And this is the miserable, vile pit in which you may discuss things which are out of character.

Current meat bags desiring to join Urzag the Vile's horde:

Gnoll Ranger // Bard
Half-Orc Barbarian // Fighter
Half-Orc Rogue // Bard
Orog Druid // Warlock
Orc Barbarian // Cleric
Mountain Orc Barbarian // Psychic Warrior
Mountain Orc Barbarian // Fighter

I would like to welcome the first of our players.

Bellatrix and Gora, the Twins of Strength and Cunning.

Smiles a tusky smile and makes the barest minimum of a curtsey, barely even the little bob that humans make.  "Thank you", she says.

I would also like to welcome Zugarsha, the Blood Witch, and Rorak Silverfang, our Gnoll Skald.

And for our divine font of inspiration, welcome to Karguk One-Eye, Disciple of Gruumsh!

And for our final team member, I would like to welcome Kozryaka Wyckblud, Luthic's Wandering Beast.

Awful lot of females for an orc party, but should be interesting.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:58, Thu 20 Aug 2020.

And with that, we are closed for further applicants and we can begin the game discussion in earnest.

I highly recommend you guys read over the House Rules and Character Creation Thread, as I did add a bunch of fun stuff for you guys.

Now, given that there are some races with a LA +1, what level does everyone want to start out at? I was leaning towards level 5, so you can get a feel for your characters before we get into the nitty gritty world of prestige classes and such, but I am open to thoughts and ideas.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:26, Thu 20 Aug 2020.

 Rarr!

 Rorak, for one has no difficulty working with a party of powerful women, not least because he's a Gnoll and isn't entirely sure what other kind there are. ^_^

 And level five or six would work for me - makes us good lieutenant material for the warlord without demanding we squeeze every last +1 out of our builds.

Also, we are treating level adjustments on one side of the gestalt.

Level five sounds fine to me.

As it is spoken among the mighty Durgreos, "no quarrel" (old orcish greeting.

I was thinking of suggesting not less than 2 on level. I like 5th level. 5th level is a good balance point for thing; Top of low level, and start of mid levels.

Starting wealth will be 4,300 gps, to represent the savage and unadventurous lifestyle of a horde. I will be giving you or bumping up the power of one of your items to make up for this lack of starting wealth, but be aware that its unlikely that you will be dragging along mules.

 I am suddenly seized with the desire to spend some ludicrously small portion of my wealth on a Very Angry Mule.

You say now...but to your horde members, that looks like mighty fine meat to eat... Not to mention where and how you bought it...lol

 Yeah... But just think of the entertainment to be had mounting a goblin or something on a Warbeast Mule and watching it kick its way through an enemy spear line. ^_^

True, true. Or a medium sized dire rat...

I thought we would be riding warpigs

Welcome all!

Discussing goblins and their medium dire rat mounts...

In reply to Gruumsh (msg # 20):

One of my favorite parts of D&D is the odd paths discussion will take.

Just to finalize, the consensus is starting level for this campaign is level 5. Level Adjustment will be placed on one side of your character progressions.

If you have a level adjustment, treat your BAB, HD, Saves, Skills, etc... per level the same as a level where you do not. Easier to calculate.

Sounds good to me

In reply to Bellatrix (msg # 18):
as Gora would say IC
Hey me no wanna ride da pigs.  Gora wanna ride ugly one horned mules.

Yarp this is one thing that Bellatrix would likely have heard from Gora several times.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:54, Fri 21 Aug 2020.

And so you shall Gora.  We will make it so, shall we not?

10th level you could pickup a dire wolf or dire boar with the animal cohort feat.

Don't see why we would use gold to get a mount when there are horses, carts, and boats to steal, and beasts to force into service. The mighty take that which is theirs by right of strength.

True, and welcome back everyone

 Delighted to be back!

We settled on starting at level 5, right?  I have Karguk started out as a Cleric/Barb. We can talk PrC later, maybe warpriest?  We haven’t made any decisions as to equipment yet, right?

 I built Rorak at level five on the basis that it's easy to add a level, and we do have a cash guideline, I think it was 3,200 or so.

Building Bellatrix at level 5. Bard/rogue. Planning to become Horizon Walker Shadowdancer at level 10 or 11.

 I'm flirting with taking ranks in Dragon Disciple, just to assert Gnollish strength in the face of all these over-muscled orcs...

