You are indeed correct, and now, so am I - Edits are wonderful things. :)

Yeah, even better if you can sneakily make them before anyone notices you made a mistake :D. I often make typos and have to go back and fix them. I mean, the post still shows as "edited", but still... ;)

Sorry for the delay in posts guys--Ive been busy. Guess everyone else has been too?

It certainly seems so from this side. :)

Nothing, remember that you're next!

Yup, just gonna post now - last time the Initiative list was given I just made a mental note that I'm after Carver. Not much clue on the rest of the order (other than that Adrika is last) but I suppose it doesn't matter too much. Well, lights out, then >:).

Hey, darkness is nice, if Balin stops being able to see me that gives him a 50% miss chance on his attacks and causes him to be flat-footed and taking an additional -2 to AC on top of that, which should make it more problematic for him to break out of entanglement (-4 to Str and Escape Artist (Dex) checks, -1 from my Serendipity for a -5 total).



At 10 vs. Fort though, that Con drain is going to hit no one ^^;

The darkness works extremely well with Dryssa's entangling vines, but Dryssa can't see in the darkness so she can't cast it once the darkness is up - you might want to consider that when you get around to start planning team strategies.

As I've said last time Nothing dominated an encounter by summoning her darkness, Blinded is an incredibly powerful condition, perhaps the strongest in the game that doesn't straight out stops actions completely. Thus, you really should look for ways to maximize its effectiveness - like making sure everybody gets some source of Darkvision, and perhaps getting things (like the Vampiric Mist) that allow you to actually weaponize it. It'd be a smart plan.

I can't wait for when you're on the other side of that facing Light-Type specialists capable of applying it with bright lights, or start fighting enemies with Darkvision of their own, so enjoy it while you can! ^_^

Well, I'm not gonna meta-game it. I'm picking abilities that seem both useful and cool and I'm not gonna get all fussy about numbers. That's too much brain-work, I don't really do numbers. I'm working pretty much from a thematic/narrative point of view. I can stick someone in the dark and drain the anyone being attacked by the draining thing so it makes them easier to hit with it each time I hit them with it? Cool >:D.

I've heard it said of Pathfinder something to the effect of "If you're trying to hit someone in Pathfinder and think you've missed, check your character sheet again because there'll be some kind of bonus you forgot to add which will actually mean you still hit them" - maybe not the cast in this particular instance but I can already see how Pathfinder is very numbers-y. Still think AE stuff should roll per target, though :P.

As for future developments, as mentioned I'm gonna aim for stuff I think is cool but at the same time would make sense for my character to attain. And preferably stuff that doesn't require me to do a shitload of maths in order to use it - that's not my kind of fun, but fortunately I think I'm good as long as I never try to attack anyone with a weapon (which isn't something I plan on doing anyway - it's not Nothing's style) :D.

In reply to Nothing (msg # 938):

I mean, if you think that rolling 25 times (with the target for each roll designated before the roll or else seeing me throw your roll out and force you to roll again) once you start fighting mobs is funner and easier and faster to adjudicate than rolling once and then comparing to the fixed saves for everyone... I still don't. I don't think you're gonna make me change my mind on that, it'd be a ton of extra work I have to do with making sure every roll is matched to an enemy and that no enemy was missed, including the invisible ones you didn't know you had to roll for, and battles take long enough as it is.

The goal of doing things with an attack roll rather than having the targets roll individual saves for it is so that a single post can be used to solve the entire round of combat for your character without having to do a ton of back-and-forth whenever somebody use a spell. Which is why, for saves that are triggered on a player's turn rather than the moment the spell is cast, I'll let those players roll their save as normal against what would be the static DC - that way we can also keep things moving forward with minimal waste of time.

And with that out of the way, I don't really think any of your abilities are particularly complicated - you just need to keep track of your Caster Level and that tends to be what determines most of the spells' power.

Hmm, didn't think of invisible enemies/ones I don't know about. I had just thought how is we were using actual Pathfinder rules, each target would make its own resist roll, and in Fourth Edition any multi-target attack rolls against each target being hit. I was just thinking more like "Hey, but if X fires a multi-shot bow attack, they'd have to roll to hit everyone, so why can't I do it with my darkness in case I get a crap roll on some of them?". I would do it th same way I do in Fourth - listing each target being attacked and making a roll for each. But if it's too fiddly and there might be targets I don't know about, fine - I hadn't thought of that. It just felt weird having to only make roll against multiple things.

