Ooh, yeah, that's the problem with seeing that message about needing a new that and thinking there's time and then forgetting all about it. Thank you, Talia!

 Huh, roomy in here!

In reply to Korentin Black (msg # 2):

It's an easy read so far ^_^

So... the whole purpose of requiring a new thread after 1k posts is to ensure we can use a button that, in more than a decade and a half on RPOL, I only noticed today? That seems... unnecessary.

Much more necessary if you are trying to display all the posts to print or save them off somewhere, I would think. But... well... this one is just an OOC thread, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm not sure your lack of attention to detail is necessarily the standard we should be going by. grin  It's mostly helpful if you want to Search for something - you can bring the whole thread up and then run a Find and it makes it a lot faster to track down, say, a discussion about a house rule or, you know, whatever.  I use it pretty often.

Hey! Watch your mou- Oh, squirrel!

:D

Hello! I was added in recently and look forward to gaming with you all!

Welcome aboard.

Hello! Excited to have a new player and an Obsidiman no less! ^_^ Welcome to the team!

Where do I post my character sheet?

It will be under Character Details like usual (top left). If there isn't one there yet, Garlen will have to give you one.

And it is, of course, totally there.  Now.  ahem

I did copy in my sort of default character sheet blank, but if you already have it written up you're welcome to erase all that and paste in your own.  I'm not super fussy about everything being in the same place for everybody.

https://youtu.be/YR5ApYxkU-U?t=2m20s

Apparently, Taia's been watching me watch TV lately....
*draws curtains*
*turns down volume*
>_>
<_<

In reply to Taia Talshara (msg # 14):

One of my favorite movies. Cheers!

Who watches the Watchers? This girl! ;)

Is this why they kicked you out of the Wood, Taia?

There were just sooooo many reasons.

I mean, yeah, it was one of them. Also, apparently they frown on playing "He Loves Me Not" with one of the Queen's guards' thorns. ;)

I'm guessing the end result was that he indeed did, "love you not." Such a sad story.... T_T

Well, I dunno about all that. But he sure as hell wasn't happy. ;)

In reply to Taia Talshara (msg # 17):

 I know that one. Who watches the watchmen? Me, Ms Talshara.

 And who watches me?

 I do that too. All the time.

Is that some kind of Narcisistic personality disturbance?

 Nah, just a bad case of knurd.

The Guards have some of the best character growth from any series I've ever read. I always enjoyed the Witches a little more directly, but I loved seeing the Guards change. Even Nobby.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:03, Mon 27 Aug 2018.

 Well at least someone got it. ^_^

 I bloody love Sir Samuel Vimes.

Ugh.  Computer issues are not getting better, or showing any signs of improving soon, but... posted some LP rewards, at least, so anyone who feels like doing that can, um, do that.

I will try to work up at least an, "A few days pass.." kind of post in the next, well, few days, which will introduce Talus?  If you're still here, I hope???  I know I totally dropped out right after you joined, so I wouldn't blame you if you've given up.  Let me know, please; it would be awkward to introduce you and then have you not be there. grin

And Taia, you will now officially speak Throalic!  It is, of course, up to you if you want to play it a little bit rusty for a while, but, you know, between a teacher, total immersion, RL convenience, and the fact that the rules really don't support anything but totally on-or-off language skills, you should be able to understand and communicate effectively. grin


...In other news, I know the speed of this game -- that's not really the right word for it.  The lack of speed of this game?  Anyway, I know it makes it hard to keep hold of what has happened.  I've had a request for a Story So Far kind of thing, and I'm working on writing that up, but even for me that's meant going back to look through old messages so it will take a bit, especially if I don't want it to supersede actually running the game in the meantime.  But maybe combined with the Loose Threads thread, it will help make up for my issues.

And as always, everyone, thank you for putting up with me!

But I still get to talk smack in Sperethiel, right? ;)

Oh, no. Do I have to listen to Taia talk smack in Sperethiel and Throalic now? Is there no peace?

Greetings, I am indeed still around. Thank you for the up and comming summary.

In reply to Talia (msg # 30):

https://youtu.be/RsUscVoZcMQ?t=15s

:D

After extensive review, I'm afraid smack talk will not be developed in Sperethiel until the year 2014, when Harlequin releases his best-selling holobook, Or'zet Or Not?.

Until then, I'm afraid the best you can do is, "Your mother's health is so fraught with obesity, I have become concerned for her.  Is there anything I can do to help?"

In reply to Garlen (msg # 33):

Well, that's just a translation of regular smack-talk. Pre-2014 Sperethiel smack-talk sounds … well, like that, yes. Offers to help with another's mother's health.

Also.

"Another's mothers's" sounds like the start of a neat tongue twister. ;)

"Hey Calypte, I need to borrow 500 gold for a... thing... over there... I'll be right back. Promise." :D

On an unrelated note, I'll post shortly-ish. I need to figure out exactly how to respond to Mithrandir Morandir. Especially since the money is free. (I mean, if Calypte is just gonna make it rain... ;)

I know you're still learning the language, Tai, but we might need to discuss what "a moderately reasonable amount" means. grin


Hey!  I'm no Elementalist!  But that might be why I keep forgetting which element is supposed to come down when it rains.  I know it's something shiny.  Next time I'll try blades^*.  I mean, even if that turns out to be wrong, it should segue nicely into my third guess, the blood of snarky elves.


^{*- Blades are definitely an element.  Kn on the periodic table.}

I hate to point this out, but this snarky elf's blood already rains from her body... ;)

*pulls out umbrella*
So, I will be posting shortly, also. I sort of have to figure out what exactly Talia has been up to with her spare time now that she isn't destitute.

The bad news is, I need to take my computer back in for repairs.  The good news is, the actual repairs should get done this time!  (There's more bad news after that, but hopefully it won't impact the game so much.)

I will still be able to borrow the other laptop in the house, but, yeah... when we're sharing, nobody has as much time, which is why all of our Kindergarden teachers were wrong and sharing is bad, bad, bad!  ...Um, is that not the moral?  That might not be the moral.

Anyway, yeah, do please carry on the conversation, and I'll try to stay in touch, but I have no idea how long this will take.

What're the odds that the week I can't post is the week stuff happens? ;) I'll post ASAIC.

Happy Halloween, everybody!

Happy Halloween!!!

 Bah, Happy Catholic Burning Day is where it's at!

So, I mostly wanted to let everyone know that Taia sent me a message letting me know that she's having a rough time in RL right now and won't be able to be on RPoL for a while.  Hoping things get better sooner than later, of course, but it sounded pretty indefinite.  So I may actually go with her difficulties with Throalic as an excuse for her to stay quieter for longer, and will try to slide her over to a place where she can kind of be `on hold' until and unless her player can come back to us.  In the meantime, of course, I just hope they're OK.

Otherwise, I mean, as always, I'm hardly in a position to, like, push, and I know Calypte is quite the show-stopper, but I don't want to just leave things languishing if the conversation is more or less done - sometimes it's hard to tell, as a GM, when the players are finished with a scene, you know?  So, do people have more to talk about here at the table, or are we ready to move along?  And if we're moving along, kind of... where to?

Sad to hear about Taia. :( Obviously, if there's anyway to help, it's offered... but it sounds like he's signed off already. Hopefully, things will resolve in the sooner than the later, but with RL that's always hard to know. As always, though, that's priority, so good luck, friend.

I think Talia is on course to accept Talus and move along to scroll investigations as planned with him along, but she wouldn't, of course, object to actually seeing Talus, you know, Warrior at things, or whatever it is he does just to have that little piece of mind that at least that much is trustworthy about him. Not that she doesn't trust him. Not that she does. She may have some personal issues, actually, but that's for somewhere else in the game. :P

Sorry to hear about the ruff stuff cropping up.  As other have stated, I would also have to prioritize life first. I wish you luck and skill with your ailments/issues.

As for the game I am good to move on or we can keep talking... I am just unsure as to when we are done eating or drinking here. And will say so in character in a moment.

 Whereas I have just been totally bloody rubbish and I apologise wholeheartedly. The 'festive' season has been hectic and stupid and the sooner it's over, the better. Bah Humbug! ^_^

The Sky Raider Who Stole Christmas for 500 please, Alex. ^_^

Though, I concur. I am tired of all the cooking and potlucking. It's gonna be soup and sandwiches for dinner soon, kids!

I'm not a huge fan of the season either.
It's the time where I have to chose between spending more money than I have or pretend to be an indentured servant. No matter what the choice I have to "make an effort" and refrain from any complaints.

OK, so indeed, the holidays haven't helped me keep to my rigorous posting schedule. ahem


Soup and sandwiches is actually our Christmas Eve tradition, but Mom does lay out a whole spread of meats and cheese and breads, and then there are like pickles and olives and stuff on the side, so it's a lot more exciting than it sounds.  I think I look forward to it more than Thanksgiving, food wise.  (Although the soup part is always oyster stew.  Ew.  I do like the little soda crackers, though.)

Just to let everyone know, I don't see any need for Tal to update any posting until the practice match is over, unless things get... well... weird.

Kind of the same here.
I should probably post something about Ama insists on watching the the match for academic purposes. She could probably get some sociological publishing out of it.
*Ahem*

Argh.  I'm sorry.  I'm not actually waiting for people -- when this was shaping up, I thought, "OK, Talus has been pretty quick on things, I'll just keep up my end and we can move through this scene without holding things up!"  But I've been really busy.

I'll post for Calypte tomorrow, for sure, and will really try to move faster after that!

(I know... but, like 4328th time's the charm, right?  That's what they say, anyway.)

Quick Question: Talus has a social defense of 6, Calypte rolled a 6 to taunt. Who wins that? Is the general rule tie goes to defender or is this a world of greyness kind of thing where you have to meet the value not necessarily beat it?

An opponent's defense ratings are your Difficulty Number, eg., the minimum roll that will succeed.  That's true for all Difficulty Numbers -- the number is your goal, not one-under-your-goal.  So with a Social Defense of 6, a roll of 6 is an Average Success, just like if you had, say, a DN10 Climbing roll you would need to roll ten or higher to succeed.

In reply to Talia (msg # 51):

 For the record, +1. ^_^

And I have to admit that I also expected "First Touch" to go a lot faster, but the DR said noooo... grin  Which, for roleplaying purposes, is probably better; if Calypte had just tapped Talus on the chest in Round 1 before he had a chance to move, it would have been harder to explain why we were then bringing him along afterwards.

Anyway - as an aside, we realized that Taunt is one of the Talents that has changed a lot across the Editions that we use, so I clarified that in the "What Edition..." post.  I also moved that into its own thread, because I think it was too hard for people to find in the "Changes" thread -- I couldn't even always remember that that's where it was.  I'm keeping it all in one post, though, so that I can keep them alphabetical.

 Looks like a lot of work put in there. Well done. ^_^

I do appreciate not being 'tapped' on the first action as well. He would just be sad and have to go back to training and challenge you guys again later in the campaign.

I have a very distinct picture of the grisly Black drawing out the practice sword. With his dark and menacing aura testing the chosen sword out on some imaginary foes. Turning with a grim expression on his face towards the ring...... Then bouncing merrily into the ring like a child to their favorite playground, tail swinging and all.

His last statement about 'padding' just made him go chibi in my mind. I can't stop smiling about it.

In reply to Talus (msg # 60):

 I like to imagine Black walking as though someone's threaded a clothes hanger through the shoulders of his coat and it's hanging from a wire suspended between the points he's passing... His upper body barely moves, it's all hip and leg action kind of the way big cats do, mainly because where he grew up he needed every inch of height he could get. ^_^

I do not think that there is a healer in the group.... we more or less rely on our magical goodness to heal post impact.

So, survive the fight and heal later.

Well, that last bit is really always true in Earthdawn.  The only healing I can think of that's made to use "in battle", really in the whole game, is Fireblood.  Maybe Questors of Garlen get something?  But if anybody here wants to be a Questor of Garlen, they'll have to bring me cookies. grin

But the first part is... also true.  With Varessa leaving we don't even have an Elementalist anymore.  I think generally speaking, if we want to have much in the way of healing, we need to pick up some potions.  I suppose we do have money right now, and we are in Bartertown.  It'd probably be a good idea.

Luckily Adepts do tend to heal well anyway, though.  ...Everybody bought way up in Toughness, right? grin

 Shockingly, it is Black's second highest stat.

 Just... don't ask about Charisma. ^_^

 Oh, and the party healer?

 That's also Black, because he has ranks in Physician and isn't afraid to use them.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:11, Thu 14 Feb 2019.

My dad taught me you need to learn to fix what you break. Makes sense for Black to have physician to me.

My dad said "You break it. You buy it!" (scared the living daylights out of my first boyfriend. Fortunately dad was talking about his guitar the BF had mishandled).
Always made me very aware of my economy.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:49, Sat 16 Feb 2019.

OK, I'm sorry that took me so long to actually get done - and that it's taken away my attention from an actual update this last couple weeks to get that finished - but I just posted up what is hopefully a good summary of the game so far.  I at least skimmed through all the old threads while writing that, so I don't think I missed anything important, but I was trying to keep it brief, which, as you probably know, isn't my natural tendency. grin

I didn't bother noting all the various comings and goings of PCs, and really tried to stick to actual plot points - in particular, most everything in there are things that I keep in mind as potentially still active plot points.  Like, I know it's been forever, especially in RL, since we've seen Arkan and Narlinda, but they were interesting and might be useful to have show up again sometime.

If anybody has any questions or wants more detail on anything - even things you weren't there for IC - feel free to ask.  I hope this helps everyone get a little more re-connected with the game!  I will try to get an update post up sometime this week moving us on to the Library.

Thank you for the summary!

Found this link

http://time.com/4026473/ridiculous-science-studies/

Tried to use it for the post, unfortunately I was pressed for time so I couldn't get creative with the one about democracy or homelessness and try to fit that into the Barsaive setting. Please ignore the topic of the ridiculous research I posted. ^_^'

 That explanation is vastly more coherent than anything I remember happening at any point. ^_^

You're welcome, Talus!  I hope it helps everyone.


I thought that was hilarious.  Especially because I could imagine some junior librarian putting something about enemas into a section on `kaer exploration' and thinking that was hilarious.