 ...but truth be told, I don't really have a 'build' in mind as such, just a few points I want to hit along the way.

As a devoted follower of Luthic, Kezryaka is kind of domestic-minded in a rather orcish way. On top of her personal items and her tent Kezryaka carries the following items to help make the war camp feel more like home.

Barrel
Chain 10'
Clay Mug x4
Fishing Net
Flint & Steel
Iron pot
Piton x12
Sewing Needle
Shovel
Manacle w/ Simple Lock
Rope 50' x4

I figure a high survival skill covers basic cooking.
There's no soap, so if you want your cloths or dishes washed I question your orcdom.
She will do mending if she thinks you deserve it but she has no ranks in craft and isn't exactly a Rhodes Scholar so the seams might not be straight.
If you need to make water find a tree.
If you need to make soil you can borrow her shovel. (catholes are useful)
If you die along the way and Karguk runs out of opals she'll use the shovel so predators don't scavenge your corpse.
If Karguk somehow finds more opals than you manage to find victims to slay she's not adverse to finding some extra with her shovel.

June Cleaver, she is not.

Trying to compete in strength directly might be a losing proposition.

Did you see the Flindbar (in monster manual #3)? It's a special gnoll weapon that gets a free disarm action whenever it threatens a critical (19-20 base).

https://www.realmshelps.net/mo...s/block/Gnoll,_Flind

It's a decent weapon on it's own but you could try to go crazy with Disciple of Dispater/Psychic Weapon Master/aptitude-weapon-with-lightning-mace.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:04, Tue 25 Aug 2020.

 Heh, I'm aware of it, but Rorak is hoping to get his hands on an Echoblade at some point, preferably a two-handed one.

 He's pretty ruthlessly pragmatic, generally keeps himself clean without much need for soap, can probably run any of the Orcs in the group who didn't waste a slot on Endurance into the ground and beyond that, he's not really built to be optimised, just fun to play.

Shapeshift druid... but that would be cheating with magic and Kozryaka wouldn't want to compete with a warrior recognized by Urzag that way. Winning would bring discord to the Horde, and would not help her status. Competing without a purpose like winning would be pointless.

I think we have everyone back, except maybe Gora?

Starting Level 5, 4,300 gps to start out with, if you are interested in a prestige class, let me know in your PM so I can adapt it to the setting. LA on one side of the Gestalt if you have one, make sure to indicate it.

I will be going over Character sheets the next day or so to get us finalized.

In reply to Gruumsh (msg # 36):

lil ol me is never been gone.

one question i have for the group is, has anyone brought bandages or medical equipment like healing herbs for wounds or conditions that can not be tended with magic atm?

Umm no, sorry sis.  Healing is one thing I know nothing about, except for magic of course.

Koryaka didn't bother with the healer's kit but is a competent non-magic healer, as well as a magical one.

If you could all limit yourself to taking 26 damage a day that'd be great. Otherwise if I'm constantly rebuilding you from a mangled pile of sinew and meat maybe help replace my healing stick when it runs dry. I'm sure I will always need more healing sticks.

 Rorak can put out a few modest healing spells and knows his way around a pack of bandages in a modest 'the red stuff stays inside' sort of way and that's about it.

well if worst comes to worse, Gora could always try to growl and snarl the wounds into submission? "Ya nasty peshky wound! ya gonna leave me fwends be.  Go botha some Minotaur or someting...k?  Or better still get on me club and let me hit ya onta me foe."

Private messages to all about their characters, we should be pretty good to start soon if you update your characters.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:14, Sat 29 Aug 2020.

Did the thing.

Also reminded of the Ogre Rogue, Rogre? who accomplished all rogue abilities by yelling at the thing until it did what it was supposed to do or he got mad enough to punch it and it did what he wanted.

"GUARD YOU SAW NOTHING!" (stealth)
"LOCK YOU OPEN! OPEN NOW! OPEN!" *BANG* *CRASH* (open lock)

Did the thing.

Also did a bit more.

Viva la Chaos!!!!!

With school starting for many in the country, and myself especially so I can get adjusted back to my weekly assignments, I am going to give one more day to finish, not that all of you need it, and I will respond to questions tomorrow.

Fall is coming...

In reply to Bellatrix (msg # 44):

what does Siegfried have to do with anything
    and
are you going to let us know whatever intel you have on him?

