[QUOTE=Mikaru-Yanagida;40459420]So there's a guy at work who DnD's a lot, using 3.5 edition. But he's making a spare character that's a catfolk monk. To clarify, that means he starts with 40 speed then gets an additional 10 [i]just to start with[/i].
I cannot imagine what the hell he'll do with that.[/QUOTE]
Elven Monks can get another 20 feet by level 20, and hell, a speed demon might choose to take multiple purchases of Fleet for truly obscene sound-barrier breaking shenanigans.
[QUOTE=snake eye;40455529]I'd love to play with that DM sometime. I'll mess with him all the way, half arse my character, it'll be a lot of fun.
Has me worried though, just started GMing a pathfinder campaign for some friends online last week. Trying my hardest not to railroad and find the right level of challenge and story exposition. CR may just be a god send.[/QUOTE]
To avoid railroading in my own Pathfinder game, I'm basically just opening up a few dozen plot threads. They'll follow whichever ones they follow, and if they don't follow any, so what? I'll just keep tossing storylines at them until something sticks. Right now, I have four open plot threads. They can pull on any of them and get something interesting, or they can keep doing something else. If they follow multiple, they'll merge together.
Difficulty is my main concern. The stuff I threw at them today was supposed to be pretty tough (I threw some CR3 stuff at a group of five level one characters), and only two players even took damage, both from non-combat (one fell into a pit trap, the other stood too close to brown mold). The hell hounds didn't even hurt them, mostly because the two fighters have an AC of 19 and 21, respectively.
One of my players, the one who used to play AD&D, advised me that I should be killing about one player character per session. I think that's a little excessive, especially since I'd like *someone* to survive past fifth level. That, and he's the only one who seems intent on high difficulty - one more would probably like a good challenge, but not to the same extent, and the others wouldn't enjoy constantly getting killed.
But I definitely do think I need to be making harder dungeons. I'm sort of hesitant to just throw high-CR monsters at them, because we're often hitting a situation where neither side can break the AC of the other and get a hit in, or if they can, it's negated by damage resistance (eventually I start fudging dice rolls just to get some damage happening).
EP Session over.
150 civilians dead, 60 were killed gangsters, 90 were killed by us (give or take)
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
one of the most entertaining pnp games i've ever done
drove my sword through the skull of a man with no backup.
1 objective done
also we stole a sick vtol and now im looking at upgrading it with cool stuff
I killed 6 people, and murdered two cowering men.
Whos the real monster... the ego slavers, or me...
[QUOTE=No Party Hats;40460075]drove my sword through the skull of a man with no backup.
1 objective done
also we stole a sick vtol and now im looking at upgrading it with cool stuff[/QUOTE]
At least you didn't use a ballista. (some will get the joke)
[QUOTE=No Party Hats;40460075]drove my sword through the skull of a man with no backup.
1 objective done
also we stole a sick vtol and now im looking at upgrading it with cool stuff[/QUOTE]
We used our swords to scissor the head off some pleb, while the Russian Boxer was holding him.
[QUOTE=RearAdmiral;40460062]EP Session over.
150 civilians dead, 60 were killed gangsters, 90 were killed by us (give or take)
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED[/QUOTE]
Extensive civilian casualities are a sign of a great PnP session. Well done! :v:
[QUOTE=RearAdmiral;40460062]EP Session over.
150 civilians dead, 60 were killed gangsters, 90 were killed by us (give or take)
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED[/QUOTE]
What game was that even. Sounds amazing.
[QUOTE=gman003-main;40459985]One of my players, the one who used to play AD&D, advised me that I should be killing about one player character per session. I think that's a little excessive, especially since I'd like *someone* to survive past fifth level. That, and he's the only one who seems intent on high difficulty - one more would probably like a good challenge, but not to the same extent, and the others wouldn't enjoy constantly getting killed.[/QUOTE]
Player death is necessary, in a campaign focused around fighting anyway. Baring a few exceptions, death is the only real punishment for failure that will have an impact on the player. If no one ever dies they'll lose the sense of urgency and fear; you'll start getting derailed as players make their characters do things they normally wouldn't. You see the same thing with people that don't have any investment in their characters, not caring for consequences and just doing whatever they want (which is fine if that's what the campaign is themed around).
