Off to War - canceled

[HolyMan]

Experience July 16th - July 31st

Player                              XP
Dragonwriter                     1,400
ghostcat                         1,200
Fangor the Fierce                  760
jackslate45                        750
Zerith                             275
Axel                               325
Megan Voss                         200
Herobizkit                         225

Is it me or does it seem EnWorld is running super slow??? - Seems like forever to load things and then I get thrown off. Been a bad day anyway and I wanted to relax and post and can't do that.

Looks like a lot of people are close to level ups - Maybe sometime this month for most of you.

I am about to change what I have written for Off to War to go along with what everyone posted in the IC to K2V. It was going to be long winded but it seems you all still have questions and things you wish to do, so might not end up in camp just yet, but close enough to use the Off to War thread.

Trust me I will give everyone the needed time to get themselves and their characters prepared before moving on to the next sub-adventure (which should take place in the city of Siere).

HM

 

[jackslate45]

gratz on 10,000 posts.


Also, What time of the year is it? When i looked over the Off To war IC thread the other day i could not find a reference for season.

 

[Megan Voss]

So, just earlier I mentioned that Hera would need to be swinging blind in order to actually hit anything. Funny thing about fate is?...

I was right.

Stabbing, (while blinded), yielded a hit so powerful it nearly criticaled and almost killed that poor creature in one fell swing.

Apparently the Dice God has a sense of humor as near to Hera's fictional God as well: They both laugh in the face of danger. Heh. I think Hera's new motto will be, "Better lucky, than good."

.

Please post your experience points below in reverence of the substantial irony here presented. If I mock the Dice Gods again and I will be punished. Lol. "The Paladin cast Magic Missile at the darkness. ...and she actually hit something. Who knew?"

 

[Herobizkit]

I'm curious as to how Megan ALREADY has almost as much xp as I do, and I started a few months (?) ago.

 

[Dragonwriter]

Please post your experience points below in reverence of the substantial irony here presented. If I mock the Dice Gods again and I will be punished. Lol. "The Paladin cast Magic Missile at the darkness. ...and she actually hit something. Who knew?"

Here's a couple stories, both from the same campaign with the same character.

1: Big fight, group hired to take down people conspiring against city government and stockpiling weapons. Our job is to hit the corrupt smithies. We're going through, busting down doors and cutting the bad guys down (yes, sentient humanoids - we're not a nice group of folks, very mercenary, plus my PC worships the god of death quite openly as his racial god). Eventually, as almost always seems to happen, I roll a nat 1 and drop my primary weapon (heavy sickle). No problem, as I pull out my secondary weapon (heavy mace) and keep fighting. A couple rounds later in the same fight, I roll another damn nat 1 and drop the mace. So I pull out my tertiary weapon (shortspear) and... immediately roll a crit, killing the chief smith of that particular smithy.

2: Not so much a story as simply a constant curse. My character is designed to be an unstoppable, unhittable tank. No joke, I had AC 22 at 1st level, without Dodge or Combat Expertise, simply as a function of my character's race (for +1 LA). So much of the time, enemies need a nat 20 to hit me. ... And they get it. Almost every fight. Thankfully he's got enough HP to take it and they rarely get the second 20.

 

[jackslate45]

One time in our Rise of the Runelords, our barbarian friend rolled a 1 and confirmed it on the big boss guy. He drew from the fumble deck, and got one that let him to minimum damage to the target. Which was enough to kill it.

Dice gods may not be on your side, but DM and Lady Luck always are.

 

[Dragonwriter]

One time in our Rise of the Runelords, our barbarian friend rolled a 1 and confirmed it on the big boss guy. He drew from the fumble deck, and got one that let him to minimum damage to the target. Which was enough to kill it.

Dice gods may not be on your side, but DM and Lady Luck always are.

Depends on your DM. I know when I run the games for my Saturday and Monday groups, I don't pull punches. I play monsters more-or-less to their intelligence, but I play hard. I'll also customize big monsters (bosses, effectively) to make them a vicious challenge, especially for my 17th-level Monday group. It's all too easy for such high level characters to skate through fights, so I customized the latest boss monster just for them, after they've walked all over my previous bosses.
I want them to win, sure, but I'm not going to let them have it easy. And there's the fact that character death happens, especially at high levels. And they're got easy retreat options (assuming the Wiz doesn't get hit with Finger of Death in the first few rounds ).

 

[HolyMan]

gratz on 10,000 posts.


Also, What time of the year is it? When i looked over the Off To war IC thread the other day i could not find a reference for season.

Thank you - Two years till 20k can't wait.

I do believe I put it somewhere small. Like in reference to a marching or something but the game started mid-spring and it would now be the last couple weeks of spring. I wanted the army marching to Siere in the middle of summer because I am an evil DM (not as evil as DW mind you) and I will be wanting to see some of the exhaustion posts players come up with.

I'm curious as to how Megan ALREADY has almost as much xp as I do, and I started a few months (?) ago.

Are we looking at the same XP chart?? I have your character at over 800 (80% to lvl 2) And Megan Voss's at a little over 300 (30% to lvl 2)

That is a major difference I would say.

HM

 

[Dragonwriter]

I am an evil DM (not as evil as DW mind you)

Using the tools at my disposal is evil? More evil than setting a hydra on a tiny group of at-best 3rd-level PCs?

If/when this campaign reaches the 17th-level area, you'll be pulling out all the stops too, I'm quite sure. So far, experience has taught me the book-monsters are not as effective as they appear. Humanoids with class levels comparable to the PCs, specially-tailored monsters or groups of tough foes are the ones most capable of challenging a party. And the groups tactic can sometimes fail miserably.

[sblock=Example]
The previous adventure arc in my Monday game dealt with an invasion into elven lands by half-green dragon Orcs and Ettins. The standard Orcs all had levels in Warrior or Barbarian and were generally fairly tough, accurate and hard-hitting. Only trouble was, they were accurate up to a point. That point was 10 below more than half the party's AC (only the Wizard and Rogue could be hit reasonably). Even half-dragon Ettin Barbarians in the middle of a Rage could only hit on a 17 or better against the party's warriors (and often couldn't get around to the squishy mages) while getting made into pincushions and puddles of blood and flesh by blades, spears and arrows.
Even the blasted dragons I had set up for major bosses could only hit on a 15! (Or auto-kill the Wizard...)
I figured out ways to make things challenging anyway, while keeping the monsters I had worked so hard to make. Most of it involved environmental difficulties. Spellcaster support eventually helped even the odds (in favor of the monsters ).
[/sblock]

So finding other ways to hurt them and make them sweat became my goal for giving them a challenge. And now that the dragon plot is done with, I have other ways of hurting them with my new set of villains.

They'll still have the chance to flee (and would probably be wise to take it), but I will always play my monsters to their own abilities. If that means tactical genius, that's what the party will face in the fight. The same is true in reverse - predator beasts will use rudimentary tactics (flanking at best), or goblins will just try to surround and stab-stab-stab. Intelligent enemies will make a tactical withdrawal/retreat, idiots will break and run in chaos. It all depends on what they are fighting at any given moment.

 

[HolyMan]

Oh no you don't... aren't you the guy who said that it's best to have back up spell component pouches in case the DM tries to sunder them. LOL True evil if ever I heard it.

And I think you may be right as the group just tore through a LvL 10 Wizard and a chimera in 2 and 1/2 rounds flat.

HM (who is never going to be allowed to live down that hydra encounter - LOL)