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22:05, 28th March 2024 (GMT+0)

The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

Posted by Dungeon MasterFor group 0
Dungeon Master
GM, 1045 posts
You're trying what?
Hahahahahahaha!
Wed 30 Dec 2020
at 17:35
  • msg #861

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

Much better, thank you for asking.  Back at work (though I have this week off, for the holidays), and only remaining issue is that I feel tired a lot of the time.
Aarnr Foultongue
Player, 1315 posts
Human (technically)
Cleric of froggin' Bowbe!
Thu 31 Dec 2020
at 06:24
  • msg #862

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

You made your Saving Throw !  Well done !!  :>
Eilieen
Player, 1094 posts
Cure Serious Wounds!
Cure Serious Wounds!
Thu 31 Dec 2020
at 15:02
  • msg #863

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

Beautiful picture, as always!  :D
Dungeon Master
GM, 1047 posts
You're trying what?
Hahahahahahaha!
Fri 1 Jan 2021
at 12:27
  • msg #864

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

Happy New Year!  Hope 2021 is kind to all of us.  :)
Erista
player, 717 posts
Fri 1 Jan 2021
at 21:45
  • msg #865

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

Happy New Year!!
Eilieen
Player, 1095 posts
Cure Serious Wounds!
Cure Serious Wounds!
Sat 2 Jan 2021
at 02:51
  • msg #866

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

Happy new year for everyone!  :D
Aarnr Foultongue
Player, 1316 posts
Human (technically)
Cleric of froggin' Bowbe!
Sat 2 Jan 2021
at 04:18
  • msg #867

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

It'd froggin' better be or Aarnr will be having stern words with it !

Actually, 'Bowbe bless you' is probably not only a curse but the way wars get started ...
Eilieen
Player, 1097 posts
Cure Serious Wounds!
Cure Serious Wounds!
Sat 9 Jan 2021
at 14:27
  • msg #868

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

I'm a little worried about when we actually start fighting things close to our CR. Thus far, we're really low on magical items (I guess one or two?).  I'm not all about Christmas tree characters (there's a reason why I prefer Anima to D&D), but the game is balanced with the expectation that players will have X gold pieces worth of magical stuff at specific levels (built-in necessity for magic items, ugh, D&D whyyyy?).

Good thing most of us are spell-throwers.  I feel really badly for Colwyn.  :(
Aarnr Foultongue
Player, 1319 posts
Human (technically)
Cleric of froggin' Bowbe!
Sun 10 Jan 2021
at 04:41
  • msg #869

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

You mean so we could pile them all up and use them to attract monsters to kill ?  :P

Aarnr is not so trusting of magic (or coin) anyway - in his estimation a sword with a good name or story behind it is worth far more than any cheap knock-off some money-grubbing mage churned out !  <grins>

But seriously, setting the foibles of a barbarian aside, in game terms I think the balance is there - low magic works both ways: our foes are also mostly lacking magic items so they're not being used against us.  The only time we might feel the lack is against opponents with damage reduction based on magic, but we can counter that with Magic Weapon {C1} (admittedly I stopped memorizing it once Aarnr got Valkyria - as they say, +1 is all it takes).   :>
Colwyn Akbar
NPC, 411 posts
It's a trap!
No problem.
Sun 10 Jan 2021
at 21:01
  • msg #870

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

Eilieen:
I feel really badly for Colwyn.  :(

Don't yer be worryin' none 'bout me.  I's not bein' that 'elpless... I can be feelin' badly fer meself just fine, thanks.
Erista
player, 718 posts
Tue 12 Jan 2021
at 17:02
  • msg #871

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

Aarnr Foultongue:
Aarnr is not so trusting of magic (or coin) anyway - in his estimation a sword with a good name or story behind it is worth far more than any cheap knock-off some money-grubbing mage churned out !  <grins>

Aarnr should switch to Earthdawn! Real magic items there all have names and good stories behind them; it's intrinsic to making them magical.