I would never kill a player per session though. That will just irritate people, and can have the opposite effect of them never doing anything remotely risky for fear of dying. There's being smart, and then there's "you might as well of stayed in the tavern and been a working man".
I create things based on logic and see how my players deal with them. Sometimes this results in them fighting things that are beyond their abilities; but I reward ingenuity and creativity that breaks the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em mentality many people have. So more often than not they "defeat" the obstacle in some fashion. I prefer giving them something challenging but possible, and have them punish themselves for not planning or using their intellect (the real one, not the stat :v:). That's the method of DM'ing I do anyway, which isn't to say it's the right or best way -- just how I do it.
I'll give an example. In a dungeon I ran a while back I had one character that thought it would be a good idea to venture into the only sealed metal door they had found (the rest having been wooden), alone. It was quite obviously a trap, or at least something he should wait for the rest of his team to arrive for; but he pressed on anyway. The room was designed to close the door and seal it once someone journeyed 4 tiles inward (allowing more than one person people to enter, but possibly leaving others out if the lead was too hasty), regardless of circumstances. So as per course the door sealed and locked him in with about a dozen slimes. He fought well but eventually died before the rest of the party could find him.
I didn't design that room to specifically kill anyone (in fact it was out of the way of the standard route, the entire party could of never have found it for all it mattered), it was just a part of the dungeon flow when I created it; he [I]killed himself[/I] by not using his brain and seeing the quite obvious signs of the trap.
I will never agree that intentionally killing players per session is a good idea though; if nothing else you'll become redundant and the more keen players will start seeing through you, and then you've lost your edge.
[QUOTE=DrugUnit;40460225]What game was that even. Sounds amazing.[/QUOTE]
Eclipse Phase. The Sourcebooks are listed under creative commons if you want to check them out.
It's essentially Dead Spaceus Ex: You got your Ghost in the Shell in my Mass Effect's Ergo Proxy.
[editline]29th April 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=M.Ciaster;40460209]Extensive civilian casualities are a sign of a great PnP session. Well done! :v:[/QUOTE]
The habitat had a population of 500 so we only killed about 30% of the population, no big deal.
[QUOTE=Axznma;40460324]Player death is necessary, in a campaign focused around fighting anyway. Baring a few exceptions, death is the only real punishment for failure that will have an impact on the player. If no one ever dies they'll lose the sense of urgency and fear; you'll start getting derailed as players make their characters do things they normally wouldn't. You see the same thing with people that don't have any investment in their characters, not caring for consequences and just doing whatever they want (which is fine if that's what the campaign is themed around).
I would never kill a player per session though. That will just irritate people, and can have the opposite effect of them never doing anything remotely risky for fear of dying. There's being smart, and then there's "you might as well of stayed in the tavern and been a working man".
I create things based on logic and see how my players deal with them. Sometimes this results in them fighting things that are beyond their abilities; but I reward ingenuity and creativity that breaks the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em mentality many people have. So more often than not they "defeat" the obstacle in some fashion. I prefer giving them something challenging but possible, and have them punish themselves for not planning or using their intellect (the real one, not the stat :v:). That's the method of DM'ing I do anyway, which isn't to say it's the right or best way -- just how I do it.
I'll give an example. In a dungeon I ran a while back I had one character that thought it would be a good idea to venture into the only sealed metal door they had found (the rest having been wooden), alone. It was quite obviously a trap, or at least something he should wait for the rest of his team to arrive for; but he pressed on anyway. The room was designed to close the door and seal it once someone journeyed 4 tiles inward (allowing more than one person people to enter, but possibly leaving others out if the lead was too hasty), regardless of circumstances. So as per course the door sealed and locked him in with about a dozen slimes. He fought well but eventually died before the rest of the party could find him.
I didn't design that room to specifically kill anyone (in fact it was out of the way of the standard route, the entire party could of never have found it for all it mattered), it was just a part of the dungeon flow when I created it; he [I]killed himself[/I] by not using his brain and seeing the quite obvious signs of the trap.
I will never agree that intentionally killing players per session is a good idea though; if nothing else you'll become redundant and the more keen players will start seeing through you, and then you've lost your edge.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that player's already made a second character to take over when he "inevitably" dies.