And yeah, my abilities aren't super-complicated, it's the fiddly mechanics behind stuff like the calculation of attack rolls that messes me up (also this whole "there are like three different things in the game all called "CL" and none of them are related to each other" thing ;)) - see earlier comment on someone else saying Pathfinder is full of random bonuses and stuff that are easy to miss ;). Mind you, it's only a problem when I'm actually using an effect that "attacks" someone - if this was just regular darkness, it'd be fine. It's 'cause I'm trying to weaken the bad guy as well as messing with his vision that I suddenly have to worry about numbers ;).

Well, that's basically how the GM house-ruled it.

With spells, in regular Pathfinder and D&D you'd roll your spell damage, and then combat would need to wait for the GM to make the rolls for the enemies so the other party members know which ones are still standing, and which allies require healing because they stood too close to the blast. Likewise, with your darkness spell as an example, everyone in it would need to roll against your effect every round we're in the area of effect.

By doing it this way, you're eliminating a bunch of bookkeeping because the necessary rolls would be done by the one creating the effect, once, at the moment of creation, rather than tying it to every affected individual's resistance and feats that may or may not apply, and having them roll every round against it. It makes spellcasting more consistent, as either the casting ended up well or the casting ended up poor, rather than a slot machine of who gets affected and who does not per round.

Thanks for the vote of support, Adrika! ^_^

Honestly, I think the "roll individually for each affected creature" is fine in person when the exchange goes down in a handful of seconds, but I know from experience how much it slows down things in play-by-post.

Consider this very fight; even with the simplification in place, it's still been going on for pretty long already, and that's without your enemy actually having been able to show even a fifth of his total ability; yet we're still here, despite the fact this fight started a whole month ago. It's impossibly time consuming.

And speaking of Balin, he's only level 4th - a couple of the characters in the list of known personalities (as well as Cardinal Thorn and Wolfram) are lv 6th characters with several extra feats to their name, and thus have even a ton of abilities. And of course, I don't think anybody will be surprised to know that there's gonna be large battles to take part into as well later on. So, future fights will become even more complex.

Hence why I am looking for ways to accelerate the pace - I mean, ideally one post a day from every fighter would keep us progressing at a good pace (we did well enough with the chasm fight, I would think), but then situations happen like right now, where things are held up because of me needing to clarify stuff (like I had here for nothing) or people just being busy (like Lilah often is) - but I haven't found anything else so far. If any of you have suggestions though, let me know! ^_^

Numbers can be difficult--and again Nothing, if you'd like help figuring out the numbers and stuff, I'm happy to help ^-^ Even tho lately I've been kinda out of it, I like numbers and stuff~

It's a bit of post-holidays grogginess, I think; everybody is having a bit of it, seems to me. I'm sure we'll all readjust to normal rhythms in short order, and I can be understanding in the meanwhile. :)

Question about the Darkness stuff:

If i understand correctly, the initial save was to see if we'd get affected at the moment of casting. But should we remain in the darkness, we'd need to roll Fort vs. 15 every round? Or would the number rolled keep applying against our passive?

You roll every round vs DC 15, yes - I said so in the main thread's post. The "roll once as you cast the spell vs 10+save for all targets" is only for the initial casting, to speed things up. It's also why you all still have DCs for your abilities on your sheets, and why I say that the spell attack roll is "your ability's DC -10".

I am fully aware that this makes ongoing effect generally more powerful than one-shots, but honestly, I don't think it's too big of an advantage, and ongoing effects already are a generally superior choice anyway, so I don't really see it as a big problem. And again, it's the faster way to resolve things.

Yeah, just making sure, since i'm after Nothing in the Initiative list, so i'd like to avoid confusion.

So if i understood correctly, i wouldn't need to roll against Nothing's DC in my next post since i've already saved against it when Nothing cast it?

That depends on whether you stay inside the darkness or not. If you do, you need to roll at the end of your turn, but if you leave it, you don't.

Keep in mind, your save was for the original use of the ability - if you had failed that save, you'd have already lost CON for the effect; that was avoided thanks to Nothing's roll being spectacularly low, so you've already benefited from a successful save.

As I said, people who'll be entering the darkness will need to save the moment they do, and if they fail, they'll lose CON immediately; then after that, they'll be rolling a save at the end of their turn only if they end the turn inside the darkness.

I think that's fair, but what of everybody else? What is the group's general opinion on the matter? As I said before, I'm open to suggestions and criticism - as I'm sure you all remember, I changed my mind on the swimming rules when it was pointed to me that my changes were unfair. If you have solid criticism, I'll listen to it.

