[DnD] Let's Cast Magic Missile!

yeah, it must be nice having a team that cares if the newbie dies.

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

Satan wins again ~

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Wow.

Deus ex machina indeed.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Well, it's not really that. I mean, it's a character that was already in the dungeon, that I entered into business with on a previous occasion. It's not like Kord came down and squished the villains into crumbs.

Motsognir totally would have sacrificed some more kids to make up for it, in any case.

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

but it IS a Deus ex Machina.

Just cuz it's not a god.

Most amazing jew boots

The Kord example isn't important. My point was it's not 'deus ex machina' to bring back a character who was in the story earlier, like the Reaper was. That would be to introduce a completely new character out of the blue. This is a pretty silly thing to argue about, though.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Strictly speaking the Reaper is only 9th level. The Horde could, theoretically, beat him in a straight fight. He's not much by Deus standards but he can kick the hell out of gnomes and tiny arachnids.

It was kind of hamfisted but no better solutions were forthcoming so it was either Superman Swoops In And Saves The Day or I send out 5 PMs and start hastily constructing a "you all meet in a tavern" story.

Speaking of which, Brady's been ignoring us for a full week now so I went ahead and sent a PM to orion_mk3, who's next in the queue. Sorry, Brady, but there's being busy and then there's just blowing us off. =/

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Maybe I'm just a dick, but I thought it'd make some sense to let the group die because of it's collective mistakes instead of some Superman scenario to at least let other players play at some point, instead of waiting for people to have to move out of student housing and get stuck somewhere before a new character gets rolled in.

But 'eh,

FELIPE NO

Isn't "Superman Swoops in and Saves the Day" a pretty classic Deus ex machina?

I mean, I haven't read a bunch of old comics from the sixties or anything but

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

"Stuck somewhere" he may or may not be, but if so he's stuck somewhere that has access to GFF and he has enough free time on his hands to buy and review other games so uhhhhh =/

It's not like I'm kicking him out purely on spite, I just don't think it's fair to leave your character on autopilot when other people actively want to play.

Originally Posted by Blue Falcon

Maybe I'm just a dick, but I thought it'd make some sense to let the group die because of it's collective mistakes

Some of these "collective mistakes", you have to remember, are also my mistakes. To some extent I control their ability to succeed, and sometimes I wildly misjudge the sorts of things they can succeed against. In this case, obviously, I misjudged by quite a margin.

If I drop a Tarrasque on their heads and they all die, that's not on them. That's on me. The process of building fights that are on one hand lethal and on the other hand not total curbstomps is a bit tricky and I'm not afraid to own my mistakes when I set up a fight that's a little too far on the stompy side of the line. If a party completely blew a fight purely on their own errors*, yeah, I'd let 'em hang.

*like swinging and missing over and over at the same enemy when you can only hit him on a 17 or better do you think there might be a trick to it

Jam it back in, in the dark.

You're right, it's not fair, and to be honest I've gotten kind of bored with the event. I've been in it long enough and it's time to let somebody else have a go.

Additional Spam:
Zerg can keep playing Argumentus if he wants, but after this adventure Argumentus should just wander off towards the sunset and into the ocean or something.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Brady, you know I love you and all, but I'm glad your character (or somebody's (other than Garr's)) is leaving. I think it's only fair.

t: pang re: TPK avoidance: Every time you need to bring a superman or a deus ex or something, it should be at the expense of a character. I mean I see your point about giving them challenges they can reasonably surmount but there wasn't a bit of strategy used in this battle, it seems. It took how long for anyone to twig on the bowl in the center of the room?

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

Originally Posted by a lurker

Every time you need to bring a superman or a deus ex or something, it should be at the expense of a character.

Yeah, I agree with this in principle and it's just kind of lucky that Brady's diminishing interest happened to dovetail with the clusterfuck that occurred.

I'm not sure how to enforce this otherwise, though, since it's pretty unlikely for anyone to volunteer to sacrifice themselves for the good of the party and I'm a bit hesitant to have somebody killed on an eeny-meeny-miny-moe basis.

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

Don't bring it out until someone dies, I guess.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I suppose that makes the most sense.

Zerg killed Gareth, so Gabe's up.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by a lurker

Brady, you know I love you and all, but I'm glad your character (or somebody's (other than Garr's)) is leaving. I think it's only fair.

Uh, I do to? I didn't want to leave for the longest time because the game was fun and I wanted to do more in the setting, but at the pace of maybe one round a day at best we don't exactly do much of anything. Ever since your character got taken out in the spiderswarm clusterfuck my heart just hasn't been into it, and it's just not fair to have this long list of people waiting to step up while I don't care anymore.

Plus I'm gonna be living with people who like to play D&D so I gotta think about making a Barbarian character.

FELIPE NO

Sooo, since he's being retired anyway, how should Argy go out? Blaze of glory, food poisoning, or retiring as a simple farmer?

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

I put a cow in the dungeon for a reason, Zerg.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

at the pace of maybe one round a day at best we don't exactly do much of anything.

I've been kind of hacking away at making the fights move a little faster without making them cakewalks but it's an ongoing process (as we've seen with the current mess). The brain fight, for example, went fairly smoothly and would have gone even faster had some people not gone into full retreat in the face of what was essentially a tutorial fight.

Just so people know this shit is being worked on and the game won't continually grind into month-long slogs like the one we just had. There's really nothing I can do about the one-round-a-day issue, but I can try to cut away at the total number of rounds.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I SAID: "GABE'S UP"

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Gonna take that turn in a second, but PMing you about a rule clarification first.

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

Hey, can Orion confirm that his character will be bang up for making deals with underworld spirits and organised criminals?

Also thank you Pang for not killing all of us off this time. I'm not entirely sure how that managed to go so badly, although my propensity for rolling low, single digit attack rolls hasn't helped any.

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

I got you out of harm's way, but the only one with any healing anything is Soggy.

He better go find you and pour that healing potion down your throat, but he needs to catch a fucking break soon.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Garr

So I can only fail two more death saves before I keel over, right?

Yeah, but I doubt very much the fight is going to last that much longer.

Originally Posted by Shin

Hey, can Orion confirm that his character will be bang up for making deals with underworld spirits and organised criminals?

Orion got back to me and as it turns out he's busy due to the BSC so we move to the next in queue, LeHah. I am sure he won't have an issue with various infernal contracts.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I threw a fireball at Lissa hoping to hasten her retreat, not piss her off (And because I didn't have the range to hit the gnome).

Lucky Garrmondo was there to soak up that crossbow bolt eh?

Additional Spam:
Just because Soggy's a cripple, doesn't make him useless!



How ya doing, buddy?

I am sickeningly aware of that.

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