I told him that, since he was prepared for losing a character, he basically guaranteed that unless he does something stupid, his characters aren't going to get targeted for death, that I'd be trying to kill someone else's character, since they're actually getting invested.
I'll be brainstorming ideas for how to increase the challenge without getting into unbeatable territory. Of course, if anyone has any ideas they'd like to share, I'm all ears.
[QUOTE=gman003-main;40460433]Yeah, that player's already made a second character to take over when he "inevitably" dies.
I told him that, since he was prepared for losing a character, he basically guaranteed that unless he does something stupid, his characters aren't going to get targeted for death, that I'd be trying to kill someone else's character, since they're actually getting invested.
I'll be brainstorming ideas for how to increase the challenge without getting into unbeatable territory. Of course, if anyone has any ideas they'd like to share, I'm all ears.[/QUOTE]
I encourage my players to have another character sheet ready to play in case of death, and have four more concepts brewing just in case. My campaign has suffered a few deaths, but slowly, ever so slowly they have begun to approach the level where they are actually capable of resurrecting each other in times of need ( For the record, the world is extremely low magic, and few NPCs ever achieve a level of 2 or higher. As a result, you can't simply pay for resurrection. )
I've got 6 players, and only two of them have characters that were part of the initial party make up- The other four players have managed to lose somewhere between one and three characters each.
Here's a quick rundown of what went down.
The party, consisting of two future samurai, a heavily augmented ex-cop detective, a russian boxer and a sentient AI construct (hence referred to as an AGI) are called together to join an organization called Firewall which is designed to protect Transhumanity from threats external or internal. Our first mission is to find a mole in the Planetary Consortium, a major political bloc. This mole is also a part of a notorious ego smuggling ring, stealing the minds of innocents and selling them on the black market as slave labor or worse. We're to kill him and retrieve his cortical stack, an implant that contains a person's ego (mind) and memories so that they can be effectively revived in a new body.
An online search registers our target has been spotted 3 days prior on a martian colony, however an informant within the Planetary Consortium gives us his current location. The Russian Boxer contacts his fans to see if anyone will let us borrow their car; in exchange for some fighting tips ("You punch them with your fist. If they do no fall, you punch with other fist. Do until victory.") they let us borrow their martian buggy and we begin offroading to get there as quickly as possible.
Arriving at the Martian Colony we see a number of Cartel buggies outside of the habitat, which also appears to be on fire. After bullshitting our way past a sentry and hacking into the security system we get a look at what appears to be a large number of hostages covered by turrets and armed gangsters. Sneaking up on two of them we have the Russian Boxer smash their heads together, one of which is instantly killed. The survivor is picked up by his head and he tells us our target is setting up explosives in the life support room. The Russian Boxer promises not to kill him and the two swordsmen strike at once and sever his head from his body. We steal his cortical stack and some grenades for good measure.
The AGI hacks the Gangster's private network and in doing so disarms their turrets as well as faking the vital signs for the two guards that just died. We deactivate the turret which is covering approximately 60 civilians. Another 60 civilians are held in the medical wing, 60 are in the courtyard and 60 are dead in botany. As we recieve a call from the security office (which until now has been locked) they start executing civilians in the courtyard and harvesting their cortical stacks. Oh well.
In the security room is a hacker that is part of the cartel that claims he has a proposition for us: bring him our target. If we do not comply he threatens to call his friends down on us. Our Ex-Cop pulls his gun on him and the guy seems intimidated but makes a reach for the microphone. We blow his brains over the security terminal. Some quick and sloppy surgery gives us his cortical stack and we continue on our merry way. A patrol that went to investigate the common room finds the AGI has reprogrammed the turret inside to shoot the patrol rather than cover the hostages and the gunfire and screaming can be heard from a fair distance away. A second patrol clears the room with grenades killing about half of the hostages and wrecking the turret.
Neglecting to spoof the hacker's vital signs we do an impersonation of him over the P.A. system, making up a story about setting off a radio jammer that blocks his wireless transmitting of his vital signs. It works and after a few minutes the AGI, which now has Admin privileges in the Gangsters' wireless network, brings his (fake) vital signs back. We proceed to the common room and clear it with grenades, killing the second patrol and most of the surviving hostages. We proceed to set up the second turret to fire at the enemy (now directly controlled by the AGI) and get ready for a fight.
