Out of Character -- Technical Discussion

[Omen of Peace]

@Dave: Ah but Elia has See in Darkness which isn't covered by the ring !
That said, I really don't mind it if we decide that the ring also protects against it.
I have no clue how it interacts with Spirit Sight either.

Conversely, there is no doubt that Elia *can't* hide from Owain when she's within 60ft since he sees straight through her concealment. She is not trying to hide right now anyway.
(No, I'm not taking it seriously. What I do like is finding out what others are capable of.)

Don't get eaten by phase spiders !

edit: Owain's sheet

- Mage Armor doesn't apply vs touch atks. Only incorporeal touch atks... (3e is so streamlined !!)
- your Fort save seems not to add up
- I may have mentioned it in the past: did you consider Destruction Devotion instead of Law Devotion ? It's worse for the first few hits but quickly becomes better and benefits everyone.

[fil kearney]

yay!  FIrst in-game map!

You are welcome to alter it.  use an arrow to show where you are moving.  Give me a different icon if you want.

Save as XLS files... openoffice folks may have issues weith object stacking.. if you become one of those folks, simply give me coordinates, and I'll scoot you around.

Save updates as (name of map)(round#)(character)
IE...  MysteriousTunnel01DM is the current map. 
Omen may update as MysteriousTUnnel01Elia
etc.
WHen the round clicks over, I will update as:
MysteriousTunnel02DM
and it goes from there.  Clear as mud?

[DaveTheMagicWeasel]

@Dave: Ah but Elia has See in Darkness which isn't covered by the ring !

Grrrr....

casts invisibility 

edit: Owain's sheet

- Mage Armor doesn't apply vs touch atks. Only incorporeal touch atks... (3e is so streamlined !!)
- your Fort save seems not to add up
- I may have mentioned it in the past: did you consider Destruction Devotion instead of Law Devotion ? It's worse for the first few hits but quickly becomes better and benefits everyone.

1. Having checked my books, you're right.  I'm gonna try and get a Monk's Belt anyway which will help with the touch AC.

2. I dunno where that went wrong.  It was +14 for some reason, then I rejigged my progression to increase the Base by +2, so just increased the total by +2 without double checking it.

Now, where on earth did I get that +14 from...  I feel like I'm forgetting something but I'm not sure what.

3. Not a bad idea.  I don't have enough turns for multiple uses of Law Devotion without a Nightstick, but Destruction is only 1 turn per use.  Only thing is, does the effect only last 1 round?  Or 1 minute like most of the devotion feats?  The feat itself is non-specific...

Now granted, with all my attacks, even 1 round translates into a pretty nice penalty to AC.  So I will probably take that suggestion.

Edit, fil, for some reason my browser has stopped remembering the wiki password, and I can't remember it.  Can you send it me again?

[Omen of Peace]

2) No problem - I realized the other day my HPs were a bit too high. I think you're bound to make small mistakes when you tinker with your build.

3) I think it's both the ability to reduce AC and the AC reduction that last 1 minute.

You need to target creatures to use BT, so you need LoS and LoE. But Elia can make a hole in the wall easily enough and that would solve the problem. I almost suggested it... but then I figured you might want to keep your spells for another time.

(For the record, her wall-destruction combo was supposed to be Inferno Blade + Mountain Hammer + Iaijutsu Focus... but looking at the figures for the HPs of a typical wall it might take longer than I thought !)

[DaveTheMagicWeasel]

*shrug*

I've got a Wand of BT inside my primary sword.  At this level 15 gp per casting is so cheap as to be negligible.

[fil kearney]

For the record, her wall-destruction combo was supposed to be Inferno Blade + Mountain Hammer + Iaijutsu Focus... but looking at the figures for the HPs of a typical wall it might take longer than I thought !

The map is accurate... the thing is a few feet thick.  Owain would be able to verify that while in the ether.

[fil kearney]

Double Post again!

For the record: anyone with a divine class has Spirit Sight.  Other classes and races have it too, but since virtually everyone has divine classes, I can leave it at that for now.

Spirit sight is what shamans have.  I just generalized it for all who would logically have it.  effectively unlimited see etheral/shadow. 
While on the ether, you can only see clearly 60' into the prime or into the "beyond" which is essentially "deep etheral"/astral.

I'll get the more formal write up on the wiki soon enough.  ask if you got any questions.

[AlisAtAn]

Well, Fil recommends that we drop the GMF and GMW. So whats the verdict? Personally I`m fine with going without, as long as the enemies scale to reflect that. Also it save me a slot. Omen kindly asked me over PM to also cast GMF for the team, but I`d really prefer Fil not seeing Meriabo as the root of all things cheezy.