Siegfried who?

In reply to Bellatrix (msg # 47):

ref Get Smart the TV show and Kaos (chaos) an organisation bent on world domination... if they could only get their act together.

This message was deleted by the player at 14:27, Wed 02 Sept 2020.

Ahh.  I don't think we've ever had that on telly over here.

Sheet updated.

 I remember episodes of Get Smart being aired on... I want to say channel four, back in the day, somewhere around that sixish slot where the beeb was doing news on one and something fifty minutes long and nerdy on two.

 Most of us are more familiar with Inspector Gadget, which was inspired by it, I think.

Ahh.  Yes, Inspector Gadget I remember.  I never used to see things in that slot though because I was usually on my way home from the W word.

Think I'm done

 Likewise... *Twitchtwitch* C'mon already, I wanna' burn down all the things with the pretty orc ladies! ^_^

Probably tonight, first week in college semester is always a rush.

So I'm playing Kozryaka as a stogy traditionalist orc witch and actually evil. Her views need not represent the views of all orcs, she's just kind of old fashioned and religious.

One of her goal is to marry the strongest warrior she can. She would characterize herself as a heterosexual woman, but that's a trans-inclusive heterosexuality that would consider someone assigned female at birth who lives as a warrior to be a man. Basically man=warrior and warrior=man. Also, might makes truth.

Marrying a woman poses no problem at all for her. For instance she'd have no qualm telling her female husband she'd gotten pregnant, acting out the pregnancy then simply taking a baby from it's mother because she wanted a baby with her husband.

Her ideas about gender roles are born out of the Gruumsh-Luthic dichotomy.

The social cues she's picking up on for why Gora is a warrior is weapons.

So it's a bit obscure and buried in the lore, but Orc women traditionally never wield "weapons". Claw like weapons are always an exception because they're sacred to Luthic. Kozryaka wields claw bracers. There's also a giant loophole. She considers Bellatrix's dagger and sling to be hunting and crafting tools rather than weapons. All axes bow and spear are tools even great-axes and double-axes. Gora's platemail and great sword however clearly violate this taboo and designate her as clearly a man.

Bellatrix is quite the opposite (except she is not what anybody would call 'good').  She doesn't do tradition, and by taking a share of the food, even though she has no need of it, she is staking her claim to the right to fight, not with what Kozryka would consider 'weapons' but with her wits.

In reply to Kozryaka Wyckblud (msg # 57):

Taboo what taboo?  the only taboo Gora sees is letting some inferior creature come along and killing her or other members of The Clan

So just who do you expect to protect the young of the clan whilst the men are out about and amusing themselves?  The goats, dogs or other livestock used as food? Even in ages past it would have been foolish to assume that Humans and such ilk would spare the young and defenseless.  As for tradition! unlike Bellatrix Gora is a follower of at least one tradition and that tradition is The strong take what they want from the weak.

and from the post I see below that Kozryaka Wyckblud is of the same or similar mindset.



By the way it has been stated that there are many different forms of strong and physical strength is just one of them.

 Very much like some notions of the viking mindset then - gender as a role determined by what you do, not accident of birth. Ironically, Rorak himself in all his butch, manly (hah) glory is something of this himself - Gnoll women tend to be the bigger, tougher ones and their society leans matriarchal, although their savagery and relatively low level of sexual dimorphism means that most everyone is expected to be a warrior before anything else. He's just more in touch with his feminine side than most Gnoll boys.

 I get the distinct feeling that we've thought about this rather more than most gaming groups. ^_^

Kozryaka's initial position was very close to the viking one. She's surprisingly flexible considering how utterly dogmatic she is.

And yeah she's super flexible about what "strength" is and while she's evil she's very much so a team player, though I have no idea how "traditionalist" Urzag the Vile's horde is overall. He has a ton of powerful women serving him. Maybe they're progressive and Kozryaka is an anachronistic holdout of a bygone era. Maybe Kozryaka has the right of it and Orcish society is super patriarchal and Strong women and weak men really do need to be extra cunning to make it.

I don't think Kozryaka is feeding the entire warcamp, but I figured I could claim she took 10 on survival and made a big pot of stew for dinner, which given her skill would feed 8 people herself included for a day which I contend means about 24 dinner servings of stew. I'm unclear on how big the full assembly is I was assuming several hundred at least.

