Shilsen's Eberron SH (Finished - The Last Word : 9/20/15)

[Furby076]

We are all just crazy players RPing our characters as more normal versions of ourselves. Actually, in gameplay, Gareth is not insane or luny. He is a " typical" paladin so pretty stubborn in his views, and with the exception of the thing with Kizmet and the whole "yes i am a paladin just dont have my abilities running right now" he is sane. Then again, if you remember the movie "A Few Good Men"....at the end Tom Cruise said something to the effect "Harold, you don't need strips on your shoulders to have honor".

-Avi

 

[shilsen]

Well, I'm a lot better at doing cold and methodical than insane and wacky.

Agreed.

The fact that Shil's NPCs WILL rack you up really good if you don't bring your "A-Game" and make only optimal tactical choices, tends to reinforce those tendancies in me.

Actually, with most NPCs I've used, I haven't used the perfect tactical choices, because they aren't geniuses and because of personalities involved. In most of the fights that the PCs had a hard time with but won, doing the most optimal tactical choices would have been a TPK. For example:

* The fight against the River Snake clan in the Shadow Marches - They didn't know how good the PCs are, so they launched their attack when they could reach the closest PCs, rather than being in a position to reach all the PCs. If they had, Nameless would have gone down in a round or two and without his Solid Fog slowing them down temporarily and eating up some spellcasting from the bard leader, the PCs would have been toast.

* The fight vs. Little Red Riding Hood in the ruined tower in the Demon Wastes - She popped out of the ground after temporarily retreating, well before she'd completely healed up, simply because she had never been beaten before and was fairly cocky. Since the PCs couldn't get out, if she'd just stayed underground till she totally healed and the Faerie Fire on her was gone, it would have been a TPK.

The closest I came to running NPCs with totally optimal tactics was in the final fight vs. the rakshasas, because one of them was actually a real genius, and even then I took into account some mitigating factors (the focus on freeing his master, partly underestimating the PCs since he didn't know they'd been infused by the Flame and was also counting on the demon in Gareth's sword to do more than appear and be sucked into the lava, etc).

Believe me, I've never used my 'A-game'

I'd like it to come across as an almost "Hannibal Lector"-ish, cool and calculating exterior masking a deep and fundamental insanity, but it usually doesn't come out that way.

You just need to emphasize the role of tentacles and a nice Chianti in Nameless' life.

Then again, if you remember the movie "A Few Good Men"....at the end Tom Cruise said something to the effect "Harold, you don't need strips on your shoulders to have honor".

True. You don't need to be a real paladin to have a stick up ...

BTW, I'm in the middle of the joys of grading papers, but I'll try to have an update by the weekend.

We're playing on Saturday and I've promised the players a bit of a workout for their PCs. No A-game yet, but I'll strive for something in the B+ range. So there will be pain. Lots of pain.

 

[Rackhir]

Actually, with most NPCs I've used, I haven't used the perfect tactical choices, because they aren't geniuses and because of personalities involved. In most of the fights that the PCs had a hard time with but won, doing the most optimal tactical choices would have been a TPK. For example:...

Believe me, I've never used my 'A-game'

I didn't say you had or that you always played the NPCs with optimal tactical choices. I was talking about the Players, try reading it again. WE have to bring our "A-Game" and make optimal tactical choices or "WE'll" get racked up.

I've thought about introducing some "Monk" (the Tony Shalhoub character, not the class) like aspects to Nameless. Such as him stopping to compusively count the tiles on the floor in the middle of the battle or something like that, but the battle in the Daask Drug den pops into my head any time I think about doing something like that.

 

[Seekerofskill]

I didn't say you had or that you always played the NPCs with optimal tactical choices. I was talking about the Players, try reading it again. WE have to bring our "A-Game" and make optimal tactical choices or "WE'll" get racked up.

I've thought about introducing some "Monk" (the Tony Shalhoub character, not the class) like aspects to Nameless. Such as him stopping to compusively count the tiles on the floor in the middle of the battle or something like that, but the battle in the Daask Drug den pops into my head any time I think about doing something like that.

Upon reflection I'll refine a prievious statement. Shil designs traps with combat. The PC's can't go on auto pilot. Generally each encounter requires some basic group action to disarm the situtation. Each one take one and attack with your best options is usually springs the trap and is the one the PC's favor, so there are a lot of virtual TPKs. They are virtual because of various house rules.

 

[shilsen]

I didn't say you had or that you always played the NPCs with optimal tactical choices. I was talking about the Players, try reading it again. WE have to bring our "A-Game" and make optimal tactical choices or "WE'll" get racked up.

Okay. I thought you meant the "and only make optimal tactical choices" bit was modifying the first part of the sentence. That'll teach me to read and post in the middle of grading papers where I don't know when a clause is modifying anything at all.

Freshman composition - always an epic-level encounter!

I've thought about introducing some "Monk" (the Tony Shalhoub character, not the class) like aspects to Nameless. Such as him stopping to compusively count the tiles on the floor in the middle of the battle or something like that, but the battle in the Daask Drug den pops into my head any time I think about doing something like that.

So that's what Six was doing during that fight! Now I'm going to imagine him talking like Shalhoub from now on.

Maybe you should come up with some really strange and effective spell combos and have Nameless walking around a fight talking to himself and throwing them up, while other PCs are yelling, "What the hell are you doing?"