I think like, each piece was more coherent at the time... grin

So, after an exciting foray into the rules on Barriers and Structures (ooooh!  Ahhhh!)...

To actually attack the door, if that's definitely what you want to do, you roll vs an effective PD of 7 to land the blow solidly enough to matter.  If you beat that, you roll damage as normal.  Armor Defeating Hits do not apply to inanimate objects, since there's no armor to "get through".

"Wood, 2+ inches thick" is normally Armor 9, with a Death Rating of 30.  This is really good wood, so I'm going to say it's Armor 10 and a Death Rating of 35.

So if you are going to pound your way through, you can just roll attacks until you accumulate 35 points of damage so that we see how long it takes, and then I will either let you know if something interrupts before that, or describe what happens when the door opens.

 Well, yes... But we're left to wonder whether the door opens in such a way as to block the corridor, or to sweep into the room (which is very much the rule in most structures).

 If the latter, then we can just use a knife to pry the pins out and put the door to one side, neatly and intactly. ^_^

So... I'm a little bit stuck.  I know Amalianna is having technical issues right now, which is of course totally OK.  Or rather, that sucks, but... you know what I mean.  And I agree with Talia that Calypte is easily the next most likely person to speak up here, but...  this feels like one of those scenes where if I just play Calypte, I'm basically playing both sides of the table and I don't like that for many reasons.

*sigh*  I know, I really do have to retire Calypte.  Maybe I can run her in another game someday.

Anyway, for the moment, what do you guys want to do?  I can just do that if people want; as I've said before, I have no trouble writing Calypte honestly, so it's not like she would just be saying all the right things (or all the wrong things, for that matter) -- I just start feeling like I'm just writing a scene in front of you guys, and I don't like that feeling.

I could transfer Calypte temporarily to someone else, maybe?  I'm sure you all do excellent and highly accurate Calypte impersonations and I bet I'd love to see them. eyes narrowing, hand resting lightly on the Instant Heart Attack button  Sorry, no, seriously that's an actual suggestion.

Or you guys could tell me here in OOC what you want to say, and I can put it in Calyptese for the IC thread.

Or somebody else can decide to speak up first.  Or if anybody has a better idea, then... we could... do that.

I vote Korentin explains this. Because Korentin. ^_^

 The problem with this, is that I happen to rather like Calypte, but I can't write Calypte... Korentin long ago made that deal with her wherein he'd handle all the tactical, combat-y stuff and she'd do the social.

 Also, I have absolutely no idea where we came by that number or what we're doing here in the library, because things have been pretty slow and involved lots of travelling in circles... This slightly inhibits my ability to explain things even if I was good at it. ^_^

In reply to Korentin Black (msg # 76):

Hah!
You're complaining?
I just posted while trying to ommit the fact that I cannot even remember who we are hunting.
The Night Kings? The Knight Witches? The Nigh Desirables? Some other 80ties poodle rock band?

Um... hm.  OK, I've written this a few times now, and I know it's rambly and probably confusing because that's just how I write but when I try to peel it back to the TL;DR version it's too blunt and I hate it, so... if you've stuck with me this long, please stick with me through this message and try to make sense out of it.  Thank you.

I mean, I've known this for a while, but I guess I was telling myself things like the Loose Threads thing, or at least the Story So Far thing, might have helped more than they seem to.

I... really hate to say this, but... um, should we just call it?  I've always said I would run this game until either I died, Korentin quit, or we actually (ha ha) finished, but... I don't know if we can honestly say there's really a game to run here.  I've been trying to convince myself that I was finally getting us to the, like, meat of the plot that I put together when I took over--- um, eight and a half years ago?  Because being me, I took like six years to even get us to a place where I could start hinting at it, and...

Anyway, the point is, I certainly don't blame anyone else for everyone being lost, but I don't know what I can do at this point.  Every time I've tried to build in a subplot, the player has left.  And again, I don't blame them, but it's left a lot of holes behind.  I'm honestly afraid to have Lily talk to anyone now because every time I connect her to anyone they go away -- I'm sure it's a coincidence, but if anyone's going to be cursed, I suppose it should be Lily.  But we're left in this weird place where she's definitely canonically there, but nobody still in the game seems especially aware of it or has expressed any interest, and I did have a subplot around her and if nothing else it seems like the fact that we're travelling with an adorable ghost girl with a slit throat should be... significant, somehow.  And I'm pretty sure when she comes out the reaction is, "Wait, who?  Oh, right."  And that's fair because it's been like eight months real time since anybody's seen her and the person who was actually talking to her left to go, I don't know, pay more attention to the company they're CEO of, or something.  I don't know what you guys do in your off-line time, I just assume it's something awesome.

And that's just the little plots.  The main one I feel like I've been trying to hit you guys over the head with in a very heavy-handed way that I'm not entirely happy with but has seemed necessary given the medium and, well, yes, the pacing, and... nobody even knows it exists.  The only person who was really trying to follow it was Stormy, and he was... (double-checks game rating) ... an asshole.


...What would everyone think about a reboot?  I could close this game up and start a new one.  This game would all be canonical background and anyone who wants to could keep their characters or make new ones.  I'd sum up the important things that you need to know as part of the immediate backstory just like I would for a completely new character in a completely new game -- just the standard, "Right, this is how you got here and why you're about to go on an adventure" thing.

We could even update to 4th Edition and get rid of the whole "Troll-armor rule system" thing we've had going here. (Which has been kind of fun, honestly, but 4e also fixes a lot of the things I was trying to fix with that anyway, and more, and I think at least most of us have it.  I don't think Talus does, but I can help him -- Talus, I promise you could still play Talus.)

We'd take like a half a step back, I could try to get some new players in, anybody who wants to change characters (lookin' at you, Amalianna) absolutely can.  Calypte would be an NPC - I'll set her up with another adventuring group and your paths can cross occasionally but she won't be part of the group anymore because she's too much of a leader (if only in her own head) to be a GMPC and still be Calypte.  That's been my plan for her for a while; she was going to go off with Jyon and Rowan and Baraak and Ronia, and they were going to be kind of a resource you guys could use.  And Lily will just quietly not be there anymore because really, what's the point?  We'll say she stuck with Varessa when she left - they were close.

And we can take a half step back to getting everyone met-up, probably at the Hymn because it's traditional, and... go from there?

And...I'm going to drop off the face of the planet in about two months, but only for, well, hopefully a couple weeks.  Possibly up to a month.  I've heard the wi-fi is very unreliable which is just a weird concept, but I don't know.  So that's not the best timing, but if I make it clear from the beginning, maybe we can do that: Take two months to get characters and everything sorted out and get things started, then accept a short break, and then I will seriously commit to at least a once-a-week posting schedule.  Which I know a lot of people still consider slow, but let's face it, my "quarterly" idea has been crap.

Is it worth it?  Or would it make more sense to just... say goodbye, admit that honestly it wasn't even a very good run, and let it go?
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:24, Sat 18 May 2019.

I notice that just trying to keep going here didn't make it on my list of options, and of course it is an option.  We could just do little more traditional, self-contained adventures and I'd still commit to a higher posting rate.  Not everything has to be some big overarching plot, after all, and we have some good connections to do something more... episodic, I guess.  And you guys wouldn't really be missing out on anything since the plot we'd be abandoning never really made it anywhere.  It'll just be a little awkward getting out of the library without being tangled up in it, but we could just all have an awkward laugh, call it a crazy misunderstanding, and go back to the bar.

Honestly that's kind of where we're headed now anyway, in an IC sense.

Looking at the long story behind this game and the fun characters I say do a partial reboot.

I use the analogy of a tree. This game has grown from its seedling beginnings into a large tree with the various characters, plots, quests, and NPCs becoming branches of that tree. So now you would prune the tree by removing dead branches (unnecessary characters, quests, and their associated NPCs) to focus on the trunk (the main story). Allow players to rebuild if they want to or keep what they have made. If we need a new personable character I would be happy to switch to a headstrong elementalist character concept I have. Or I can make a small change to Talus to make him for comfortable with the Barsaivian(SP?) culture and more proactive in conversation.

As a newcomer to the group I do appreciate the time that has been invested and story that has been developed. I especially enjoy the characters you have all created. To end this would be a sad event while a refocused plan would be all that is needed to get it revitalized.

That's my 2 cents.

I kind of agree with Talus. The main plot... the Night Kings. I feel we're all on board with that. Anything else... I'm not really sure I caught on at any point. I mean, I know Lily is... somewhere... but I don't know where, or why other than she doesn't want to stay in the place where she and her family died even after all the horrors got cleared out, which is pretty understandable to me.

I think there's some pretty substantial meat from this game and I think ending it would be unfortunate. That said, I don't see any issue with trading out characters in Throal where there are any number of good IC reasons characters would choose different paths. I mean, heck, just leaving to do some solid training over a long period of time to be really ready when the time to fight comes is perfectly reasonable. Also, a good time to bring in new folks.

Really, and i hate to say it, the main thing to keep us on track with what's going on just seems to be pacing. Having read through all the back posts before rejoining, I have a pretty good idea of where we're at, but Talia doesn't, which makes it hard for her to be front and center until she's really personally involved in what's happening aside from just tagging along playing catch-up with the group.

I understand the feeling that you need to do something with Calypte. It's hard to have a GM character that's also a group leader without feeling like you're talking to yourself a lot of the time, or gaming your own game. If you do wind up moving her aside, I might suggest some clue dealing with Vergil? I can't think of anything that would snap Calypte's attention faster than that and some hint of danger greater than danger to the group would be reason enough for her to solo it, I think.

 Heh, for me, I was going to stick with this game 'til Calypte gave up at this point I think... But let me see:

 The plot, the big plot, the major story has always been sort of opaque. We took on a fairly simple job fairly early on 'go to the town and stop the bad thing from happening'. It was an out-of-the-gate, 2D6-orcs sort of adventure and five minutes after arriving there were weird tunnels, a blood elf and the town vanished into a hole.

 Then there was something which involved going to some towns with a dwarf and another dwarf and there was a lot of inexplicable deception and some ghouls and... I really don't remember.

 So we sort of ended up going to look at a Kaer because of... reasons... And that turned into some months of staggering around in the dark in a state of generalised confusion, slowly losing people until the big (and awesome fight scene), after which we wandered around in the countryside some for... something.

 Then we move on to hunting the Raider Night King. It's like, maybe our third 'adventure' ever and after walking out, mostly on foot we find out that they've got dozens of hardened mounted scorchers and we... turn around and go home again.


 Even when Mountainshadow was running things, we were rubbish at story because we'd take three steps forwards and two back and we never really had a clear goal or a clear target that stayed still long enough to hit it. In what, thirteen years of play, Black has earned around five hundred legend points a year and currently has less wealth and equipment than he started out with.


 But I do kind of love you guys and the characters and I really, really want to do something with them. I want us to get a clear job and go out and smack a bad guy. I want to run across people in trouble we can actually help for once. I'd really, really love to find some treasure at least once. Getting on an Airship would be amazing, getting on a Riverboat would rock.

 Earthdawn is great and you folks are great, so...

 Yeah, I'm on board with a sort of compromise.

 Why don't we take a turn for the slightly more episodic? We're currently low-level, low-power, achingly poor and generally weak. So instead of chasing off after high-level, epochal bad guys how about we find out something their minions are doing and go put a stick in their spokes?

 The artefact they've sent a dozen scorchers to recover from a ruin... The village they've sent minions to that can afford seven adepts to defend... The small force of animated dead guarding a stash they want protected... The alliance they're trying to make with this minor bad guy who has the macguffin they want.

 Let's do some smaller-scale adventures we can actually start - possibly in mid-flow - and get some action and dice rolls in on. Do some adventury RP, some excitement, some shouting.

 And then if those adventures shed light on the larger story, great! If they don't, we're still Doing Stuff.

 And definitely, definitely, definitely don't be afraid of media res... Give everyone a quick 'what's your plan here?' pm, then start the adventure with us already on the ship/with the caravan/fleeing the avalanche.

 Let's do cool stuff!

From py point of view there's not enough Earthdawn on Rpol.
(I mean just look at it! Even I am running a game to make up for the lack)
So quitting completely is not an option.

I do however like 4th Edition a lot and would like a new character.
I'm not sure I'm playing a wizard as much as I'm just emulating Sherlock Holmes and Stanley Milgram.

I could probably go on, but the conclusion is easy:
I'm in this whatever we decide.

Well, OK, then.  A couple of comments, first, because I totally talk to much, and then I see two big questions.

First, thank you, Talus, those were some great points.  And also just for responding first.  Not that I was stressing about this, or anything. grin  (Though I'm definitely happier feeling people took some time to think about it, so... yeah.)

Smacks forehead  Virgil is a perfect answer for Calypte!  I'm a little surprised anybody but me even remembers him, actually, but yeah!  Thank you, Talia.  That is, indeed, totally something that would pull her away in a heartbeat without having the same attraction for anybody else, and does exactly what I wanted - separates her, without having to remove her from the game entirely.  Genius!


That kind of thing is exactly what I had in mind when I started building up the Night Kings as a concept.  We had Omandras, who we knew outclassed us even as a group, and MS had actually dropped some hints that there were more, but they were intentionally all bigger than we're ready to go run straight at right now.  Even knowing our group (*ahem*), I was a little startled when that seemed to be the plan, I have to admit.  Jazciel is meant to be sort of your Mr. Johnson; essentially, my grounding for setting up smaller adventures that are all still building towards something.  With that "something" being, of course, eventually taking down the Night Kings themselves.

Our Mysterious Lady is similar, but also move things along a little further; I suppose there's no rush to pull back the curtain.  She can stay Mysterious for a while longer, and perhaps poke at things here and there still.

I think Talia's the only one who was in it, but my favorite thing about Swordchuck's "Refuge From the Scourge" game was his pacing.  He was really good at setting a scene, letting it run, and then moving it along when it was time.  I'm trying to figure out how he did that.


