in combat than in skill challenge situations. One can roll badly loads of times in a fight and still win (we’ve seen it happen many times). But in a diplomacy/perception/whatever situation, a lot of times it seemed like one got one or two chances to fail and that was it. To some extent that is only realistic, of course. And I'm not complaining. But from a balance point of view, it makes those skill-based situations a lot harder than combat. Less forgiving, few chances to compensete for a bad roll. Or so it seemed to me. Now, I know at least once when I think Eph gave multiple chances, because it was so big (the mob that Vitze ended up inciting), but many social interactions...if it went south, there was no chance for recovery (or at least that was how I as a player perceived it). I really don't have a solution - like I said, it is realistic that you can only fumble your words so many times before someone gets ticked off...but it certainly makes those situations less forgiving than a fight, and correspondingly harder. Now skimming through the discussion following the first Dust Bowl session; random thoughts will follow: Regarding metagaming and min-maxing: I feel like it’s not possible to create a powergaming-proof system. It’s better to be explicit with the players about how the system works and what your expectations are in terms of character development. Comments about saying stupid stuff: sometimes it’s just plain stupid, other times I feel like the players (or at least me) really didn’t understand the situation, or the GM’s expectations, and I’m not sure it’s entirely the players’ faults. Another aspect of that is learning that we rolled way too often. Having never played any game like this before, I had no idea what was appropriate. I know now that if I ever play again, I’ll only roll on those things if the DM asks me to. I always did my best to say things that made sense, but felt like what I said never mattered because the dice rolls were bad. Probably part of that was rolling when I shouldn’t have (and didn’t know any better). Part of that was also not understand what was/wasn’t appropriate to say. Not sure how I can learn that, though. I consciously try NOT to metagame…I felt like I succeeded overall. In some cases, as mentioned, ironically I feel like I failed in-character because I didn’t understand things out of character.

Originally Posted By: lampshade The plot still reminds me of Alcritas's Arc series. And for someone who knows neither Alcritas nor his Arc, what was that plot? Regarding Slarty's "hey you" listing...I think varies somewhat by game how well it's handled. As others have said, G1 made decent sense in that you almost the only Shaper around. Nethergate also made sense, in a way, for why you were chosen to get involved. G5 actually made sense to me if your character really is a very powerful shaper who suffered a massive breakdown and is now recovering; you effectively start as a super powerful person who just needs time (=level-ups) to get back on your feet. I think A6 also does a decent job; you start out as lowly soldiers, and are given increasingly important assignments only as you prove yourself. There's a progression where you come to the attention of increasingly important people - there's not sudden jump from obscure to essential. Oh, A1, as someone said, the way thing work makes sense, as you just do things it makes sense you would want to do (e.g. escape the pit). As a sidenote, I loved the amnesiac character of G5 because it left you with no obligations, no past loyalties, and thus a sense of complete freedom to choose among the factions; it was an interesting break from the earlier Geneforge games where I always felt I was betraying whatever group (shapers or rebels) I came from to join another faction. On the other hand: G2...maybe you can argue that your character has a responsibility to investigate things even if not well trained. But I'd say especially in G3 and G4 the importance of your character is not perhaps justified as well as one might like. Especially in G3: Lord Rahul has loads of Shapers, but he relies on you for everything? Seriously? A2...your lowly soldiers are really the best people send into the unknown? Really? The way you get chosen in A3 is flimsy, but it always amused me, so I'll give it a pass. A4...how does A4 even begin? In other words, I'd say about half of Jeff's seems to a have a somewhat reasonable basis for what you characters do/their rise to prominence, and the others are basically..."hey you." Hopefully Avadon will be the former and not the later.

Fascinating. I hope that, with Bluebeard the inspiration and Redbeard the character, we'll also get Blackbeard the pirate somehow fit into the game.

Hmm...well, the GIFTS made it to Shadowvale, but never to Terrestia, so it could either way. And Nioco: LOL!!!

* speculates wildly * I wonder whether Avadon will have exploding sock puppets for enemies.

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan The Commander Keen games ... In the spirit of this thread, let's try find the name of a game I played a couple of times at my cousin's. I'm usually pretty good at remembering game names, by virtue of typing in the DOS commands needed to play them, but as I wasn't playing it on our computer... You played a mercenary piloting a jet. Unlike Raptor: Call of the Shadows, this wasn't a side-scrolling game; you could pilot your jet in any of the cardinal directions. Don't remember much about the actual gameplay, but I do remember the intro cinematic. You see the player character in the cockpit, having a flashback. The PC is running up a hill, and you see a thought bubble of what is presumable his wife and child. He gets to the top of the hill, you see his city getting carpet bombed, cut to him crying, then end flashback. I'm not an old gamer, and I remember the game being decently polished, so it shouldn't be too tough to track down. Yeah, Commander Keen was cool. I believe the game you're describing is called Zone 66. Google it and you can even see the intro on Youtube. When my family got our first computer with Windows 95 on it, it came with a CD with a ton of game demos. The first level of Zone 66 was one of the many demos with which my brothers and I amused ourselves.

The Strategy Central post, sticky-ed near the top of the forum, has links to loads of discussions about optimization that you'd probably find interesting. From what I recall, all-Nephils is the way to go to achieve maximum optimization, and both Sliths and Nephils are better than humans. Divinely Touched is also so good that all characters should pretty much have it. And dual-wielding turned out to be the way to maximize damage.

WOW. That's amazing. Nice work!

Boregloaf does indeed ROCK. Good writing, Diki. Glad I sort of helped inspire it.

Biology fail. Or maybe just taxonomy fail?

Nice Perfect Dark reference, Nioca.