[DnD] D&D Discussion & Enlistment (Save Ends)

I suppose there's something to that, but sticking up a HELP WANTED: PRETEND SAILOR LADY ad days in advance and then interviewing applicants strikes me as a bit goofy. Just because Skills got here first doesn't mean he gets dibs or anything, I don't really care who takes up the reins* when the turn comes around as long as it gets done.

*within reason, Zerg.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Zephyrin

Ready Everybody Move for whenever best time is.

So um I don't want to hold up the game but I can't really proceed until someone explains when the "best time" would be. I need some kind of actual trigger, not a request that it goes off "whenever it seems like a good idea".

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Agent Di Gun Him

No idea what to roll for this, please advise

Well, it's basically a Grab action with two Aid Another attached, but it's a little convoluted.

You'll need two of the sailors to roll a successful Aid Another check (effectively a melee attack vs AC 10, no damage) and then the third sailor will need to make a successful Grab attempt (+3 vs Fort, with an added +2 bonus for each successful Aid Another for a maximum of +9 vs Fort if the grab user is flanking).

If you can swing all that I'll waive the additional Standard you'd usually need to move grabbed enemies.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The point is that they need to do all that just to pick him up. If Skills or whoever decides to use him as a weapon instead of tossing him overboard that's their business, but a conscious enemy is not quite as easy to just pick up and throw as some rock on the ground.

Zerg stop undermining my authority and finish finalizing your wikisheet so I can steal your work

How ya doing, buddy?

Yeah, the whip'll be in the water at T9 now, and you've still got a captain to wreak havoc with.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Jump check on Dal's behalf, add her Athletics bonus to yours (so +7 total), we'll see how far this fastball goes.

Additional Spam:

Originally Posted by Zergrinch

I'm basically done. What else is there to do, Pangy

Well, Cal's still got all the wrong magic items but that's easy enough to fix. I just wanted to be sure you were happy with your handiwork before I started duplicating it.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Switching from a one-handed grip to two-handed is a free action (AFAIK). But it only gives you an additional 1 damage/swing which is a pretty crap trade for losing 2 AC. Might be worth it against high HP, low accuracy enemies like brute types I guess.

Most amazing jew boots

Dal-ri-lar is friendly, so she wouldn't block your movement even if she wasn't dangling in midair.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Oh. Yeah, you can occupy the space without a problem since she's well above you. It'll be a little goofy to present on the map but it's workable.

FELIPE NO

It's not like the Whip can do that every turn, Zerg. The fight is still salvageable, assuming most folks do better on their climb checks than you did.

That being said, it might not be a terrible idea for EVERYONE on the waitlist to start working on a character, since in the event of a TPK we'll move directly to the guild system I mentioned. (I'll send out PMs to everyone on the list if the need becomes imminent, since I know very few of them actually watch the threads.)

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I don't think there are any Essentials changes for Rangers yet, it's just the classic Fighter/Cleric/Mage/Thief quartet so far. Ranger stuff's coming in Forgotten Kingdoms in November, maybe they'll finally remember to add a multiclass feat for animal-companion rangers.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

So far as I can tell, yes. There are a handful of rules for UNDERwater combat but apparently as long as you keep your head above water things proceed largely as normal.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Yeah, I subtracted the 5 HP but forgot to roll the save. Done (save failed FWIW).

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

After those shit rolls I'm inclined to favor Shin's perspective, especially since wvlf at least has decided to start busting dailies. Still, it's the first fight of the adventure.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Okay so now that the party's primary meatshield is dead and their highest-damage striker has done nothing useful for the third turn in a row* it might be a good time to start discussing exactly how party selection will work for this guild business.

Just in case, you know. It's still winnable. Technically. With a bit of luck.

Now, I originally suggested just letting you hash out the PCs for a given adventure amongst yourselves, but this approach has several problems:

1. It would take fucking forever.
2. It would be biased against players who weren't paying close attention.
3. It would be biased against players who are disliked for one reason or another.

