Gaming W/Jemal: Legends (3.5e d&D) *Recruitment Closed*

[Roronoa]

Oroz's motivations were inserted directly into his text.

"What is this? An evil swap meet? First we have a Warlord in a swamp, and now you clowns show up. I'm getting sick of this. We have a very long trip ahead of us, so if you guys would give us a break and get the hell out of here, that would be splended. I can't let you endanger the only person who has the answers I seek after all."

Simply speaking while they didn't say anything, a group of toughs show up around an old man who tells them he has to do something he doesn't want to and you know something bad is going to happen.

As for drawing his weapon, You read into that as far as you felt like, he did pull it out but kept the thing in a very casual postion that doesn't exactly scream "I'll Kill You!!!!"

Btw, I don't mean to be rude, but cut the "you guys were medagaming" stuff please. You can point an accussing finger at us all you want, but feel free to check out you first post when Rho and his gang enter in. Specifically your OOC post saying:

"This is not neccesarily a combat encounter unless you guys make it one. I do, however, need spot checks and actions/speech."

There is no way this encounter would be a "well I didn't want you to attack them and now you either murdered a couple of commoners or get party wiped by a level 50" scenario. You told us it was a possible encounter to begin with. It may not be the reason why certain characters pressed to make it a fight, but I think your blowing this thing way out of proportion.


Also, we may not know the circumstances involving Rho, but the old man basically said Rho killed alot of innocent people. First off, being held accountable for actions like that has very little to do with the evil/nuetral question. A nuetral guy is just as accountable for murder as an evil person is. We don't know its murder, but I do know that none of the PCs immediatly attacked Rho, so nobody was assuming he had murdered someone. However given what we had heard, it was prudent to convince these people to leave, less they cause another unfortunate event.

I mean come on, even if you don't trust the geezer, you're telling me normal good characters wouldn't flinch if they heard this guys eats babies?

 

[Salthorae]

Jemal - I liked the battle, it was a good challenge w/o being off putting in its toughness I'm just jealous of all the quickened spells those guys were casting... need to get my hands on that feat or a rod or 3!!

As for how the encounter became such... I would agree with a couple of statements already posted,

1: We had only had like 1 round of 'talking' with the Elder Prophet when the group of toughs showed up and the old man freaked out, but the toughs definitely gave me the impression that they would attack the old man if we did leave, which isn't something Chevik would just allow to happen...

2: we had only barely been told any info by the old man, Chevik for one wasn't done discussing the situation yet and didn't want to get bullied out of his information gathering.

3: Rho, et al definitely put off a bad vibe, but I do feel like all it took was 1 party member to say the wrong thing and suddenly we were in initiative order fighting... which makes sense if they are War bloodlines, they would have a short fuse

Chevik never readied or cast any spells, he used the Ex ability from lore master which happens to duplicate a spell Analyze Dweomer. With Ex abilities though there is no sign that you are using them, no spell to be recognized etc. I just wanted to be ready and know what these fairly aggressive group had on them if it did come to a fight...

I probably should have tried being more diplomatic (i.e. rolling a diplomacy check) but it escalated really fast...

 

[ethandrew]

Speaking for Adamas, he was just an observer and wasn't sure if he was going to get involved until out of nowhere he was bear-hugged for a good 30 seconds. After his head almost popped off and was finally given the opportunity, he did attack, but that was like round 5.

Otherwise the fight was very good. Very challenging. Those transposition spells definitely were tough to account for. In my opinion, the moment that the scales tipped to the PC's was the successful casting of Feeblemind. If that choker was able to essentially dimensional hop around grappling everyone without Freedom of Movement then we'd be figuratively screwed. Hopefully not literally, but he did have those tentacles...

I think this really just falls into the old schtick that PC's solve any problem with violence; see evil kill evil. There's the lone owl-bear, walking back to his cave after his morning hunt to feed his young, next thing he knows he's spots four menacing PC's brandishing weapons and charging. I'm assuming this encounter would've happened if Rho had came barging into the clearing saying, "We're here for the old man's pie. It's the best pie in the world and it's our pie, not yours." Would we turn our backs away from the best pie in the world to some greedy newcomer? Not likely!

 

[Voidrazor]

Jemal, all of Xavid's spellcasting PrC levels are going towards Wizard. He accesses those clerical spells via the Arcane Disciple Feat (CDiv). But that reminds me, I need to take some ranks in Know: Religion. I'll also mark class abilities/choices and book of origin for non-SRD stuff for ease of reference.

On the battle and how it started:
It looked like a lot of fun. Since there was confusion about distances using an ascii map, I'd suggest using a Google Docs spreadsheet.

IMO the PC's range of responses to the telegraphed (drow, murdered innocents, "his eyes show a soul tainted by evil since birth") evil nature was perfectly natural. My character would have readied spells with less provocation. And his reaction to any insult is likely to involve trying to engineer a battle or duel that meets the requirements of Law, while still being as advantageous as possible to himself.

 

[Rathan]

In everyone defense I was ME that started the goading.... I mean in Arineils dealings on more than one occasion.... being asked to be talked to and being told no and followed by persistence only leads to trouble... she was ready to defend herself and the old man as her and her companions were not done asking the man questions.. her main vibe she was giving off was 'piss off till we're done our conversation.... then you can talk to him IF you don't hurt him..' sadly.... or not to sadly in Arinels case... it didn't go that way heh....

 

[ishalleatyourflesh]

me thinks that damian needs a color to speak in... but i don't know which gray maybe? but how whould i explain the change? maybe when he gets his blood line? and i really did for get about sabastion... i'm sorry...

 

[Myth and Legend]

Jemal i started reading the Player's Guide to Faerun.. I'm regretting i didn't check it out earlier - there is one feat, called Bloodline of Fire, that grants + 4 to saves vs fire effects (useless as she is already immue to fire, but good flavor never the less) and +2 caster level for fire based spells (and fits great with Sila's background and bloodline choice). I was thinking, since you already allowed Searing Spell, might there be a way to sneak this in?

Granted at lvl 21 i would be much better of getting Automatic Quicken or Epic Spellcasting..

 

[Rathan]

Hey Jemal a question for you as it pertains to upcomming feats when I gain a level.....

If I took Damage Reduction [Epic] and upped my base DR from 2 to 5 could I take Thick skinned one more time next I gain a level and take a fighter level and gain an epic feat and a fighter feat....

The next level I gain will be a fighter level... thus I will gain a fighter feat... and an epic feat from reaching 21st level..... if I take Epic damage reduction first and upped my base DR from 2 to 5.... then I could have up to double my DR in Thickskinned feats... so I would be able to take it one more time under these rules?

 

[ishalleatyourflesh]

for the record jemal is not going to let us use that armour with out sever penalties, that thing is worth what any one of us has, TOTAL! look at what that thing gives, also the wild on it has no use to any one and the ability boosts should already be covered by what any forward fighter here has. so in short using it could be dangerious and in efective, just better to sell it and each take a share to put towards what we want for our selves.

 

[Myth and Legend]

Well per Jemal's own words, it's not necessarily going to bestow negative levels. Unless it's a cursed item, it shouldn't be too bad.. Why doesn't someone with proficiency just put it on and see?

I was reading around some more and came to the Improved Toughness feat. IT says you gain one hitpoint per HD. Can someone give me an example? How much HP would Sila get, having 20 levels of d4 HD classes?