I like the pettiness and everyone trying to "score points" in these IC chats.

It sheds light on how utterly unstable any truly chaotic society would be.

 Heh, well Rorak was behaving himself fairly well until someone stole food from him, whereupon they got to taste Gnoll junk because he thought that was funnier than just punching someone.

 Proportionate response isn't very chaotic, but it's a lot more entertaining and an object lesson in why warriors shouldn't mess with bards. The next escalation would be spreading catchy songs about the miscreant. ^_^

In the interest of full transparency, I should point out that Karguk is a Cleric/Barbarian.

Druid/warlock

So the speaking the name of gods taboo I'm playing Kozryaka as playing I haven't seen officially in the lore but I thought it was fun RP. I had originally thought of it as a crazy witch thing Kozryaka does, but I've got a laundry list of those and I could totally see it being an orcish social norm.

Basically the idea is the gods are big powerful and dangerous. Gods know when someone speaks their name out loud because god names are special and magical. She thinks it's perfectly fine to invoke a gods name in prayer whether that's a formal group ritual or just screaming 'Gruumsh give me strength' as you charge into battle ripping your foes apart. The main concern is what you're doing how you're doing it should be very pleasing to the god you're invoking.

Kozryaka holds the contradictory position or being a fearful worshiper of Luthic and having lots of trouble following Luthic's model of feminine orcish submission. She's supposed to find a warrior stronger than herself that also wants to mate her so she can submit to him for life. She hasn't been able to find that. The "I'm a witch" thing covers an unclear number of sins but she tries to be extra devoted towards Luthic to make up for her "failings". So when orcs see this impressive woman who's modelling Luthic behavior really hard and turns into wild animals, that's where she gets the moniker.

Luthic's sign/holy symbol is the orcish rune for cave which also means womb and mother. She uses it to say "Sorry mom, I know I'm not in the cave right now but I'm trying to be good and find that mate, please let the spirit of cave follow me, please forgive me goddess." or "Let me be safe, like in a cave". I imagine orcish men would know this gesture but would seldom see fit to use it lest they be thought of as childish and wanting their mother, though it might be forgiven if confronted with something truly frightening like an ancient dragon.

I think a fine Gruumsh equivalent would be stealing a page from Odin's book at the Aesir-Vanir war throwing a spear over the battlefield and declaring "Yumyan owns you all!" I mean Gruumsh.

...((suddenly realizes her character will eventually be able to turn into a megajaguar. Didn't plan it that way I swear. Feta gouda chevre fromage,))

 Actually, it's in the Faiths and Pantheons FR book that only his clergy are supposed to freely speak Gruumsh's name... Roraks just an unusually cosmopolitan Gnoll. ^_^

I will go through the posts and update soon, first week of classes are always interesting.

I think we may have lost Zugarsha, which is sad since she had such an interesting character concept.

Karguk has something to say on this matter, since he is a Gruuman and witnessed the event.

What I will say is that because Gora attempted to inflict harm first, in a time of truce, she is in the wrong, and played into the mountain orcs deception. Since she is claiming to be a warrior, a man-souled woman basically, his challenge is valid. The fact that he treated her attack with contempt and visibly broke the weapon used to transgress in this situation, he has earned respect from any of the orcs observing the incident. The fact that Gora didn't accept the warriors "honorable" challenge makes her lose face in the situation. The arena is a valid place in which to duel and challenge others during this time, and the fact that Krucks offered to face off against more numerous opponents, puts him that much higher in earning prestige in this situation. The fact that some of them are women does lower it slightly, but there are at least two males and a man souled woman, if Karguk offers to join, offsets this penalty.

Zugarsha will probably be replaced by the end of this challenge, if I can find interest for an arcane type. She is a Wu Jen (Fire) // Necromancer, great concept too.

 Yup, that's about how I read it.

 That's why Rorak came down on her hard, reinforcing the bardic role of reputation-mongering - if he sees someone breaking the horde truce, he'll turn their name into an object of mockery for a generation, no matter that a moment before he was making fun of the other fellow in the disagreement.

 Besides, it gives him a chance to try and impress Kozryaka, even if he hasn't got a chance because he's not an orc. ^_^

I somehow do not think it will affect your chances if I am reading the Orog right.

 Not even slightly, but he's a bard so he's obligated to seek to impress. ^_^

Nope race/sex don't matter.

