Group we have some new players.

Well hello to new players then! I would guess... one or more of Darkleigh Noon, Thalyssra Moonstrike, and/or Theodore Tumbledown Tightbottom? At least those look to be the unfamiliar ones on the cast list...

Welcome new comers, looking forward to meeting you!

Welcome to the chaos and confusion!

Hello, I just got in, I've been getting behind on actually making a sheet, probably can't read up on everything, but I've been looking at some of them.

Most of us aren't too sure of what's going on anyway! Except maybe Gerad, but he seems to be a Seer and to have some sort of vast background metaplot thing going that no one else pays much attention to.

Well, it mostly is just in-setting explanations for the results of decisions made by WOTC marketing department.

I presume we are still waiting on new characters?

I'm doing some crafting and building. Just don't trip over the arc reactor.

Hey Darkleigh, good to see you again.

Now THAT would be an odd side adventure. Get the dimensional-transport effect working and go and try and swipe an arc reactor from Tony Stark. Probably in the middle of an alien invasion to boot.

We already have ZERG and Pit Fiends... Time jumping is the other game. If you want to meet Tony Stark you need to be in the Gotham game...


<.<

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<.>

DC and Marvel and Forgotten Realms? Now THAT would get complicated. Very possibly TOO complicated.

I get the feeling you could do it with the Eclipse system. It seems pretty flexible.

Oh I think you can build the characters fairly easily (as long as you don't go for the more ridiculous versions), I just meant that between the DC plotlines and complications, Marvel's plotlines and complications, and Faeruns - and many competing cosmologies (given that the comic books aren't at all consistent) I'm not sure that anyone (including  the GM) could keep track of the setting...

Hm... There was an article series on building the New Mutants and Cable. The index is over here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com...and-the-new-mutants/

In reply to John D'Oh (msg # 12):

Anything is possible.

But this game is not about the DC or Marvel universes. Faerun is complicated enough. With their throw every deity into the setting, many cataclysmic events to usher in eras and editions into being.

Try finding a nice map of Faerun and first you have to decide which edition it was made for before you use it. Seems Faerun is the flagship setting and they need to justify updating it every edition...

Anyways- yes, with Eclipse anything is possible. Want to play a demigod? Yup; how about dragons? Yup; modern setting world of darkness? Yup...

Well, all we need is something that supplies raw power... A few spell levels per round to power a set of minaturized applied spellcraft circles and you could build a sort of magical iron man suit... or there are lots of other ways.

Applied Spellcraft Circle Reactor then?

Almost done with Thalyssra.

I'm waiting on some feedback from Darkleigh.


I anticipate a slow weekend and slow next week (July 4th Holiday in the U.S.). I may or may not be out next week.

Enjoy the holiday.

Close. Applied Research Circle Reactor.
In other words,
A.R.C. Reactor

Well, the straightforward joke it is then!

And latest ritual up... Next up, I think that John wanted his Talisman tweaked?

Edit - for an image, this one works: https://www.redbubble.com/i/po...y-mac/28354308.LVTDI
This message was last edited by the player at 07:34, Fri 03 July 2020.

So, new character has arrived? Anyplace in particular?

The central field where the rite takes place. It’s as safe a place as any as most of the work is at the perimeter of the village.

Can anybody tell me what Synergy is in Eclipse, regarding skills? How is it calculated and how does it apply?

Synergy is a 3.x convention for skills and separate from Eclipse.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/ski...lls.htm#skillSynergy

Eclipse works with a bunch of different skill systems, only some of which have synergy - and it looks like the game master didn't put it into the condensed skill list. You can still get it through the Martial Arts skills.

Now you could get a small immunity to the normal limits of skills to pick up some benefits from this article ( https://ruscumag.wordpress.com...-practical-redesign/ ) ( the "synergies and skill benefits section) (a trick I didn't think of using for Gerad).

Come to think of it, you might like this style too: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com...-unit-tactics-style/

Skill benefits are free at 5,10,15, etc?

When it says Skill Benefit at 5, does that mean at 1) 5 Skill Ranks, or 2) when modifier for the skill becomes +5?

Hard to say. It might be like Mystic Artist skills - Ranks, Attribute Bonus, and Skill-boosting "Feats" count, temporary stuff, spells, innate enchantments don't - but it might just be actual  purchased ranks. The final ruling would be up to the game master since the skill system we're using is game specific.

For the martial art... well, I saw this one on a character:

Pioneer Spirit Style (Con):

The land has a rhythm to it. Every so often, there is a gully. Trees grow around the water, the weather turns in regular seasons.

And for a Pioneer… the land is an opponent. A creature to be defeated, and broken to service. Certainly, no single pioneer can truly mark the land – but they can establish themselves, they can raise homes and cities, they can farm and harvest. And they, and their families, can endure, facing the land with it’s own rugged strength until – after ten thousand battles – it is broken to the service of men.

    Requires: At least one basic Craft skill at +8 or more, +1 General BAB, Survival +8 or more.
    Basic Techniques: Strike, Power 1 (can do 1d6 damage with anything that comes to hand), Toughness 4, Synergy: Craft (Any), Handle Animal, Survival, and Knowledge/Geography. .
    Advanced And Master Techniques: Battlecry, Quick Draw, Expertise (Attacks and AC, Specialized for Double Effect / only to transfer from Attacks to AC), and Sneak Attack (I Kilt A Bar With This Ere Shovel…).
    Occult Techniques: Inner Strength II, (Ancestral) Ki Focus (+4 to Int-Based Skills, counts as skilled), (Ancestral) Ki Focus (+4 to Wis-Based Skills, counts as skilled).

Which is pretty obviously just there for people with a high Con score to invest a few points in in search of synergy bonuses.

Hmm, I suppose I should finally pop in and say hi!

Sorry, I guess it never occurred to me to post in the ooc chat, and our wonderful GM never suggested it, lol.

Likely excuse...

<.<

>.>



@John - Since I have no idea about what you are referencing, I cannot give any feedback. Is this Martial Arts (Skills), Mystic Artist, or something else completely?

With John I suspect that it was the suggestion of picking up an Immunity to the Normal Limits Of Skills to get access to the "synergies and skill benefits" section of this article: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com...-practical-redesign/

Rather like a much more general version of Pathfinder's "unchained" skill bonuses - although, to be fair, "Pathfinder Unchained" apparently came out six years later.

That article IS what I was referring to. But I don't understand why you would need an Immunity to Normal Limits of Skills in the first place, nor what that kind of Inmunity means in build terms?

It seems to indicate that for every +5 you have in a skill, you've 'earned' a small benefit relating to that skill. And nowhere did it mention any Immunity as a prerequisite.

Ah, the plethora of articles.

Those articles are meant to stimulate the mind of the possible, but not always available for a given game or system. Just because it is referenced does not mean it's included in the game.

I use a condensed skill list to take focus away from skills, and more focus on playability and role-playing. (After 30 years of gaming, the fact some skills never came up, never got used, or just were odd). Plus several skills are so rare or esoteric that you feel compelled to include those elements in the game since the player selected said skills. Every character took Spot, Survival, Rogue/Light Melee types always took Tumble, Hide, Move Silently. Some skills are too good to not take (Survival allows you to provide food for the group and navigate the wilderness, track creatures.) While Knowledge Architecture and Engineering - Good luck using that once or twice in a game when you were on a wilderness trek. Craft Weapons - carrying around the anvil and tools? Whoops, penalized.


The Immunity would be to include Synergies, just a lot more annoying things to track (You'd have to track the subskills that got a boost).

Acrobatics:
* Balance
* Tumble
* Fly
Athletics:
* Climb
* Jump
* Swim
etc.

Ah, so with the condensed skills, that Immunity doesn't need to be bought, and the skill enhancers every +5 don't come into play either. Good. Why complicate things more?

Buying that kind of immunity is for when you want your character to function under slightly different rules from everyone else. Say, the GM has disallowed some ability that you really really want. Well you can ask what level of immunity to the normal limits of the setting you'd have to buy to make it acceptable - effectively saying "Please? I'll pay extra!".

Now that's a natural-law immunity, so the GM might just say "no" anyway if they really disliked whatever-it-was - but if he or she just felt that something was too cheap and should cost more, well, the level of immunity they require will let them adjust the price to suit their game.

So if you REALLY wanted those synergy (or other special) skill bonuses - well, it would complicate your character, but you could use Immunities to tweak the rules so your character worked the way you wanted it to - and other characters who didn't want to deal with the complications would presumably spend those points on other things instead of buying that immunity.

Not a bad idea. What's the best way to buy "can use alcohol as a "universal panacea""?

Well, the Cincture Of The Raven seems to suit you, so presuming that you want to make that a long-term personal item (for that you'd want Enthusiast, Specialized in paying for a personal 1 CP Relic (1 CP)) then Gerad can make something else for you. How about...

Divine Mead Of Uthgar

• Shaping, Specialized for Increased Effect (Cantrips) and Corrupted for Reduced Cost / Healing effects only, requires that the recipient drink at least a little mead (4 CP).
• 1d6 (4) Mana with Spell Enhancement, Specialized and Corrupted / only to enhance L0 mead-based healing effects as above (2 CP).
• Rite Of Chi with +2 Bonus Uses, Specialized and Corrupted / only to restore Mana to the Spell Enhancement pool above (3 CP).
• Disadvantage: Probably obligations to Uthgar or something.

That would allow you to use some mead to produce healing effects of up to level three - albeit only up to a total of four spell levels worth of effects of above level zero at any one time. (If you decided to make some of those abilities personal later, and get more mana, you could start combining effects - such as using three level three effects in a row (Repair Body, Revivify Body, Summon Spirit, Relink Body and Spirit) to mimic "raise dead".

At the moment, that would have a net cost of 1 CP (and an opportunity cost of preventing Gerad from making something different at the moment). That's about as cheap as I can make a general-purpose alcoholic panacea.

I will take it! Sure, there are better powers, but it does suit him - and a little more in-party healing is always useful.

Oh mighty game master, should I provide some description for John and Khorolf?
This message was last edited by the player at 02:36, Wed 05 Aug 2020.

I know you won't be happy until you do...

When John has the chance, he receives the War god blessings, enhancing his armor and weapons.

Well, it only really requires half an hour or so for the package. It should be well worth it.

*Knock Knock* Hello?

Its the Fabulous frog-man.......

Ah, I didn't think we'd quite hit the "we are leaving" point yet...

I don't recall; was your shrine suitable?

Normally Khorolf is borderline obnoxious but this, this is just hilarious!

Look at that and I already have my sword out.

Classic.

Hello people!

I'm the new one here, and I'm looking forward to playing with you all!^^

And hello there. Hopefully you will not be eaten by squirrels before we arrive - although that would be a little nuts!

Hehe, I don't know... Don't think that'll happen, but who knows. Then again, would be quite a way to go out!

But nah, I have faith in you all.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:04, Fri 28 Aug 2020.

Vine deer? What Vine Deer? Was that one of the 'random animals held in the air by the sickly yellow vines'?

In reply to John D'Oh (msg # 47):

Yes, the creature Khorolf freed from the vines.

Ah. Not overly grateful then.....

Considering the vines are part of the creature...

<.<
>.>

How far away is vine deer? And are more of the creatures in the vines coming alive before we charge in and De-squirrialize the area.

In reply to Raven (msg # 51):

Seems to be only the one that Khorolf attacked showing any signs of movement.

John perhaps I missed something but what ability are you using that requires a standard action for a shield effect?

Innate Enchantment Shield Spell. I thought it was a Standard action, like an SLA.

No, it’s a constant always on.

Oh.

Can Light foot be used in a double-move leap for a truly anime attack?

If you are doing a double move then you get double your move.

Hmm, okay. Well I already posted a run and jump of 90'. That's cinematic enough and gets me in close.

I know that Fortune's Favor gives a Luck bonus to Skills and Ability checks. Does it affect anything else?

The Practical Enchanter, page 32:



Looks to be isolated to skills and attribute checks.

Just as an FYI, attribute checks apply to any sort of check that an ability score applies to that aren't otherwise specified(Attacks, saves, etc).

As I didn't know this until recently, this includes initiative checks.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:39, Mon 31 Aug 2020.

I knew about Initiative. Didn't know it applied to Saves. Thanks.

In reply to John D'Oh (msg # 62):

I don't believe it does. Saves, attacks and similar specific stats are generally called out as such.

The Practical Enchanter specifically lists what kinds of bonuses apply to what. The only section listing "Initiative" is the Insight Bonus section. Since Initiative is specifically called out there, separately from "Checks", we know that spells from that book other than Insight Bonus spells do not affect Initiative. Similarly, Saving Throws are specifically called out as being separate from Checks.

The GM may rule otherwise, but that's the way that book is written, so that's how spells from it work.

• Similarly, spells such as
• Benediction specifically calls out Saves, Skill Checks, and Ability checks without mentioning initiative.
• Crushing Despair (like Good Hope) specifies attack rolls, saving throws, ability checks, skill checks, and weapon damage rolls, but does not mention initiative.
• Curse Of Ill Fortune calls out attack rolls, saving throws, ability checks, and skill checks without mentioning initiative.

Nerveskitter specifically calls out that it alters current initiatives. That establishes that spells cast after battle has begun generally do not alter initiatives.

Shock and Awe specifically penalizes initiative,  but nothing else.

Cat's Grace adds to Dexterity, and specifically calls out that it affects Initiative and other uses of the Dexterity Modifier.

Initiative checks specifically get their own definition in the rules - "At the start of a battle, each combatant makes an initiative check. An initiative check is a Dexterity check. Each character applies his or her Dexterity modifier to the roll. Characters act in order, counting down from highest result to lowest. In every round that follows, the characters act in the same order (unless a character takes an action that results in his or her initiative changing; see Special Initiative Actions)."

Now, that does classify them in the general category of Dexterity Checks, but then goes on to specify what applies to the roll - the characters dexterity modifier. That's consistent with the various spells. As usual in the System Reference Document, the specific - "Each character applies his or her Dexterity modifier to the roll" - normally overrides the general - "is a Dexterity Check".