I think we'll be fine, Eilieen!  The real magic is the friendship we're building along the way!  I'm almost positive that's in the rules, isn't it?  "Can only be hit by +2 or better weapons, or close friends supporting each other in a crisis"?
Eilieen
Player, 1099 posts
Cure Serious Wounds!
Cure Serious Wounds!
Tue 12 Jan 2021
at 18:16
  • msg #872

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

It's not just stuff like 'can be hit by magical weapons'.  It's the every-increasing enemy BAB while our armor classes don't change.  It's the increase in all saving throw levels while most classes have at best two strong save bonuses (mostly just one...).  It's the magical attacks getting ridiculous potent while fighter-types are spending feats to get +1 on damage, taking linear fighter/quadratic mage problem to a ridiculous extent.

I've heard podcasts from people who <i>designed</i> the game noting that yes, magic items are actually baked into the rules, and that's why there is a suggested 'gold pieces per level' table in the rules.  ^_^

Granted, I'm not complaining - I'm one of those 'wizards' (spellcasters) so it's less of an impact for me.  ^_^  Just something I have noted in other games, where it became REALLY apparent.  :)

...it's one reason (of many) why my favorite fantasy game is Anima, where most of a character's power (ie, almost all of it, even for straight-up 'fighter' types) comes from themselves, and magical items are either curios with VERY limited application or game-breaking artifacts of legend.  The game designer hadn't even intended to make up a book on them until the fans whined like mad.

Mostly magic items are either 'plot stuff' or 'things NPC's have'.

I like the sound of Earthdawn's method - I've heard good things about that game.  ^_^

Erista:
I think we'll be fine, Eilieen!  The real magic is the friendship we're building along the way!  I'm almost positive that's in the rules, isn't it?  "Can only be hit by +2 or better weapons, or close friends supporting each other in a crisis"?


If you start saying 'In the name of the moon, I will punish you!'...well, Eilieen would be fine with it, I guess.  ^_^
Eilieen
Player, 1100 posts
Cure Serious Wounds!
Cure Serious Wounds!
Tue 12 Jan 2021
at 18:16
  • msg #873

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

...sorry Colwyn, but will continue to worry.  ^_^
This message was last edited by the player at 18:17, Tue 12 Jan 2021.
Erista
player, 719 posts
Wed 13 Jan 2021
at 17:49
  • msg #874

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

Before (and maybe after, I'm not honestly sure anymore) COVID we'd joined a D&D game some friends of ours were running.  Characters were 10th level when we started and 11th when we stopped and... yeah, the Wizard sort of renders the rest of the group moot.  I'm not really in it for the fighting anyway so I don't mind too much but it makes combat feel extra boring when it's, "Okay, I stab a guy twice.  8 damage."  "I hit a guy with my hammer, 7 damage."  "I cast my spell.  78 damage to all thirty of them."  And it's like, why did we have to go through the Initiative Order again?  Can't we just do his turn and go home?


Anyway, Anima is neat!  I have it somewhere.  It's a complicated system but it looked like it would be very cool if I took the time to learn it, and I loved the art.  And yes, if those are the reasons you like it, I bet you'd like Earthdawn too.  I think it is worlds better than D&D.  Um, present company excepted, of course! chagrin

quote:
If you start saying 'In the name of the moon, I will punish you!'...well, Eilieen would be fine with it, I guess.  ^_^

... blinkblink  Oh?  Are we making this that kind of game?  checks the rating  Um, no, clearly not.  I, um, was just meaning... a... moon-themed game, kids.  Nothing to see here.
Arkan
NPC, 326 posts
Magic Missile!
Magic Missile!
Wed 13 Jan 2021
at 20:08
  • msg #875

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

The real magic is that Aarnr hasn't killed anybody with friendly not-entirely-unfriendly fire yet.
Aarnr Foultongue
Player, 1320 posts
Human (technically)
Cleric of froggin' Bowbe!
Thu 14 Jan 2021
at 04:40
  • msg #876