Anyway.  So, maybe just a small hiccup -- we either extricate from the Library without following that, or we outright backtrack a little and say you never went there?  I could just delete the last few posts and we can cut right back to the Hymn after the Training Ground, and you guys can get a letter or something from Jazciel tipping you off to some Useful Job to work on... along with the offhand footnote that she's heard something about a dwarf with runes on his hands that she thought we might be interested in?


The two big questions I see, then, are:
  1) Do we update to 4E?  I do like it, and I think everyone but Talus has it, and I can definitely help Talus make the switch.  Converting is certainly more work than not-converting, but even for people who don't want to change characters, I think it might give you a chance to kind of reconnect?  But it might also just be too much hassle.  I'm kind of ambivalent about this, actually - not so much in the sense of not caring, but just in my opinions on it being pretty closely balanced, and it mostly depends on what works better for you guys.  The only thing is, as I've said, 4e has many strengths but backwards compatibility isn't one of them.  I can't run a 4e character alongside a 2e character and have things run smoothly.  So we either all need to, or all not.

  2) If I really do commit to posting once a week, does that work for you guys?  I absolutely agree that my pacing is what's killing this game, I just also know that if one of my slow-moving games suddenly sped up, I might have problems with that.  Not that once a week is really shooting for the moon here, but... it's a significant shift, for sure, and I don't want to impose it without making sure it works for everyone.  (Not, of course, that everyone else would have to post every week, necessarily - but *somebody* would have to give me something to respond to.)

I also don't have it yet. I'm not against the move, it just means I have to buy it sooner than later. And let's face it, I'm going to have to buy it eventually. The one concern I have is with how 4th handled skills? Because historically 1st didn't really give you many starting, 2nd let you have some to a ton, and 3rd presumably went back to a little more than a few (not looking at it in front of me atm). Talia is actually based more on her skills in some aspects than her talents, so I have a little concern for how to shape her into what she is sans quite so many as she has now.

 I have no issue with posting speeding up. Keep in mind each post you make doesn't necessarily mean you're moving plot way forward. It could just be a lot of bantering with an NPC. Like... Virgil. :)

Please do not worry about 4th ed being a problem for me. I just need to buy it, which is not an issue. I will probably get it before today ends.

I would like to use the move to 4th ed to transition to an Elementalist . I like Talus but I like the Elementalist more. I'll PM Garlen a description for approval.

Lastly, I am good with going to once a week posting.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:36, Wed 22 May 2019.

 I bit the bullet and bought the big, fancy books for the other game, and can use them for this one if I need to. It shouldn't be too hard to convert Black, although like Talia I invested heavily in skills... That said, you get like eight free ones in 4th Edition, so hey.

 As for where to take things from here?

 Why retcon anything? Why not instead ask each of us 'okay, assuming that you find some clues via the library or other sources that'll take you in direction X, what will you do with a week or two in Throal?' and then, after checking no-one is up to anything crazy, drop us into the outskirts of the story or a travel encounter with a bang. Nothing wrong with starting in media res if we had some say in the matter.

 And I can post pretty often if there's things going on, sure!

Oh I forgot to mention this, despite deciding on it before.
Please don't pressure yourself to post once a week.
I mean; feeling a commitment to the game is all good and fine, but honestly if you force it too much, then the game starts feeling like a burden more than escapism.
So although I condone posting more often, so people doesn't forget what and why we're doing what we are doing.
I really really want you to post here because you want to rather than you feel like you have to.

In reply to Amalianna (msg # 88):

 Oh my yes! The only way to 'lose' at a role playing game is for someone not to be having fun!

I appreciate the thought, but... I've tried not feeling pressured to post on a schedule before, like, every time I have tried posting "more often", and it doesn't seem to result in me posting more often. grin  I think maybe the structure of a real commitment will help me build the habit.  I'm going to aim for Wednesdays, but leave myself a little wiggle room if Wednesday doesn't work out.  If I really start to feel "forced" and not just "disciplined," I'll think about that.  Thank you both.

Yeah, I think Second Edition based your Skill ranks on... it was Charisma, wasn't it?  I thought that was a nice boost to Charisma to make it a harder dump-stat choice, but 3rd and 4th both I believe just flattened it out to the basic 1 Artisan, 2 Knowledge, 8 General... which I think should cover Talia fine?  And I know Korentin actually built up skills with LPs while he was dodging 2nd Circle, but it's not like we're going back to zero LPs.

That sounds like a pretty solid consensus, then!  It looks like our highest LP total was Korentin, who has spent 7,016 -- and I assume that 16 was Karma, which 4e doesn't charge for anyway.  So I say we all go with 7,000 LP.  The actual balance of LPs for Circles shouldn't have shifted all that much.  If anybody is finding that converting isn't going smoothly (or having trouble creating) let me know and I'll be glad to help!

And admittedly, I don't really like rewinding time; it's jarring.  I just feel like we're in kind of a corner at the moment - me, honestly, more than you guys.  But OK... I'll just slide things along and say that things get sorted, you leave the library now knowing that whatever this "scroll 246" is it's apparently a big deal, possibly wondering if you got the number wrong somehow.  And maybe we'll get back to it someday.

In media res... is going to take me a little getting used to; I generally like to know how we got from point A to point R.  But it is a good idea.  It might be time for me to try pushing my own envelope a little.

For the scroll... who's to say it doesn't lead to the next quest... whatever that is? Just because the scroll had one intention originally doesn't mean it has to stay that. Afterall, the mysterious lady is the only one who actually knows what's on it. Well, her and the people in the library anyway. You could change it to any number of other things... or just drop us somewhere and say it was on account of the scroll without even saying what the scroll says. Mysteryyyyyy! :D

In reply to Garlen (msg # 90):

 Well hell, let's say it's a missing scroll and there's a clue (jinkies), so after a little back-and-forth by PM, you start us off X days towards the adventure in some incident that's developing... Open with some built-up version of 'you arrived at place X, then you did some things (please describe in general terms) and when you were all in one place, roll for initiative!' (or some other suitable 'bang' moment).

 Also, I wasn't avoiding second circle... I couldn't afford it. ^_^

It's OK, I'll figure it out.

Alright, since people are getting books and all that... should we go ahead and pause briefly to (re)build characters, and then when everybody is ready I'll jump back in with an intro post?

On a related note -- Korentin has suggested starting in media res.  Especially with two people starting new characters, that has strengths and weaknesses - we kind of gloss over introductions, but then, we also gloss over the chance to mess up the introductions, which we do have a history of. grin

 Precisely... Simply get a rough 'this is how things might have gone' for the new folks, then establish at least one or two connections to the existing character group and assume that anything we backfill along the way can just be used to make it all more interesting!

Thought I should check in -- does everyone have the book now?  Is anyone making/updating characters?

I have the books, but honestly I've been so busy with new suppliment jobs and chaos at main job, fighting a heartache and lawsuits, and not to mention a missing kitchen.
Completely forgot to even consider what my next character should be.
Haven't even thought about my next post in my own games.
I feel slightly guilty about that.

I have to say, any one of those sounds like a valid explanation to me.  My goodness!  Definitely no stress here, I just wanted to check in.  I wish I could do something to help, but none of those sound very... help-able.

If I see a rogue kitchen, though, I will definitely let you know.

I got the kitchen. They are just currently refusing to install it.
That means it is cluttering up my old kitchen and making that nigh unusable.

It's all rather tiring and I've been living of salads and takeaway for weeks now.
I'm NOT a satisfied customer at the time of writing this.

*offers Amalianna chocolate* :(
I do have the books, just not started rebuilding yet. I was just saying today that I need to do that. I had some craziness in an off-site game, so that ate some of the time that was supposed to go to rebuilding Tal. But that's wrapped now and I do believe another post-intensive game I was in is dying, so I should be on this shortly.

I have a paper outline created for the character and two of the books in hand. I hope to have him built into the character sheet by the end of the week for approval.

I will be sending the GM a PM with some story concepts to bring him into the group as soon as I wrap up a few real life things today and tomorrow.

In reply to Garlen (msg # 95):

 I have the books and totally forgot to do anything with them... I should have some time this weekend!

Waves

I'm heading out in just a few days!  Like I said^*, I'm not actually sure how "connected" I'll be for a little while.  I know I'll be busy a lot, but I should mostly still be able to check in, more or less?  Unless it turns out that the internet connection is worse than I expect, in which case I don't know.

Anyway, the general point is, if anyone needs any help or has any questions, I am of course happy to help, but totally not promising any kind of speed!

Oh, and Viltok (née Talus) is basically done, but has asked about starting money, which I am struggling with a little bit.  It still seems to me like The Group As A Whole actually had some, but then, said group has largely disbanded at this point, presumably taking shares with them, and Talia wasn't there for a lot of that, and... anyway, it gets awkward.

What I think I'd like to do is just have everyone start with standard 1st Circle starting silver (which in 4th Edition is 100 silver, but you already have an Adventurer's Kit, Traveler's Garb, a Dagger - yes, Korentin's counts - and relevant Artisan Tools, Grimoires, etc.), and then work out something special for each person?


^{*- At least, I think I said. I know I have said in some places, I'm just not sure this is one of them.}

Sounds good to me. Have fun on t he trip and we will catch you on the other side of it if available connection or extra time doesn't work out for you.

Could we just port over what our character's already have seeing as it's the same characters anyway (except Talus and presumably Amaliana?). Then you'd just have to let them have items of approximste equity, or according to reason (re: backstory). And maybe a modest sum for pocket change acquired in Bartertown/ Throal.

The short answer is yes!  That's OK too.

The longer answer is that I don't think it makes very much difference.  It was looking at Talia and Korentin's sheets that gave me that "number" to offer Viltok -- I don't think either of you have really bought anything.  I guess Talia does have a couple of significant pieces, but nothing overwhelming.  Part of it is that there are a couple of things I've had in mind for a while that are more relevant in 4th Edition, but I'll work things out with everyone to keep things reasonably balanced.

 Particularly considering that Black was, I believe poorer than a starting adventurer, on account of his losing most of his things when the town they were in vanished into the earth and never made enough money to replace them while trying to afford training. ^_^

Black just likes The Hard Life _TM ^_^

Btw, I'm in on the far side of moving, so once I have things like furniture, I'll get back to looking at Talia.

Furniture??  I thought we were talking like, a Booster Potion or something!  I don't know about luxurious canopied beds for everyone!  grin

Congratulations on moving!  I hope it's going smoothly!

(And I have to admit, the idea of giving Black a luxurious canopied bed is strongly tempting.  What would he even do with it?  Probably trade it for some dwarven trail rations and a fresh whetstone, and then complain that the whetstone is too soft to use as a pillow.)

So, here's another question...

We have four players, presumably.  Should I post in Player's Wanted and see if we can get another one or two?  If I really am going to start posting weekly, we might have better luck keeping people than we have in the past, but bringing in new people always has a bit of a... chemistry risk, I guess.

 I'd be up for us trying a little light recruitment for a soft reboot... It'd be the kick in the ass I need to do some work on this PC to update his edition. ^_^

Oh, is that what you need??  Hold on a second while I throw out all this excess bubblegum, and I'll be right over.

You got bubblegum!?
I ran out...

But I can make some milk and cookies if it needs be.

I guess I better get on that character update before all the cookies are gone.

Mmf hm rrmf?

...wiping away crumbs  Er, I'm sure there will still be cookies for a few more minutes, at least.

So... Player's Wanted post posted!  Kick!

I'm also doing a little bit of cleaning up here.  Like, a lot of the rules posts, and all the stuff about the different Editions, would just be confusing now, so I took that out.  I'm really thinking about downloading and deleting some - possibly even many - of the older game threads, just for that "fresh start feeling".  Also, I thought perhaps some gillyflowers would be nice.  Nothing like a nice bowl of gillies.

HEY GUYS!  Windling scout/questor of Jaspree here!  So very excited to be joining your game.  I'm not sure how involved your character backgrounds are but if anyone would like to start out knowing Seethra we can work it out.  Seethra has a connection to catch Eventide and has a personal goal to map the entirety of Barsaive (and the rest of the world if we want to go that far, lol).  She uses alchemy to make inks, dyes, and poisons.

So, uh, not very chatty guys? Lol

Sorry about that. ^_^'
In the process of figuring out who is going to replace this character I'm playing. ^_^

I've looked a bit into this page for inspiration
https://www.rejectedprincesses.com/
If you see a name that is good for inspiration I'll be happy to look at it. ^_^

What kind of character are you making?

I haven't entirely decided on a Discipline or Race yet, but I'm leaning toward a Human Airsailor. Explorer Extraordinaire and all that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...lorers_and_travelers

This might help?

However, Seethra is a dedicated map maker so if you're interested we could already know each other?

This list might be more appropriate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_piracy

Knowing each other beforehand is not a bad idea though.
I'll just discuss with GM a bit more.

Arrr, I be loving me some pirates!  Lol

Oh, me, too!  So glad we're all on the same page!

So we are pirates?  Interesting....:)

We're pirates? Well... I can't say Talia has anything against Pirates, her horse, though... that's going to be a discussion. But i suppose, technically, Korentin is a pirate...  but I've yet to see him full-on pirate... besides the highly effective use of murder and other stabity-stabbins.

Another new player coming in - ork nethermancer here.  I can hopefully get caught up and statted up over the weekend...

Oooh! Ork Nethermancer and Windling Scout! This is gonna be fun! Welcome, both!

Well, I assume that we will be pirating the Therans and even then only the icky ones.

Rrrrr be me favourite letter!
(Sometimes the 'C' will do)

Therans. Horrors. Stray Bandits.
They'll have a proper broadside (I'll give them more than one definition of 'Broad' even).

I shall have the best booty of them all!

In reply to Amalianna (msg # 129):

"Something is not right, Lets go poke it."

OMG this is awesome!  Lol

That reminds me...
We are going to need a coxwain.
Anyone volunteer?
A good cox can hold a beat to maintain a steady thrust through our course.

Not I.

Note to self: Never.. give.. group.. an.. Airship.

Spoilsport...
This message was last edited by the player at 19:57, Thu 29 Aug 2019.

We have an elementalist don't we?  We'll make one!!!!

..kill.. all.. elementalis---

Oh, sorry, was I still annotating out loud?  Um.  snaps notebook shut  Yes, er, of course we still have an elementalist!  Who has nothing to fear.

