Sagiro's Story Hour: The FINAL Adventures of Abernathy's Company (FINISHED 7/3/14)

Everett · Nov 2, 2010

Sigh.

I haven't played in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign in two and a half years. I really don't ever want to play in one again.

But when I read the adventures of Abernathy's Company, I almost want one.

And that is the highest compliment I can bestow.

(And I'll repeat something I said some time ago, for emphasis: they really gotta do something about Flicker's Will save.)

Piratecat · Nov 2, 2010

Flicker's will save is even worse than you think. It's the poster child for why by-the-book epic play raises up all will saves by 1 point across the board. I think it's single digits... and, unsurprisingly with that low low wisdom, Flicker is blissfully unconcerned.

I'd totally forgotten about Bag-o-Tricks as flanking buddy. Woo! This was a fun game, and we were SO very pleased Ernie stayed alive to bring about Glemiel's first death.

Wait, first death?

That'd be a spoiler, and possibly not what you'd think.

EDIT: Everett, I'm going to be at Anonycon in Stamford CT the first weekend of December. It's walking distance from the Metro North station. I'm running Mutants & Masterminds and Feng Shui instead of D&D, but I'd love to meet and game with anyone from the story hour who wants to come up for it.

Everett · Nov 2, 2010

Piratecat said:
Flicker's will save is even worse than you think. It's the poster child for why by-the-book epic play raises up all will saves by 1 point across the board. I think it's single digits... and, unsurprisingly with that low low wisdom, Flicker is blissfully unconcerned.

Yeah, natch. He's just so pitiable when he gets mentally incapacitated.

EDIT: Everett, I'm going to be at Anonycon in Stamford CT the first weekend of December. It's walking distance from the Metro North station. I'm running Mutants & Masterminds and Feng Shui instead of D&D, but I'd love to meet and game with anyone from the story hour who wants to come up for it.

I'd totally love to! Will anyone else from Sagiro's game be there? I played Mutants and Masterminds once for five minutes. Feng Shui as a dice game just sounds like wackiness. I'll have to register later; I guess the price will go up a little.

Also, will you ever get your own Story Hour out of mothballs?

Sagiro · Nov 2, 2010

Yeah, Flicker's Will save is pretty much beyond fixing at this point. He has a 7 Wisdom, and will is a "weak" save for his class. Some quick Save stats for the party, at 20th level. (In the Story Hour, they're currently 18th, I think.)

Best Saves:

Ernie's Will: +27
Dranko's Reflex: +25
Flicker's Reflex: +20
Ernie's Fortitude: +20
Morningstar's Will: +20

Worst Saves:

Flicker's Will: +5
Morningstar's Reflex: +10
Kibi's Reflex: +11
Ernie's Reflex: +13
Flicker's Fortitude: +13

While I'm here:

Best Ability Scores:

Kibi's Intelligence: 29
Aravis's Intelligence: 27
Grey Wolf's Intelligence: 26
Morningstar's Wisdom: 26
Ernie's Wisdom: 26

Worst Ability Scores:

Flicker's Wisdom: 7
Aravis's Strength: 8
Dranko's Charisma: 8
Kibi's Charisma: 8
Dranko's Intelligence: 9
Grey Wolf's Charisma: 9
Aravis's Charisma: 9

Cerebral Paladin · Nov 2, 2010

Sagiro said:
Worst Ability Scores:

Flicker's Wisdom: 7
Aravis's Strength: 8
Dranko's Charisma: 8
Kibi's Charisma: 8
Dranko's Intelligence: 9
Grey Wolf's Charisma: 9
Aravis's Charisma: 9

Man, your players are a bunch of power-gamers, with all those Charisma dump stats. Don't any of you care about role-playing and unique character concepts that don't fit traditional stat patterns?

Piratecat · Nov 2, 2010

It was 2e! I call a mulligan!

wedgeski · Nov 3, 2010

Piratecat said:
EDIT: Everett, I'm going to be at Anonycon in Stamford CT the first weekend of December. It's walking distance from the Metro North station. I'm running Mutants & Masterminds and Feng Shui instead of D&D, but I'd love to meet and game with anyone from the story hour who wants to come up for it.

So how can we tempt you over the pond for a beer with your UK readership?

Piratecat · Nov 3, 2010

Everett said:
I'd totally love to! Will anyone else from Sagiro's game be there? I played Mutants and Masterminds once for five minutes. Feng Shui as a dice game just sounds like wackiness. I'll have to register later; I guess the price will go up a little.

My games (Antiheroes Too and Infestation) will probably fill up quickly. If you think you may come, I'd suggest swinging by their Warhorn site and staking out space. Ernie's player might be there; Cerebral Paladin, Orichalcum and Spyscribe from this forum will also be around.

Sagiro, sorry for the hijack. I can delete this post later.

Everett · Nov 4, 2010

I never ever tried playing a character with sub-10 ability scores; the dumbness or dimness or clumsiness or droolingness is just not that much fun to role-play.

Sagiro · Nov 5, 2010

Sorry... no Story Hour post today. But I did want to mention that in tonight's game, some 27-odd runs ahead of the story posted here, I threw the first largely-unchanged monster from the Epic Handbook at the party.

They wiped the floor with it.

Going in to the battle, I was wondering if maybe the monster was too much for them. Sure, it was "only" CR 21, but it had stuff like SR 33, DR 20/+6, terrific saving throws, and it rated to do about 110 points of damage on a full attack. With 400+ hp, I thought it had a chance of doing some harm.

In hindsight, I should have expected that a party of seven 20th-level PCs would crush a single CR 21 monster, but I really needed to see the battle unfold to understand how potent the party has become. A firestorm here, a quickened true strike followed by a spellsword-channeled maximized orb of acid there, and pretty soon you have some real damage adding up. And by "pretty soon" I mean less than three rounds.

And then, because they do stuff like this, the party polymorphed an elder air elemental into a tarantula and fed it to an enormous oracular toad. I love my players!

-Sagiro