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

'Friendly fire' ?!!  That sounds like an excellent excuse for these mysterious but regularly occuring burning buildings we keep encountering.  :>

I mean 'it was like that already' probably isn't going to convince anyone ...
Eilieen
Player, 1101 posts
Cure Serious Wounds!
Cure Serious Wounds!
Tue 19 Jan 2021
at 01:21
  • msg #877

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

Erista:
Before (and maybe after, I'm not honestly sure anymore) COVID we'd joined a D&D game some friends of ours were running.  Characters were 10th level when we started and 11th when we stopped and... yeah, the Wizard sort of renders the rest of the group moot.  I'm not really in it for the fighting anyway so I don't mind too much but it makes combat feel extra boring when it's, "Okay, I stab a guy twice.  8 damage."  "I hit a guy with my hammer, 7 damage."  "I cast my spell.  78 damage to all thirty of them."  And it's like, why did we have to go through the Initiative Order again?  Can't we just do his turn and go home?


Similar thing happened in an Online D&D game I was playing on Storycrafter, only it was MUCH lower level.  Like, 5-6th level.  And we started seeing that happen.  No magic items, 'low magic' setting, etc...  Got into a fight with a large group of enemies.  Did the count afterward, and out of about 24 enemies, the two mages in the group accounted for about 21.

It gets especially bad in games where encounters happen only once or twice a day; the same podcast I was talking about before noted that the 3.x D&D game is calibrated (so to speak) around four combat encounters a day.  The number of spells is roughly set up to allow mage-types to husband what they need to have a little endurance through the fights and still have some magic left by the last one.

However, if the game has encounters happen more sparingly - often the case in an online game - the mages can essentially 'spelldump', ie use all of their best magic right off the bat and just keep firing away until the fight is over.

And the fighter-types really end upas the famous 'meatshields', nothing more.

It's a problem with the game balance, based on how the game was actually made.

quote:
Anyway, Anima is neat!  I have it somewhere.  It's a complicated system but it looked like it would be very cool if I took the time to learn it, and I loved the art.  And yes, if those are the reasons you like it, I bet you'd like Earthdawn too.  I think it is worlds better than D&D.  Um, present company excepted, of course! chagrin

Anima IS complicated, especially so when one brings in all of the rulebooks, rather than just the basic one.  Wonderfully complicated, with endless possibility for character creation....  ^_^  Fun stuff.

I should look into Earthdawn.  ^_^

quote:
If you start saying 'In the name of the moon, I will punish you!'...well, Eilieen would be fine with it, I guess.  ^_^

... blinkblink  Oh?  Are we making this that kind of game?  checks the rating  Um, no, clearly not.  I, um, was just meaning... a... moon-themed game, kids.  Nothing to see here.


Oh dear, no.  Eilieen left the Temple, remember?
Aarnr Foultongue
Player, 1322 posts
Human (technically)
Cleric of froggin' Bowbe!
Thu 21 Jan 2021
at 06:46
  • msg #878

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

With Aarnr, it's more "I just hit several hedgepigs with my froggin' longsword, 24 HP damage each, Power Attack, Great Cleave ... now, for my second attack ...", so don't worry unduly about your resident meatshield !  ;>

He's also the PC voted most likely to get caught up in the fireball that took out all the foe !  Tactics are for decadent city-dwelling toadies !!  <grins>

I can see a discrepancy in relative power levels being more of a problem in a FTF game - nobody likes to think there's nothing they can do to contribute when you're sitting around a table for a few hours... but online I find it's more about the roleplaying than the fighting (Shh !  Don't tell Aarnr I said that) and I get more satisfaction in crafting a post than in any particular roll result (some of the spectacular misses make Aarnr cross, though - Bowbe is obviously to blame).
Eilieen
Player, 1102 posts
Cure Serious Wounds!
Cure Serious Wounds!
Sat 23 Jan 2021
at 14:53
  • msg #879

