Wait. What would you call what you've been doing up until now, then?

Taking peeks. But now I want to kill PCs too~~~

Want to kill player characters, eh? Got tired of just killing player horses?

http://www.moonbattery.com/ObamaSmug.jpg

Erm... you're the one who's killing player horses :mad:

Edit: So like, I thought Pang posted that Obama pic. Turns out it was the guy my horse was named after. Great shame.

I've heard a LOT of talk about Masterplan but I've tried it a couple times and I really don't get the big deal. Maybe it's just a question of style but I have no use for keeping reams and reams of notes on the minutiae of every little thing, or writing for-fuck's-sake flowcharts to manage my adventures. The whole thing seems very spergy. AFAIK Masterplan's mapping capabilities are basically limited to the official dungeon tiles so enjoy having encounters in the same 15 or so rooms over and over.

Not that Maptool is without flaws. It runs in Java, which is a massive downside for anyone wanting a responsive app. It can only utilize 4 graphics layers and its handling of those layers is a clusterfuck. I guess the basic intent is that you make your map externally and just drag the finished image into Maptools but I like to have more flexibility than that.

It's kind of a shame but there really isn't a "good" mapping tool out there, there are a dozen options but all of them are either impossibly dense and clunky (Campaign Cartographer) or janky and useless (Dundjinni).

As for true 3D mapping I wouldn't have the faintest idea, the notion has struck me a couple of times but the payoff doesn't seem worth it. Best you could do is build maps in in the map editor of a game like Titan Quest or Torchlight, but even then it's not like you could actually "play" the maps in 3D. The only real 3D tabletop solution I've seen is the official D&D Gametable but that's kind of obviously dead in the water.

TL;DR if you want to play D&D in 3D buy Neverwinter Nights :(

I guess the goal of Masterplan is to be able to use it as an interface to play long-distant DnD. i do like its ability to generate power cards from the compendium, and create encounters. And traps. I like the sound of traps. But not as a PC of course :)

Though the combat features like dice-rolling obviously won't be suitable for here. I guess yeah, the mapping features aren't so hot - I didn't want those generic black tokens for monsters, but couldn't change it. And the tilesets really pale compared to what Maptools has.

Too bad about the 3D tools then. Seeing how the interest has waned (when was the last time someone new signed on to play your game?), I guess it's not worth all the hassle.

Man if a game requires characters to die in order for me to play and nobody has died in like 8 months I wouldn't be in a hurry to sign up either :(

Additional Spam:
Addendum: this thread is getting a little unwieldy at 100 pages, gonna make a new one soon. What should be in the OP that isn't?

Martial Power 2, and PHB 3 maybe?

And that Dragonborn book.

And a link to Character Builder. Why not?

And also the houserules in-force, which I think are:

1. Enemies deal more damage equivalent to a die-size upgrade, and have 2/3 of published HP to compensate
2. There is no limit on use of item dailies or action points
3. Free use of 1 non-creation ritual per day
4. Able to bluff merchants for discount

Whoa now, where are you getting this? I said you could use your healing surges instead of spending components, that's not "free". I don't think I put a once-a-day limit on it either? :confused:

Besides, editing the monsters doesn't really count as a houserule since it really doesn't affect the player's understanding of the rules in any direct way.

Sorry, you're right. Component-free rituals for the cost of a healing surge. Didn't pay too much attention that particular mechanic since i can't abuse it :) (I probably confused it with Glock's 1 free bardic ritual per day)

But anyway, might as well clarify since we're talking about it. Does the healing surge donor have to be the same guy as the ritual caster? Cuz if Denny dies, I'm totally begging Acer to grow a friendly stray doggie to giant size for wagon-pulling purposes. Skills suggested enlarging a snake but I think that's silly and suicidal especially for a halfling.

Yes, Zerg. People still have to pay for their own rituals.

Most dogs and snakes would be Small or even Tiny, so Beast Growth would only make them Medium and as such unsuitable as pack animals. A Dire Rat would work, though!

Like Pang said, the waiting list stands at about three years at the moment so another game would likely be welcomed with open arms. Unless Pang decides to run Temple of Terror, the rest of us have little to do except take the piss out of you in this thread at the moment. :)

I actually re-read the first 70 odd pages of this thread the other day (It's tough being unemployed) and there's a lot of funny stuff in here. Nice to be reminded of the old adventures too. Remember when Knk dropped a wall on a dragon? Classic.