Presenting trophies of you victories in combat and hunting, and reciting the great deeds of her ancestors are good for general good will and might convince her to make the fight sort of fair, but ultimately it's wanting her as a mate and proving you can beat her in single combat on her terms.

 Huh. Well, there's something to aim for... Got to have personal goals, and the more impressive they are, the better! ^_^

"the cave orc's request for no armor or weapons, I agree if there is no magics or supernatural abilities allowed" He already agreed to no weapons or armor, in exchange for no magics or supernatural abilities.

Well that means Bella will have to find other ways to cheat...including sucking all the joy out of his victory and increasing the shame of his defeat.

Yeah Kozryaka refused to participate in a challenge without the use of her personal magic. Reasoning that a witch beating someone without using her magic would be beyond the pale embarrassing for them. She has no obligation to take part.

In D&D terms, she's pointing out that class-abilities and gear are not the same thing.

A barbarian asking a wizard to a fight then asking the wizard to not use magic would be SUPER cowardly and really only appropriate if everyone knew and accepted that the wizard was much more powerful than the barbarian.

Kozryaka might be surprisingly capable in unarmed combat without her magic but she is still a double full-caster.

But rather than outright refusing she's flipped that on him and asked why now his skill as a warrior aren't a match for her skill as a witch. She's dunking on him by calling him out for trying to fight himself, magic armor, and magic axe, against a non-Orc warrior and three women. Why does he need three to one advantage to face a single male gnoll?

She's doubled down offering to let him use whatever weapon and armor he needs to use to defeat an unarmed naked woman fighting to the fullness of her strength and magical power.

The implication being that whatever he decides he need to bring to the fight now is what he admits is the difference in their strength, his as a warrior, hers as a witch.

 Social aikido is totally a thing, especially in honour-driven cultures where your reputation is a more important currency than gold. It's why Rorak was so serious about scolding our very own mad axeman. ^_^

You have demonstrated your natural strength to him, so he does not view you as weak. The supernatural powers can often overwhelm even a superior warrior, this is known. In D&D terms, a warrior is often defined by his armor and weapons, and by offering to have neither he is potentially sacrificing much of his ability to be effective. The gnoll has fangs, you all have fists, unless one of you is a monk or unarmed specialist, there isn't that much difference between a wizard and a warrior (Generally because it is likely that the other half of a characters gestalt is a warrior of some type, especially in this game).

I will update soon, sorry but it is the wifes birthday. In other news, it looks like Gora quit the game, she deleted her character sheet and her biography, and hasn't responded to my PMs. I am going to open up the RTJ and see if anyone would like to take over her character for now.

 Well... That sucks, I hope it wasn't anything too serious that upset them. :-(

*shrugs* Who can say. Role Play and Roll Play often get mixed up, and I have been enjoying your characters very much so far. Gora and Bella were both independant Half-Orc applications, and I thought it would be a nice twist to make them sisters...*sigh* well que serra.

Indeed and it was fun.

R.I.P. Notorious R.B.G.

I will miss you.

 Well all will. The woman was a legitimate fucking living legend. Even if you didn't approve of her politics (and how the hell could you not?) she legitimately changed the world, and for the better.

 Seriously, fuck 2020.

Sorry. English here. Who?

Ah. Okay Ruth Based Ginsberg. I am so very sorry to hear of her passing.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:29, Sat 19 Sept 2020.

I’ll be MIA for a day or two. Attending to some family medical stuff.

No problem, I hope everything works out well.

Folk, go ahead and post. There was always supposed to be a Rite of Strength / duel, I just let you all define it's beginnings.

Back in the game.

Good one Kozryaka! That is something for me to keep in mind for some other games I am playing perhaps...

Bella, you can post as well, the initiative was basically determining who goes first, Krucks or how many of ya'll.

Remember that Rorak's Inspire Courage damage applies to melee attacks only.

Currently, Krucks is suffering from the Blinded condition, but he still is retaining his dex to AC. He is suffering the -2 to AC probably for the duration of the fight though.

Well I thought spitting up black phlegm at your foes was a solid witch move.

That sounds like uncanny dodge, which wouldn't be terribly surprising. We probably don't get to claim the flanking bonus against him either. On the other hand that should still shut down his AoOs and give us all a 50% miss chance, and is only able to attack locations he thinks we might be in. Assuming we fight smart that'll reduce his damage output about 75% (Assuming locating us is 50% effective and he can't ignore miss chances)

Hold up pretty sure you're running that wrong.