And yes, I am well aware of the various arguments that say that check modifiers should apply (and, it appears, in fifth edition they do) - but that really doesn't seem to be the way that 3.5 was written.

On the practical side, given that allowing spells that modify checks will keep changing characters initiatives - thus needlessly complicating an already overly complicated combat system - I think it's a poor idea. It's still ultimately up to the game master though.

Every forum I've ever read for 3.5 agrees that Luckstones and other things that affect ability checks will as a result affect Initiative. Said Forums also agree that Saves are not Ability Checks.

I know for a fact that the 3.5 Factotum's 'Brains over Brawn' ability lets you add you Int to your Dex for initiative.

It specifically says "You gain your Int bonus to Str checks, Dex checks, and checks involving skills with those stats."

This, while being 5e, also says Initiative is Dex check: https://dnd.wizards.com/articl...advice/ability-check

There are attack rolls, saves, and skill checks. Everything else is an ability check. Which would be a Str check where you add your Str to the roll, or a Cha check where you add you Cha. Such as your turning check.

And I've seen forum threads that concluded just the opposite. I've also seen some reaching quite interesting conclusions on biology and physics, along with some that concluded that the Earth is flat. An argument is only as good as the facts and logic that support it. That's why I quoted chunks of the rules.

Now, as far as the Factotum goes, as I have already pointed out, d20 is an exception based system. The fact that the Factotum has a specific special rule to allow it to do something is a class special ability - and does not apply elsewhere. That's why I quoted a selection of general use spells.

Now, if you want to talk about other editions, Fourth and Fifth edition are entirely irrelevant, given that they did not exist when 3.0 and 3.5 were written.

So lets check out First and Second edition. They at least existed at the time and - rather blatantly - had an influence on the general rules system. Since "Luckstones" were mentioned, I'll take a look at them.



That was the same in both First and Second edition, and it covered saves yes, and certain kinds of attribute checks - but definitely not initiative. It also didn't cover skills of any kind, since skill systems were entirely optional in First and Second edition.

If you want to talk about the specific spell from The Practical Enchanter, nothing from any forum is likely to apply unless they're specifically talking about that product - and even then it would be mostly opinion. If you actually want an authoritative answer as to the spells in that book you could try asking the author. He hasn't posted for some time, but may still be answering questions.

"I assume you are not dragon hunting mercenaries?"

I find myself tempted to say something along the lines of "Were you looking for some? Trouble with an Ex or something?".

Haha XD

"The only trouble I'd have with an Ex, would be that... well.. maybe not that important."

What is the refill rate for a pool of Ki, such as referenced by Inner Strength under various Martial Arts?

Restores as Attribute damage. So, 1 a day, 2 if you do nothing but bed rest IIRC.

If you want to pull a lot of martial arts stunts, you can buy Mana with the Resilience option, Specialized and Corrupted / Only for Resilience, Only to power Martial Arts Occult Powers (2 CP) and Rite of Chi with +4 Bonus Uses, Specialized and Corrupted / only to restore mana, only for the Martial Arts Resilience pool above (4 CP).

That way you can afford to pull off several martial arts stunts in every fight. Given the number of special options that can give you, it's probably well worth it once your martial arts skills are high enough.

How much Mana does that 2 cp give you, and what is the Rite of Chi?

So as not to clutter the IC with OOC stuff.

I apologize, Khorolf, I misunderstood your intent. Typically you do/say things with Khorolf that seem..well a bit boneheaded, seemingly to play up your barbarian sterotype, typically Raven ends up sighing and being exasperated (wanting to have a traumatized teenager stab you is one great example) so I assumed this was my cue to be exasperated and sigh.

The creatures turned to goo? (Other than the splattered mess we made, I myst have missed that detail.)

The rest of the fight was handled by us dealing with them. Cutting about two weeks of combat to get us to rp and continue^^

You misunderstand my concern. 'Turning to goo' is something that happened in a previous fight in some mines. Are these creatures related to the extradimensional blob we defeated before?

Ah well, my bad then. The post I saw from the GM only said...



No mentioning of goo until Khorolf said it. At least from my point of view, maybe I missed the perception check.

Got lucky and got a 26.

Is the monstrosity bipedal or hybrid animal? Does it have a tail (or similar appendage) that one can run up from behind?

Is close enough. 6-ish legs...
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:13, Mon 03 Jan 2022.

How high up is the center body? Are there any trees or hills still standing that might give me a higher launch point for a Light Foot Leap Attack?

40'-50'

Plenty of trees, you are in a forest. Be a hefty athletics roll, but certainly doable as a hero.

I'm beginning to wonder who is more insane, Khorolf, or John...

I guess subtle GM hints are ineffective, time to take out the clue bat...



Taking on the beast at your current level would be the same as Frodo from the Shire taking on Smaug. A direct frontal assault would be akin to a suicidal effort. (Not every threat needs to be met with violence, there are some things best to avoid to achieve your goals - The beast is NOT the curse, it is a MANIFESTATION of the curse).


Given the current make-up of the group, it is certainly feasible that you could come up with a plan to deal with it. But is that the best time use of your resources?

Apologies frendos, but I had a massive derp moment, and totally forgot to read about our traveling base aka Gerad's Wagon O Wonder. However, I read it over tonight, thanks to the recent link for Lara.

I see there's currently five bedrooms, but there's two new PCs, so idk if Lara and I will have our own rooms or not.

Also, I see there's shrines in the lowest level. Would Thal be able to have a shrine dedicated to Selune added in?

Finally, I notice the whole place adds all sorts of skill bonuses to various crafts, professions, etc.

I'm thinking Thal will be a blend of cleric, druid, and witch, with powers and abilities based around the moon, healing, lycanthropes, animals, etc.

I currently have yet to chose my 5 skills for my ranks in Background, so I was wondering what all everybody already has for those skills?

Well, Gerad has the larger bedroom - it is his house - so the five rooms are guest bedrooms. At the moment, that's one for each active character. Gerad can add more rooms and features - but he's using Siddhisyoga to purchase such things, meaning that he has to sacrifice treasure (of some sort) to pay for what he adds. We're currently using the Pathfinder downtime rules for costs of new facilities, so adding various "rooms" is relatively quick, simple, and cheap (although adding more extradimensional space is a bit pricey) - but we'll need to find some more money (or have some downtime to generate some) first.

For a shrine, that was noted back in the main adventure thread in post 199:



The basic shrine setup (with the base bonuses listed for the house and the shrines) costs 400 GP, I was intending to add some special functions later, but that will cost more, so it was awaiting more treasure. If it matters any, "Lucha" is one of Selune's various aliases, although it was mostly popular in Netheril, about one and a half millennia past. For good or ill, Gerad is a seer, and more than a bit unfocused in time.

Finally, I wouldn't worry too much about what background skills you have. John covers most of the alchemy, armor, and weapons crafting type skills (and makes occult gadgets), Khorolf does brewing, leatherworking, carpentry, exhibition wrestling, and various other wilderness/barbarian type skills, Raven (I think; he may opt to provide more accurate information)) crafts charms and totems and fetishes and such, and Gerad's basic tricks are 1) spirit channeling and 2) skill-based magic - so he has an awful lot of skills. Those tricks have a relatively low ceiling on raw power, but they grant access to it fairly early - which I will admit is my favorite sort of character; one with an immense array of midrange tricks which must be used cleverly.

So take whatever fits your character. We have most of the basics covered.

I'm currently on my phone, so I can't (easily) see what skills I have.

Regarding beds, I'm fine with sharing a bed if needed, or just lay down on the floor on some blankets or pillows or, traditionally, coins and treasure.

John's Background skills are

Craft: Weaponsmith, Craft: Armorsmith, Craft: Blacksmithing,
Craft: Alchemy, Profession: Herbalist

He can build a cot near his forge and give up his bedroom for either of the ladies (though the dragon lady intrigues him more).

Raven deals with spirits mostly through Orm his spirit fetch, but he is a blaster and doesn't have any background skills :P

So craft away my happy little friends.

Raven is a Fey Warlock (if you want to use 3.5 equivalencies) so dealing with spirits, blasting things and doing a lot of witch craft :D He is one of my older characters so he's not super optimized except for blasting (thanks to Thoth!)

Ah, I was mostly guessing based on the assumption that you made most of your own trinkets, talismans, and gizmos. Don't worry! We'll just have to find a disposable enemy and give you a skill transplant...

Hm. I wonder if we can actually do that?

Yeah... It exists in some books in various forms. Rituals, powers, etc.

I'll take this...or we can whip up some kind of link between us all that lets us lend 'skills'

Do we not level up in this game? lol

I feel like just waiting till your next level and droppin a few skill points into background is probably the easier path...

We do, but if you present a problem Gerad comes up with several solutions, at least three of which are esoteric and can be done immediately. It is very helpful in learning the rules :P

Where's the fun in doing it the easy way? Now, if you actually want to get odd... a long term channeling of a spirit with the skills you want will work too.

Make a simple solution and players will enjoy making it complicated.

That said I’m going to be working odd hours and will be decreased posting responses for the next five weeks.

Vessel of purity can be anything that’s never been used before or consecrated to a higher power or ideal. All ya pervs thinking virgins, though I’ll accept those. That’d be most of the party anyways...

Drops of the moon you’ve got several options.

To be fair, this is d20. The quickest and easiest solution is to ask John to use his gadget-making ability to distill a bottle of liquid moonlight, presumably good for making lycanthropes change forms, lighting up areas, manipulating fertility and menstrual cycles, tinkering with moon-related curses, and whatever else seems in-theme.

Looking at those links, you're just leaving it to the moon-priestess to bring it up since it's her religion aren't you? I saw that bit about "Moonfire Lenses" a few posts back.

Well, it is rude to step on another character's specialty - and while I suspect that Gerad probably has a higher base in his knowledge skills, pretty much every clerical type more or less automatically has that 1 SP in Specific Knowledge/(Their) Cult Doctrine for their particular faith. Even if they didn't think to buy it, it sort of comes with the job.

Well, I suppose I could always do up a shrine to Selune in her aspect (as worshipped by the Gith) as Bright Tungi, Lady of the Silver Sickle, Harvester of Dreaming Souls, She-Who-Extends-The-Silver-Roads-Through-Astral-Space, Guiding Light Of The Night, and Destroyer Of The Illithid Hordes, in her martial aspect as the Lunar Crone Of Battle. That would call for decorating it with images of spelljammer battles in deep space and sculptures of the thousand Illithid Heads that she has taken in bloody fights from Mind Flayer Spelljammer Captains that seek to invade from the Outer Darkness. I'm sure that Khorolf would like it.

Monday is my last go-live. I'll be resuming a more or less regular schedule probably Wednesday. But I shall see about a GM post to get us moving forward again!

In reply to Gerad Waelhlem (msg # 99):

That would be amusing. Of course, Khorolf kind of thinks of Selune as patroness of ninja too.

So... straight for the pesky drops or hit all the possible adventure locations along the way? I'd vote for "all the possible adventures". We would use the XP.

And some more treasure would be useful; I currently don't have enough to set up another shrine - much less to install a TARDIS drive as John has speculated about.

And I need lvls and cp if I'm going to make myself Iron Man.

That is a bit tricky given the number of authors that have added stuff to Iron Man's armor over the decades...

On the other hand, a lot of things only get trotted out when a particular scene needs them and are almost never heard from again. To do THAT all you need is Occult Skill (Foresight), Specialized and Corrupted for Reduced Costs / only to turn your Gadgetry skill into an "as needed" resource, only for items that can be sanely built into your armor - so if you happen to need that "Solar Flare" device to drive back and damage a bunch of Undead, you can decide that you just happened to have installed it a few days ago. How fortunate!

Nah, not until a few more levels. For now, jjust the basics. Armor, flight, damage reduction, strength enhancement,  and maybe a built-in ranged weapon.

If we're going to have Iron Man running around I may have to look into more magic beer powers. No doubt Gerad will soon propose some.

Hey all, sorry for the silence. Been a busy week coupled with bad weather, and I just haven't gotten around to replying.

I am totally for all the adventures, levels, and loots, lol.

Will get an IG reply shortly.

I should have updates tomorrow.

This sort of thing will happen.

And incidentally... Magic Beer Powers? What KIND of magic beer powers? You drink it and gain power? Intoxication bombs? Party Powers? Mystic Artist (Beer Making)?

This I've got to see. How about Mystic Artist (Beer Making)?

How about Martial Arts(Drunken Master)?

Well, after a bit of consulting, the quickest, simplest (and cheapest) way to become a mystic brewer looks like...

Mystic Artist for Craft / Brewing Specialized and Corrupted / you have to actually serve people some of your brews to drink and have them drink them, rather than just letting them see or hear your art or craft. That rather drastically limits it's applicability in many situations and takes a lot more time. On the other hand, I'd guess that your skill is somewhere around +8 to +10 - which wouldn't give you access to many abilities without taking a modifier.

So: Mystic Artist, Specialized for Increased Effect (Double the base skill for power-purchasing purposes) and Corrupted for Reduced Cost (You must pour your targets a drink, and they must drink it, rather like taking a potion) (4 CP).