[Omen of Peace]

I've got no problem with dropping GMW/GMF. What's the issue for you, Fil ?

I'll have to drop the Greater Crystal of Demolition from my gear but that's about it.

[fil kearney]

I don't have an issue with it per se.. but it's unnecesary fluffing. 

I make up NPC/monster stats to balance against what you can do, not what a 14th level character should be able to do.  So if you go and blo a bunch of resources on GMF/W, it won't matter.  you're just artificially inflating numbers. 

Do it if you want to.  I don't have a personal problem with it, but now that you know the mechanics you may choose to invest gold and spells elsewhere.

[amalcon]

It doesn't bother me; I'll have to change my gear a little (to put back the Amulet of Mighty Fists), but I'm generally in favor of less bookkeeping.

[fil kearney]

THE RESULTS ARE IN!!!!

Man, I am real impressed by how well you folks balanced each other statistically.  I know some of you made some decisions to help achieve this goal, and it is greatly appreciated.

(I am going to be very open and candid in this post about numbers, and how I will likely approach combat.  "the thrill of the unexpected" may be somewhat reduced as a result of this, but I think it's important to kinda "look under the hood" of how I operate.)

the vast majority of relavent stats like attack, damage, saves, ac, blah are within about 10 of each other.  that is perfect.  I can basically throw out anything I want and expect it to perform within expectations against any individual. 

Damage wise, assuming MOST primary and secondary attacks hit, I'm clocking the majority of you (including sherman separately) around 80-100 damage per round on a full attack.

unique strengths:
-Owain doubles average damage/round with nominal tactics.
-elia is gonna shake & fear/round, reducing opposition
-merry gots the Batman fever and sherman is the most mobile
-talman gots the druid fever and I believe is the most resilient.

unique complications:
-owain is likely gonna kill-by-damage ANYTHING within 1-2 pounces... this means he's going to end up losing attacks due to the baddy being dead halfway through a full attack.
-elia's ability to frighten results in a wider battlefield with oponents scattered around more. 
-sherman and merry combined will have the same issue as owain.. if they focus on the same oponent, all attacks are likely not going to be used.  Elia fear will likely minimize AoE optimization.
-Talman seems pretty straight forward druid tanking.  I got nothing here.

How PbP modifies this further:
You are NOT going to know if your attacks have killed someone until I post again.  It will become a balancing act for you against multiple oponents on how you will want to concentrate firepower...
-blow a full attack on one mook, you end up wasting precious time.
-diversify your damage, and you risk not killing anything that round.
AoO and immediate action retribution will further skew this.
As such, I will intentionally fuck with you. 
Some things will be easy to kill-- 2 - 4 hits will kill em.
Others will be difficult to kill-- 10-15 hits to kill.
while others seem to defy physics altogether-- 25+ hits to kill.

Considering the team can crank out 400-500 damage per round combined, I"m not likely to solo BBEG on you.   Waste of time.

Also worth considering: gaming assumes higher HP creatures deal more damage.  Here, with beasts being capable of tolerating 50 HP on the low end, and 500 on the high end, that would result in a very wide range of damage sent at you in exchange.
To be quite frank, I will not one-shot you.  I am opposed to SoDing players, and Death-by-damage/round is the same thing. 
I hate missle tag.  I hampered magic level progression to mitigate this. 
What this tends to do, of course, is create "sumo" critters... don't deal much damage, but can soak a lot of HP.  That is predictable and boring over time. 
To combat this, I make up stuff.  the storm elemental combat originally referenced in the other game is a good example.  the foes had abilities that hindered and frustrated attackers, allowed for a decent mix of distance and close attacks, and had some built in survival mechanics to last a few rounds. 
There are a LOT of ways to do this without becoming predictable, but the Monster Manual won't be very accurate.  My hope is that you will find creatures fresh and exciting.  I'll do my best to feed information to you in game abut what you would likely know off the cuff about such things as they arise.
shapechangers will, however, have to adhere to the Monster Manuals.  I may have trolls sprouting additional limbs, insect things that molt as a move action to heal HP and create decoys, etc... but you will not be able to access these things as a shapechanger. 
That is the tradeoff for allowing a lot of customizing and houseruling to make your characters work... I get to customize and houserule the crap out of everything else.

<rant>
There is an argument and opinion that the Players and NPC's should be operating by the same rules... I don't disagree, but if talman wants to learn how to sprout extra limbs as a wartroll, he can research something like that as an epic effect later on.  it's not assumed your character will "understand" how something works, and as players you now understand that I probably pulled it out of my ass.  Money, time, and feats/levels may be needed to achieve similar effects, but if it's something you really want to be able to do yourself, bring it up, and we can start working it into the story.
</rant>

All these points above can be discussed, but I'm mostly just sharing how I think and operate.