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

Oh, I'm totally about the Roleplaying - this was a game where real-time months would go by between fights and we were writing bookish posts.  :)

It's just that for me, when dramatically appropriate action happens, it kind of stinks that one PC and one NPC wipe the walls with everything, and everyone else realizes 'we're actually unnecessary for this part.'  ^_^  Because the dramatic fight sequences are part of the story as well (this wasn't a 'dungeon crawl' or anything, it was an extended story game, so the times things got into blades and spells were rather important).

Granted, if I'm using a character who isn't there for the fighting (Ron has seen at least a couple of these including a pacifist ship's doctor, I once played a scribe in a D&D dungeon-delving adventure who was basically there to write up the exploits and provide information, and Eilieen fits the bill - mostly), that's perfectly cool.

But if my character is a hard-knocks, rogue-ranger (no magic variant) guerilla warrior who's here with a driving desire to make the world safe for non-combatants, I like to feel there's a point in her presence when the feces hits the revolving blades.  ^_^  Having the two mages of the group (one of which was an NPC!) spelldump their way through every dramatic fight really made the discrepancy hit home.

...and we were only level 5 or so.  O_o  Would have just gotten worse from there.

D&D 'balance' is a funny thing, I guess is what I'm saying.  There's no actual setting-based balancing (ie, reasons why one might hold back or the like), so it all needs to be baked into the rules.  And if it's baked into the rules with the assumption that 'people will play THIS way', the balance starts to fall apart when people play a different way.  ^_^
Erista
player, 721 posts
Fri 29 Jan 2021
at 20:52
  • msg #880

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

quote:
and Eilieen fits the bill - mostly

...But Eilieen kicks butt!  She's awesome.

That's a really good way to put it, though.  I've played characters that have no interest or ability in combat and of course they have nothing to do when a fight breaks out.  I built them that way, and it can be fun finding other ways to contribute, or not.  But when I build a character who should be able to contribute then, it's discouraging when that contribution is meaningless.

And what bothers me more, honestly, is that mages can generally trivialize the rest of the party in other circumstances too.  Like, I can max out Bluff and Diplomacy, or they can cast Charm Person.  I can max out Hide and Move Silently, or they can just turn Invisible.

I think D&D made some significant mistakes in its early years, like trying to balance classes over "time", and some of those mistakes are hard to fix.  And have echoed into gaming broadly, though I do think game design theory has certainly improved over the de--- let's just call it years.
Eilieen
Player, 1104 posts
Cure Serious Wounds!
Cure Serious Wounds!
Sat 30 Jan 2021
at 17:20
  • msg #881

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

Erista:
quote:
and Eilieen fits the bill - mostly

...But Eilieen kicks butt!  She's awesome.


This is lovely to hear.  :)  Eilieen is FUN...but was designed for a 'healer' role, so I'm cool if she isn't exactly a powerhouse in a fight.

The anti-Undead thing came kind of naturally as I played her.

quote:
That's a really good way to put it, though.  I've played characters that have no interest or ability in combat and of course they have nothing to do when a fight breaks out.  I built them that way, and it can be fun finding other ways to contribute, or not.  But when I build a character who should be able to contribute then, it's discouraging when that contribution is meaningless.


This is exactly what I mean.  Well-put.

quote:
And what bothers me more, honestly, is that mages can generally trivialize the rest of the party in other circumstances too.  Like, I can max out Bluff and Diplomacy, or they can cast Charm Person.  I can max out Hide and Move Silently, or they can just turn Invisible.

I think D&D made some significant mistakes in its early years, like trying to balance classes over "time", and some of those mistakes are hard to fix.  And have echoed into gaming broadly, though I do think game design theory has certainly improved over the de--- let's just call it years.


ahaha...