As for the ability path, with a (doubled) base skill (skill points + attribute modifier + boosting feats) total of at least "X" you get...
3+: Drunkenness (Emotion, 3). A single draught of your beverages can cause powerful emotions for all who partake.
4+: Sobering Draught (Block, 3). Your beverages can counteract of all sorts of intoxicants for all who partake.
5+ Bartenders Whisper (Fascinate, 3): You may cause your targets to drink massively, at Skill 6+ you can whisper Suggestions to them, albeit only one at a time. .
6+:  Hard Liquor (Hold Audience). Your beverages can keep all the people you serve fascinated and drinking for hours.
9+: Divine Mead (Greatness, 9): You may grant those who partake (up to Level/3 targets) 1d10 temporary hit points, +1 to their BAB, Saves, and AC, and 6 CP worth of temporary abilities  (Perhaps Fire Resistance 30, or Grant of Aid with +4 Bonus Uses, Specialized in healing hit points - for a base of 5d8+25 healing).
12+: Drunken Inspiration (Excellence, 12). Grants a single target two +4 Morale Bonuses, these can be applied to attributes, to Saves (all of them), to AC,to Attacks, or to Damage.
15+: Mystic Wine (Amplify, 9). Grant a +2 Caster Level bonus to all who partake drinker.
18+: Mixed Drinks (Harmonize, 12): You may imbue a single draught with any two of your effects.
21+: Essential Spirits (Serenity, 18): Your draughts count as a nights rest and refresh uses-per-day abilities.
24+: Drunken Mastery (Mass Greatness, 15): As per Divine Mead, but for up to (Cha Mod + Level) targets.
30+: Transcendent Ale (Mass Excellence, 18): As per Drunken Inspiration, but for (Level/2 + Cha  Mod) targets.
36+: Draught Of Valhalla (Heroism, Skill 30): Doubles the effects of Divine Mead, but only for a single target. Still, for example, a draught that will let someone heal (13+ Level/3) * (d8+5) damage can be quite useful.
48+: Valhalla's Keg (Mass Heroism, 36): As per Valhalla's Draught, but affects up to (Level/2 + Cha Mod) targets.
60+: Touch Of Dionysus (Double, 48): Double any one aspect of any lesser ability whenever you use it. .

Admittedly, you could only use such abilities (Level) times per day unless you get Bonus Uses, but the investment is relatively small. I'd guess that the effects would last for a couple of minutes - as long as a hint of the flavor does.

As for a "Drunken Master" style... some sources say that the classical idea was that opponents wouldn't see your activities as anything but the antics of a (presumably very, VERY, lucky) drunkard, others say that it's just an advanced form that concentrates on apparently erratic and off-balance maneuvers so as to confuse an opponent, and still others (albeit far more mystical ones) say that it is performed while drunk, using the alcohol to grant yourself near-invulnerability and utterly unpredictable attacks. .

So what version of a "Drunken Style" did you have in mind?

That sounds more like "Mystic Bartender", but it does look like fun, and well worth the four points... I'm going to wind up with a character sheet full or weird special-purpose powers aren't I?

Ya'll are some real experts with this system, I'm kinda jelly! I'm just over here like, 'Thal's a priestess, so she needs some cleric spells, and some neat moon powers.' and that's about the extent of my knowledge of Eclipse, lol.

Expert, me? No friggin way. I have to ask questions over and over because my understanding of the system is.....flawed at best. You're still not alone.

Well, the real tricks are mostly that 1) the more narrowly focused you make an ability, the cheaper and/or more powerful it becomes, and 2) combining abilities lets you pull of neat tricks.

For example, a sneaky rogue-thief type who dabbled in Witchcraft who - on being caught sneaking around in the evil overlords dungeons - realized that combining the note under Hand of Shadows that you could use it to do an hours light work in a moment, spending extra power to increase the range, and realizing that "Lockpicking" was definitely light work, combined those abilities to release all the prisoners at once - thus turning what was supposed to be an individual rescue into a massive jailbreak.

I'd better stop asking for stuff while I can still afford hit dice and base attack bonuses for next level.

Am gonna post this here so as not to clog in game:

One of the reasons I'm not posting as much as I would perhaps like is I get really frustrated with a lot Gerad's posts that seem to steal Thal's thunder or tread on her area of being a priestess of Selune.

All that stuff about Moonfire/Moon drops/etc should have been stuff she knew, and told the PCs about, but Gerad jumped in and ruined that moment. The player could have just ooc gave all that info to me, and then Thal could have said it all in game.

Now, he ruined her diving into the pool to investigate the object. Sure, she can still do it, but he's drained part of the pool's power, possibly to the point of uselessness.

I'm almost wondering what her role is in the group, since Gerad keeps stealing her spotlight, and doing/knowing stuff she should she do/know.

And before you give me that "I'm just doing what my character would do", know that in the gaming world at large, that is generally seen as an incredibly toxic phrase.

Now lets see here. To go line by line...

1) You have refused to participate in designing and creating an enhancing ritual and talisman for yourself (and so do not have one) and have repeatedly refused to function as a priestess. You have refused to tell me about what aspect of Selune you worship, what iconography and features you would want in a shrine to her, and have not told anyone stories about your goddess or attempted to popularize her worship or perform any priestly rituals - one of the most basic responsibilities of priests on Aebir-Toril since their power depends on worship - and blatantly haven't bothered to familiarize yourself with your supposed faith.

2) Yes, it should have been. Which is why I left it to you to talk about them AND provided an OOC link to the Faerun Wiki so that you could get the information you apparently weren't familiar with to relay. In fact, in deference to you, I provided a wrong guess for Gerad - the notion that John might be able to distill such a thing - rather than simply relying on the fact that Gerad has a base of +8 in Knowledge/Religion, a +15 bonus to knowledge of Faiths of Faerun, and can readily apply specific skill boosters. The fact that you didn't have your character provide that information to the party is why they still don't have much of it beyond the names. If you had been paying attention, you would have noticed that Gerad has not, in fact, provided details.

3) We arrived at the pool on Nov 2'nd. Gerad started doing some divinations on Nov 4'th. On Nov 11'th you posted something - that you were standing and watching. On Nov 11 Khorolf  saw that there was something in the pool (but has not yet mentioned this to anyone else, so no one else has that information yet). On Nov 12'th Gerad did more divinations and got a response. On the 13'th he shared that information with the rest of the group and took a drink. At that point you had had eleven days to post (and should have posted at least every three days, remember?) that you were taking an action, and had not. It is no one elses fault that you decided not to do anything.

4) Since you're a newcomer to the group, it is up to you to find a place in it - not for other people to abandon their roles to make room for you. In fact, I have made deliberate efforts to accommodate your failure to inquire as to the specialties of the characters who are already present, but you have failed to take advantage of those opportunities. Secondarily, you did in fact claim a role - Moon Priestess - (See #1), but have been refusing to actually take it.

5) And here you attempt to claim moral superiority by first telling me that you know what I am going to say, and then claiming that it is "toxic". In this I would tend to agree with you; deceptive complaints, not paying attention, attempts to be per-emptively morally superior, claims that people who have been trying to assist and accommodate you are in fact attacking you, putting words in peoples mouths, and trying to imply that they are "toxic" is unethical, manipulative, and indeed "toxic" in the widely accepted definition of that term.

Since I consider it obligatory to at least summarize the data I base my conclusions on, I have summarized it below. Unfortunately, it seems to me that further interaction with you offers a poor return of amusement on my limited recreational time. Personally, I have found that what you get out of a game depends on what you put into it.

Data Summary:

July 10: Private message, trying to find out what kind of talisman and ritual you would want. You never replied and so have not gotten a Talisman.

July 26: I noted possibly getting a shrine set up for you. I have inquired repeatedly about what sort of symbology it should incorporate, what aspects it should be dedicated to, and other details. So far, we have gone through August, September, and October, and are well into November without you bothering to supply any answers.

September 26: When Gerad asked the lunar priestess about the Moon Drops she said "I am unsure what that refers to. I suppose I could pray to my goddess tonight, and see if she can enlighten me." She pauses to think, before continuing. "Vessel of purity likely means a virgin, but I have no idea what 'drops of the moon within' one means. The only thing I can think of would be moonstones, but that doesn't make any sense." So I gave you a reference link so that you could easily obtain the information that you should have already had, specifically noting that that would be not Gerad's thing so that you'd know it was up to you to provide it.

On the 28'th you continued on about being a virgin. On the 29'th, I pointed out that people make poor vessels, and we wold probably want the same type of purified vessel as is used for holy water. The GM then stated that "Vessel of purity can be anything that’s never been used before or consecrated to a higher power or ideal. All ya pervs thinking virgins, though I’ll accept those. That’d be most of the party anyways..." Ergo, flasks prepared as for holy water would do.

October 1'st: Gerad reviewed the prophecy he got earlier to answer other characters questions. You announced that it might be better if you blessed the chalice (No one had mentioned a chalice; we were talking about flasks). On the OOC thread Khorolf asked why I was waiting, and I informed him that "It is rude to step on another character's specialty - and while I suspect that Gerad probably has a higher base in his knowledge skills, pretty much every clerical type more or less automatically has that 1 SP in Specific Knowledge/(Their) Cult Doctrine for their particular faith. Even if they didn't think to buy it, it sort of comes with the job".

October 1'st: Gerad made another effort to get your lunar priestess to provide some information about "Drops of the Moon".

October 3'rd. You denied knowing anything more about Moonfire and Drops Fallen From The Moon. You do note that you got a 20 on your Religion check. (Unfortunately, on the topic of Religions of Faerun, that is less than Gerad's pre-roll bonus. Were you waiting for the Game Master to provide a statement instead of just looking it up?)

October 3'rd: I offered a general list of places near Beckfyrd where magical drops falling from the sky might collect based on local geography and magical conditions and asked for your commentary or additions. You provided none. I also noted preparing some flasks of generic purity. You noted that you blessing them might be best, but did not actually act to do so.

October 11: You wanted to know why the "replying to" label changed. Then you wanted to talk about dinner.

October 20: You stated that you thought that consecrating a shrine to Selune would be a good idea. Yes, it would have been, which is why I have been trying to get you to provide some input on that for several months.

October 21'st. I once again tried to get your priestess to talk about her goddess and faith. This was ignored.

November 1'st. You demonstrated that you had entirely missed the point of having some people fly; it was to look for spots of light on the ground from overhead since we were looking for something that was likely to be luminescent.

November 2'nd: We arrived at the luminescent pool.

November 4'th: Gerad started running divinations.

November 11'th. You posted noting that you were standing and observing, as well as using True Seeing to look for invisible/incorporeal creatures. (although simply being Incorporeal does not render a creature invisible to normal sight anyway).

November 12'th. Gerad did some more divinations and got some results from the GM.

November 14'th. Gerad acted on the information he got from his divinations.

November 15'th. You complained that - after you had done nothing for thirteen days - someone else acting was "stealing your thunder" and put a complaint in the OOC thread.

It's 4am, so I will only post a short reply for now:

I obviously come from a very different style of play than seems to be the norm here. Or at least different from those of you who play with the Eclipse system.

A lot of my uncertainty and non posts comes from how the GM is running this game, which is not the way I am used to.

Normally, if I make a knowledge roll, I'm given some solid info from the GM. Perhaps I'm not hitting the right DCs, or maybe I'm supposed to go and look up the info myself and then provide that in game. Definitely not the way I'm used to playing. In fact, I never even got a reply to my last religion check, on the 1st. One of the replies before that was 'Thal thinks on relgion. Both ideas make sense.' I'm used to getting an info dump from a successful knowledge check, not a 'you think some, and stuff makes sense' sort of reply.

Also, I think another thing is I'm still very new to Eclipse. I don't actually have any ways to bless the party or the waters or anything else beyond just saying a prayer. It wouldn't carry any sort of ritual or mechanical benefit.

Which is more of my frustration. I don't feel like I can contribute much to the group. You are all playing much better made characters, despite my being happy with Thal's build. I have some Witchcraft, but I don't really know how to take advantage of those powers or the system in general.

Also.

Holy jeebus heck. I had no idea you sent me a PM!!

Is there no notification? On Paizo, you get a little red dot. Is there something like that here? I am so sorry! I swear I wasn't ignoring you. Wow, I feel heckin terrible now.

Edit: I just read over the idea for the talisman. Very cool!

However, I am starting to think perhaps I am not the best fit for this game. I'm not officially throwing in the towel, but I am considering bowing out.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:44, Mon 16 Nov 2020.

Thal - Normally an info dump would be forthcoming. However, during the month of October, my schedule was borked for work. I often was up till 5 am - 6 am and running on lack of sleep. In part, I'll take the blame for the lackluster information responses and the slowness of my own responses.

I intentionally left the filling of the prophecy to be very OPEN to most ideas. I felt that requiring the players to solve a GM riddle with only one answer sucks, hence leaving it open so success could be accomplished through creative ideas and role-playing. Even the distilling moon with John is a possibility (Faerun is a hodgepodge world of the impossible being possible, an alternate world co-existing, epic magic, fallen magical empires, crazy creatures, an underground society of impossible races, rampant avatars, and a long history of just plain weird crap.)

Also, with Gerad posting wiki links, I figured between that, and some of our PMs beforehand, you had a handle on what was possible. Again, my mistake there. I would note Thal is glowing, the moon is FULL in the glade, and she is still a moon priestess...

As to Eclipse, it's all about challenging players to be creative,


There is a notification for PMs. When you're in the main windows (All your games visible) PMs alter the color of the game to either BLUE or PURPLE (Indicating only PM, or both game posts and PMs). On the main game screen, Private Messages will light up as a different color (RED for me) to indicate messages.

Also, I had composed this message yesterday, but the power went out, so never got to post the above...

Well, that is one of the things with using a published classical setting. The tendency is to expect anyone who opts to play in it to be roughly familiar with the place and to quickly familiarize themselves with any details that are relevant to their character. That has major advantages - you don't need to explain who King Arthur or Merlin is in a Pendragon (Arthurian Legends) game or why questing for the Holy Grail might come up. Similarly, everyone playing in Middle Earth can reasonably be expected to know that Balrogs are bad news and that Gondor is heavily fortified, and so on.That saves a LOT of time, gives everyone a lot of background knowledge to draw on, and lets them easily craft characters that fit into the setting (among other benefits) - but can easily result in confusion if someone happens to be more familiar with a different version of the source material or isn't familiar with it at all - leading to things like wanting to play a Warhammer 40K Orc with powered battle armor in Middle-Earth because "there are Orks there" or trying to import a member of the Avengers or X-Men into Star Wars because it's all about beings with super-powers fighting in space.

Thanks for the explanations.

I am incredibly familiar with the Forgotten Realms, and did a lore delve into Selune before joining the game, but I am trying to keep my vast meta knowledge separate from my in game.