The first two mooks to show up meet an unfortunate end as the Russian Boxer riddles one with bullets and the other is literally cut limb from limb by the swordsmen (the first took off his arm, the other got a critical and bisected him). The Ex-Cop covers the rear, switching his pistol to full automatic and mowing down 3 of the 4 man patrol, the second turret is destroyed as it is rushed by a gangster that suicide bombed using high explosive grenades, killing the last of the hostages. The last surviving member of the patrol drops his gun and puts his hands up, however a quick reminder of how little time we have means the Ex-Cop proceeds to execute the guy for convenience's sake.
The medical bay still has 3 guys left inside as well as another 60 hostages so we decide to flush it out with grenades. The ensuing explosion results in a lot of screaming and despite the door being closed the reading shows one of the enemy's vital signs have ceased and two have erratic vitals consistent with severe trauma and shock. Even if they were conscious enough to attempt to stop us as we passed through, the lack of functioning limbs would probably put a stop to that. A lot of the hostages died as well, but again we considered this an acceptable price.
Sure enough Life Support is wired to explode. One of the people inside manages to melt (we suspect he escaped by projecting his ego and self destructing his body) and the last remaining gangster pleads for his life, telling us about how he has no cortical stack and his ego hasn't been backed up due to an accident; if we kill him he dies permanently.
He got a sword in the face.
Rather than securing the rest of the habitat or disarming the bombs (which are still active and armed) we left, our objective finished (partially). The AGI erases their access logs in the habitat security system as well as the gang's wireless network and we leave in the buggy, leaving a tip off for local law enforcement of the burning building full of hostages and armed explosives and go back to report in, although before we left we made sure to steal a VTOL aircraft.
And that was our first mission.
[QUOTE=RearAdmiral;40460588]although before we left we made sure to steal a VTOL aircraft.[/QUOTE]
We're painting flames on it as we speak.
[QUOTE=ElTacoLad;40460696]We're painting flames on it as we speak.[/QUOTE]
Meanwhile I get the boring stuff like making sure it stops registering as a stolen vehicle.
i hope you like having a sick tv in the back so we can watch the news
Eclipse Phase, or "Hey, he's only dead!"
The GM(hellsodier) has since promised us that next time he wouldnt be so easy on us next time...
If thats easy... oh boy...
Well we weren't even injured once (I blame our complete disregard for loss of civilian life) so I think that counts as a pretty clear victory.
Well yes, but we were also fairly clever about it... for the most part...
Im looking at you zangief.
[QUOTE=RearAdmiral;40460762]Awesome retelling of Eclipse Phase action[/QUOTE]
Well fuck, now I [I]really[/I] gotta try to pick up the EP Facepunch game I set up a while ago so I can brag about my party doing something [I]twice[/I] as outrageous as yours :> After finals I think we ought to re-negotiate when we should meet
[QUOTE=RearAdmiral;40460588]two future samurai[/QUOTE]
We didn't do that intentionally, by the way. We just accidentally made the exact the same character.
Is there a computer version of DnD you can play?
[QUOTE=Jmir 54;40461070]Is there a computer version of DnD you can play?[/QUOTE]
You mean with other people? Try roll20. You still need to supply the books (although some systems are online via srd) but roll20 provides a chat function, a map and built in dice roller among other useful things.
[QUOTE=ElTacoLad;40460968]We didn't do that intentionally, by the way. We just accidentally made the exact the same character.[/QUOTE]
Now we have twice the Revengance.
NWN
if you want pc shadowrun, play Shadowrun: Returns when it comes out
The bad thing about NWN is that Prestidigitation doesn't exist. Nor does anything else that requires actual use of the imagination.
[editline]28th April 2013[/editline]
Also I forgot to mention, from the game yesterday.
I put a scroll of Skinsend down on a desk, the alchemist flat out read it without trying to do a knowledge check or anything. He was flipping his shit when I said his skin slid off his body, until I told him he could have it go back on if he wanted. :v:
[QUOTE=ElTacoLad;40460968]We didn't do that intentionally, by the way. We just accidentally made the exact the same character.[/QUOTE]
You know what this means right... there can only be one.
We'll let them duke it out in Simulspace.
The DM should drop some kind of sweet upgrade they could both use and make them fight to the death for it. Loser buys a new morph.
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