There's that, as well.  Rogues and other skill-based people become largely 'lesser fighters' and 'niche use' in D&D after a point, because there's little they can do that a good spell-caster can't mimic or do better...at least once a day.  And given how 'story/character-based' games run (versus complete dungeon-crawls), that's enough.

And it HAS impacted other class-based games, or even fantasy/Sci-Fi games in general (space opera with psychics can run into this problem.

Solutions?  Tricky.  Balancing stuff via RULES isn't easy.  It can lead to very bland rules, or even where the opposite happens - earlier editions of Battlelords of the 23rd Century, for example, had Matrix Generators (mages, really) with potentially awesome powers...who would take forever to achieve them (experience-point wise), and until that point were pretty weak in most situations.  :(  7th Edition (!!!) has largely solved this, I think, but it took an near-complete rewrite of the matrix rules and a lot of the core rules.  D6 Star Wars - which is good - still savagely nerfs Jedi by making it ridiculously hard for them to progress (and I say this as someone who dislikes Jedi, intensely - also, this isn't a shot against Ron's game, because I'm having a BALL there and I don't really care about advancement.  But someone who wants to play a similar character to Luke, who goes from Nobody to Jedi, is going to literally need to play constantly for years and years and years before they start getting even competent).

Even Anima suffers from this to some extent, though less-so; purely skill-based characters can eventually do supernatural stuff with their skills (want to use acrobatics to 'ride a beam of light'?  Sure thing!), but become almost trivial in combat situations, and mages can eventually replicate some of what they do.  What keeps it from getting out of control in Anima is the fact that the setting puts a soft-stop on people trying to have their mage be everything and do everything (it's unhealthy, though this does depend on the GM being willing to make it a threat).

Maybe that's what it takes - a combination of rules AND setting.  Which does hurt generic settings...  :(
Dungeon Master
GM, 1056 posts
You're trying what?
Hahahahahahaha!
Sun 14 Feb 2021
at 07:56
  • msg #882

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

Posting this in all of my games.

Due to a recent, and sudden, change in circumstances, I'm afraid that I am unable to continue GMing games for the time being.  As a result of this, all of my games are closing, with immediate effect.

While I may return to GMing in the future, I can not guarantee that I will pick up any of my current games again.

Apologies to all of my players, it has been a pleasure gaming with you all.
Aarnr Foultongue
Player, 1328 posts
Human (technically)
Cleric of froggin' Bowbe!
Sun 14 Feb 2021
at 09:15
  • msg #883

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

Nooooooooooooooooooooo !!!!!   :<

But seriously, very, very sorry to hear that and I really hope things work out for you.

Been an absolute pleasure ... and already looking forward to your triumphant return - anywhere, anytime.
Erista
player, 723 posts
Mon 15 Feb 2021
at 02:50
  • msg #884

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

Oh dear!  It sounds just so terribly obvious to say I hope you're okay, but that's because the words fail to convey the incredible depth to which I hope you are okay.

Gaming with you is always an absolute blast.  Thank you for taking the time to let us know, and... well.  If there's ever anything I can actually do for you, you know where to find me.  (I never did manage to thwart those accursed spy satellites of yours!)
Eilieen
Player, 1108 posts
Cure Serious Wounds!
Cure Serious Wounds!
Tue 16 Feb 2021
at 01:56
  • msg #885

Re: The New Chamber of Lost Souls. (OOC)

I will echo what others have said, and what I've said elsewhere.  Ron, you've been a great friend - especially to a person who hasn't been here that much for the last year - and THE best GM I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.  I've enjoyed many games and many discussions over the years, and will miss you terribly.

And I'm really, really hoping and praying that this is not some kind of critical emergency.

Everyone else - it has been an honor playing with all of you, some (I'm sure) in more than one game.  And I hope to see you around!  My Rmail is Raffles, if someone wants to contact me that way - with Ron shuttering his games (hopefully 'for now'!), I'm down to one game but will still be coming here!

I love you all!
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