Which, in this case is rather trickier than normal. Not only is Thal only level 3, and born in a small town that AFAIK doesn't have an official temple to her goddess, but she also spent *years* on the plane of Faerie. She doesn't exactly have any real training in her religion. Thus, I struggle with knowing just how much she herself would know.

While I appreciate the 'reality' of the character's situation, I tend to go with the fact that a character dedicated to a deity should be versed enough in the dogma and doctrine of their divine patron. (Unless you got character points from a disadvantage saying otherwise).

Assume the character has a very reasonable knowledge of Selune. Even as a 3rd level (Which tends to be 6th level power-wise) Thal should not be hampered. Metaknowledge is assuming you know the stats of Selune, what is currently happening in the outer planes on her home plane, or knowledge of events that would not be possible for the character to have access to. General facts and knowledge is given to all the characters and if there is any doubt, a simple skill roll usually can take the doubt away.

Besides, in a Play by Post environment, I'd rather not get tripped up over the trivial information. It takes months to make any real progress in any plot. Case-in-Point, it's been a little over a year since I rebooted this campaign, and we've successfully determined a bandit threat to the village, a deeper plot for the magical nexus' arranged nearby, an alien entity that was recruited for chaos purposes in a mine, and just recently dealt with said 'bandits'. We've moved onto a continuing threat of a curse of Lycanthropes and a "Stranger Thing" plot in the forest tying Raven and Thal nicely into the mix. (Spirits and Lycanthropes).

Plus, of course, the Reality of the d20 rules is that d20 characters tend to be seriously superhuman.

• Real-world people are level one, occasionally level two, and - in the most exceptional cases - maybe level three. The damage rules alone are enough to tell us that.
• You don't need a justification for investing skill points. A character can go up a level (and learn a new language) in the middle of a fight scene if the game master says that they went up a level. Maybe that knowledge came from a divine vision, or meditation on the cosmic all, or pure inspiration, or was plucked from the Akhasic Library. All that really matters is that they spent a skill point.
• As a corollary to #1... 1 Skill Point - Student or Apprentice. 2 = AA, AS, or Journeyman. 3 = Bachelors Degree, Master's Degree, or "Master" (Full professional in medieval terms), 4 = Graduate Degree, Doctorate, Medieval Senior Master. 5-6 is for postgraduate studies. For a full-scale real-world comparison...

"Original Research In A Field" is DC 30. How hard is that?

Well, L1 +4 Skill (4 SP), Assistance (from an aide, such as a Grad Student) +2 (Free), Specialty in a Particular Field +3 (since most d20 skills are very general, 1 SP), Skill Emphasis +2 (could be Specialized and Corrupted to match the Specialty for a +6, 3 CP), Skill Focus +3 (could be Specialized and Corrupted to match the Specialty for a +9, 6 CP), Masterwork Tools (50 GP OR a modern library card OR access to a computer and the internet +2), say a +2 attribute bonus (Att 14, reasonable enough for a specialist) = +30.

Congratulations. For 5 SP, 9 CP, and a library card your level one rogue can be a far greater relativity expert than Einstein even without a particularly high intelligence, using a spell or power that grants special bonuses, or taking the time to "Take 20". Similarly, a first level character can smash world athletic records, or learn to destroy a tank with a karate chop, or do lots of other things that real people flatly cannot do.

d20 is a fantasy game, and the fantasy starts at level one.

Had a busy weekend, including a socially distant mini Thanksgiving family pie social yesterday, and starting our Christmas decorations today.

I will post for Thal tomorrow.

Not a worry. I'm off work for the week.

Well, good for you there! They've been running you ragged for weeks!

I feel like this should be the introduction to a new Eclipse book....the fantasy starts at level 1!!!




And agreed, been busy this week going to try catch up this morning! Happy Thanksgiving!

Eeep! So sorry it took so long.

Also glad the craziness is relaxing a bit.

And a happy thanksgiving to everyone out there.

Indeed. Hope you all enjoyed a bounty of friendships to reconnect with, a good meal to enjoy and positive memories of it.

And I trust that everyone has survived the great zombie roast turkey battle? For if not, you must be avenged!

Gerad



Okay, I know what a Chaos Bane weapon does. Effectively a +3 enhancement vs Chaotic creatures, and does an added +2d6 damage.

What the heck is a brutal surge weapon?

Basically an enchantment from the DMG II, reprinted in the Magic Item Compendium; +1 equivalent, (Con Mod +1) times daily when you hit something you can trigger a Bull Rush as a swift action. This doesn't provoke an AoO and if you're wielding the weapon in two hands you get a +2 on the attempt. You don't have to move with the victim and their movement does provoke AoO from everyone but the user.

I don't recall a ruling on whether you can trigger a swift action power in conjunction with an AoO, but I'd allow it. Similarly, it pushes someone "straight back", but wouldn't that be "straight back" from the angle at which you hit them?

Anyway, it seemed like an amusing way to let all of you mighty warriors play opponent ping-pong, especially since the "uses per day" part will get renewed if and when Gerad renews the effect.

Details over here - http://thecage.wikidot.com/enchantment:brutal-surge

And that is why Gerad generally only uses his sword for a dramatic prop!

Well, you do enhancements and battlefield control pretty well. Can't have everything

Chrysta, are you continuing your effect (Matching Gerad's melody?) Just need your post please.

Yep. Sorry about that. Was waiting on a response to make a decision.

An entity that asks for your first child as payment...
Glad that white dragons rarely care about their offsprings^^

Everybody remember you have a +3 ,Luck bonus to your saves right now.

Chrysta's song did what, exactly?
+3 saves, or +5?
This message was last edited by the player at 03:08, Sun 06 Dec 2020.

Nice, but not enough to save John from a 3. Can you buy Luck vs 'Save or Suck' saves, guaranteeing a '20' for certain types of Saves? Would a solid '15' every time cost less, by any chance?

Well, Gerad was providing a +3 Luck Bonus to Armor Class, Attacks, Checks, Damage, and Saves, for the next ten rounds

Those within 10' of the Lantern Archon are getting the benefits of Protection From Evil, so +2 deflection bonus to AC and a +2 resistance bonus on saves. Both these bonuses apply against attacks made or effects created by evil creatures. (I'm guessing that they apply).

I think that Chrysta's effects are all morale based,but this is mind-affecting, so the +3 applies. So overall probably +6.

And the usual for that is "Luck with +4 Bonus Uses, Specialized in Saves" (6 CP).

Since multiple people seem to be failing, probably a good time for that Reflex Action and broadcast Courage or some such. An effect like "Good Hope" should do it.

To answer the "Luck" question:

You can either expend a use before rolling to get a natural '20' on the roll OR you spend the luck to get a re-roll. In John's case, if he had luck, then it would be for a re-roll.

Also, this goes to show why a diverse party is a good idea, as they can complement each other.

Is Bane damage multiplied on a ceit?

I kind of thought it went with the "no confirmation roll" easy math rule, but I might have it crossed up with another game. Oh GM?

No only weapon damage is multiplied unless its flaming burst etc. Or you buy an immunity to that

In reply to Khorolf Skullsplitter (msg # 151):

Did I screw up? The crit didn't need a Confirmation roll?

In reply to John D'Oh (msg # 150):

Unless we're using different rules for Bane, your weapon has a +2 higher bonus than normal(ie, if it's just masterwork, it's +2. If it's a +1 weapon, it's now +3) and it deals 2d6 more damage.

The extra 2 damage from being +2 higher is multiplied on a crit.

The vast majority of the time, extra damage dice(sneak attack, bane, flaming, etc) are *not* multiplied on a crit.

According to Gerad our weapons are temporarily +1 Bane, thus +1 vs all +3 vs Chaotics.

How do you make/build magic armor in this game as permanent enchantments? Cp cost?

In reply to John D'Oh (msg # 155):

Right, but if your greathammer is already say a +2 weapon, it would be +4 vs chaotics, again, unless we're using different Bane rules than the official 3e ones.

However, if Gerad's boost *adds* to a weapon's existing enhancements(and I know there are some things that do that), that would mean that if your greathammer is a +2 weapon on it's own, it then becomes +3 thanks to Gerad's boost, and +5 vs chaotics.

Bane stacks with everything, increasing your weapon's existing enhancement bonus if any.

At this point, John just has a standard weapon, not even MW. Hasn't gotten around to making it, my time has been spent on mithril plate mail.

As far as critical hits go, I know that we aren't using confirmation rolls for critical hits and that there are non-standard rules for multiple attacks in play (so that they are all made at the same bonus and can all be rolled simultaneously) - but I don't know if the critical rules have been modified since Gerad would only be going for physical combat in exotic situations and it wasn't important to him.

For building permanent items... the standard methods work fine, but there are a lot of other ways in Eclipse:

1) You can use Action Hero / Crafter to turn making stuff into a background process; just spend the action points, and you're done with a project.
2) You can take "Create Artifact" and make unique items the old-fashioned way - say you take a fang from the dragon-spider thing we're currently fighting, forge it on the dark of the moon on the coldest day of winter quench it in the flaming blood of a demon, and get it blessed by Titania to create Nightrazor, The Phantom Blade Of WInter's Breath - and then you talk with the GM about what it is you've made. It will probably be something neat, especially if you went to a lot of trouble to make it.
3) You can take "Create Relic" and invest Character Points in items. Relics basically grant direct upgrades, rather like an Item Familiar. There are a bunch of examples in Eclipse II or on the authors blog.
4) You can use Equipage, either directly (an item that appears when you want it) or as a way to basically go shopping without having to actually go shopping. You can theme it as item creation if you like, but the real advantage is that you can "buy" anything the GM is willing to allow without any other special item-making abilities. The disadvantage is that you're paying full price.
5) There are a bunch of options for cheaper/faster/etc under Create Item, including transmutation and such. That might be a bit high-investment though. There's a "Stipend" option on the blog.
6) You can use Innate Enchantments that require external focus items to make it cheaper. Not a very efficient way to buy anything major, but reasonable if there is some minor stuff you want.
7) Siddhisyoga lets you cash in treasure for innate enchantments. It's pretty effective.
8) There's a way to use Shaping to gain the use of Charms and Talismans. Those aren't anything major, but can be pretty handy. The relic I made for Khorolf does that (among other things).
9) It is noted in the Downtime Thread (in this game) that Gerad put up "an Altar Of War (+1) and a Monument Of The Enduring Warrior (+2). That will let everyone effectively have +1 weapons and +2 Armor and Shields (as long as they use physical weapons, armor, and shields). That may be redundant for some characters, but should be at least somewhat useful to several of us.". (I think everyone forgot about it though, but AC's might be a bit higher. Unfortunately, the +1 Weapon part will not stack with similar enhancements, so the current higher boost takes priority).

There are probably yet more (I think there's an option under Mystic Link too), but that's probably quite enough already.

Edit: "Create Item" got split,and listed twice somehow. So fixed.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:29, Tue 08 Dec 2020.

Hey Gerad, do you wanna chat about Thal's talisman privately so we don't clog chat or would you prefer to discuss it here in ooc?

Seeing as I was already planning to pick up Create Relic to imbed enchantments in my armor, I can use it on weapons as well.

Thal - there already is a private message thread for that.

John - There are some notes of caution about Create Relic; it seems to be pretty common for games to limit how many CP worth of relics any given character can use (the usual limit seems to be four) and - of course - relics can be destroyed or lost, in which case the invested CP can be lost indefinitely. The usual way to get around that is to use Enthusiast (Specialized for Increased Effect / points may only be used to make relics) to make temporary relics. Also, Relics can be quite complicated; there's a whole series up on them - the last segment and index is over here: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com...s-part-vii-overview/

So they don't really do standard armor and weapon enchantments. Powerful ones tend to be a bit character-defining instead. For making legendary weapons, and an example of a character-defining relic, scroll down this set: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com...v-weapons-of-legend/ . The Lion Bracer is near the bottom.

What sort of enchantments did you want on your armor and weapons? That might be a little easier to sort out.

For the Armor I wanted 4 or 5 enhancements:
1) Smooth action for the Medium Armor (-0 ACP)
2) Enhanced Strength
3) Polarized lenses in the helm, granting Darkvision
4) A ranged attack of some sort
5) Flight

Some of these are simple Enchantments I believe (and I currently have two of them as Gadgets), but it was suggested that I use Create Relic to make some of these gadgets permanent.

What Thal posted was all correct.

I don't require a confirmation for a critical. Criticals deal their multiplier on the base damage (Sneak, and non-base bonus damage is not modified).

Create Relic is limited to 4 CP base.

Gerad's list of methods all looks reasonable. Though to be honest, trying to 'do it all' means less power for your concept. But you are more than welcome to spend the points as you wish (within the adventurer framework).

What is meant by a 4 cp base? The powers cannot total more than 4 CP in a Relic?

Generally that you can't use more than 4 CP worth of relics in total. As an example, Gerad has been providing high-efficiency 1 CP relics.

The cost of a Relic is basically (The CP it provides to the user) / 6, rounded off (.5 rounds in favor of the character). Gerads are built to cost [12 CP - 3 CP (for a built-in disadvantage)] / 6 = 1.5 CP, rounds down to 1.

His relics don't have a cost for anyone else to use, although some of the samples use various requirements - such as the user having to invest some CP in them - to make them cheaper. They are limited so that - unless you pay for one and make it your own - you can only use one at a time. He's also using Enthusiast to make them temporary, so if they are lot or destroyed he can make new ones, and can trade them around given a little time, but that's secondary.

Relics are CP multipliers. 1 CP nets you 6-9 CP worth of abilities. There are a few abilities in eclipse that allow you to get more bang for your buck.

Companions and Transference are another good example of such a use case.

As long as you don't go overboard, it tends to be okay.

If you get Enthusiast, do you also have to apend CP on Create Relic, or does Enthusiast let you make 'temporary' relics by itself?

If I want those effects permanently imbedded in the armor when I wear it, am I better off getting Create Relic? Or a different Ability?