ON a related note regarding mindsight:
I've been DMing mindsight for quite some time now.  It is an incredibly ambiguous ability, so I want to set some parameters for it:
Yes, you can ID what kind of critter "type" you are facing.
Yes, you can ID how INT they are.
Yes, this effectively gives you "line of sight" with anything.
NO, this doesn't work across dimensional boundaries.
Additional: I don't believe it is specifically stated, but I am limiting mindsight to "line of effect".
By the very nature of mindsight, you do not need to have "line of sight" to "see" minds... but I am limiting mindsight to "line of effect"... meaning if there is a door/wall/floor/ceiling/towershield between you and the target, they will not be detectable.

at the same time, I am incredibly generous with the use of telepathy/read mind.  it is a fantastic narrative tool, and you are gonna get a ton of mileage out of it.  IMO, it's the best dip+feat combo in the game.  I"m glad merry has it.

[Omen of Peace]

Interesting analysis.
I'll note that Elia doesn't have to scatter people. She can simply make them shaken and wait until after the AoEs (if any) have come and gone before she makes it worse. Or if we surround or foes she can force them to clump up.

The "fucking with us" part seems only fair.

[fil kearney]

I'll note that Elia doesn't have to scatter people. She can simply make them shaken and wait until after the AoEs (if any) have come and gone before she makes it worse. Or if we surround or foes she can force them to clump up.

which is exactly why I spelled it out as such... you guys have a lot of mobility as well as close and medium range tactical consideration.  The more you all get used to coordinating with each other the better!

(I am a huge small team tactics junkie.)

[fil kearney]

Omen:

did I specifically waive the chupoclops restrictions on ethereal movement?  I can't find a post referencing that.

<searches previous posts>
I could have sworn I posted about this last night....

[fil kearney]

dammit.  I SPECIFICALLY wrote a post about this because after an hour of research, chup was the only thing I saw giving Elia etherealness, but it doesn't allow for activity. 

I thought I had already asked to verify how Elia would be able to travel etherally... this doesn't allow it.

I aparently didn't post it.  my apologies.  I thought I had addressed this before it became active.   

[Omen of Peace]

"You return to the Material Plane immediately after taking a [move/standard/full-round] action."
So
1) Move action: she becomes ethereal
2) Move action: she moves. At the end of her move she becomes material again.

It cannot be used constantly like Owain's ability but on the other hand she can full-attack someone on the Ethereal... once every 5 rounds anyway.

(Also RAW she can take swift actions if she wants )

[fil kearney]

I'll have to check again when I get to my books, but I could have sworn it was worded differently... mayhaps I found a rare inconsistency between print and digital publication?
Certainly not trying to step on you, mostly thought I was clarifying since our ether is a bit different.

In epic we can make that unlimited access.  That was to be my proposed solution anyway (since yer looking to tool epic vestiges...)


For the record, spells and SLA like etheral jaunt and shadow walk can be "ended" with you still in the ether.  it's a more affordable (and controllable) plane shift for most folks.  So theoretically, Meriabo can take you all to the ether with a mass jaunt or shadow walk spell.  (not to mention Owain has shadow walk and can conveniently take 4 people with him... sherm counts as one. but that is a one way trip per day either to or from the ether.)

So you guys can step sideways into shadow any time you want, but the terrain is horrible, and you have no idea what the spirit world has decided to do with this tunnel.

[Omen of Peace]

No problem. I have the actual book in front of me though, so I'm pretty sure.

There already exist epic vestiges. They're pretty cool and I intend to use them. Not that I'm against letting existing vestiges progress. 
But I'm thinking perhaps I'll create an epic PrC*... just in a looong time.

* because almost all the binding PrCs are 5 level long and so can't have epic progressions. But maybe you follow a different rule ? An epic progression for Knight of the Sacred Seal could be cool.

[fil kearney]

epic progression in general is way more open ended than normal builds anyway. 
I allow any class to research "epic spells".  fighters can have epic "effects" just as easily as wizards can.  kinda neat to see jack b quick sinking people into the ground after a successful trip instead of the normal AoO.  That's pretty reasonable for level 30+. Just get yer martial lore up to speed to successfully research that kinda crap.

casters: arcane/religion/psi lore
martial: martial lore
other stuff: DM fiat... rogues may borrow off tumbling, MS/HiS, etc.
Mostly, we just find an appropriate skill and use the epic spell mechanics.

something to keep in mind, but not worth stressing over for quite a while.. you may want to keep a log of stuff you would want to ultimately be able to do.  everything is negotiable at some point.