Pang, maybe you should include a list of achievements won by characters in play or retired in the OP of a new thread? I might even have enough free time to go through the old adventures and add up total kills for everyone to date, since leaderboards and statistics improve any events.

If nothing else a ZergGame would have much higher lethality since he'd be using his rules-lawyerdom on the side of evil. It's only a matter of time until the goblins work out a 1-round infinite damage loop.

Ha ha, stat maxing on monsters would lead to pretty brief adventuring careers.

Yeah, that's why I think running some kind of arena is the best option for a first go, essentially limiting it to a battle simulation (since we've all established that I completely suck at making dialogue) :33:

But yes, anything run by me would probably have optimized monster compositions, with every last bit of strategic advantage squeezed out of the situation! But then again, I won't care so much regarding player optimization.

Permanent combat advantage with frost cheese? No problem!
Damage enemies with your teleports (arcane slashing)? Sure!
Infinite fey step + fey charge spam? Yes, you can! :tpg:

So, in a display of having far too much spare time, I went through the Dungeon of Doom and added up everyone's kills:

Bob - 10

Skeleton
Rat swarm
Halfling rogue
Ghoul
Human guard
Human mage
Zombie
Orc
Hobgoblin soldier
Black Dragon

Gabe - 14

Giant rat
Dire rat
Human maceman
Goblin
Goblin Skullcleaver
Wight
Wight
Zombie
Wolf
Orc
Goblin Skullcleaver
Goblin Hexer
Hobgoblin archer
Hobgoblin archer

Soggy - 8

Goblin
Giant ooze
Elf warrior
Wolf
Human guard
Zombie
Goblin sharpshooter
Hobgoblin warcaster

Argumentus - 16

Goblin leader
Fire beetle
Goblin
Giant ooze
Drake
Giant crab
Zombie
Zombie
Zombie
Zombie
Zombie
Orc
Orc
Goblin Skullcleaver
Goblin sharpshooter
Goblin sharpshooter

Fescue - 8

Fire beetle
Giant rat
Dire rat
Dwarf doorman
Stirge
Stirge
Goblin
Stirge

Brigid - 6

Zombie
Orc chieftan
Orc
Orc
Orc
Wolf

I'll probably do the others at some point too. It's really entertaining reading through the old threads and the other adventures weren't quite as long anyway.

And so, we have come full circle.

Bravo, Shin! Propped for being more of a beancounter than I am :)

P.S. Don't forget Garrmondo. His count tally only began at the Rundarr encounter.

Also, Bob killed a dragon? Really???
Seems like I was also wrong about Bob having the least number of kills. Sorry!
Oh, and that naked paladin was actually the most effective? Heh. I'm guessing the zombies Argumentus dropped were all minions...

I'm pretty sure I did go back and get the killcounts for Garr/Acer's earlier adventures since they weren't the sprawling clusterfucks that Dungeon of Doom was.

You did? Ok, my bad. I thought Gordok's inflated counts were due to impressive use of his Tundra Wind ability during the Arbalester/Helga/Gorg and the Framarth/Gnasc encounters.

Noooooooope!

Argumentus is kind of a special case. Since the first five PCs were built without the aid of Character Builder, some mistakes were made and Argumentus had 3 or 4 more ability points than he should have. He was a goddamn monster. On top of that, I inadvertently gave him a bunch of gear that turned out to be kind of broken and well long story short he was routinely tossing around like 16-20 damage a turn with At-Wills. At Level 2.

Bob was also built incorrectly, but I stealthily fixed him and nobody ever noticed

Gabe had the fewest kills up until we met the orcs, then he stepped up a gear. The zombies had 30 odd hp each, only the skeleton at the start was a minion. The dragon was finally killed by Bob's standard ice spell. Fescue was quite the damage dealer before he left, he was equal on kills with Arg at the time Zeph quit.

Additional Spam:
To be fair, Arg was also unarmed for the first three fights. I don't think I ever even looked at my character sheet until near the end of the adventure so you could have done pretty miuch anything to Bob without me noticing.

With all due respect, fuck this noise, I'm taking that credit. The dragon was killed because Soggy collapsed a goddam building onto it. It doesn't matter if you played fairy around it's corpse.

Whatever, that only did 11 hp damage, Bob had already done twice that before you joined the fight, buster.

What happened was Deni finally figured out how to properly play a damned Paladin.

I'm pretty sure you picked up a magic axe about then too. ;)