The listen check you're describing is not in the usual place, because it's from the Epic Level Handbook under the Epic Usages of skills.



For perspective to a 9th level Barbarian with the highest possible wisdom for a mountain orc (higher than our array allowed) with max ranks in listen given the circumstances (very noisy arena -5 to listen) would need to roll a natural 20 to do this with Kozryaka and her fairly pitiful move silently check.

Anything less than this makes the check an automatic failure.

Notably even Rorak who's singing makes his results for move silently an automatic-0 would still require a DC-20 listen check to pin point his location by sound alone.

Damn... I never thought of arguing... just attacking his hearing as well.

You may have a point, the DC for your character moving forward and not attempting to move silently and growling like your description wouldn't alter that DC at all? The fact that we are in a combat situation and that he knows that there are people rushing into melee him would significantly alter that DC (Consider the stated DC as someone being unaware of the invisible creature to begin with). Anyways, I am not loathe to edit the combat round, since he did just take out one of the PCs. We will assume in the future that the DC in combat will be much lower than +20 due to the fact that that he is aware of your characters and the limited area of the arena, unless you start actively trying to move silently. If you score a hit on him he will know your general location for sure. He is still rolling his miss chances, never fear that.

According to RAW no. But it also makes sense since she only needs to keep quietish in the last moments of movement to avoid pinpointing. Noteably she growls then moves so locating where she was before moving by hearing would be DC20 or higher for the noise though moot because he saw her there before being blinded. Locating her and anyone else who moved would be DC their move silently results + circumstances + 20. They simulate blindness by forcing you to swing around blindly unless your listen is epic or you have blind sense. Which isn't to say a lucky guess is unreasonable just straight listen check usually can't help.

In reply to Gruumsh (msg # 93):

 Not to mention it's a really elegant way to stir us up and remove an absent player. ^_^

Amen.

I edited my in game post to include the effect of a thunderstone.  She has three leFt now.

Edit, there's an f in left
This message was last edited by the player at 08:45, Mon 12 Oct 2020.

I am not totally ignoring your argument, but I would point out there is always Rule Zero. Rules as Written are advisory and help establish a base line for the game. If you go here http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/listen.htm I would say that a reasonable base listen check would be DC 10 (An unarmored person walking at a slow pace (15 ft./round trying not to make any noise - which isn't quite what your your characters are doing) + 5 for Distractions (Roaring crowd + distance from crowd) to locate the general square where your character is located within 5 feet, higher DCs for further distance, but still making miss chances for being blind. If you are actively trying to move silently, that will be the opposed DC for within 5 feet. What is funny is that Krucks is built for entering the Eye of Gruumsh prestige class, which means one of the feats he took was Blind-Fight, not a prerequisite, but one of the feats he chose.

The +20 DC is basically simulating the Blindsense ability. A lot of the listed DC depends on actual awareness of your foes presence, which is not lacking in this scenario.

Anyways, I like Bella's choice of action, blind and deafen the bastard! Especially after poor Gora being split in two... (That Natural 20...sigh, if only I had those as a pc).

This is all feeling rather academic now.

A normal baseline DC for half-speed walking is 10 based on +0 to move silently and taking 10. Cool mechanics are clear also given she's using normal care taking-10 makes sense.

She's dexterous but untrained she has a +2 to move silently.

Moving at full speed is -5 so the DC to hear a normal person walking is DC 5, given neutral circumstances you'll hear someone approaching at 50ft. Totally reasonable.

Apparently normal conversation is taken such that you can be heard clearly at 10ft which is again pretty reasonable.

Unclear how far away one can make oneself heard. (Like seriously unclear how loud a bard can rock)

Running or charging is -20 so the DC to hear a normal person running or charging is DC -10, given neutral circumstances you could pin-point the location of someone running 5ft away from you. Also fighting you can normally pin point if it's within 5ft of you. Which means you could stand close to each other and ready an attack against the invisible foe if they attack and thereby pin-point them in the moment they attack.

Except you take a -5 penalty (technically the DC is 5 higher) if you're distracted like say under attack from multiple sources, and as always circumstances can be more or less favorable. Ie noisy arena, crunchy leaves in the arena.