In terms of raw power, you are best off with "Create Artifact". That's only 6 CP and has no other costs to your character. It does give up some control and you have to do various little quests or just throw stuff together and see what you get. On the other hand, if you don't get what you like the first time, nothing is stopping you from trying again and again.

Enthusiast is just a source of points to use with "Create Relic" - a hedge against losing those points permanently.

I'm actually thinking of picking up Create Artifact, as I feel that would be rather thematically on point for Thal.

I have the GM's permission to trade out my animal companion(I always forget about them, unless they are an important part of my build), and I am going to take another advanced Witchcraft power.

However, there's a bunch I am looking at, and need some advice/feedback/suggestions on which of the following to take. They all fit Thal's overall concept, and what I'm looking to do with her:

Covenbond, Mistress of the Sabbat, Mistress of the Elements, Ridden by the Loa, Siphon, Brewing, Dismissal, Spirits of the Deep, True Prosperity, The Sight, Weathermonger, Darksense, all Path of Light powers.(She already has Light of Truth)

In reply to John D'Oh (msg # 162):

Now that I have a little time, lets see how grotesquely cheap we can make this...

Stormforged Rune (9 CP / 1 CP Relic).

Innate Enchantment (+5 CP, +5500 GP Value). (As a relic this can exceed normal character restrictions).

• Chitin Mail: L1 Transmutation. For one minute per level of the caster whatever armor the user is wearing is treated as being one armor category lighter. The maximum dexterity bonus increases by two, the armor check penalty is reduced by two, arcane spell failure goes down by 15% (to a minimum of 5%), and the speed penalty is eliminated. (Personal Only, 1400 GP)
• Eldritch Armor I: Armor gains Nimbleness (+1 Max Dex, -2 ACP, 0 Minimum) and Death Ward (1/Day ignore a Death Effect or Negative Energy Effect). (Personal Only, 1400 GP).
•       That combination should eliminate your ACP, drastically raise your maximum dexterity, and otherwise help out.
• Thunder Strike: L1, Transmutation, the caster may hurl a hammer of any variety with a range increment of 20', making a single attack as if in melee and having the hammer return the next round (2000 GP).
• Voice of Thunder: L0, Illusion, Creature touched gains a +2 Circumstance Bonus to Intimidation checks (Personal Only, 700 GP).

Immunity: The XP cost of those Innate Enchantments (Uncommon, Minor, Trivial, 1 CP).

Unfortunately, most attribute boosters, flight, and darksight effects are either strictly temporary or very expensive. To squeeze that into a single relic we're going to need to use some serious cheese.

Access to an Occult Skill (Shadowed Galaxy Equipment Skill/Armory). Specialized for Increased Effect (No actual bonus may be purchased, the users total effective score is (Str Mod + 2, not including any bonus from the Armory skill, only applies to armor the user makes himself) (3 CP). This would give you a total Armory skill of six to spend on upgrades to your armor, spent on Flight II (allowing you to make incredible leaps, stand on unsuitable surfaces, and eliminate falling damage), Sensors I (60' Darksight and Flash Protection), and Strength III (+6 Str).

This is, of course, kind of abusive - importing futuristic technology into fantasy settings pretty much always is - and the GM may not allow it. On the other hand, we were fighting Zerg, so he MIGHT let us get away with it on the grounds that we picked up the trick from them.

If the GM thinks that's acceptable, we could trade out your current relic for that easily enough as soon as we have a little downtime (or in backstory if he's agreeable).

Posting from phone.

Well, a little cheese never hurt. John specifically collected Zerg slime, so if he wants to expend it on a relic then that is fine.

I shall update our combat tomorrow evening or Friday.

John's Gadgeteering is already an Occult Skill.

With the 6 pt Smooth advantage for Medium armor (he already has it for Light armors), is there any way to make it an Innate Enchantment on the armor? I like the Death Ward, Thunder Strike, and Voice of Thunder ideas.

As for the Occult Skill, I suppose I would need a different one to apply to the armor then? Since I have a limit already imposed on Gadgets....
As for justification, just as John was able to 'distill' moon drops, his observations of dragons have led him to theorize that a specific type of magic allows a dragon to fly, since they are not hollow-boned like birds and their wings are not strong enough on their own to lift their massive bodies aloft. Therefore John might capture, distill, and utilize the magic aura that allows a dragon flight, and apply it to his armor- no futuristic technology involved at all.

Occult Skills are independent: you have to pay for each one. If you've already got Smooth for Light Armor you don't need the Nimbleness effect, The Chitin Ward spell reduces Mithril Plate to being Light Armor anyway so your existing modifier applies, so you could pick another +1 enchantment - perhaps "Comfort"?

I suppose you could make a non-technological armor-boosting skill, but you'd need to write it up and run it by the GM, the themes of the Armory skill wouldn't really work for that.

Ah, in that case the Crit damage would be 96 and 87.

That's still more damage than I have HP! Haha xD

Well, Khorolf and John are both pretty heavily specialized in "Smash!" - and this rules system lets a fighter dominate a fight the same way a bard dominates social encounters or a mage dominates battlefield control. I'm rather enjoying not playing a disposable meat shield for the Tier-1 types this time around.

Well, for general reference here's a quick summary of the characters so far. If the game master, or anyone else, wants to add corrections, clarifications, or more information, do let me know, for this is simply based on my memories and I may well have forgotten something or simply gotten something wrong.

• Khorolf and John both obviously specialize in "Hulk Smash!" in one form or another (John charging and Khorolf just wading in). They have some secondary abilities - Khorolf is an Uthgardian Tribal Barbarian, and has a bit of "Mystic Bartender" and "Professional Wrestler" thrown in while John has partial amnesia and some "Alchemical Artificier" talents - but at least for now those are mostly just augmenting their combat abilities. As fairly pure specialists, they're both very powerful. If they can't do enough damage to stop a primary target it probably calls for a non-damage solution.
• Gerad does general backup and utility stuff - a lot of battlefield control, a bit of providing a base and workshops/shrines/etc, channeling spirits, and some enhancements (such as making talismans) - but while his defenses aren't bad, he's not much for inflicting damage (unless it's a little bit each to a swarm of mooks). Fortunately for him, the noncombat backup stuff tends to be relatively cheap. Basically, he provides boosts and counters disabling attacks while the other characters inflict damage. He's a bit reckless and is probably most dangerous while talking since he has a LOT of information.
• Raven is a spirit-speaker, an energy blaster, and I think he does stealth too. I suspect that he's going to shine when we get flying opponents, swarms, and dark spirits that are hard to hurt physically and immune to criticals or when an area needs to be scouted or set up to give us an advantage. He's been at a minor disadvantage so far in that most of our fights have basically involved "rushing in and hitting something" - so tactical ranged strikes, scouting, and large-scale environmental manipulation haven't been at a premium yet.
• Huorielara is, of course, a dragon - so flight, area-effect attack, fair melee attack, and at least some magic. This being Eclipse, that's good for later, but at the moment makes her a generalist - and so the specialists are going to outshine her when they're in direct competition. I haven't seen enough of her abilities to say much about optimizing her as of yet.
• Chrysta has chosen wisely; the Mystic Artist with Echoes / Inspiration sequence is versatile and powerful, even if it does call for a lot of careful advance setup to use it well. Of course, she hasn't had a lot of time yet, and we are on a tight schedule - so that's probably going to prove a bit more limited than it might be. On the other hand (like the Mystic Bartender ability I proposed for Khorolf) it's fairly cheap. I don't have enough information on her other abilities to say much there yet.
• Thalyssra has shown shapeshifting. some spellcasting. and being a "Moon Priestess" with Witchcraft. All versatile and useful abilities, but I think the lack of focus is hurting a bit.
• (Retired) Quinn did some fairly strong energy blasting, summoned high-end astral constructs, was a minor telepath, and flew around intangibly. A good scout, but mostly notable in combat for providing convenient tanks to soak up damage and blockade opponents. Did have a knack for recharging his powers by inflicting damage and a booster effect to get those high powered constructs at a low, low, cost.
• (Retired) Alorna was a Mystara priestess of some sort, apparently mixing fighting and spellcasting (mostly dispelling) with some sort of ninja theme. I suspect that she was rather disappointed that most of the situations we got into were straightforward fights without much magic to dispel. She really needed higher level opponents who did use a lot of magic to shine, but didn't stick around long enough to meet any.
• (MIA?) Connor was - I think - supposed to be coming back sometime, but I seem to recall that we were eventually told that that wouldn't happen. He was some sort of priest of frogs or something, with a pet frog. I have no idea what he actually did beyond some generic clerical stuff. I got the impression that he wanted to be "the crazy one", but - in this group - found the competition for that position pretty stiff.
• (Quit) Kitara was a catwoman swordswoman loosely modeled on the Puss In Boots movie. Very impatient with making any plans, she grossly insulted several of the other characters and apparently expected them to be impressed with her role-playing instead of being insulted. She stormed off when Gerad expressed the opinion that she was an idiot well out of her characters earshot, which she decided she "heard" anyway.
• (Played briefly) Neron. A white dragon, Neron was a Purple Dragon Knight, and served as a liason / scout for Cormyr for a bit. Originally an NPC, then a PC for a bit, then the player left or ghosted (I don't know which) and the character returned to Cormyr to report (and that may get interesting considering how many bizarre lost secrets can be found in the party). A fairly standard minimal (and thus playable) dragon. (Possibly slightly rewritten as a basis for Huorielara).
• (Never really played) Scylla... well, she refused to go with the group, refused to interact, and then quit while the introduction was still underway because there wasn't enough action. I think she stated that she had serious health issues which were apparently throwing her off. Hopefully the player is OK, but I have no real idea what her character was like. Her identity was briefly used by Raven, the actual character apparently headed out of the High Forest and the game.
• (Never really played) Barashi Silverscale. A Dragonborn of Bahamut. Never really finished their writeup as far as I know. I suspect that the player pretty much dropped the idea and the game when he or she found out that the character would actually be expected to live up to all the role-playing restrictions and requirements of getting Bahamut's blessing, rather than simply getting a lot of free power by ignoring everything in the "Dragonborn" chapter except the summary of the game mechanics. In-game he probably went off to fight evil dragons.
• (Unclassified) Deindrix created an entirely nonfunctional character (under his username), refused to interact or pay attention to situations, ignored the game master, and was generally an irritant. I wound up ignoring him. He eventually quit without ever actually contributing much of anything. (This opinion may be biased, but I don't really think it is too biased; multiple other players had difficulties with him too). Per his statements, he wanted to be a Naruto-style "ninja". Might reappear as a villain, if only because several characters apparently wanted to kill him...

Oh, as for Thalyssra's talisman:

• Double Enthusiast, Specialized and Corrupted for Increased Effect (6 Floating CP in Total) / only for Witchcraft, only for temporarily taking on Advanced Witchcraft abilities, must change out abilities during each full moon and only then, cannot re-use an ability more than once a season (6 CP).
• Ditto. (6 CP).
• Disadvantage:  The user must act with nobility and honor, as befits a Lunar Knight, and must regularly seek out opportunities to guide and inspire others, being a light in the darkness and encouraging resistance to noxious creatures and authorities (-3 CP).

Recommendation; We're basically doing a two-month speedrun to build ourselves up before a major attack. Anything that takes a long time (Mistress of the Sabbat,True Prosperity) is probably best left for later. Ridden By The Loa will slow play-by-post to a crawl since it gives the GM partial control over your character. Dismissal and the Sight we already have available. Otherwise most of those would work.

Would that do?

I'm working on a slight rebuilt for Thal, to tighten her focus more into being a Moon Priestess. She'll be keeping the minor shapeshifting(which I may built up later), but I'm getting rid of the animal companion that I never used, and a pair of innate spells that also haven't been used.

Assuming the GM allows the trade, I would like to take the Sanctify path of light of ability, and Occult Ritual. I feel both of those fit Thal rather nicely.

Slight dumb question Gerad: What does 'ditto' mean in her Talisman write up?

"Ditto"  - same thing again. So two floating abilities.

Okay, thanks! Thought so, but just wanted to make sure.

Also, what's the total bonus I'm getting right now to skill checks? I'm not positive which, if any, of the effects apply to Thal, and if any of them grant any bonuses to skill checks.

Gerad is providing a +3 Luck Bonus to Armor Class, Attacks, Checks, Damage, amd Saves. and the weapon enhancements (+1 Chaos Bane Brutal Surge).

I'm not entirely sure about Chrysta: what she's doing may or may not be modified from baseline and I think she's using both Emotion and Competence - but I'm not sure who she's targeting, which effect options she's using, and whether or not she's using any further modifiers.

John has DR 2/- due to Toughness and DR 4 vs physical attacks. That means the Sonic Attack only does 23 damage, right?

No attack roll or Save, is that correct?

You captured Huorielara quite well!^^

What you all obviously already know, is that she can shapechange. In effect, she has four forms, but most of her abilities stay the same through her various forms, and some of her forms she doesn't like to use. As such she has her big quadruped form (the one she's in right now), the biped form (the one you met her as), a hybrid form where she's mostly human but with draconic wings and draconic lower arms and legs, and a full human form.
By the way: My character description (the thing you get when you click on my name) will always have the description of the form she is currently in, along with a picture.

Ability-wise she can fly when she has wings, she has some innate magic that's always active on her, and three "magical" abilities. One of those is her breath weapon, the other a healing ability, and the third is her ability to conjure an elemental ally. For all of those three abilities I do not know the exact stats and rules, but I have them.

In addition, she can fight using her claws and bite, or her swords, or a bow. She's a bit better in melee than in ranged, but still good in ranged combat.

In reply to John D'Oh (msg # 183):

Sonic is an energy attack - DR will only apply if it's universal. (Physical is the standard Slashing, Bludgeoning, Piercing forms of attack.)

DR:2/- <-- Is universal, so that will block all damage forms.

John got shielded anyway, so no damage.

Uhhhh..... *goes to look* Here's the boosts coming from me.