At least, I hope we still have an Elementalist.

I think you just killed Kor's hopes and dreams. Well, possibly his money pouch already did that, but still....

I say we steal an Elementalist. I mean how hard could that be, right? Right? Guys?

If we don't have one I will multidiscipline into one later....;)

Man, I was playing a troubadour drummer in a previous game, he would have been perfect for this.  No luck now though.  Unless I can maybe invoke a spirit of music?

Hello, I cannot be around much at this time but I will be making an appearance at least once a week.

Allow me to introduce myself,
I will be playing the part of Viltok Stontooth an orc elementalist. I look foreword to stomping the elements out of our foes and enjoying good cooking!

Hello Viltok!  I guess we don't have to steal an Elementalist anymore!  Will you be picking up the enchanting knacks as we wander through our adventures?

In reply to Seethra Leafpiercer (msg # 141):

I will attempt to, Seethra. I am unfamiliar with enchanting learning seems like it would be fun. Downside is it seems like it could be insanely expensive.

Don't worry about it.
If you want expensive you shift to Human and loose your LP into Versatility. ^_-

Yea... I will be avoiding that LP sink this time. It got me previously in another game.

Deoesn't work in this edition.  There are specifically Elementalist circle X prereqs (Or weaponsmith or wizard, etc).  Elementalists make the best enchanters, the only knack they can't pick up is to make blood charms (they would have to use alchemy to make poisons however).  I don't think it is untowardly expensive however, especially considering the benefit in the long run.  That all depends on how long the game goes and how much LP the gm gives out.....;)

In reply to Talia (msg # 137):

 In one, and only one previous tabletop incarnation has Black actually had access to an Airship.

 He was at the helm when a flying monster crashed into it (or, from the point of view of some of his compatriots, was run over with extreme prejudice) and the damage this caused was only aggravated when he crashed the drakkar monster-first into a stoneship. From there he fought his way to the controls of the stoneship (which was under attack by said monsters) and proceeded to take it over, whereupon he crashed it into a temple spire in the city below.

 After that, no-one seemed very interested in letting him near one again. ^_^

 Also, today I spent a lot of time kicking around the coast at Cape Cornwall and it was lovely. Be back with my books in a couple of weeks!

Pfft!  That sounds amazing!  I'd let you drive any airship we come across!  As long as you promise to have grand adventures with it!

There was an air boat briefly - like, not a real air ship, but the life boat from one.  But after managing to bring it down intact (which I have to say I did not intend when I kicked them out of the vedette in it!), they decided to turn it into torches.  So it's actually not my fault you didn't get to play with that at all!

Cape Cornwall looks gorgeous!  I'm sure it's even better than the pictures.  Have a great time!


(Now I'm wondering just how many Korentin Blacks there have actually been.  I'm tempted to run a game of all Korentin Blacks.  ...No, I'm not, really.

Maybe just one Korentin Black, but like, Everyone Is John style.

Wait, no, the problem wasn't the plethora of Korentins, it was that I can't run another game.  Certainly not until I've had this one running smoothly for at least a year!  ...And now I'm wondering what the proper collective term for a group of Korentins should be.  A Glower of Blacks, maybe?  "Murder" does indeed come to mind, but it's taken.)

 Actual T'skrang, Earthdawn ones? Two, of which this is one. Well, two and a half since I played the tabletop one in two campaigns but the second one was weird...

 And yes, it's lovely. Grew up about a mile from it and an visiting family for a bit, although tomorrow it'll be Hay-on-Wye for the day, because: books!

Have I said hello yet? I'm Mark, and I'll be running Imerdijn-Gachola, Obsidiman Warrior. She has quite the green thumb. Quiet in a way that makes you forget she is standing behind you, and large in an alarming way that makes you jump out of your skin when you remember she is.

Hellooo, Mark! Welcome! Can't wait to see Imerdijn in action... and afraid of where she is when she isn't. ^_^

YAY!  A windling mount! Errr I mean a noble obsidiman!  lol

From one new player to another, welcome to the game!

Question for the GM - should we be working our way into the most recent IC thread, or will you start a new one once players get settled?

Definitely starting a new one.  Like I said in the WP post, we're really doing a kind of soft reset, so I'll be skipping time ahead a little bit.  Honestly... I probably shouldn't have even linked everyone to Group 2, in hindsight.


Oh, thank goodness!  I had a momentary image of the Imerdijn trying to ride Seethra and it was not going well.  I do hope he's more noble than to think a Windling would make a worthy mount!


Does just having lichen growing on your thumb count?

How's everything going?  Just hoping we aren't dying here....:)

I am essentially done, I think. Just waiting for whatever needs to happen next!

I mean, as GM I feel obligated to say I hope you're dying, but 1) I picked a gentle fuzzy persona for this game, and 2) I suppose if I want that it's up to me to like, put in you in interestingly deadly situations and stuff.

So, yeah, I was actually going to say - I know Korentin is it on a beautiful vacation, but jealousy is no reason to hurt him in game. So I am working on our starting post, but are people OK giving our last couple stragglers, say, two weeks to finish up? We could start October 1st. I kind of like the feel of that.

But I do know we've been sitting here a bit and I totally know how that can kill enthusiasm.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:45, Mon 16 Sept 2019.

I'm totally fine waiting.  Just hadn't been any activity lately so i wanted to post something....lol

I'm okay with waiting, too. I'm happy to help also, if anyone needs it.

 Just been posting pictures of my holiday to folks after a day on Dartmoor which was lovely, if somewhat windswept and desolate... But sure, I'll be home by then!

I am also good with starting on OCT 1st.

Oh, and this isn't just to keep people busy, but I believe I opened up the official in-game Character Sheet for everyone, and they should all be user-editable.  Now, I'm not sure I've ever yet seen a GM make that claim and not had it turn out they missed someone, but assuming I managed it, it would be awesome if people could - as and when you have some time - fill in your character sheets there.  Over time I find it's a lot easier than looking them up in the PMs all the time, let alone fancy PDFs. coughImerdijncough

And of course, if I missed you completely or missed clicking the "User Editable" bit for you, let me know!

Imerdijn looks puzzled. "It is entirely possible to find everything you need on these forms. Each item is fully described, along with relevant text from the book and amusing commentary on the changes in the rules through all editions. Physical Defense is here, for example, on pages 3-5. Takes no more than an hour of one's time to find."

LOL!!  I must say, I am very excited to be a part of this!  It seems like this is going to be a fun game and I really like my character!

I'm still here, and since we haven't really started yet anyway I have no problem with waiting a little longer.

A couple of quick procedural polls -- I have preferences on these things, but not so firmly that I'm not open to input.

First, regarding Initiative in combat.  Actually, first let me just say that the "Declaring Intentions" step in combat... I mean, it's definitely built into the system and I get why it's there, but I've never seen it used in PbP and I've never seen that as a problem. Yes, knowing your Initiative before deciding what you're doing can make a big difference, but it goes both ways and if it favors the PCs a little, I'm OK with that.

First-and-a-half-ly, though, is the need to roll Initiative every round.  I've seen games abandon that and I don't like it.  It's mostly important when people are using things like Air Dance, or have things like Anticipate Blow - those need that uncertainty.  But truth be told, I just prefer having it for everyone all the time.  It makes combat feel a little more chaotic and interesting.  Yet stopping every round for everyone to roll Initiative slows things down in PbP, clearly, and even at a post a week I understand this is going to be a relatively slow game for RPoL so we might not want every combat round taking at least two weeks.

...What I'd like to do is just, I'll roll Initiative for everyone between rounds.  I think at my proposed posting rate anyone who has an Initiative-altering Talent should have time to let me know whether they want to use it or not, and you can always set your own default.  (Eg, "Totally using Tiger Spring unless I say otherwise!")

But I can see that that's not perfect, and if we want to just accept the time sink and let everyone roll for themselves, I'm totally OK with that.  Or if someone has a better idea, I'm interested.  I do in general lean towards the idea of pausing for everyone to roll for themselves before the first round, though.  I think that's going to have the most variance in people using optional Talents, and more importantly, it kind of lets everyone set their own scene as the battle begins.  Plus, there's just something about the phrase, "Roll initiative!"  You know?


SECONDLY, regarding Legend Points -- with this soft reset, I put everyone at 7,000 LPs.  Does anyone have opinions, strong or otherwise, on the question of whether advancement occurs individually or as a group?  Eg., should I just say, "You all gain 60 LPs for the battle, and 5,000 LPs for good roleplaying!", or should I do individual rewards - "Korentin gets 2500 LP, Talia gets 2550, Imerdijn gets 5, Viltok gets 3,520,218¹/₃..."  ??

Or, again, other thoughts.

On the initiative issue I don't really have much of an opinion It doesn't really matter if you roll it or I roll it to me.  If someone really dislikes the idea we could always just roll multiple times before combat and the use them for each round as we go.

In regards to experience I am a firm believer in everyone getting the same amount.  Not so firm that it is a game breaker for me but I really do prefer that everyone be on the same page with xp. Even as little as 100 LP can make a big difference in this game at times.  :)

I agree that LP should be equal for everyone, except maybe if there is a specific in-game reason why it wouldn't be.

As for initiative, I'm fine with the GM rolling at the top of every round.  If we're tossing ideas around, a potential alternative could be that each player rolls initiative for the next round at the end of their post for the current round.  I suppose there could be some edge cases where someone might decide whether or not to use a relevant talent based on the result of someone else's action after theirs, but we can always just cross that bridge when we get there.

I'm a fan of GM rolling initiative for all players and posting combat order each round.
It's one of those things... In general I prefer when players roll their own dice, but it can really stall if you have one or two players who aren't too concerned with posting rate (or if you have the odd player who tries to see if GM notices he presses an extra action in). Administratively it is a lot easier.

As for LP I'm with Seethra.
Equal pay for all. If the players want to be silly with them then they are free to do so, but as a general rule they should all have same opportunity...
But then again, I also like rewarding the LP communally for instances like great RP'ing and creative solutions etc.
It's things that just makes me happy as a player to have Korentin on the team ^_^
Plus it discourages skullduggery and backstabbing. :P

I would just like to go on the record saying I do not think Imerdijn should only have 5 LP. <stony glare>

Really, though, I trust you'll be equitable with the LP, whatever system you prefer. Likewise, the GM rolling initiative is fine between rounds. And stopping to let everyone react to the impending combat on the first round is good, because it does let the players communicate what their character's general strategy (options, initiative modifying talents, etc) will be. Changing options can be posted at the end of our action posts to take effect the next round.

*Imerdijn shrugs off the swarming anklebiters, attacking to knockdown the largest and most aggressive. She rolls and succeeds! Next round she will switch to a defensive posture, as there are too many children here trying to put flowers on her head and she is feeling anxious."*

Edit: I started working with the character sheet. It looks like it is 3rd edition maybe? We are using 4th, right?
This message was last edited by the player at 13:45, Sun 22 Sept 2019.

Oh, goodness!  You're right, I just took the one out of Heaven and didn't even consider that the editions would matter on the blank sheet. Apart from the renaming of Mystic Defense and having a cost for Karma I think it doesn't?  But is confusing.  Thanks for noting that! Yes, we are using 4th. I will tweak my base sheet in case I need it again someday...did you notice anything else where the editions are different in that?

I should probably point out the hit point calculation, but that is mostly because I haven’t figured it out yet...

That's definitely a difference between Editions, but not one that impacts the character sheet.  Though while I was there, I took out the line with Depatterning and Durability.  Depatterning was a stupid rule and I hope they don't bring it back.  Ugh.  And with the way Durability works now it doesn't really need to be separated.  I'm not sure it ever really did.


Your Unconsciousness Rating will be (Toughness x 2) + (Your Discipline's Durability Rating x Circle).  So with a Toughness of 13^* for a 3rd Circle, say, Air Sailor, since they're first, it's (13x2) = 26 + (5x3)=15, so 41.

Your Death Rating is that, plus your Toughness Step and Circle.  So for our example, 13 is Step 6 and 3rd Circle is, um, 3, so that's 41+6+3 = 50.

And after that you'd just add 5 every time you go up a Circle.  (Well, and +2 if you increase Toughness, and another +1 to Death if you take it all the way to 16.)


^{*- just to pick a random number, not at all because 90% of all Earthdawn characters have Toughness 13}

I didn't see that you added your circle to your death rating?

I didn't see much that mattered, just seeking clarity!

Having the GM role initiative for the group sounds the best due to the medium we are using. Also I agree with spreading the LP evenly so we advance as a group. This system and medium gets complex enough and we do not need additional bookkeeping for the GM.

Was that a question, or a typo?  Well, just to be sure, you do;


Thank you all for the input!  At least for now, I'll go with having people roll their own Initiative for the beginning of combat (except if there's an ambush or something, of course).  I do like that idea both for letting people set themselves up a little, and to have everyone kind of check in.  But after that I'll just roll everyone and keep it moving.

And group LP sounds like the way to go!

...And I don't actually know where people are vacation wise, but for our couple of stragglers I thought I should point out that the first is coming up.  Cue ominous music!  Or the Jeopardy theme, if you're feeling exceptionally hard core.

Oh I'm still far from home and haven't begun creating a character. :/
I'm sure we can set up the background and character concept quickly and once I'm home and settled in we'll iron out the the mechanics.
Does that sound good to you?

Hope you're having an awesome time!  I definitely don't want to stress anything.  It might be a little bit rocky, but yes, if that works for you, we can do that.

I will admit, I know that personally, I've found that if I start playing before the character is done two things often happen.  First, actually finishing the mechanics drops like, way down on my priority list, and secondly, I quickly start finding I'm losing connection to the character because I don't quite know what they can do.  I'm sure not everyone has those problems, so if you think you'll be OK that's fine, but mechanics might matter quickly.  If it'd be better to have your character sort of "in the wings" and set things up so that you can jump in as soon as you are ready, we can do that, too!

But either way it would be good to have at least some basic background and concept, I suppose.  But only if you really do have some time for it!  I absolutely don't want to step on your trip, like, at all.