Until they realize that the apparently random Wall of Stone you cast was intended to provide a surface for the summoned pseudonatural polar bear to appear on, 15 ft above the head of the BBEG, who thought he was using your wall for cover, having been forced to back away behind it due to the Cloudkill you cast, which apparently was so badly aimed that it missed him.

All so that he can be belly-flopped by a polar bear.

Upon reflection I'll refine a prievious statement. Shil designs traps with combat. The PC's can't go on auto pilot.

I've never quite bought your analogy about combat and traps, mainly because traps usually have only one way to beat them, whereas I never plan combat that way, but I'll definitely agree about the auto pilot bit. Adaptability often matters a lot in combat in our game.

Generally each encounter requires some basic group action to disarm the situtation. Each one take one and attack with your best options is usually springs the trap and is the one the PC's favor, so there are a lot of virtual TPKs. They are virtual because of various house rules.

And this, I think, you're bang on about. While the PCs do some coordinating, mainly to help each other when healing is required, they usually fight as five individuals, even if very powerful ones. When they've had a tough fight against significantly weaker opposition, it's almost always been opposition who fought as a team and focused their power on a couple of PCs at a time.

If we took exactly the same PCs and ran them as a very focused team, they'd be drastically more dangerous. The fight vs. the 12 NPCs (even if significantly weaker) in the Burning Ring arena was a good example of a time when the PCs focused on teamwork and absolutely wiped the floor with the opposition. Not that I'm complaining about you guys (SeekerofSkill is Six's player, BTW, for anyone who's curious) not doing that much teamwork. If you did, I'd have to work a lot harder than I already do.

 

[Seekerofskill]

I've never quite bought your analogy about combat and traps, mainly because traps usually have only one way to beat them, ...

Au contraire. You can disable them; trip them with a dummy; smash them; avoid them; hide them to use against someone else; dig them out a move it (say a dire badger); mark them; mark them and sell the location; mark them and use the marks as phony traos etc. About the only thing you can't do is walk into them and expect it to turn out well.

 

[Rackhir]

Maybe you should come up with some really strange and effective spell combos and have Nameless walking around a fight talking to himself and throwing them up, while other PCs are yelling, "What the hell are you doing?"

Until they realize that the apparently random Wall of Stone you cast was intended to provide a surface for the summoned pseudonatural polar bear to appear on, 15 ft above the head of the BBEG, who thought he was using your wall for cover, having been forced to back away behind it due to the Cloudkill you cast, which apparently was so badly aimed that it missed him.

All so that he can be belly-flopped by a polar bear.

I'd love to, unfortunately I find myself running up against the old writer's dilemma, "How do you write (play) someone who's much smarter than you are."

I am not even vaguely close to Nameless's 25 Int. But I'll try and put some work into it.

 

[shilsen]

Au contraire. You can disable them; trip them with a dummy; smash them; avoid them; hide them to use against someone else; dig them out a move it (say a dire badger); mark them; mark them and sell the location; mark them and use the marks as phony traos etc. About the only thing you can't do is walk into them and expect it to turn out well.

All right - I stand corrected. But I think it's mean of you to call Luna a dummy

I'd love to, unfortunately I find myself running up against the old writer's dilemma, "How do you write (play) someone who's much smarter than I you are."

I am not even vaguely close to Nameless's 25 Int. But I'll try and put some work into it.

Don't forget that you also have the option of just asking me during the game, "Since Nameless has a 25 Int, does he think of something that would help in this situation?" Of course, you might not want to use that in combat, but if you ever do, I'm fine with it.

 

[Vorput]

Yeah, that's what I did with my DM when playing a high intelligence mage... ironically also an alienist... I miss that guy... and his pseudonatural hawk...

Granted, he'd only rarely have useful information for me... he'd often just stare at me quizzically and then go "I don't have a 24 intelligence either."

Thankfully acid substituted fireballs are the universal intelligent quotient or something.

Also shilsen- I've noticed the same thing you described in... pretty much every group I've ever played in- characters functioning as their own autonomous units in battle (for the most part, there are rare exceptions- usually when battle is discussed ahead of time) unless something comes up which forces them to acknowledge their party mates (like the need for healing).

It probably has something to do with the fact that most combats in D&D are over in a few rounds, only a couple of seconds (yet somehow they can take hours of time out of game!)- and in that time, people want to do whatever their character is best at- usually something related to combat. In a campaign with fewer combats, this trait tends to become ever more noticeable (I've noticed).

Just stray thoughts.

Vorp

Edit: Oh yeah- how's this for weird... I'm taking a Tolkien and philosophy course- and in the powerpoint discussing Gandalf, there was a picture of him from the movie. I saw it, and suddenly wondered if Shilsen's story hour had been updated... Crazy icon picture recognition.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I'm beginning to think a critical part of an enjoyable story hour is a well-played alienist.

Mostin (from Sepulchrave's SH) is a character so well written (and I imagine well played). He's a nice mix of no-nonsense attitude and humor. One minute he's commanding a number of devils to do his bidding, the next he's cowering from a gaggle of geese. Reminds me of Rackhir's point about fundamental insanity, rather than babbling incoherently and drooling in a cup all the time. That's not a very interesting character, IMO.

Nameless is quite different from Mostin. He's... eerie, is the best way I imagine him.