Well, only objection i'd have is that if i'd choose to stay within the area, i'd have had to save against the effect twice in one round: Once on Nothing's turn (passive) and once on my own.

Since Carmen and myself (and yes, Balin too) already made a successful save against the darkness this round, we should be allowed to skip this round's saves, and after that roll at the start of our turns like everyone else. That'd avoid a situation where we'd make a virtual "roll twice, take lowest", or have some people roll at the start of their turns (when entering the area of effect) and others at the end.

My two cents ^^;

See, the way I see it, that's just the drawback of being caught in the initial area of effect - you were there when the spell went off, so you suffered the effects; doing otherwise would make it meaningless to be in the area of effect of the spell as it is initially cast in the first place, since you don't suffer any more than one who enters the area later, even if by all reason, you should.

Also, you misunderstood how it'd work if you entered in it: you don't roll twice (one time upon entering, and another at the end of your turn), you only roll once. If you enter it that turn, you roll upon entering. If you already were in the area of effect when you turn began, then you roll at the end, and only if you are still inside when the turn ends; so, if you were to leave the area, you won't need to roll again. Which applies to Adrika as well - if you leave the area of darkness during your next turn, then you won't have to save; but if you choose to remain inside, well, choices need to have consequences, else they are not choices at all.

Does that makes my position a bit clearer?
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:10, Sat 11 Jan 2020.

Hmm... Yeah, so if someone walks into the darkness and ends their turn there, they'd roll once for entering and once again for finishing their turn in it?

In reply to Adrika (msg # 951):

No. I just said it above: you only roll at the end of your turn if you started your turn in the darkness. Nobody ever rolls twice in the same turn. If the spell is cast on you, that happens in the spellcaster's turn, not your own. In your turn, you can choose to stay in the darkness (and then you roll when the turn ends) or to leave the darkness (then you don't have to roll). If you didn't start your turn in the darkness, you roll when you enter, and thus don't have to roll at the end.

Is it really that complicated? It seems really straightforward to me.

Umm, according to the actual official Sphere rules for this particular effects, the save for someone still in the darkness after the intial casting is made at the end of each of my turns, or upon entering the darkness (but only one save per round). So the way we've been doing it, I've been instead making an attack roll when I cast it, but presumably then I just make a new attack roll on each subsequent turn that area of darkness remains in place - I'm pretty sure that's how we did it at the river battle. So no-one should have to roll against my effects, we're doing it more kind of Fourth-Edition-style in that the person causing the effect makes the attack rather than people being affected rolling to avoid it.

This is what it actually says on this specific Darkness effect on the Spheres website...
"You may create a darkness effect that saps away the lifeforce of those inside. Any creature inside the darkness must pass a Fortitude save or suffer 1 point of Constitution damage. Creatures who remain within this area of darkness must save at the end of your subsequent turns or suffer another point of Constitution damage. If a creature enters this area of darkness after it is created, they must immediately save or also suffer this damage. A creature may only be affected by Hungry Darkness once per round, regardless of how many times they enter or exit the area that turn."

So the way I see it, this is how it works under our slightly modified rules when I cast this particular effect...
~ If you are inside the area when I first cast it, you are attacked by it (I make a roll on casting)
~ If you then remain in the area until the end of my next turn, you are attacked again (I make a new roll at the end of my turn)
~ If you are outside the area when it is cast but then enter it on your turn, you are attacked by whatever my most recent attack roll was
~ If you step (or are forced to move) in and out of the area multiple times in a round, you still only get attacked once in that entire round
~ If you are immune, ignore all of the above (currently only applies to Cetaen), though this only applies to the draining effect - you are still affected by the fact that it's dark unless you have suitable night vision

So no-one needs to worry about rolling anything except me - you just have to worry about what my result was and how low your Con will get if I keep hitting you (unless I've previously made you immune) ;).

At least, that's how I've understood this working. Only the attacker needs to roll, because they are the one doing the attacking. And I'm sure that was how we did it before, in the one other battle where I cast this Fort-draining darkness effect.

In reply to Nothing (msg # 953):

...and you are right. For some reason I thought people had to save on their turn, but if they have to save on yours, then yes, it's much better to have you roll once only. So that's what we'll be doing. Thanks for pointing out my mistake! ^_^

I probably got confused with poisons, which are my go-to point of reference when I think of ongoing effects.

No probs ^^

...And that in turn would mean he's up against our passive resistances, essentially Taking 10 on the saves.

Which in our case would be pretty beneficial, as i'm giving you guys a +1 to saves ^^