Harmonize - singing (Emotion to whole party: +3 on saves against mind, and for attacks and damage; Competence to Lara and Khorolf(amplification): +2 morale bonus to skill check, attack roll, saving throw or AC) -- Also have Echoes for 3 extra minutes after the songs end..... Just added John in the last round to the competence bonus

and

Mystic Artist-Guitar; Chrysta Harmonizes using Emotional Auras (Exhausted/enemies), and Emotion (penalty on enemies).

Ah. Competence is usually +2 to one of those things at a time. But then it is only a skill total 6 ability.

There was a lot of interpretation around it's description that I wasn't clear on, so I left it as was with the 'or' in there.

Oh, so that nullified the sonic attack? Cool.

When the large shadow turns from me and travels 20' towards Thal, does that draw an Attack of Opportunity from me? If it helps, I also have +5' reach.

Now, what we need is enough reach to cover the battlefield.

Since we've established I suck, and have forgotten to reply to some posts, I wanted to let Gerad know about my shrine:

I'm thinking it would probably be something like where we are right now: A glade in the middle of the forest, perpetually bathed in moonlight, with a small pond fed from a waterfall, maybe?

Couple of questions:

Would the moon/moonlight be real, or would be an artificial creation?

Is it possible to prospect for gems from the her shrine/Gerad's space? Or do we need to go out into the 'real' world for that?

In reply to John D'Oh (msg # 191):

I was under the impression that John leaped and struck mid-air and ended up landing elsewhere. Is that not the case?


I'll get an update posted tomorrow evening.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:36, Thu 17 Dec 2020.

John lept up and over for the momentum. With 10' reach, he can still react with an AoO

In reply to Thalyssra Moonstrike (msg # 193):

1) Depends on description

2) It could be arranged, but would be expensive to set up.

And for John... I have thought of at least one way to set up a TARDIS effect. It will take a day or two to do it though.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:36, Fri 18 Dec 2020.

Sheesh, forgot to post an attack. Will remedy ASAP.

Hooray! I'm with the group again! :D

Well, this is good.

Also, happy winter festivities to all, and may 2021 be a vast improvement on 2020.

At this point I'd settle for a year anywhere above the bottom 10%.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all in any case!

As far as the game goes... This is beginning to look like the big thing can do something like move a shadow in the way of an incoming attack, thus sacrificing a pawn to absorb overwhelming attacks, or maybe just divert damage to nearby shadows or absorb shadows to heal itself. Regardless of the exact mechanism, if it's doing something like that, we'll need to cut off the gateway / source of shadows before we can really make headway against it. I think that makes it time to gamble a bit.

Time to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow?????

More or less time to get out into things, cross the streams, and hope the marshmallow man doesn't step on him.

From the roll it probably won't work, so hopefully he can try again next round. He's burning through his various reserves pretty fast though.

Hey Gerad,

Was the ProEvil effect just now activated or has it been in use? Trying to determine if it would affect Thal's AC/Save for her last attack.

Also, I have a hopeful way to help with the shadows.

It's an inherent ability of any archon. It is active as long as it's around.

Poop. I think I am just shy of not being hit by that tentacle. AC is 13, +3 from Gerad, +2 from ProEvil = 18. To hit was 19 :(

Not that it's that serious, but unless I'm missing something, Thal has taken some decent Str damage.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

And hopefully everyone has escaped the Krampus!

Well, we can fix attribute damage quite readily (drain a little less so), but it is awkward in combat.

Merry Krampus to you all, and hopefully youescaped the 24/7 Christmas Music Mayhem!

Fortunately, I have once more avoided being driven into homicidal rage by endlessly repeated Christmas Rudolphs, Frosties, et al.

But it was very close.

Yeah. Just don't think about last christmas, when someone gave you their heart, but the very next day you gave it away. And this year, to save himself from tears, he'll give it to someone special.

Ah. Christmas at Ground Zero.....

It would seem I'm the only who loves Christmas music here.

We've had it playing throughout the house almost all month, and I've had it playing in my room since Thurs.

I also used to work at grocery store that played Christmas must from Dec 1st all the way through Christmas Day and a little beyond.

Oh, I love it too. Just riffing off Gerad with a Weird Al reference.

Oh, there is a lot of good Christmas Music - but I have had quite enough of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Jingle Bells, Frosty The Snowman, Santa Claus is Coming To Town, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, You're A Mean One Mr Grinch, Little Drummer Boy, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, Wonderful Christmastime, Up On The Housetop, Rockin Around The Christmas Tree, Have A Holly Jolly Christmas, Let It Snow, Walking In A Winter Wonderland, and the rest of the top twenty or so sell-plastic-junk songs that get played on a perpetual loop at malls.

Now, I do tend to prefer classical, so this list leans that way - but things like We Three Kings, Silent Night, Here We Go A Wassailing, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Pretty Paper, Twelve Days of Christmas, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, I Saw Three Ships, What Child Is This, Oh Come All Ye Faithful, Oh Tannenbaum, Oh Holy Night, Joy To The World, Away in A Manger, and The First Noel, do just fine. They also don't tend to get repeated over and over until you're heartily sick of them.

Parodies are more or less in their own category, but there's nothing wrong with things like Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, Father Christmas, the (many) Twelve Days Of (X) Christmas parodies, Weird Al, Baby It's Cold Outside, All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth, and all the others (Excepting "Santa Baby" which just annoys me for some reason). They may not be the greatest of all music, but at least they generally aren't played over and over again until all the fun is gone.

Laughing out loud. Yeah, you're right Gerad!

I'll update the combat post tomorrow. Unless rolls go horribly wrong, this combat will be concluded.

I think Raven is focusing on destroying the portal orb.

Well, that makes at least two of us! Hopefully Raven will roll better than I did!

As my grandfather used to love to say:

"Take your time, but hurry up!"

It's the holiday season, I'm sure we're all okay with waiting for the next update.

Gonna comment here so as to not clog the downtime thread:

As awesome as it would be to have a shrine to Selune, if it's going to cost Gerad cash monies, it's not that serious.

Thal has a couple of professions she can possibly use to make money, along with any loot she might get during the course of the game. No need for Gerad to spend his money on my stuff.

And there we are. Combat resolved.

That's part of the point: we live in a tiny isolated village, ergo the baseline assumption was that any facilities we wanted we had to provide ourselves. It's quicker with a little money or treasure to expend on it, but Gerad has set up a virtual stipend so as to allow him to keep building regardless.

That's why he used the (overvalued) Lesser Ring of Spell Storing to provide extradimensional storage space and the last set of upgrades.

Ah, okay, so it's not 'real' money? I don't wanna infringe upon others that way.

Did I forget to post again? Sheesh. Got to get my head straight.

"Real Money" works much, MUCH, faster. The "virtual cash" setup is fairly slow. But there's nothing much to spend money on other than making things anyway. Beckfyrd has fewer than two hundred people. It is very isolated. It has a barter economy. You can buy food, basic clothing, rope, alcohol, common livestock, farm tools, and so on. There is nowhere to buy armor, weapons beyond knives, short swords, and basic bows, alchemical stuff, or magical items. The only way to get anything fancy is for the PC's to find or make it. Gerad's house magically facilitates crafting and industry and his shrines provide basic weapon and armor enhancements because we have nowhere else to get them.

And John is resident Armorsmith/Weaponsmith/Blacksmith/
Herbalist/Alchemist.

Oh, that reminds me. Thal's background skills are currently:

Craft(gem cutting), Craft(silver smith), Profession(gem cutter), Profession(Jeweler).


I'm thinking my 5th will be some sort of perform, in an instrument. Just trying to figure out a good one. Leaning towards stringed instruments and the harp.

Heh. John will have to build you a harp bow, The strings are strong enough to act as a bow. It'll save you space in your inventory.

What, three harpists? How are we going to form a band that way?

Honestly, that's physically ridiculous (A bow bends and stores energy when the string is pulled back. With multiple strings, they'll bleed off energy, with a flexible frame you'd find the thing impossible to tune, with a rigid frame you can't store energy that way). On the other hand, this is a world where you can get a weapon made of ice that does bonus cold damage but doesn't melt, or metal that is always hot and electrically charged, So we can let physics hide in a corner and cry as long as we either come up with an exotic material or use magic.

For semi-realistic... add one string that's a very powerful rubber band ("alchemical rubber" perhaps? Should be cheap enough) and a stud to rest the arrow against. You might get a small penalty for a clumsy setup, but it would work.

To be exotic, make it Intelligent, give it unlimited use of "launch item", and use a specialized and corrupted version of Empowerment to let it use your attack statistics and you can play and sing while effectively attacking. If you take it as an Innate Enchantment focused through an instrument you don't have to worry about finding someone to make it or having it broken or anything.

I was *considering* making the harp a relic, though unsure about it also being a bow. If I did go that route, there's a property from Pathfinder called Transforming that lets you morph your weapon into other similar ones. A lesser version could let it switch between a harp and bow.

However, if there's two other harpists in the group already, then I can choose a different instrument.

Raises hand

I play guitar! Not harp! :D

Ah! Funny-looking harp!

...I kind of liked it when different instruments did different things.

And here's hoping for a happy new year for everyone.

Once the group settles in for a time of reflection, they will level up.

Just as a note, in case anyone else is considering their level bonuses. Raven and his (now) 2 spirit fetches all have Legionary, so you start off in the 3-4 range which is some pretty nice bonuses if you decide to take it.

Just saying :D

In reply to Raven (msg # 234):

Do what now? Can you explain this in terms for people who are still learning the system and have no idea what you mean? lol

6 CP Legionary - characters work together as a team when they fight gives you +1/+2/+3 to AC, attack and Ref Save when teamed with 1-2/3-4/5+ characters with the same ability.

In short if you pay for it you get +2 AC, +2 to attacks and +2 to Ref Save

That's pretty sweet, but I'm fairly certain that in addition to warcraft, hp, and save increases, as well as keeping my primary skills maxxed, I'll just have enough cp to get Create Relic and hopefully Enthusiast so I can make my armor more awesome without losing cp if it gets destroyed. And free up my gadget points.

Oh, If I, the character, have an innate enchantment granting +2 Str, and the armor has an innate enchantment granting +2 or more Str, do they stack?
This message was last edited by the player at 03:28, Fri 08 Jan 2021.

John: 3.5e and Pathfinder stacking rules are enforced. Enhancement bonuses take the highest value, they do not add together.

A 32 CP level increase you'll be struggling to have enough points? That never bodes well.

Also, don't forget your +1 to a Stat for Self-development. (This means you should have two stat increases at this point, Level 2, and now Level 4)

A note about Legionary; you do need to be fairly close to each other to gain the benefits. A notable exception is the 'Gifted' game where the characters live in each others' heads and thus benefit from the boost constantly or a psychic coordinator role where people follow their instructions and gain the boost to their combat rolls. Other than those exceptions (Or buying immunities) you have to stick close enough together. (But yeah, an un-typed bonus of +2 to AC, Reflex Saves and Attack rolls is a sweet deal. Better when it's the max perk of +3 though)

Well, if we're going to be resting to level up, I shall have to dig out my notes again...

And you tempt me with yet more things!

In reply to Game Master (msg # 238):

Self-Development at level 2? WHAT self-development at lvl 2?? It isn't in the character levelling thread, so I never got it.

Can you 'buy' more self-development with cp?

A question about Warcraft. I currently have Warcraft+4 + warcraft+4(only with specific weapon), making Warcraft/8 with my greathammer. I believe the latter +4 is due to an Innate Enchantment. Can I have up to 3 times my level in BAB/warcraft, or less? Or is the Sky the limit with Warcraft?
This message was last edited by the player at 10:18, Fri 08 Jan 2021.

Hm. I will now be able to empower three charms and a talisman (as per The Practical Enchanter) for everyone. Those are generally pretty minor, but can be convenient.

Also, everyone's rooms will be becoming substantially better decorated and the furnishings more luxurious.

John:

Self Development is for boosting Attributes. It's the equivalent of the usual every four levels attribute boost. The major difference is that Self Development boosts very low attributes by more than one point. You can indeed buy more self-development with character points, but it's expensive.

The usual limit on your base Warcraft is (level plus three), as it is with most other things - although there are ways to modify that. That limit does not, of course, limit boosting spells, bonuses from martial arts, strength, and similar sources.

In standard games, you get a stat boost at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20. +5 in all.

Because we use Self-Development is half cost, you get those stat boosts at every even level. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, and 20. +10 in all.

Yes, you can buy more self-development.

Warcraft is limited to Level +3 (+7 standard, or if you went crazy +14 using specialization). The +4 from Martial Mastery is a spell, not a purchase, and is outside of that restriction.

In reply to Game Master (msg # 243):

I don't understand something. You say 'half cost' for Self Development. In the 3.5 system, you do not pay for the +1 attribute every 4 levels. But in Eclipse you get Self-Development at half cost every 2 levels? Are we supplied with extra cp at every 2 levels to make that half-cost Self Development effectively free? If not, how much does it cost? Because I did not have the cp to spare when I advanced to level 2.

Also, how do I buy extra Warcraft beyond lvl+3? Specialized for weapon Group, then corrupted for single weapon in that group? Can an absurdly high BAB give you extra attacks per round, or does that require an innate enchantment like 'Snake's Speed' or whatever it is called?
This message was last edited by the player at 00:44, Sat 09 Jan 2021.

You get some automatically. Like bonus "feats" those do not come out of your character points. You can buy more than you get automatically if you wish.

I can't say for sure - it's a GM thing - but usually the (Level + 3) limit is enough. If you're L5, and have a +6, you could then buy another +2 (Specialized in Melee Only, Corrupted only with swords, for triple effect) and then you'd have a BAB of +5, +12 with Swords.

The GM has changed iterative attacks, and I never really checked on that, so I can't answer there. I'm fairly sure that it allows multiple attacks, but they're all at the same (reduced) BAB.