 Okay, home and largely recovered now. Any chance I could ask a small favour and we get is a cgen sticky thread with what we're doing for cash, LP's, house rules and such in?

Good?  If you're looking for anything else I should put in there, let me know!

And welcome home!

Thank you! ^_^

Now I just need to get rid of the jetlag.

Aww, if only they could leave that at the airport!

And I will edit Amalianna's new character in to the first post as soon as she's ready, but I promised to start today, so there we go!

Did we somehow lose like 1000 posts?  i swear earlier itr was at 11k+ for the total of this game?

I cleaned out some old threads - primarily a set that had been entirely for a group of players that are all gone now, but also, admittedly, some of the earliest threads from when Mountainshadow had set the game up with like, "location" based threads.  I like time based threads better - people having to start a post in one thread and then move over to another one is jarring.

Though I've been thinking of downloading and deleting some more of the older stuff just to, you know, tidy up a bit, with this whole reboot and all.  It just feels sort of cluttered.  I'm not sure yet.  It is nice having the big number on the main screen, too, but you know - we could get back to it. grin


Oh, out of curiosity, what were you rolling Step 7 for?  I'm guessing Perception, but... it's always best to put something in the Reason for Roll line.  But yeah!  Nothing like kicking off the game with a 1!  If the whole game goes like that, I guess at least it will be quick? grin

My initiative is step 7.

Would astral sight help get rid of the darkness penalty?

Oh, Initiative!  That's right, I asked for those, didn't I? blush  That should have been obvious.  Sorry!

And yes, within its range, Astral Sight would totally get rid of the darkness penalty for anyone you spot with it (eg., anyone whose Mystic Defense you beat with the roll.)

For the record, my impression is that the imprints you see easily with Astral Sight (ie., without focusing on a specific pattern) are vague, so if we were dealing with deeper darkness I might not think it would eliminate all of the penalty, but in this case, absolutely.

18:22, Today: Seethra Leafpiercer rolled 14, with a step number of 10 on the Earthdawn (1st & 2nd ed) system ((9,5)).

Well that is a better roll, however, I don't like the fact that I got a 9 on a d8 without seeing the reroll..... Is it ok if I just roll the dice without the system involved?

Are the wagons circled? Is there a definitive defensible location that Imerdijn would be drawn to? She'll be looking for a vulnerable place to plant herself so that the brigands will dread  to strike. I'll make a half-magic test if I can figure it out; if you decide to disregard the test I am okay with that decision.

eee! We're starting!

 Well, with this Circle improvements are pretty sharply limited because they cost more silver pieces than Korentin managed to accumulate in thirteen years of play. ^_^

Be like Talia... just sell your soul for an elemental coin. :P Com'on take the pledge... all the cool kids are doing it!

In reply to Korentin Black (msg # 191):

 Also, we're all stuck at First Circle.

 Training to second is 100sp more than we can afford.

I don't think that was intended?  Seethra is 3rd circle, so unless the gm missed that I don't think we are using that rule for character creation?

In reply to Seethra Leafpiercer (msg # 194):

 Well, it's the standard advancement cost and we're using standard rules, 200sp to 2nd circle, 300 to 3rd. Also, we can't have any skill ranks other than our starting ones because those cost (new rank/10)sp per skill and no attribute boosts...

 ...which is why I wanted a character generation thread before I built Black back up to (roughly) where he was.

I assumed all monetary costs were hand-wavy since we have some time gap and theoretically might have found some way to deal with all that in that time.

I also just spent the LP given to get to 3rd.

Well I know this wasn't intended because Seethra has A LOT of skills.

17 ranks to be exact.

Now that is a lot of skills.
I think I'll just aim for 3rd Circle and see how much I can put in Versatility.
*sigh... Versatility is going to be such a drain*

In reply to Seethra Leafpiercer (msg # 197):

 That's almost as many as Black had!

It's a habit leftover from my first gm, he loved dispelling talents, lol.




And not nearly as useful now.



SKILLS
Knowledge
Alchemy and Potions: 2

Artisan
          Mapmaking: 2
          Tailoring: 1
          Tattooing: 1

General
            Alchemy: 3
      Melee Weapons: 2
     Second Shot(J): 3
     Speak Language: 2
          -Throalic
          -Windling
       R/W language: 1
          -Throalic
This message was last edited by the player at 03:29, Wed 02 Oct 2019.

How so?
Apart from Astral Sight (Which I think should be in everyones inventory) the trick is to take Talents that aren't continuous... I say this and I immediately think my characters are kind of uniform... :P

In reply to Seethra Leafpiercer (msg # 200):

 Black had:


SKILLS                       Rank   Base   Step          Strain
Artisan :
  Map Making                 1      6      7 / d12       -
Knowledge :
  Airships                   1      5      6 / d10       -
  Lore, Racial, Trolls       1      5      6 / d10       -
General :
  Acrobatics                 2      8     10 / 1d10+1d6  0
  Climbing                   1
  Disarm - Broadsword        3      8     10 / 1d10+1d6  1
  Navigation                 1      5      6 / d10       0
  Parry - Broadsword         1      8      9 / 1d8+1d6   2
  Physician                  2      5      7 / d12       0
  Read/Write Languages       1      5      6 / d10       0
  Speak Language             3      5      7 / d12       0     T'skrang, Trollish, Dwarven
  Tactics                    2      5      7 / d12       0
  Wilderness Survival        1      5      6 / d10       0


 But obviously several of these are now talents and there'll need to be some consolidation.

In previous editions humans could take versatility to cover things like enchanting with just a few talents.  Now the knacks (for enchanting at least) require actual circles in specific disciplines.  Like to make orichalcum you can't just take Elementalist thread weaving, you actually have to be a 9th circle elementalist (or 10th circle weaponsmith).   Although it does seem that its mostly the enchanting knacks that do that, there are a couple others.

Oh, well yes, that would be one of those other details I was asking if I'd left out!  Giving 7,000 LPs but not letting people spend them on anything would be a bit silly - I didn't even look at it like that.  I meant the starting equipment set more in the sense of what you have on you now!  I will clarify that in the appropriate thread.  Passions, I certainly wasn't trying to roll Black back! grin


Do you mean like, rolling offline?  No, I'm sorry, I do want rolls in the log.  If you click on "Record Each Die", actually, it will show you how they actually fell out.  If people want, I can make that the default.  Or if just you want, and nobody else objects, really.  It certainly wouldn't bother me.


The wagons are side-by-side; Gral'thak's theory seems to be that you're supposed to be protecting them, rather than the other way around.


It does occur to me, though, that he would listen to his security experts to a fair extent in terms of where to stop to camp, given the limited control you'd really have over that.  Where you are is kind of low rolling hills with some scattered trees and small bushes - there isn't anywhere really great around, in terms of "defensible," which (if one assumes the raiders know the area) might be why they're attacking here.

But would you rather be at a higher or lower spot?  Is there anything you'd have really looked for as it came time to stop but while there was still time to look?  Certainly not promising you'll have found it, but maybe.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:07, Wed 02 Oct 2019.

Which reminds me.

How are we on Karma?
Do we have to declare it when we roll the first action or can we add it posthumerously?
(I just want to know if I can save them to add for when I roll all ones)

Oh no not offline, just not using the ED system dice....Like this.

21:21, Today: Seethra Leafpiercer rolled 6 using 2d8, rerolling max ((5,1)).

I just get fidgety when the die roller seems to be doing things wierd (like when everyone in the group rolls 3 or less on initiative....lol).

Imerdijn would have recommended being in a low spot, hoping to avoid standing out on the skyline. Obviously the raiders found them anyway. Imerdijn would stake out a spot between the casters and the raiders, if there's nothing else that stands out.

In reply to Garlen (msg # 204):

Well I don't know if this will matter but I would recommend we be on the top of a hill.

A few reasons:
1) We need to be able to see others before enemy can get close to us. A hill creates a dead zone in our field of view so being on top of one will give us the best advantage.
2) Our caravan is three wagons so we will not be able to make an effective protective circle and grouping them too close could lead to loosing all of the goods in a fire.
3) Our goal is to protect the goods not us...  this sounds off but I would just set fire to a wagon if a group of bothersome people were hiding behind it. Also being behind the wagon will not prevent theft of goods and swords will not be able to stop the thieves. Circling wagons only worked because of firearms, in my opinion. I am unsure how many archers/casters we have.
4) We are too large of a caravan to hide in a valley between hills. Rather its better to be seen and know where the enemy is than be seen and let the enemy get close.
5) Usually it is wet at the bottom of hills and that makes for poor sleeping. If it rains then the base around the hill could give us a poor mans moat!

Just my thoughts on where we should be camping in this caravan.

*raises hand* Archer here and Seethra will never have a problem finding a vantage point.  Being in a valley (unless there is a rain storm there isn't much worry about wetness) Seethra is small enough that she shouldn't even be noticed when she flits about.

In reply to Seethra Leafpiercer (msg # 209):

Really?
Archer? I thouht you were a Scout...
If you're not I migh tswitch to one. I have some novel ideas for a Scout.

Oh, yeah, Seethra's a scout, I meant that I use mostly missile weapons, lol.

Oh, I see!  Well, again, just clicking Record Each Die shows you that too, and keeps it in the log, but I don't have a problem with putting in your own dice if you want to.  I did go ahead and set RED in the defaults, though - it seems harmless. grin  That also helped me notice that I had us set to 1st and 2nd Edition, so I moved it to 3rd... which is also actually a little different from 4th, since they seem to have brought the d20 back at Step 19.  Hmm.



Karma... that's actually a good question.  Thank you.  I know it's always been the intent of the rules that you roll Karma with your Talent, meaning you have to decide before you know the result.  Pretty much every game on RPoL has ignored that because it's just fussy to do - Earthdawn isn't a common enough system to get Jase to include an "Add Karma" tickbox. sigh  Hmm.  I wonder if there is a way to do that.  I'll ask on Development - now I'm curious.

Anyway, I don't know.  Karma is a lot more free-wheeling in 4th, and I know they've said creatures have been balanced with the expectation that characters will be spending lots of Karma.  And especially now that we're up some Circles, everyone should have a pretty good pile of Karma available.  I'm actually thinking it might be interesting to play it as intended, which would mean either rolling Karma first or including the intention in your Reason for Roll, neither of which really seem like that big a deal but... I know it's not how most Earthdawn games have been handled on RPoL and that in itself feels like maybe more trouble than it's worth.

Karma has always been used with the roll to my knowledge.  It is way easier to get now too. Don't have to decide whether the LP cost is worth it.  It's my belief that every character would be full up as often as possible.  Seethra's SOP is going to be: make camp, karma ritual, eat, guard, sleep (or sleep guard, lol).

*Oh, we took a break to eat? Guess what, karma ritual* lol
This message was last edited by the player at 21:18, Wed 02 Oct 2019.

Hey, since our characters know each other, it might be beneficial to post race/disciplines in our character descriptions. As caravan guards we'd certainly know each other's basic abilities.

Good grief, I am refreshing rpol once every five minutes hoping one of my games (this one in particular) gets an update.

I have it as my starting page and just open a new window only to forget what I was supposed to be doing.

Edit: On the subject of the diceroller though I strongly suggest we all use the same engine (and as always: We mark the intentions of the roll clearly).
Otherwise I'd like to use the 3rd Ed diceroller as it does not include the d4 and d20.
The D20 fluctuates (spelling?) too much and the D4 critically fails about 25% of the time. Technically they should end out with about the same average statistically, but the 3rd Ed is a bit more stable. Hence why 'd like it, but... As I said I really want everyone to play by the same rules.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:49, Sun 06 Oct 2019.

Huh, the D4 and the D20 are my favorite dice in ED....lol.  It took me forever to move away from step 14 in my old games....lol

I have set the default to 3rd Edition for now.  If we can get 4th, that's actually a nice compromise - I'm not sure why they brought the d20 back, but it doesn't come in until Step 19, and there's no d4.  (Well... Step 3, I guess, but how often does that even happen?)


OK, at least for now, I think we will go with the rules-as-written -- you spend Karma with your roll, which in RPoL terms means using the Reason for Roll field.  Eg., if you roll Karma first you need to describe it as like, "Karma for Melee Weapons", and then roll "Melee Weapons", or you roll Melee Weapons first and say "Melee Weapons with Karma" and then roll "Karma".  And I did ask in RPoL Development if it might be possible to tweak the Earthdawn rollers so that you could put in two rolls, like say "8,4" to roll Step 8 and Step 4 together, which would make it even easier.  But to be fair, we're an awfully small niche so I can't blame Jase if it doesn't leap to the top of his to-do list.

Given that that is a change from how I used to do it, I won't be too draconian if people forget at first.  You know - we can start with the thumb screws, work our way up to the rack... just take it easy.  We'll see how it goes.


And yeah, most of the time it will be fine to just assume Karma refreshes once a day, either before bed or when you wake up.  I guess I should have everyone pick their default time for it; there's no reason everyone would have to be the same, and indeed, knowing how paranoid adventurers are, I assume you wouldn't all want to be preoccupied at the same time.  Of course I can't promise you'll never be interrupted, and there may be situations where that time can't just be handwaved, but in general I think it's fine.  But Karma Ritual only works once a day - you can't fill up again at lunch!

Hah!  Updated!

Um... though I may have to be late next week - we're going to be out of town at a gaming convention over the weekend, so I won't have time to work on anything until late Monday.  I will do it as soon as I can after we get back, though!


And... bleh.  I don't like this way of doing Initiative.  Having a list of everyone's initiative up front encourages everyone to post in order and then stop to wait for the bad guys to go, and I'm not saying that doesn't make sense, but I find it's absolutely deadly in this format.  For instance, if I could really promise to roll that Archer right after Kathkar and Korentin go, it wouldn't be so bad... but if I don't get to that until next week, and then we have to wait for Viltok who is mostly available weekends... no.  I don't want to do that.

I think I would rather go back to the way we've done it in the past, and I don't really know why I got tangled up trying to think of other ways in the first place.

Everyone just roll your own Initiative when you post your actions for the combat, and then I will order things and sort the battle round out when everything is in.  Yes, sometimes this has meant someone is targeting an opponent that someone else finishes off first, but that's never been a big deal -  I'll just shift that to the next most reasonable opponent.  And 95% of the time it works out just fine.  If we really have a situation where someone needs to know how they relate to someone else we can deal with it when it comes up.