Not 100% sure on how the house rule would play out but down to try it.

(Aside)
There are definitely some things to always rule-0. For instance an in my opinion asinine rules-as-written interpretation of Blind-Fight is because the feat specifically calls out invisible foes, and never mentions foes who have total concealment due to blindness. It doesn't apply at all to this situation.

Only mentioning it because I'm not about the "these are the rules we must use them exactly as written" thinking. I mean it's called blind-fight they clear meant for it to count.

(Other Aside)
Eyes of Gruumsh tend to use double axes since they're getting feat taxed twice to use the thing.
They also get blind fighting as a bonus feat so generally wouldn't train it.
Further they need to put out their own eye to receive the benefit and lose the benefit if their eye is ever restored.
Also Eyes of Gruumsh get Blinding Spittle, so he's kind of a hypocrite to complain about an ancient and respected traditional battle tactic of Eyes of Gruumsh (not that that'd be out of character).

(Third Aside)
Several of us took up flanking positions if Belle's shot had to hit one of us and she picked Kozryaka who seems the more rational choice given she's comfortable attacking without spells and, feel free to roll her save. Her Fort save bonus is +6

Computer crashed, posting from my phone. Will update once I get my computer up and running again. Will probably have to order a new tower...sigh.

Computer is here finally, so it will be a day or two to update this game, give me a role call so we can see whom we are working with still.

Commandante Bellatrix of Cunning?  Presente!

I'm here, though other things are eating my focus.

Karguk reporting in.  Welcome any distraction from US politics.

They had an election in Ivory Coast yesterday.  Does that help?  The incumbent won with 94% of the vote.  The other 6% spread pretty much equally among three main rivals, two of whom had told their supporters to boycott the elections.

I like my birth land's new flag better than the old one. There are a few things I'd still change but the new Magnolia flag is more distinctive, pretty and speaks to symbolizing resiliency and grace rather than other things.

It is certainly an improvement.

 I'm here, watching the enduring clusterfuck that is the US election once more, from more or less in the middle of it. And to think there was a time when I actually thought no one could screw up democracy more than us Brits did. ^_^

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others?"

 I quite like 'Democracy is based upon the theory that the common man knows what he wants, and deserves to get it, good and hard' ^_^

In reply to Rorak Silverfang (msg # 110):

Ha, nice.

Coming from a Sociology student who was a former Political Science student here in the States, I can tell you that the system isn't being held together great. The hyper polarization of the political parties has become toxic in the past 12 years or so. This has given rise to the demagogue Trump and his fascist regime, which has high jacked the conservative party in the states. There are some similarities to the rise of the Nazi party in Germany back in the day, though one could argue the implementation is flawed compared to how Hitler was able to rise to power. Hitler actually accomplished much for the German people, not to compliment him or his parties ideas, just to compare them to the rise of white nationalism here in the states in context. It will be interesting if the legal battles being pursued will be used to destroy the principles that the United States was founded (well, besides the entire White Male Landowners being the only valid voters thing, amongst others) or if we will maintain the separation of powers that our government was designed for.

Anyways, to sleep!

 I think I'd argue that the rot began with the Reagan campaign - mobilising the previously apolitical religious vote (which had stayed out of politics on the perfectly reasonable basis that politics would corrupt religion faster than religion could 'redeem' politics) meant that the other side were no longer just 'wrong', they were suddenly 'evil.

 And you can't compromise with 'evil'.

I concede your point good sir, but I was referring to the rapid increase in the past decade or so.

*sigh* and here I thought I was going to bed, I guess now I will.

I think I'm most discouraged by the influence of social media and the weaponization of lies.  It's amazing how many things my older friends (ie, my parents and their friends) post that are just not true.  Just yesterday they had shared posts comparing the registered voters in each state to the number of cast ballots, showing that in states that favored Biden, the voter turnout exceeded 100%.  Leaving aside the issue of same-day registration, the voter registration numbers were just plain wrong.

But the amount of effort to fact-check that compared to the amount of effort it takes to share something on Facebook means it's impossible to stop the spread of misinformation.  (And granted, it's really easy - if you google something like "STATE NAME Voter registration" it takes you right there.)

It seems like this game is due to constantly have ill luck...sigh. Well, let see if Krucks is actually going to survive this or not.

 Not at all! We're mostly still here, aren't we? That says something!