If it helps any, from what I've seen, most combatants tend to go for special abilities rather than chasing huge attack bonuses anyway. Rather like Khorolf; his attack bonuses hit about 90% of the time against anything with a reasonable AC. Looking at the dice roller...+27? Even with Berserk and some extra boosts thrown in... He's almost certain to hit things that most of the rest of the party would need a "20" to connect with.

And the Self Development is +1 to a single attribute, but it can be more than +1 for a sufficiently low attribute?

Checking page 42... A score of 3 to 6 goes up by +3, and a score of 7 to 9 goes up by +2. So basically it will never take more than two or three purchases to get you up to the 10-11 "average" attribute.

I suppose it's the counterpoint to the way that the costs of "buying" various attributes at character generation go up as they increase.

Level 4 is only a 26 cp increase, correct?
24 base +2 (duty)?
The +6 for a 'free' Feat was only odd-numbered levels, I thought.

This message was deleted by the player at 03:26, Sat 09 Jan 2021.

It's every even numbered level in this game

*facepalm*
Arggh.
I took the 6 cp for Human bonus Feat.
1 got 12 cp for Feats at levels 1 and 2.
I completely missed the added 6 cp for level 0 Feat.

Time for more goodies. If I retro this, hmmm. 6 cp gets Smooth for Medium Armors, correct? That way I don't need to use up Gadget points or Relic slots to allow me free movement in my mithril plate armor.

Is there any feat or Innate enchantment that allows faster speed to offset armor-speed-reduction? Or something that negates it?

Yes Innate Enhancement:

1400 - Chitin Mail - L1 Transmutation. For one minute per level of the caster whatever armor the user is wearing is treated as being one armor category lighter. The maximum dexterity bonus increases by two, the armor check penalty is reduced by two, arcane spell failure goes down by 15% (to a minimum of 5%), and the speed penalty is eliminated.

Can it be corrupted so that it ONLY eliminates the speed penalty, but lasts longer than 1 minute per caster level? All the rest of that is meaningless to me if I have the Smooth Advantage for Medium armor, and only a 14 Dex.

It's a spell, and it's an innate enhancement, so typically you can't corrupt it...but it's also permanent, it's basically recast everytime it runs out for free.

Any innate enhancement is basically permanent unless it gets dispelled and then only till you get time to 'cast' it again.

So, if I took Smooth for Medium armor for my 6 overlooked cp....

This will take some repurposing of materials, but I could use the mithril from my armor to make mithril MW weaponry, and instead construct Adamantine Plate armor. Then get the Create Relic and Enthusiast Feats to put Chitin Mail innate into the armor (my Relic) along with some other effects. It boosts my DR, and with 1 level lighter category, I can use the Full Plate armor with no ACP, and no Speed Reduction. And Enthusiast can be specialized/corrupted to only affect armor that I made. That was I can't lose the points invested in the Relic?

Well, you can use Celerity to upgrade your movement speed (even Specialize it to make it cheap if it's just to negate armor penalties). Or use an Immunity to armor speed penalties (But it's no cheaper and harder to get permission for). Or, if you're buying more innate enchantment... Personal Haste or Light Foot works nicely.

Light Foot? Like my Martial arts Light foot, just applied to the armor? Is that a 1400 pt Innate?

Hm. Come to think of it, you might not actually like that one, since it gives a penalty "in a Bull Rush, Grapple, Trip, or Overrun situation." - and you do have a style built around bull rush as I recall. Still, it's one of the spells from this article over hare: https://ruscumag.wordpress.com...ster-and-his-spells/

Chitin Mail might suit you better.

I like some of those effects and may incorporate them in my Armor. But I have a question. I saw Greater Mageshot explained. What does Normal Mageshot do?

Well,a quick google search turns up that Pathfinder has a version (but it seems to be alchemical ammunition for firearms). The one from this article, however, is a much closer match. https://ruscumag.wordpress.com...-magi-power-package/

Can Mageshot be modified further (other than Rapid Fire, which I assume is a ×2 multiplier) to use the Str or Dex of the shooter to modify the damage, like a Mighty Composite Longbow?

Since Mageshot is lvl 0, I presume the formula for the Innate value is
0.5 (spell lvl) × 1 (caster lvl) ×2 (Rapid Fire) × 2000 = 2000. Since it is Personal already, it does not get the 0.7 multiplier?


So, should I start figuring out my lvl 4 upgrades? One thing, my Faster Learner means I will be spending 0.5 cp on 1 skill point to keep my Stone Dragon martial discipline maxxed. Can we spend 0.5 cp and save 0.5 cp as carry over?

Ooh, so I could raise my 8 char to 10 if I wanted to.... cool.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:58, Sat 09 Jan 2021.

Welcome to Eclipse rules John.

You can bank character points to save up for a big purchase.

I'm not using the alternative rules that you get the points from Self-Development; instead, it's a perk of playing with the house rules of Self-development being half cost. Essentially, your Self-development gains 3 CP at every level. At level 4 you have 12 CP that automatically purchases your +1. Since we use half cost, that triggers at 6 CP.

Reading the rules posted does help so everyone knows the power gain, (I run multiple different games and they have alterations to the rules). This game was focused on the zero-to-hero concept. Limited power to start with, but eventually, you get access to some of the more powerful effects.

I think this is the only game where I have a PC wearing anything heavier than medium armor. (Reviews characters). So much effort to wear 'full plate' and remove all the penalties. But hey, whatever makes you happy.

In reply to John D'Oh (msg # 262):

Well, spells can be modified in all kinds of ways at the discretion of the game master, but I would guess that the "relevant Feats, attribute bonuses, and similar effects all apply normally. Where more than one possible launcher or mode applies, such as longbow or composite longbow, the choice is up to the caster." bit includes strength bonuses and such anyway.

And that calculation looks good to me. Of course, for spells of above level one you do have to buy the minimum caster level.

And I think you mean adept? If it's relevant, Eclipse specifically rounds results of .5 in favor of the player - so if you're using Adept to halve the cost of a skill, you don't have to worry about half points. "3" costs 1.5, rounding down to 1, both "4" and "5" cost two, and so on. That still won't break the (Level + 3) cap on a base skill, but you only have to worry about paying in whole points.

Just curious, is Thalyssra related to any of the other PCs, or just Gerad??

Well everyone is probably related somehow of course, but looking at reasonably close relationships...

• John is from a possible future timeline with amnesia. It kind of looks like he's from nearby, so maybe. It depends on what he opts to recall. For all I know, he could decide that he's a descendant of yours (or at least a possible future version of you).
• Huorielara's a dragon. But shes from the future similar to John. So probably not, but it's d20 and dragons shapeshift, so there's a slight chance.
• Chrysta seems to be from outside the forest, but I don't have enough information on her to even speculate. She could be if she wants; Gerad had an ancestor who moved up from Mulhorand in the distant south, so he has relatives scattered thousands of miles away (Apparently great-grandfather Masudi was quite charming as a young man. You might have known him when he was in his forties I think).
• Khorolf: is a Raven Tribe Northern Barbarian. Likely distant, unless he's fathered a few kids around the village in which case he will almost certainly be classified as a relative. I certainly wouldn't put it past him.
• Raven: I don't recall him revealing much about his background, so he might or might not be. It depends on what he finds amusing.

Now, you would fairly definitely be related to Quinn, Connor, and Scylla since they were all village natives - but they dropped. There are some people listed in the "Populate The Village" Thread ( link to a message in this game ) who would be relatives. It's not very long, and disregarding anything posted by Deindrix (which I highly recommend) makes it even shorter. .

*gasp* You have spoken the name of he who must not be mentioned!

I see that Mageshot does NOT specify 'personal' as the Range. Does that mean that an Innate Enchantment of Mageshot can be lowered to 1400 by using the 0.7 'personal' modifier?

Well, he was already mentioned on the character list... Sadly.

As for Mage Shot, it looks like it targets something outside of you - (Range: Touch). Ergo, unless you want to try launching yourself as a missile (I don't think that would work anyway), "Personal Only" probably won't work. That would prevent you from targeting anything but yourself.

To clarify, the personal modifier is intended for spells that can be cast on anyone, including the caster. Self, Personal, Items touched, or range 0' do not qualify for the personal modifier.

Gerad, is there anything in game you need from Thal to create her shrine?

Well, she's a moon goddess. Those are notorious for having multiple aspects, for transformation and illusion magic, for astral projection, for being linked to the fey, and for being linked to the seasons. Lunar correspondences include female magic and mysteries, silver, purification, dreams, divination, and rebirth. It's plants include cabbage, mint, basil, ginger, hyssop, lavender and (toxic) nutmeg. It's woods are most often walnut and almond. Commonly associated stones include opal, moonstone, labradorite, iolite, and obsidian. The Wild Hunt rides beneath the moon, and - in some mythologies - its cycles govern the gates of the spirit world. Common animal associations include wolves, ravens, rabbits, and apes. (Cats and foxes are more often independent supernatural beings, although they are sometimes agents of the moon). More rarely, it governs time and darkness.

While the suggestion was somewhat tongue in cheek...



That would be a perfectly valid lunar shrine - although it probably wouldn't have much to do with whatever aspect and attributes Thalyssra sees her as having.

Masks of silver leaf, representing the maiden, mother, and crone, gazing down upon a flame dancing within a clouded crystal sphere that shines upon pure water might go well with a purification shrine. The trees of a great forest, pressing close upon a crimson altar carved with predators fangs and images of lycanthropes howling beneath the moon could be for her aspect as patron of shapeshifters. A shrine to female mysteries might focus on fertility and children - either abstractly or in an style resembling that of some of indias more infamous temples. Beds of healing herbs and a great lens to focus moonlight upon alchemical transmutations might do.

So what aspect of the moon do you worship? What sorts of symbols and materials should be used? You're playing the priestess; tell me something about your goddess and the style of worship you give her.

O.o

I love this...all this stuff and now I want to make a lunar samurai lycanthrope priest!

I just enjoy the options in eclipse but the power of focusing on a theme is just amplified by Eclipse.

Off to go read my rules book again...sigh.

Oh dear... Thal better watch out or she'll have competition!

Hmm, I would probably say Thal sees Selune as a goddess of transformations(especially Lycanthropes), fey, female magic and mysteries, and divination primarily. Aside from the general 'of the moon'. Silver, white and blue are her primary colors, along with the mineral silver/mithral. For gemstones, moonstone, opal, pearl, selenite, and sapphire(especially star).

Animals would be owls(Selune's favorite animal), ravens, and foxes.

Beyond this, I would need to think and read up a bit more on Selune, but I hope this is a good enough to start with.

Muhahahaha....I have been looking at some nifty pictures and game mechanics for him!

Gee, great, more people muscling in on my moon priestess territory....

Well, we already got pictures...

Good Lunar:



Alternate Lunar:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/att...5f92bb3e98c67edf.png

And New Moon Lunar or the Dark Side:



We already decided this was a nice potential for Thal:



And if ya'll don't behave, an extra dose of cuteness!


This message was last edited by the GM at 05:17, Sat 16 Jan 2021.

LOL, well it would be more working together with you if the character even came to be, not sure Legacy will let me have two characters :D I was thinking more the traditional cleric/paladin paradigm where they both worship the same goddess but the one is the wise priestess the other is more the holy knight/samurai enforcer type...although spell casting would be a thing :D

Also....here is the non lycanthrope face complete with a mask to represent the dark side of the moon.



And don't worry to hard, I'm addicted to creating characters...I'm constantly half building one.

Oh, I totally don't mind if you wanna be a paladin/knight/holy warrior of Selune.

But, you're first post said you wanted to make "lunar samurai lycanthrope priest" which made it sound like you wanted to make another priest(ess) of Selune that just had a more martial bent.

I already feel like I'm sharing the moon mage role sometimes with Gerad, so having a 3rd such character would be really annoying.

However, if you wanted to make a Moon Knight character, that would be welcome.

Also, who we decided on that pic for Thal? lol What's wrong with the ones I already have for her? lol

This literally is the definition of a paladin...a more martially bent priest....

And Gerad is in no way, shape or form a moon mage...he's a crazy ass extra planer scholar who talks to the various powers between the planes...

Which is totally what Raven is :P

If you try hard enough you can literally say that any of us has some of the others stuff in them, specially the spellcasters.

Khorolof and John are both hard hitting fighters but they totally aren't

John is a crazy mage/smith so is Gerad

Heck, the only pair who don't obviously overlap (likely because they're still to new so we can't see the overlap) is Lara and Chrysta

but it's the how that is important, stop worrying about the bits that overlap and work on making your 'how' distinct.

Gerad has a very factual approach and seems to have massive stores of knowledge about, well, anything....Raven is more spiritual and 'by feel' kind of caster who can draw on the powers of the spirits.

Khorolof is a berserker, John is a scientific warrior

Our how is very different even if mechanically we share similarities. Focus on Thal's how? Her thinking behind it and she'll be as vastly different as Khorolf and John who both, in essence, hit things really hard and kill them, but literally could not be any more different.

Gerad does make lists with enough material for fifty characters. Where else would I have found "Mystic Bartender"?

I wonder of Khorolf does have any kids in the village? It's not like he'd pass up a chance to father some - so if it's up to him, yes. How about it oh great GM?
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 03:41, Tue 12 Jan 2021.

If Khorolf wants to have a bun in the oven or a toddler, then that's up to him. He's only been in the village for 1-2 years?

Eh, more likely pre-toddler - six months or so. A year old would be kind of pushing it. But he is twenty-four - by barbarian standards an old man!

Unsure if got lost in all the baby making chat, but I posted about Thal's views on Selune and what might be in her shrine.

Also, Gerad, just curious if you have any interesting 'lists'/abilities for her? Would like to make her a bit more unique.

Well, he hasn't got the money to add much of anything to his house at the moment, so there's no rush there. It would require some days of downtime to generate value via crafting tricks, his automatic value-added effect has been mostly used for this week (it will provide the equivalent of 500 GP for improvements next week), or finding some more treasure adventuring.

As far as lists of things go...