I don't know how you feel about this (because it gives you a bit more work) but you could open a new thread where people post their combat actions and you then compile that into one big post for the round in the IC thread?

Also, HOLY CRAP!  Over half my hp in the first attack of the first combat round ever! and 3 wounds (nvm only one wound per attack no matter how much damage you take apparently)!  Pretty sure Seethra is going to be ineffective for this combat guys.

On a side note I have found my first real dislike of the system.  I didn't realize they had changed the step values so much....:(
This message was last edited by the player at 13:22, Tue 08 Oct 2019.

Jeeez...
I'd better hurry up and finish my character so I can ambush those archers.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:55, Tue 08 Oct 2019.

We'll try to weaken them up for you so you can easily reclaim the loot they take from our dead bodies, lol.

Nah...
I've got a Pirates code of honour.
I'll botch a couple of attacks until I'm as used and beaten as you and then we'll spoil the loot... Although I'll still have the best booty of them all! ^_~

I don't know. It's said you can bounce a copper off Imerdijn's booty. She would be very confused, though, and might take offense.

So we can't really see the attackers yet? No cover but the cover of night, which benefits the orks and not us? Imerdijn is displeased. How is everyone arranged? Is there a line of wagons and some of us are to the left and some to the right? If we're dealing with archers, Imerdijn is likely to take up her torch and charge them. But if cavalrymen are charging, she might be planting herself for a charge.

At the very least, I think we can assume the cavalry won't be charging into the wagons, though along side is a decent bet if no one steps away from the wagons to engage them in the open.

I imagine Imerdijn is away from the wagons a fair piece, about the range of her torchlight. If you imagine it as a circle, it's edge just touches the wagon line. She wants to be an inviting target for melee fighters, though not archers. Her preference would be to located in a place where the enemy needs to get through, but it doesn't sound like that is what she's got.

Hmm... I don't know.  I've always liked having just the orange OOC bits to separate out mechanics, but we could give that a try.  Does anybody else want to do it that way?


Well, um... wasn't it you who was hoping all the rolls in the game wouldn't be 1s? blinkblink  Is that not helping?  I'm sorry - I'm a very big proponent of letting the dice fall as they fall.  Pro or con, I don't fudge rolls, and I only mark something Secret if there's a reason it needs to be Secret.  (Which, admittedly, does come up... sometimes Perception checks, for instance, would give a lot away just by existing.)


I guess this is kind of, um, a fangirlish thing to get riled about, but the step values have never changed.  They're always arranged so that the dice will generally roll about that number.  Fourth Edition was headed by Josh Harrison, who wrote Step by Step back under 1st Edition (http://www.loremerchant.com/articles/ ) and probably understands the underlying math as well as anyone.  Anyway, my point is, they didn't roll like that because 4E screwed up the dice; it just happens sometimes.  Sure surprised me!  Statistically, they absolutely should have missed Seethra and bounced off Imerdijn.


Broadly speaking, that sums it up nicely.  Of course, you have some Orks too.  And an elf.

The wagons are in a kind of line together, let's say basically along the south side of the camp.  So the horses are just north of them, between the wagons and you guys, with Garl'thak having basically planted himself in front of them.

You certainly can't see them very well.  You should see a line at the end noting the shadowy figures that you can just spot in the darkness?  I was trying something new for me with that, though, coding wise... hopefully it worked right.  With a roll of 1 to figure out where to set herself, though, I would say Imerdijn is probably on the west side of the camp right now, having misjudged the echoes and planted herself in the wrong spot to block them.  But she did indeed look good doing it. (It's not actually a Rule of One failure, because I do agree that should at least usually only apply to multiple dice all coming up 1... but it's still not great.)  Totally up to you if you want to focus on the archers or the cavalry; they were kind enough to offer both!

They indeed do not seem to be pointed straight at the wagons, but more at the camp in general.


Torches illuminate about 10 yards, so that would put you about, say, 28 feet from the wagons?

Oh, I didn't mean the rolls against me.  I just looked at the steps after the conversation.  I really don't like d12s, like in the slightest, I specifically steer away from anything that uses them.....

Wait! dumb question, just because I like to be the first to ask them -- is there supposed to be a game map visible? I clicked on the link above and didn't get anything.

That's odd.  There is a Main Game Map - it's just the map of Barsaive, but does have a few campaign-specific notes on it, just of places that have been established in the game.  Everyone should totally be able to see it.

 I can see it.

I had to fiddle with the drop down selector, but I can see it also. I didn't even think to look there. Thanks for the note,Imerdijn!

Is everyone waiting for someone else to post?

I'm waiting for myself to finish my sheet so I can jump in and ambush the archers.

I'm waiting for it to be my turn....:)  Poor Seethra is dying!

I figured that I would make my action announced and the GM can sort it time wise. I do not do this to be a burden but I will not be able to wait for specific people to post before I do. I am mostly limited to weekends for time to post. The GM can respond to it when it is appropriate or tell me to fix it as the target/situation has changed and I will do my best to accommodate.

I believe this will work out.

 Slightly.

 Might I suggest that we all post our intended action and the run-up to it, perhaps with a 'if I can't do this, I'll generally do X' tacked on for shiggles.

 I'd do so m'self, but it's dark out there and I can't see anything to hit!

I'd rather suggest we clearly mark our actions with what round we're in.
Honestly if there's too many posts every round it becomes confusing to monitor and takes much more for bookkeeping.

Combat should be easily comprehensible in a written forum.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:24, Sun 13 Oct 2019.

Yeah, having my name at the top of the initiative list when it's been one of those weeks that I lack the mental energy to write a competent post maybe wasn't great.  Sorry if I've been holding things up...



I prefer keeping OOC lines in the IC thread, rather than having to move back and forth between different threads.



Heretic!  I will proudly stand in defense of the d12!

Yeah... this is like, exactly why we're not going to keep doing Initiative this way.  I really never meant for people to feel like they had to wait their turn to post.  That's deadly poison to PbP games.

Korentin - it is indeed dark out there and Korentin sure can't see much, though you should be able to make out some approaching horsemen?  Is Korentin just holding his action for now?  Since we are kind of trapped in this stupid Initiative thing, with Kathkar posted I need to know what you want to do and then I can roll that Archer and get Viltok, then get the chunk of Orks that come after him, and then Talia and Imerdijn can go and we can try to get out of this mire!


Remember, next round, just post what you want to do and make your rolls, including your own Initiative for the round.  I do feel we're reasonably settled on posting all that in the current thread, rather than making a separate one for mechanics/intents.  "Settled" might feel like a strong word with only two players expressing preferences, but since I like it better that way too and I have at least one vote, and everyone has had time to express interest in going the other way, I think that's good.  But since I don't really have a preference between having them in orange OOC: sections or Private to GM bits, I'd gladly request that people try to remember to put their mechanics in Private lines to keep the game thread "clean" for everyone else.

Otherwise, I'm not stupid, so I should at least almost always be able to follow your intention even if your exact action has to change a little (eg., picking the next best target, as is the most common change).  You're all not stupid, either, and you'll know when you roll if it was good or not, and can plan accordingly.  If the bad guys do something that I really think might change things, I can pause and figure that out when it happens, but that's going to be rare at worst.  Like I said, when I thought about it I realized we've been doing it that way for like, ten years, and I have no idea why I thought I needed to worry about it.  So, um, I guess sometimes I can be a little bit stupid.


Hey, wait, I thought your Gahad had something to do with dead people... are you changing it to disparaging polyhedrons? grin

I'll go post now, I've been waiting since I am technically the last person to act, but I really don't want the game to die.  Nothing anyone does is going to change my action anyway.

No, this is my OOC gahad :)

Gah! I can't decide!
I haev 1.400LP left to create my character for and I can't decide whether I want to spend 1.300 on a Stat increase (leaving me 100 to save up for a 2.100 Statincrease so I can get another step) or if I want to upgrade 2 Discipline Talents to Rank 4 and two Optional Talents to Rank 2 (and rush for 4th Circle).
Haven't even looked at the available Talent Knacks or possible Magic Items.

Any suggestions guys?
This message was last edited by the player at 09:37, Thu 17 Oct 2019.

Personally, I think the ranks matter more. Since you are not bumping a stat with the buy I usually place that priority on the back burner.

However I am use to the older systems where you cannot buy stats multiple time a circle. So I have a bias that way... I will have to re-evaluate that with 4th ed.

For now, I still think that stats give a solid base but ranks mean more for the character. This can change based on if the stat being raised is of primary importance to you/character or if it is a nice thing to have.

I hope this helps.

Guess it depends on what you get for the stat bump. Extra defense? Step number?

It's definitely too early to be looking at knacks and magic items.

If it were me, I'd take the stat increase; you have a solid chunk of LPs to spend at once right now and especially for one of those "stepping stone" increases it'll only be harder to justify from here, so if you want the Step-boosting one later I'd say it's better to be closer to it now.  You're not going to have a hard time building toward 4th Circle.  Stat increases also take a lot of time in-game, so once you're out of backstory, you can only really do that when we have a solid "down time" pause.  Improving Talents takes a whole lot less time and is much easier to do on the road.

Viltok has a good point - it kind of depends on the stat.  But I'm assuming if it wasn't a good one, you wouldn't be thinking about it.

Alright guys.
I've gone for the Attribute increase.
Partially because next time I raise it I will have a step increase and I have some skill and several talents planned that rely on it.
Thanks guys. ^_^

Now I just need to brush up and I'm ready to ambush those ambushers.

Argh - small technical difficulty.  I think the "Not" modifier doesn't work with Secret To lines the same way it does with Private To, and I'd been trying to get fancy.

I edited my last post, but the upshot is that everybody can make out four riders charging in from the east.  It's dark, but it's not so pitch black that you couldn't even see their basic shapes - you just can't make out the details.  So anybody who hasn't and would like to react to that is, of course, welcome to do so, because you were supposed to be able to see that.

sigh

It's probably too late, but with a clearer idea of the battlefield, Imerdijn would probably have taken a Defensive Stance to draw out attacks and figure out the lay of the battlefield.

Not too late!  Part of why I haven't updated yet was because that was totally my fault and I wanted to give people a chance to react to the information you were supposed to have had.

And here I was hoping it was because you wanted to give me a chance to jump in and ambush the ambushers!? :P

I don't think it changes my action? It might just take longer for us to get to them....

So guys.
Once GM okayed my LP expenditure, is there any equipment you want me to acquire since GM is giving us Carte Blanche (I already asked. I can't have named thread items... or a floating rowing boat... Or free tuition through master circles... Or more statpoints... Or... Or... Or...)

I think whatever makes sense for your character would be fine. Maybe rope. You can never have enough rope.

(insert Boondock Saints gif)

So I believe what's left in this round are;

Talia has a thing to resolve.  Korentin can make his move, interrupting the riders charging Viltok as a Reserved Action.  And Imerdijn has so far only declared his Defensive Stance - he can reach either the rider who just attacked him, who stopped about 8 yards away, or Viltok, who is about 6 yards from him.  Or, you know, something else, as always.

And then I'll need to roll for whatever's left of those last two riders, and we'll be ready to move on to the next round!

Okay, I posted a super great reply and then realized I can't use swift kick because I didn't beat his initiative. So ignore all rolls except for my sad little melee weapons to KD, which I think was a 4. So it, too, can be safely ignored.

I really should have used Avoid Blow against that arrow. Sigh.

You asked how we resolved Karma.
I think GM concluded that we have to roll it in advance of the roll it adds to (and mark it clearly).

So for instance:
Roll Karma (Rank 4) (marked "Karma for Meelee Attack".)
Roll Meelee Attack (marked "Meelee Attack")
Add karma result to Meelee Result.
Roll for Damage.

(I think it will also be OK if you declare your intend to use Karma when you roll your Meelee attack. Just as long as GM can't interprete it as added posthumerously.)

First, yes, that is indeed how to do Karma; either rolling it first and putting "Karma for [Talent]" in the Reason field, or rolling the Talent and putting "[Talent] with Karma" in the Reason.  (Or whatever, I'm not saying it has to be that exact wording, of course, just as long as your intention is clear.  Sometimes it's fun to play with those descriptions a little.)

Second, Imerdijn, I know technically I should stop whenever anyone gets hit and see if the target wants to roll Avoid Blow because you're supposed to do it before damage, but that slows things down way too much in PbP, so... overall I think we just have to accept that people on both sides are going to know what the damage is, too, before deciding if they want to try various defenses or not.  And I know we're all still getting the hang of this game, so if you do want to have tried your Avoid Blow, you can still roll that.

(I actually did just pause on that for Talia, but that's because they barely hit, and with two horses Charging at each other the Damage steps get crazy so it seemed super likely she'd want to try to avoid that one.  But normally it's not worth it.)

And finally, Korentin, that's a really good point on knowing their Defenses!  I should have thought of that; it used to totally be fine for the GM to just apply or not apply Armor Defeating as appropriate, and as a player I always kind of liked not knowing for the first round or two, but now you really need to know don't you?  I'll put all of those into the next GM Update, and be better about it going forward.  But for now, the Horses' defenses are all 9s, so that would have given you +2.  Given that this was totally my fault, you can decide if you want to re-roll at Step 16, or just do 20 damage.

 We'll go with 20, because that was a better roll than I deserved, even with the sliding under a galloping horse to do it. ^_^

Okay, I think I did everything right. I'm actually away from home in a snow storm, so by the graces of my dear friend I'm staying with,those seem to be the correct rules for a Charge. If I goofed on anything, let me know and I can adjust that.

No, I'm a round (weeks!) past rolling for Avoid Blow. I'll take it as a harsh lesson in remembering what abilities I have. I definitely would have thrown it out there if I had remembered. Growing pains, is all.

How the crap does someone have a step 29?  lol

It's what happens when two large moving objects collide at breakneck speed. I'm confident this will only work in my favor exactly once.

Calvarypersons are artillery.

With my astonishing Initiative of 3, I believe I'll be waiting a bit to decide.