A good way around problems #2 & #3 is to just put up a list of all "standing by" characters on the wiki or something, WITHOUT the names of their players attached and with a little personality/history blurb for each one or something. Obviously the characters from players who are currently ineligible due to hitting their adventure limit would be greyed out (I've decided to go with a 2-adventure limit rather than 5 since even for the shortest adventures that's a solid 4 months of active duty and usually much longer). Then I (with my privileged knowledge of who is who) would just PM the relevant player after their PC is selected. This all kind of depends on everyone being honest, of course. Yeah.

A good way around problem #1 is to compartmentalize the selections. Each person leaving active duty (whether just taking a break or on forcible leave) would just pick their character's replacement, eliminating a lot of inter-party squabbling. If a given player wants to switch to another of his/her OWN characters at any time during their active period I see no real reason to deny that. If halfway into your first adventure it turns out that Minotaur Bard wasn't as fun as you thought it would be, just swap him out with your magical guild summoning ring doodads that I'm going to give you. Easy-peasy.

None of this is totally set in stone of course; suggestions?

And also, again, if you've got like a rough PC idea or even a complete character waiting to go PM me with it so I can start building the roster for the uh... guild yet to be named. Even if we end up not needing said roster right away it's good to get this squared away early.

Also I should mention that if the party does wipe here than Zeph, Hawkeye and wvlf will still be under their 2-adventure consecutive limit and will be eligible straightaway for the next run (with a new PC, of course). An adventure that prematurely ends less than a third of the way through hardly counts.

"Freeport Allied Guild of Sellswords"? Too subtle?

Garr you said you'd probably be taking a break after this one anyway so I decided Garrmondo was the best choice for making an example out of. Nothin' personal bro

*Zerg don't edit your posts to try to make me look silly it's not nice

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Zergrinch

Since it's basically a mix-and-match now, you're bound to have people at different levels, and some with more stuff than others.

Well, as it is some people have more stuff than others since by default new characters enter the game with 3 items, kit, and cash and that's it. I don't see a huge problem in incremental gains in wealth as a reward for endurance. Any character who officially retired but ends up coming back somehow is going to get their shit culled back down to newbie levels, though. Fair's fair.

Different levels isn't going to happen, everyone is assumed to have roughly the same XP totals at all times, active or inactive. It might be cute to split the XP for each encounter 20 ways to justify this but I think we can handwave and just assume everyone else is keeping busy offscreen, killing rats in somebody's basement or something.

Originally Posted by Agent Di Gun Him

Having contingency plan characters for when shit gets out of your current build's comfort zone cheapens the challenge, ruins improvisation and creativity, and will virtually guarantee player success.

Yeah, I was thinking in terms of UGH THIS IS LAME WHY DID I PICK THIS rather than OH HO A DEMON LET ME GO GET MY LEVEL 22 DEMON HUNTER HE HAS +300 VS. DEMONS but you've got a point and that shit probably would happen. Scratch that idea then.

I still want to find some way of not turning this shit into a popularity contest though, while I'm sure some of you have legitimate reasons for your grievances that's no excuse to poison the game with them. If I can get over my deep, bitter hatred of LeHah long enough to let him play I would hope the rest of you can forgive Zerg someday for his Zerg Sperg. Plus Dope asked to be added to the queue the other day, and... well. I'm just trying to keep things fair, you know? I don't know if there's actually a way to do that without sticking to the "NOW WAIT FOR THREE YEARS" system and god knows I don't want to do that either.

Shit it would be nice if I didn't have to devise a SYSTEM TO ENSURE FAIRNESS and I could just say "be mature, faggots" but HERE WE ARE PEOPLE

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Well, yeah, but that removes the entire function of the guild concept really (and that's something I want to hold on to because it allows for plot hooks beyond "YOU WANT SOME MONEY SO OFF YOU GO"). Plus I think it's more interesting for anyone who hasn't played recently to have some kind of shot at getting in rather than just looking at the queue, seeing themselves halfway down, and sighing. Maybe it's me but knowing who's going to show up well in advance is kind of lame; I could just autocratically pick the adventures for you guys and list a queue for that too but I let you hash it out because it's more fun and unpredictable that way.