Transformation - Lycanthrope style or becoming a creature of light?
Fey - Magical Companions, Illusion Magic, (Possibly with an ability to make it semi-real?)
Female Magic... well, that's not usually battle magic, but how about this list?



Admittedly, that's much of a levels worth of points, but it does provide some pretty impressive tricks.

That's actually pretty solid Gerad!! I will probably take that if we make it to later levels when we hopefully take on more active roles in both Beckfyrd and the world at large. Thanks buddy!

Hmm. Now I need to put some more thought into Thal(working on a ten minute background, so that should help) and see what else you can come up with! Assuming you don't mind, lol

Now, since nobody has chosen anything, here are some Practical Enchanter style Charms and Talismans for everyone.

Chrysta: Bardic Instrument (+4 to Skill,additional +10 with a dozen specific pieces), Captains Torc (+4 to listen, can be heard at greater distances if desired, but -1 on saves versus sonic attacks), Elfin Cloak (+4 to Stealth, +7 if standing still or in a natural environment, +10 if both). Talisman: Conjurer's "Tattoo" (Sigil, whatever) (Guitar) (May take 2d4 damage to conjure a guitar).

Huorielara: Iconography (takes "photos"12 times/day), The Oceans Arms (user floats, and cannot drown), Wraith Guantlets (turn hands momentarily intangible for 1d4 HP, can briefly reach inside or through things or hit incorporeal targets). Talisman: Helm of War (5 Charges, spend one to negate a critical hit, recovers 1 charge/week).

John: Alchemists Flask (Quickly fractionates liquids), Ditty Bag (Produces an item worth up to1 CP 3/Day - for when you want a bit of candle, string, or other minor item), Fireworks Pouch (Produces up to (Dex) minor fireworks per day). Talisman:  Zakari Stormbow.

Khorolf: Firebox (contains a small perpetual fire), Foothold Boots (3/Hour, find a foothold in the air), Sealed Helm (provides several minutes of air in a hostile environment), Talisman: Tulthara (Javelins).

Raven: Phylactory Of Whispering Shadows (3/Day briefly causes those within 10' to see and hear something "acceptable"), Sands of Time (3/Day gives the group one minute of subjective time in which to consult), Sculptors Smoke (7 packets, when burned the smoke can be shaped by the user's mind). Talisman: Merasian Vapors (20 Capsules, instant makeover and clothing renovation,+10 to Disguise Checks).

Thalyssra: Endless String (provides several hundred feet per day), Flux Iron (reshapes itself as the user wills),Vanishng Cloak (Turns you invisible for 1-2 rounds 3+L./3 times daily). Talisman: Mother's Tears Amulet (1/Day grants +3 to a particular save or to the users AC for a round. Activates (not an action) after the results are known.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:49, Sun 17 Jan 2021.

Have folks finished their level up, new toys, and ready to move forward?

Gerad,  is there a choice of goodies, or do we get all those toys mentioned?

Also, would the Zakari Strongbow fit on an Armor hard point?
This message was last edited by the player at 23:05, Fri 15 Jan 2021.

I just haven't had time to look at the practical enchanter to choose my talisman and charms. I'm hoping to do it this weekend. Last weekend was a family weekend and they don't appreciate me poring through the practical enchanter for some reason.

Just to make sure I get things that don't clash with the talismans and charms I have already. Although I will take Gerads picks under advisement....he tends to have a good idea of what is going on.

Well, there are quite a lot of possible Charms and Talismans, those just seemed reasonably appropriate. If you really want something else, it can certainly be arranged. While their effects are always pretty minor, they are good for convenience and style.

The Zakari Stormbow will fit on an armor hardpoint without difficulty.

Fortunately, given the various crafting boosts running in the house, it only takes a few minutes to create the things. Their primary limitation is that they're foci for your own magic, rather than enchanted items in themselves, so you can't use too many of them and they take time to attune and power up.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:24, Sat 16 Jan 2021.

I looked through the practical enchanter last night. Wanna check out the blog as well.

Ray of Hope seems good for Thal's talisman.

Sadly, the items in the gray boxes are listed as "cannot normally be intentionally created" (Practical Enchanter Page 189, Bottom Left Column) - although that one notes that an extremely powerful and holy priest ould make one (On Faerun? Probably level 18+). So that's one of the few that Gerad can't make. Now, the GM might rule that something from the pool would work that way - basically a gift from Selune - but you'll have to check with the GM about that.

In reply to Game Master (msg # 289):

Give me until tomorrow to write updates. Was without a phone most of the day.

what is that number? I feared that might be the case with me already having 7 and 3 (charms & talismansm)

Variable:

Gerad took a special ability to have a Practical-Enchanter style "Wealth Level" based on his hit dice (and has been getting extra hit dice to boost his hit-die based caster level for his magic). Since one of the functions of having a Wealth Level is supporting others at a lesser level, he's sharing some of the effect. Basically, it's a part of his salary for being employed by the Loominsenerid (He'll be adding some household staff and such that goes with the wealth template when there's time). So the charms and talismans he's handing around are basically a secondhand grant of power (albeit not a lot of power) from the Elder Gods.

Gerad personally is running extras based on "Craft: Charms and Talismans" through skill-based magic. That's another pool of personal power.

Khorolf is using a "Shaping" based allotment through a relic Gerad made - which is a separate allotment, since it's intentionally spending points to build up your personal power for the purpose. I'd guess that Raven is doing something similar?

But basically, as long as the origins of the allotments are different, they should stack.

Perfect, yeah I'm using a relic with shaping....so I'm good there. I'll have a look as soon as I get a chance. Catching up on posting first...the last few days have been a little busier than I'd like.

Well, I am ready to go forth and smash more things! Or is that get smashed? Hand me another beer while I figure it out!

Oops. I missed that talismans/charms were in question. Happily taken and many thanks!

You're quite welcome. After all, "enhance and support the party" is sort of his thing.

Thanks for the toys, Gerad.

Khorolf, do you need armor, perhaps? Mithril Breastplate is probably better protection than what you have currently, right?

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, it currently wouldn't do him any good. He'd go to a +5 Armor Bonus from his current +4, but - since he boosted his Dex Bonus to AC, he'd lose one off his current effective +6.

Besides, he might be non-proficient; he's limited to northern barbarian tribal weapons and armor, and I'm not sure Breastplates are included in that. How about it oh Game Master? That might be important to know at some point.

When I think of the north and barbarians, Mithral breast plate is not the first thing to come to mind. Barbarian tribes live off the land, scavengers, foragers, and hunters. Hides of animals slain by the men, objects of wood, hide and bone. There are rituals and ceremonies that must be done while crafting the objects for them to be imbued with the spirits of the ancestors and the beasts and animals.

Bone breast plate is fine but then it won’t really bestow what John is offering out the gate... but, you’ll have induct John as a tribal manner to be allowed to craft for a wild man of the north! There are sagas to recite and customs to learn.

Perhaps later then. For the moment, Khorolf will keep showing off his rippling muscles.

Now I want to do the scene where a barbarian (Conan I think) breaks a dozen swords with a single sweep - and maybe learn to break weapons on my iron muscles. Unless it costs too much.

Hey Gerad! What would that look like?

In the end I went with Gerad's items anyway because I couldn't find anything that worked better than them so I'm ready to move forward.

Well, if you want to destroy weapons when people attack you... Opportunist / May use an AoO to try and Sunder an opponents weapon when they hit him (Special Effect: Weapon shatters against your mighty muscles). That's a base of 6 CP, but you might be able to get a couple of points off if you restrict it more.

Breaking a whole bunch of weapons at once is just using Whirlwind Attack (Enhanced Strike / Whirlwind Option) with Sunder.

In either case, some way to avoid provoking an Attack of Opportunity might be useful if your targets are close enough to make one.

Given that you have reach and a fairly impressive damage output, Whirlwind may be a useful option for you to consider at times. You should be able to pull it off once in a while anyway if you took that Might Of Uthgar idea. That would let you pull off some of the Wind Blade Style stuff from over here ( https://ruscumag.wordpress.com...-path-magics-part-i/ ) a few times per day.

(And I'm glad that Raven thought they were reasonable choices!)

In reply to Game Master (msg # 304):

You're right! For Khorolf, it ought to be a breastplate fashioned by Bulette plates. Those landsharks have a really tough hide, and it would fit the barbarian flavor.....

I too am okay with Gerad's suggestions, as I couldn't really find anything outright better for Thal.

Yeehaw! Just became a grandpa. My daughter just gave birth to a healthy 6 lb 12 oz baby boy. They are naming him Lucien.

Congratulations!

In reply to John D'Oh (msg # 310):

Congrats! Becoming a grandparent is quite an achievement!

Indeed, Congratulations from me as well!

Big hypers and congrats on becoming a grandfather!! That's awesome!!

Does this make you the old man of the group?? lolol

Probably. I started playing D&D in 1979, and Champions in '81 I think.

Gratulations!!!

Fortunately this is the OOC thread, or Khorolf would have to send a case of beer and a starter battleaxe!

Will OOC congratulations do instead?

Uhhh, I fail to see how Khorolf shouldn't be sending these, ooc thread or otherwise! lol

Because these days they get cranky if you give newborns weapons and beer!

Ah, hilarious.

I'll push us forward tomorrow evening. I have a few things to wrap up before we send you all into the craziness.

Well, I have thought of a way to get some more funding, so I should be able to get an (upgraded) Lunar Shrine together shortly - and probably a few sets of similar upgrades for other shrines and facilities.

That shrine is amazing! Damn that's some good inspiration.

Well, I'm glad you like it!

I shall be adding the power-amplification effect and something like the Lunar Forge to the other shrines as well; any thoughts on what the shamanic/barbarian version should produce?

Anything not alcohol-related might be a travesty. :P

Well I'd imagine it's much more naturally biased, so I'd imagine plants, fungi (which can both be used for Khorolf's brews), barks, incenses, woods for various trinkets and charms and of course considering both Raven and Khorolf's dress animal skins, meats and byproducts (bones etc.) for more clothing, cloaks, various shamanic costumes and masks, the sands and drugs to allow us to see visions and help us communicate with the spirits and then things to offer to the spirits.

I'm sure Khorolf might have more ideas? Perhaps some ores as well? Copper and other things associated with barbarians and shamans rather than steel, silver and gold? Ivory might be nice, horns and tusks....

I'm not sure how big the timeskip was:

We apparently started off with the Adulthood Ceremony at Highharvestide, headed into autumn. We fooled around with the fey, investigated, and sealed a demonic gate. Back at Beckfyrd that evening Gerad did his first in-game prophecy:


Since Selune has a period of 30 days, 10 hours, and 3 Minutes (synchronizing it with the overall length of the year) that basically gave us 61 days warning.

The next day we headed to the mines, did some rituals, and fought the Zerg the next morning and spoke to a pit fiend:



Day three we got back to Beckfyrd late and Gerad had a second major vision:



Day Four (Very, VERY, early - shortly after Midnight) - At the Lunar Pool.

Battle with the Shadows. Apparently had only a few days before the Lycanthropic attack. Did various things for the rest of the night since Gerad's house negates the need to sleep.

Morning - timeskip to the time of the lycanthropic attack. Probably enemy action, since we are not ready. Something in the skip allowed John to finish his armor and Gerad to get the Lunar Shrine set up. So the timeskip apparently was only a few days?  The Lycanthrope attack was supposed to be pretty soon.

So that puts us around day seven?

The only thing that I worry about is the GM said:

"But considering a span of weeks passed, it seems a fair trade, maybe..."

Certainly also possible. I'm rather hoping for less because I had a lot more things to get done.

Of course, this is a fey forest with a mess of overlapping timelines and people being moved through time. For all I know it could be different for everybody.

Oh, will that version of the lunar shrine suit you?

It's really heckin awesome! Couple of questions however:

1) What exactly does this mean: "Lunar Magic cast within the circle of the moon is reduced by -2 spell levels for casting purposes only"

2) Does the Forge produce both the minerals/gems and the worked items or does it only make the listed items?

3) When wearing more than one sigils, do the wrath bonuses stack? I would assume not, but it would be good to know either way.

Also, *if* one were to wear all 13 sigils, do they get to use the 1/day powers 13/day?

The Echo of the Moon is really neat, and flavorful!! I rather like that a lot.

Well then...

• The spell level reduction means that you could cast - say - third level spells (Such as Cure Serious Wounds or Speak With Dead) as if they were only first level. Sadly, if you're using Prepared Spells, you'd have to both prepare and cast them at the shrine for that to work. Thus it's most useful for spells like Restoration (level four) which could be cast as a second level spell or Commune (level five) which could be cast as a third level spell.
• The Forge produces 100 GP worth of Selune-related mundane stuff in total each week. The listed stuff is mostly examples. The magic stuff is produced on it's own schedules, independently of the mundane stuff. (The magical stuff it produces could be changed in theory, but those are about the most cost-effective items I could come up with. Really expensive stuff could take multiple years to make).
• The Wrath powers are Morale Bonuses, and so do not stack with themselves (or other morale bonuses).
• Sadly, the Sigils are using a "Bestow Feat" effect - and the daily use limits are built into the feat. (From the Eclipse Authors blog; he put up some cheap "lesser path" magics that were useful to non-adventurers as well as to adventurers). Ergo, renewing the feat-bestowal probably doesn't renew the uses-per-day bits. The GM might rule otherwise, but I wouldn't expect it.

And I'm glad you like it!

For me, mystic bartending is just a sideline, but Id guess that the lead-time to set up effects in advance with Echoes is a lot more important to Chrysta. Would she get to set up some of her tricks during the time lapse?

I also have Rapid. So theoretically I could use Echoes while we eat and discuss, and use them several times for several effects. No?

I'd guess so (Khorolf is a lot more restricted than that) - but since you can set things up weeks in advance, you can have lots of stockpiled effects ready to go given a few days notice. It seems a lot like a wizard getting spells prepared.

John, do you mean Thal can feel the moonlight?

Thal is the moon priestess, Lara is the Dragon girl!

I mean she may be able to feel it but I'd imagine the moon priestess feels it first.