I don't want to use it either way, but does having Tiger Spring mean I can use karma on Initiative too? It's worded oddly ...
This message was last edited by the player at 19:49, Wed 30 Oct 2019.

If it's a talent aquired through your discipline I'd say you can.
(At least that's how I interpreted it.
I'm still wavering on the Windling Racial ability for Astral Sensitive Sight, but that would be my ruling)

Oh man, the dice are really against me today.  Though I guess I should be used to that.

Nuffles is capricious like that. ^_^'

Oh, hey!  You probably wanted someone official to look at that, didn't you?  If only there were someone around here who could be expected to make rulings on things like that...

Ahem  Sorry this took me a bit to get back to; I had to do some digging, but I'm glad I did because my first instinct was wrong.  The answer is yes, if you're using Tiger Spring, you can add Karma.  Mataxes said on the forum that the only reason it's given as a "bonus" instead of a "replacement" like Air Dance is specifically so they can stack.  So yeah, knock yourself out!

...Oh, wait, this was about spending Karma, not Strain.  Korentin is knocking himself out.


Oh, that does suck!  I do have to say, though, thank you for being honest about it, knowing that a 7 would have hit a rider.

Ok, I am going to have to point out that this is the second round and already the players are all rolling ones for initiative (just like last round).  I think we need to be maybe not using the system dice for this game and just rolling the die in the roller?

Um, last round Kathkar had a 19 and only Seethra had a 1?  I assure you, RPoL is using the same RNG no matter what.  Your problem is entirely perceptive.

But if it really makes you feel better, whatever - you can manually enter your dice.  But when you're rolling Steps that use different dice types, you'll need to set it up in the Manual Dice field, and always check Reroll Max.  I'd really like to keep a single roll to, well, a single roll; doing it the way you just did with your Initiative is unnecessarily cluttery.  Make sure to keep Record Each Die on.

I'd also like you to include the Step Number in your Reason for Roll field - it's a lot easier for me to see a Step and have an idea what dice it should be than to look at the dice and remember what Step that is. shrug

On another note, after spending way too long trying to reconcile the grappling rules with the mounted combat rules and... it suddenly hit me that Talia, all you're actually doing is Attacking to Knock Down, with style.  Right?

If so, I should point out that you had three extra successes on your attack roll - quite inexplicable, apparently, since you used the Steps instead of manually entering your dice! ahem  But anyway, your damage roll should be done with Step 14.

And in answer to your follow-up question, if you want to base it off of Eidolon's Strength rather than yours, that does make sense to me and I'm sure I've seen it done in some Westerns, but I'd say that would also require you to make your own Strength roll to keep hold of the whip - akin to the one you're supposed to make with a Charging attack that I missed last round.  There was a completely coincidental discussion in Discord like two days later asking about those rolls to avoid being unseated or disarmed, though, and I've been thinking about that.  Need to get my thoughts about it in order and talk it over with you a little, I think.

Um, but anyway, short form - you were Step 14 for the damage anyway for your Successes.  If it was a regular whip attack, that will be actual damage and he'd be Entangled.  If he's <i>still<i> Entangled next round, you could make it an Attack to Knockdown by just pulling on it.  If it was an AtK this round, it won't do actual damage, of course, but, um, might knock him down now.  (Which does roll some damage, come to think of it, but only Step 5.)

Either way, for the AtK you could base it off of Eidolon's Strength (which this round would make it Step 17), but if you do choose to do that then Talia also has to roll her Strength against a DN of 8 to keep hold of her whip.  If she loses it it won't affect if he's pulled down or not, just whether or not she still has hold of her end.

Does that all make sense?

Talia rolled a 1
Seethra rolled a 1
Kathkar rolled a 3
and Korentin rolled a 2 last round

I don't know where the other numbers came from but those were their rolls when first posted.  This round it has been 1 for Talia, 1 for Kathkar, 3 for Korentin and Seethra didn't roll using the system dice but rolled far better.

I'm not really interested in arguing the nature of probability here.  I mean... maybe sometime, but not right now.  I said it's fine; just follow those guidelines and you can roll manually.

Probability aside, I'm going to react to what the my mounted orc buddy does. If he stays near it'll be one thing, if he rides away it'll be another.

Okay, because this couldn't possibly get any more confusing.... Now I have more questions. First, what would the rider use to try to break free of the current entanglement? Are we treating it like a grapple? So, he'd have to roll STR vs the Step 10 of the initial attack?

Second, if I do a regular whip attack, then does the attempt to dismount him (if still entangled next round) count as an attack, or technically, just a movement? That would give me the possible opportunity to wrap my end of the whip around my saddle horn for  my action next round and negate my need to roll my own STR to keep hold of it.

Thirdly, will Sure Mount, or Trick Riding be applicable for the other rider to use to resist being dismounted/ knocked down in this way?

Fourthly, for your advance warning... dragging damage...?

That seems fair!  Given that his spear broke, he's clearly planning to stay close and just attack.

Talia, you're lucky I love this sort of thing, or I'd probably be getting annoyed by now. grin  But I do, so... here goes!

Entangling Weapons have their own couple paragraphs starting at the bottom of p391.  If you achieve an extra success with an Entangling Weapon (which you did), your target is "entangled"; they're considered Harried for any actions besides breaking free.  Freeing themselves uses Strength or Dexterity.  If they had a one-handed bladed weapon ready when they got entangled, they can add its Damage Step and if they succeed the entangling weapon is ruined.  If they were holding, for example, a spear, at the time, they can't.  The difficulty to escape a particular entangling weapon is given by the weapon - for a whip, it's 9.

Though it occurs to me that I believe Entangling uses an Extra Success, so you would 'only' have +4 Damage after that, not +6.


So that part was easy; now you're making things difficult.  Phblt

I really do have to think that attempting to pull someone off their horse counts as an Attack; mechanically, no matter how clever you are about it, the effect is an Attack to Knockdown.  Everything else is description.

That said, if you tied it to 'Eidolon as your Action, it could be 'Eidolon's Action, because when they're not tied up running, horses get one too.  But 'Eidolon would be just moving without even really understanding the concept, so it would just be his Strength, with no particular skill added.  (Though I suppose with the new Training rules, you could start teaching him Melee Weapons... hah.  Um, anyway.)

For all its Weavings, Earthdawn doesn't have anything remotely like Rope Use, though.  I would say that would make it your Dexterity instead of Strength to not lose the whip in the process, since that's basically down to your knot-tying which seems like a Dex thing. I would actually also allow it to be quickly looped around as a Simple Action, which would let Talia still do something else but would mean you would definitely lose the whip in the process - it could hold long enough to try to pull him off, but succeed or fail it would pull off the horn.


Sure Mount would, yes.


Ooh, I should have thought about that when I had the two charging Viltok with the net.  Hm.  That's... hm.  Like, everything I know about this comes from one scene in Silverado, and there aren't any rules that even come close, but yeah.  Hm.  Have I mentioned hm already?  Hm.

Hm.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:49, Mon 11 Nov 2019.

Hopefully I'm done with my character soon and can join the frey.
We'll see if I can get Nuffles blessing this time. ^_^'

OK, I'm going to set dragging damage at an automatic Step 4 - that's in line with other broad-but-automatic damages.  Physical Armor does protect, but as long as someone is dragged at at least a horse's full move (eg, 16, so I suppose a Troll with a couple ranks in Sprint could pull this off too, which actually seems perfectly reasonable somehow) the damage just gets rolled.  This does limit the dragger's movement, though; you can curve, but no sharp turns or stopping and going back the other way.  Since I prefer kind of "mind's eye" maps to hard squares anyway, that's just something to bear in mind.

If someone is just Entangled, they get their usual options to escape that.  If they're actually tied up or shackled or what have you, options may still exist but would presumably be harder (eg., picking locks while being dragged across the ground sounds like it would at least require an extra Success or something... but I also don't think I need to figure that out right this moment, just storing it away now that Talia has helpfully introduced this to the game. innocent grin)

If they're Knocked Down (as they would be after being pulled off a horse, for example, but otherwise not necessarily) they can't do the automatic standing up while being dragged, but can attempt to Jump Up.  If they're on their feet, the Step 4 is an automatic Attack to Knockdown instead of an automatic Attack to Damage.

In theory Windlings should have lots of special rules around this, and very likely Trolls and Obsidimen would as well, but the system already tends to ignore that in lots of places so I'm inclined to as well.


I am, as nearly always, open to input before I actually enshrine this as a House Rule, though!

I just wanted to throw a quick post up here. I'm sorry for lagging. I've got a few deadlines I've been trying to meet. I'll get a post up by the end of the weekend.

Let’s get to the point where a windling cavalryman is dragging an Obsidiman behind her Zoak at a step 4 a round.
I want to see that happen. ^_^

Eyes Imerdijn

I guess if you insist...


More seriously, I am actually thinking about carrying capacities in this, kind of behind the scenes.  But dragging isn't really the same as carrying.  I mean, that's the whole point of wagons.  And when I did look at carrying capacity as given in the rules... like, judging by Strength Step, Eidolon is certainly very close to, if not slightly over, his limit already. (I have to make uncomfortable guesses about how much Talia weighs, and I know better than to ask. grin)

But a horse doesn't carry weight the same way a person does, even if that person is a Troll or Obsidiman.  And there are just no suggestions in the rules for how it should actually apply to animals, probably because it would be so different for a mule versus an espagra versus a troll snake in ways that their Strength Steps just don't begin to encompass.

...The point being that of course if it comes to something like that I'll impose that bit of, um, realism probably isn't the right word here, but you know.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:10, Sat 16 Nov 2019.

I had initially thought that maybe the damage step should be based on the distance you get dragged, similar to falling damage.  And maybe also modified by the ground conditions (e.g. being dragged over soft grass vs shards of glass).  But that might be too complicated.  And I suppose step 4 every round covers longer distances well enough as it is.

So yeah, your rule works well enough.  No objections from me.

Okay, so I went with AtK this round. I reduced E's Damage roll to 15 from the 17 since successes are taken up? I'm not finding that... but it also occurs to me that there are a lot of a lot of sections referenced for the nonsense Tal is doing here.



But... I confess, I'm missing why E/T's getting a +4? H.STR 8 + Whip.D 3 + 4? I'd consider this a Mobile Attack, so there are no bonuses from that? And I can only use Karma on a Charge... so what am I missing? Not... you know... to be difficult... but just since I'm sure I'll do something just as exasperating later on and I'd like to know how it's all working. ^_^

It's 4E's answer to taking out Armor Defeating Hits - and streamlining their Success Levels kind of generally, I suppose.  Every "extra success" (ie, a full 5 points over your DN) on an attack gets +2 Steps to the damage roll.  You had a 24, with your Karma, against his PD of 8, so that's 16 over for three extra successes.  But then, yes, one has to be used to Entangle, so that leaves you two to add to your damage.


grin I went through almost exactly that same line of thought, actually.  And given that it's all house-ruley anyway, if someone is being dragged across a field of swords I'd feel free to modify accordingly.  I do still feel like speed ought to have more direct impact, and the target's weight for sure, but... yeah.

More than that, even knowing that Talia is going to stay in the game and probably do this again, it's just too niche a thing to be worth actually writing up a six page treatment.  And that's where it was going.  I kind of like the Step 4; it kind of suggests a lot of scraping and bruising mostly, but exploding dice always means you might hit a sharp rock or get your arm caught and wrenched or... whatever.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:47, Mon 18 Nov 2019.

I think step 4 for a base is pretty legitimate. As stated, you can always adjust for nasty, nasty terrain mods. And yes, Talia will definitely try to do this again! At least until she isn't the only mounted rider of the group.

*mutters about different editions' rules updates, while gleefully murdering things*

Yeah!  Now that we have the idea, in a couple Circles I can have a Wyvern Rider snag somebody and skim them across Death's Sea!

I know I have everything to put the round together and update now - I'm probably going to be too busy tomorrow, but I'll get to it ASAP!

Dead Sea?
Why not the Badlands or the Poison Forest?
That way we can add either dragging up hill or poison to our houserule calculations.

Dipping people in Lava is such a Scavia thing to do...

Whelp, Imerdijn is almost certainly going to take a nap shortly :/

It also matters to Imerdijn if she goes before her friend, for swift kick purposes.

Ooh, Initiative with Imerdijn gets tricky though - so much potential back-and-forth on what technically ought to be decided before what!  Especially if we ever have opponents who also have choices about their Initiative rolls, which we almost certainly will.  This is definitely a place where Earthdawn would work better across a table.

But for now, sure; he rolled a 4.  I also edited it into the last game post so I won't have to look for it next time I update-- for your convenience. ahem


Kathkar - so, weaving Extra Threads to a spell is something that has to be declared ahead of time, so just like Karma would mean putting it in the Reason For Roll spot.  If you do that, then Extra Successes will totally let you weave multiple Threads in a single round, but without that, they don't do anything at all for Threadweaving which is kind of sad.

But since we're all still getting the hang of both 4e and translating it to PbP, I'd be glad to let you pick an Extra Thread effect to apply to your spell this time.




Ah, yes, Lava-Coated Windlings, that famous Scavian delicacy.

Bah, lame rule.  And I also see in the chart that I'm only able to add one extra thread anyway, based on being a mere 2nd Circle.  But I do thank you for your generosity here, of course.

I don't entirely disagree... at a table I would, but PbP weaving threads feels harsher.  On the other hand, deliberately adding the one thread that is, yes, as many as you can anyway right now, is only a DN of 10, and you have a pretty good chance of making that regularly.

Mostly, though, I just know 4e is ridiculously carefully balanced, so I don't feel ready to start tweaking it yet.  Maybe in a few years.  On the plus side, I really do plan to still be running this in a few years, so... grin

I got a feeling this battle is going to drag on forever. ^_^'
Can't join in before it's over. So I'll just sit here in the OOCchannel.

I feel you, I'm there but can't act either....:)

Who said that? I thought you were going to ambush the ambushers.

And no one is stopping Seethra either.

We may actually be getting a couple new players also; depending on the timing I'm actually looking to retcon them in as well, since only like half a minute had passed in game since we started. Normally I find retcons kind of jarring but right now it feels smoother than meeting new people on the road and just welcoming them with open arms.