But on the other hand even if I COULD somehow keep the character roster anonymous (which I honestly can't, it takes 30 seconds to say "Acer, which of these dudes are yours") it would only reward people who are good at creative writing over those who aren't. Which doesn't sound terrible ON THE SURFACE but I think one of the benefits to the game is the way it can help you stretch your creativity a little. If you look at, say, Glenn, he started out as a cipher but now he's got a real personality with a tragic history and a lost love and all that jazz. It's fun to see things like that develop. So maybe it's better to just leave out the blurbs too, just name, race, class and go.

(Yes even NAMES will tend to reward the creative but christ maybe not everyone's name will have to start with G from now on that opens up a lot of room.)

So there's no real way to enforce fairness other than saying DAMN IT BE FAIR YOU RETARDS and that's what we're going to have to go with I guess barring any revolutionary ideas.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Agent Di Gun Him

I don't know how many people are interested? 12 or so?

Including the active party the total "interested" list is 20 people but this includes people who may well have been joking. Still, I'll be damned if I'm not going to make an honest attempt to get Maris to play if I can.

But yeah, minimum downtime seems like a good solution. Let's say 2 up, 3 down to start with.

I can't believe I didn't think of just spinning the Big Wheel of Party Selection. That's pretty hilarious and I might just go with that instead of giving you goons any say in it at all.

An all-rogue party would be brutal as all hell assuming they cooperated at all. Of course they wouldn't, but

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I don't see a problem with this idea. While running a totally separate game in a separate setting would eliminate some (very minor) issues involving consistency, I think that the occasional accidental contradiction is better than having a list of people signed up for two separate games in separate worlds with maybe a whole separate list of houserules or whatever; I think there's value in providing a consistent experience there. And it's really not hard for either of us to scan each other's threads and incorporate whatever. Like, for example, Zerg, I think you killed off poor Iggy Conmara a little while back. So now that's canon. See how easy?

Together, friends, we can beat the Forgotten Realms into a bruised, unrecognizable lump.

Just to be clear, if Hawk decides he'd rather not ride my coattails (so to speak) and just does his own thing I completely support that as well, whatever gets more people rollin' and less people trollin'

Additional Spam:
I remain guarded, yet optimistic. The bitter memory of promised Shadowrun still weighs darkly on my heart

Jam it back in, in the dark.

In the face of Brady's recent madness and Garr's inexplicable meltdown I'd just like to remind everyone to never play a human fighter, ever.

It's a dangerous road, friends.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Play a half-elf fighter. A mul fighter. Even a revenant fighter who used to be human. BUT BY NO MEANS SHALL YOU BE PURELY HUMAN, YE FIGHTERS

BY NO MEANS DARE THAT WILDERNESS

LeHah was crazy BEFORE, that is no proof of safety!

Or maybe the effect is limited to Human Sword & Board fighters, nobody's tried a two-hander or a dual-wield build yet, let alone the sweet goodness of the brawler fighter

We must forge into these areas, for science

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Well, the monitor was never adjacent to you. If you mean the marauder (spear guy) then no, standing up is a move action but doesn't provoke AoOs. AoOs just care whether you're leaving a threatened space, not what kind of action you're taking.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Okay, after Glenn's attack the monitor is dead, the mopup should be fairly manageable now.

I was speaking idiomatically.

God damn the boat might have some issues to attend to before you start looting your dead friends. Shit.

Plus I'm probably just going to have a wave toss the boat and throw Garrmondo into the sea, where he will be revived by the talented clerics of the merfolk only to discover he was secretly the shapeshifted lord of the merfolk all along and he lives happily ever after! JUST TO SCREW WITH YOU

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

One of the points of a skill challenge, Zerg, is that you have to use your common sense to determine which skills would be best applied — granting bonuses for good rationales, penalties for shitty ones. If I were to answer questions regarding which skill should I use for X this would tend to defeat the purpose.

This is the bit where I open up the PHB to Chapter 5, slide it across the table at you, and smirk.

I will say that ability checks are off the table since by definition they are not skills.

Most amazing jew boots