Oh Alright.
I'll blindside those archers next round then. ^_^
Can I roll for Initiative now? ^_^

Side note, just as a matter of curiosity - for those of you with considerably more Earthdawn experience than me (in any edition), has human Versatility ever been worth it?  I get that it's cool to have more flexibility with access to talents, but having to buff Versatility first seems like a huge LP drain.  Is it somehow better in play than it looks to me when I read it?

Earthdawn is about the only system with humans and other races where the humans are often regarded as OP. Fourth Edition actually does a lot to fix that, but yes, Versatility can be very effective.


You could roll Initiative and act this round, if you want to! With the way we're running it, there's really no reason next round would make more sense than this one.

Versatility for spellcasters was ridiculous in editions past.

It's still pretty awesome, but it's about giving your character a few select tricks. My Wizard in another game has Woodskin, and it's saved his apple wood-smoked ass a couple times.

Seethra is in the middle of an action that takes 10 rounds to complete, which is why she hasn't been doing anything.

As for versatility it was really powerful in previous editions but 4th ed took some of that away by making the requirements for some things circle based as opposed to talent rank based.

Wait, I thought that I did act this round with my Thread Weaving, and I have to wait until next round to cast my spell.  Did I miss something?

Sorry, Kathkar, that part had been in response to Siff, asking whether she could roll Initiative to jump in next round!  I meant if she wanted to roll, I don't see any reason to wait until next round to jump in.  Totally didn't make that clear.


I mean... the actual action only takes one round.  I'm not sure it even takes that, actually; drinking a potion might be a Simple Action.  And even if you're not doing anything, if someone does notice you and attacks, that would still reset the `counter' on how long you've been just chilling to make a Recovery Test.  Earthdawn isn't really made for healing in the middle of a fight.  Fireblood is the only real exception that comes to mind.

(Fireblood is also another favorite choice for Versatility!)

There are some remarkable talents that are only accesible for your discipline through Versatility. You might also want to read up on the differences between the Talent and the Skill version of them.
Some of them (Like Great Leap) are similar in function, but the results are remarably different.
Some (like Astral Sight or Fireblood) are only available as Talents you can't access in any other way.

Edit: Perhaps I should mention that getting 3 Rank 1 Talents will cost you 800 LP.
The same as a Stat-increase.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:22, Mon 02 Dec 2019.

So I guess I am leaving the game guys...

Why are you leaving? :(

Not really feeling like my character is fitting in.  Seethra is missing an entire combat because she got almost killed with one hit and isn't really a combat character yet.  Missing the combat means no legend for it, which in turn means she's even further behind the group when it comes to bring combat effective.  Just seems she was built for a different game style, :(  Sucks I did like her back story.

Combat is long on RPoL, yes. I have had characters be in similar situations where I have had to do non-fighty things like calm animals, or tie off wagons rather than actually fight, because I wasn't built for that. But, keep in mind that not everything is going to be all about combat. Earthdawn really shines in the places that aren't combat, imho, which is why I really like it. You do get the social and planning and thinking scenes just as much as the fighty ones and they are just as important if not more so.

I might suggest if you aren't happy with all her stats, or abilities maybe you could just tweak her with GM approval. But honestly, I really like Seethra. I just think we are starting the game back up in a place that isn't ideal for her to shine just now. But I feel like we're more than halfway through that at this point, so I hope you'll consider waiting a little longer.

Also, I think we are all getting the same Legend Points-- I think that was a group discussion some time ago specifically because it sucks to fall behind when you're all part of the same story. So, you could also use some of that to up Toughness or such possibly.

Oh, yeah, I had forgotten about that....:)  I'll figure something out to post I can doooo eeeet.

If you want, you can send me your character sheet and I'll look over it. Earthdawn is usually pretty forgiving for non-optimized characters. After all, the dice can explode for and against anyone.

If it makes you feel any better, my giant obsidiman warrior is sucksville this fight.

I actually thought of a way she can help!  Just waiting for the gm to say yay or nay!

Is it too late for me to add an Avoid Blow roll to my post?

Talia has also had characters leap the gap onto an Airship full of Therans because they were so caught up in the general spirit of things...  I know she had to roll up a new character after that, but I mean, we never actually saw the body.  I still like to think that after a few hundred more rounds she was able to overcome them, commandeered their ship, and sails the skies as a pirate queen to this very day.


She is tanking really well!  Um, not in the sense of like, "Trump Steaks totally tanked as a business," but in the MMO sense.  You set her up from the start to attract the attention of the archers, and while Imerdijn is now pretty badly hurt, if she wasn't, a lot of that damage would be sitting on your squishier friends instead.


...No?  Though I'd have thought it was too early?  No one's attacked you yet, have they?  I do suppose it's technically supposed to happen between the Attack and Damage, but since that's just not feasible in PbP we all get the benefit of deciding after we know how hard they hit, and it seems like rolling it ahead of time would give that up.  I suppose rolling things like that in your next post technically may change what happened in mine - or vice-versa, when enemies use things like Avoid Blow - but I've never seen that be a problem, especially compared to the alternatives.



And... I know I've said this before, but a couple of comments lately have brought it back to mind and I just want to reiterate that I just roll the dice.  If I started fudging them, for or against you guys, it would absolutely ruin the game for me. (And knowing a GM was doing that would do the same for me as a player.  It's like a step beyond railroading, in my mind.)  And Earthdawn IS a deadly game -- those exploding dice are frankly likely to run against you at sometimes, and mid-combat healing mostly isn't a thing. (There's Fireblood, of course, but that's all that comes to mind.  The definite expectation in Earthdawn is survive now and hope you have time to recover.)  It's epic and heroic, yes, but it's also grim and horrific and bad things are definitely going to happen to good PCs.  I honestly expected this to be a casual warm-up for you guys, but.. yeah, Imerdijn is about to drop, and I get why Seethra panicked a bit.  But I have this marked as Fantasy/Horror for a reason, and even apart from random happenstance, or even fights that I expect to be dangerous, I'm actively planning terrible things in the future.

But I know that's not everyone's style, so I just want to be clear because I think unstated expectations are just disappointments waiting to happen, and I don't want anyone (including me) to end up disappointed.

Oh, and on the LP question, just to be super clear, first, yes, Talia's right - we talked about that a while ago and agreed on group awards.  But on top of that, I really tend to do them more as a matter of time and game-progression, rather than, "Yay, you killed something!  Here's your murder-prize!"  I never really liked that model.

*blinkblink* That's quite a bit more generous than my expectation that she's currently Theran Prisoner 24601.... But yes, that's happened. BUT SHE WAS WINNING! In her own mind, at least. The moral of course is... I really don't know. Stupidity and misplaced heroics are their own punishment?

*cough*Mallowroast.*cough*

Added Avoid Blow.
I suspect I will be refunded the Strain if the Orc (B?) doesn't hit.
If there's more than one attack against me you are welcome to roll dice for the additional Avoid Blow rolls...

Which brings me to my next question:
Can I only use one Karma Point on Avoid Blow by round?
Or can I use one Karma Point per Avoid Blow Roll I make?

Oh, sure!  You can spend a Karma any time you're rolling a Talent you learned through your Discipline.  (Note that Core and Optional Talents all count for this - it's just things like racial talents, Versatility Talents, or the way Questors and the new Mystic Paths work in 4e; none of those can use Karma.  Or Skills, obviously.)

But like... a theoretical high-Circle Warrior could spend one on their Air Dance Initiative, then three more on Avoid Blows, then another on Wound Balance if they got hit anyway, then another on their Melee Weapons Attack and then one on their damage (per their 5th Circle Karma Ability), and then another on their Momentum Attack, and then another on that damage...

It's like popcorn, and nothing bad could possibly come of running out. beam


I had nothing to do with that!  ...But potentially yeah, like that.  Mild colds for everyone!  Muahaha---oh, wait, were we not just talking about the coughing?

Well, I bought the Adept's Journey finally!  Really liking my first impression of it.

In reply to Garlen (msg # 315):

I was just wondering.
The books aren't always clear.
In one place you can use a Karma point on every Talent you use in the round, somewhere else I noted I could only use one Karmapoint per round.
So definitely somewhere where the GM making a statement helps a lot. ^_^'

Haven't heard of Adepts Journey.
Is it a companion?

Yeah, it has what used to be the "racial" disciplines in it but they have changed them to paths (which are like the Questor talents now). I was sad they didn't have the lightbearer stuff in them but that just means another book I guess. :)

Can you tell me where you saw only one Karma per round?  Like, page number, ideally.  I should probably look at that before saying for sure, but I can't find it anywhere.


The Mystic Paths are cool.  They're sort of like a limited, thematic stepchild of Versatility.  I was also hoping they might have had the Lightbearers, especially since I'm actually using them here, but I definitely think a Path is the way to bring them into the game.  I don't know if we'll ever take it past using Jazciel as a kind of deus ex machina, but if we get there and they haven't gotten an official writeup yet I may just do my own.

Would also like to officially welcome Trilarigas!  I am indeed saying that he was already part of the group, but, like Siff, had been out Doin' Stuff when the attack broke, and has perhaps spent the last couple rounds Getting Back and maybe Getting Into Position or... something.  But he is welcome to join in.

I edited both of them into the first post, but so no one has to actually go back and look, here are their bits:

"Seethra Leafpiercer comes from the northern side of Barsaive, not so far from the Blood Wood, where half her village was, to her shock, lured into slavery by a fellow Windling called Eventide.  Speaking of fellow Windlings, though only recently introduced to the group, Trilarigas is noted to have been on Kethra's tail - in his heart, at least - for literally years, since her band of Scorchers demolished his home."

And,

"All adventurers are rarities in their own way, but as an Air Sailor without a crew, Siff stands out a bit.  It seems she lost her crew when they were hired by a Windling to strike against the Dark Tidings itself... but on comparing notes after Jazciel's introduction, it seems quite likely that the Windling who hired them was none other than Eventide himself and the whole thing a trap from the beginning.  It was simple luck that saved her; it seems unlikely that the pair of Night Kings intended any to survive their ruse."


And we may have one more joining us now that the holidays are past and he can focus on other things - if so, that will be Floki Jarsteinn. (Well, he wrote it with accents, but I don't have time to mess with the codes right now.)  He's a Dwarven Swordmaster, which probably would have been super handy to have around and he seems to have pretty much missed the fight anyway, so I'll probably add him in as we go.

Whoa!  We have another windling????  Oh happy day!  Now we can have miniature windling tea parties on the back of the mighty steed Ruthapert!

Hello all, and thank you for letting me join.

I was going to declare using Astral Sight this round to find the "Archer in the darkness" and realized I don't know if that's necessary. Is the darkness that intense?

Away from the camp area (where Imerdijn set up some light), it's only -2 Darkness, but they are kind of hard to find in the first place without some kind of night vision.

But it would actually make a whole lot of sense to say that what's taken Trilarigas so long is that he's been circling around until he found their silhouette against Imerdijn's torchlight.  So I'd say you've found him, so... yeah, just the -2 for being in general Darkness, or you can use Astral Sight.

I'm sorry to be part of the cause of the delay. I thought I was caught up - I think I wrote a post but didn't post it.

No problem!  I've done that at least twice in my life.

Not more than five times.

...maybe six thousand.  Tops.


But seriously, I wouldn't have waited as long as I did if I hadn't also been caught up in holiday stuff.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:30, Thu 02 Jan 2020.

Oh, holidays....

Welcome, Trilarigas! Excellent timing, if I do say so myself!

I've also just gotten back from a trip and will get a post up as soon as I stop being disoriented by what day, time, and year it is. ^_^

Welcome Trilla! ^_^
Have loads of fun and remember to pay hommage to Nuffles whimsical will. ^_^

I've just returned to a stable connection, so I'm ready to post again.

How many scorchers are left and how are they distributed?

Also, the ork that is surrounded, is he mounted or not? As I think that may affect Talia's attacks. I thought not... but I could be tracking incorrectly.

*sigh*
I miss having maps...
Anyone here adept with Ditzie?
This message was last edited by the player at 01:28, Tue 07 Jan 2020.

Nope!  You're tracking right.


To be honest, I don't really care for maps.  To me they're more of a distraction than an aid.  As a GM it's a whole new layer of fiddly details to keep up with, and as a player it changes my mindset from playing my character to moving pieces on a board, and I don't like that.  But as neat as Ditzie was, as far as I can tell it's also still shut down, so you'd need someone who both knows how to use it and happens to have made an account back when they were doing that sort of thing.  Given that it's been closed for its major rewrite for more than three years now, I'm not sure it's coming back.


I do know you guys need to keep track of who and where things are, but that's also why I put things like this in my post...



And... I'm not trying to be snarky or anything, I just really don't know what to add to that.  There's the one surrounded who seems to be getting absolutely walloped this turn, one Entangled and being dragged along a few feet behind Talia, one fighting Siff, and one more Archer out there, which would be the one Trilarigas is aiming at by default.

Is there something more specific you need to know, Imerdijn?

I know there are other ways than Ditzie to do maps.  If everyone else prefers them, I can ask some other GMs around here what they use and give it a try.

Imerdijn is frustrated, but her player is enjoying narrating her frustration.

She'll not be getting in anyone's face at the moment, which runs counter to her (and my) style.

I'm not missing anything am I? the crossbowperson is an unknown variable?

Garlen, you are a really wonderful writer, we're not complaining when we ask, we just want to make sure we have the scene correct since it's being narrated over the course of several weeks. I'm not a big mapper either, I get that. Actually I've started using Areas like the old Marvel FASERIP game. You just are sort of in this 10x10 yd space. It's bigger if there's a lot of open area, smaller if it is crowded, like a cluttered alley. Maps are just a a group of rectangles marking off the Areas. It's great in real-time play. I'd only started figuring it out when we were playing 1879, it's getting closer to being smooth.

My other PbP uses charts to keep up with where everyone, including villains, is in terms of health, wounds, karma, and current statuses, and I _really_ like that. He does maps too, but I rarely look at them. The charts make sure I don't forget anything over the weeks that a combat takes to play out. It just keeps the information very organized.