OT: Narf has gone looney and wants to GM.(Edited2)

[Jack Simth]

Server Closed.
One CR 15 halfling Rogue slaugtered - but took a dragon down with him; trasure taken.
Three CR 13 Troglodite Clerics dealt with; one killed, the other two pacified, and gave directions to the goal you were after.
One CR 13 Beholder slaughtered. Rather messily. All damage dealt by the Rogue.

Let's see... at the beginning of the session, Kaylin was 15th, Jason 16th, Elorin 16th, Kibin 17th, correct?

If so....
3,375 xp to Kaylin;
2,400 each for Jason and Elorin;
1,913 for Kibin.

No votes cast? Oh well. What about this week?

Log attached.

[Jack Simth]

Hmm... that puts Jason up a level, to ECL 17. Nifty ... new spell level (6th - meanwhile, when Kaylin gets to 17th, she will be figuring out how to cast her first Wish....), new feat, stat point to add....

[Violist]

Whoa, cool. That puts me into XL16 with 63 XP to spare. May I take a level of Archmage yet or have the requirements not been satisfied?

And if so... what High Arcana should I take... Mastery of Shaping is what we planned for, but lately I haven't been using area effect spells much when people are in melee... Spell-Like Ability is highly tempting, though I'm not entirely sure how it works...

I'm casting my RP vote with Elorin... and I'm kind of wondering if Kibin's personality is changing or if that's just me?

[Jack Simth]

Go for it.

Spell like ability:
All right; say you want to always have Greater Teleport (8th level spell) ready; if selecting that, you burn - permanently - two spell slots; a 5th level spell slot (for the ability) and an 8th level spell slot (for the spell). Once done, you can use Greater Teleport as a spell-like ability twice per day - permanently - so on monday, you use greater Teleport twice - and on tuesday, and on wendsday, and on thursday....

And, if you happen to get pinned, and unable to speak, that's okay, as the components (other than special XP components) went away - you don't need to waive your arms, you don't need to say anything - you just need to concentrate (there's a concentration check for casting spells in a grapple, and a spell-like ability works just like a spell, with the exceptions of a couple of things), and away you go, up to twice per day.

[NullAshton]

I vote for Kaylin this time.

[NullAshton]

Okay, a few changes... Pretty minor. Charisma reduced 2 points to raise constitution two points for a little more health... a few more modifications to the sheet... Still has 8 attacks, 260 average damage if all 8 sneak attacks hit, good initiative and to hit rolls... Maybe I should temporary retire Kibin to fit him in. Hmmmm.

EDIT: Forgot the -2 penalty from dual wielding, whoops.

[ZeroAdunn]

Sorry, I thought I had made it clear to NA when he asked after the session that I wasn't coming back. I didn't enjoy the game.

First and foremost I felt I was being pidgeon holed into playing the dumb meat shield. I hate it when a player is pushed into playing a stereotype.

Secondly, I couldn't stand NA. It may have been just that game session but he drove me nuts. I love it when players have different motives and different goals, it produces fun situations when these motives come into conflict. Unfortunately is all NA did was whine. Every thing we did he complained about not wanting to do it, and how it was stupid. This really irked me.

Third: I felt very much it was a DM ran game. By this I mean in every situation, it was a DM NPC that solves the problem. For me, this takes me out of the game. It may have been sheer coincidence but it seemed to me that the ghost had the solution to all of our problems, and the players were just along for the ride. The players didn't even seem to know their own characters, as it was usually the ghost who gave suggestions on how to use their spells/abilities.

Fourth: I prefer a game that is more, "Gritty." I like seedy characters, evil monsters and questionable ethics. I don't want to cruise around with a group of peaceniks making friends with the world, but that is just me.

Finally: I just didn't like the feel of the game. The whole session left me feeling annoyed and bored. It wasn't enjoyable.

On a side note: I should have gotten XP as a sixteenth level character as a half giant is +1 ECL.

[Violist]

Aww, I'm sorry to hear that. It was nice having you along for the one session, though.

Spell Like Ability on Greater Teleport sounds extremely useful, since we seem to use that frequently, and I dislike the Teleport's failure chance... so unless anyone can think of some reason not to, I'll do that.

On a third note, the local Bach-playing marathon is Saturday, so I probably won't be able to attend much of the session. Perhaps Kaylin needs to be off to meditate on her newfound abilities...

[douglas]

ZeroAdunn said:
First and foremost I felt I was being pidgeon holed into playing the dumb meat shield. I hate it when a player is pushed into playing a stereotype.

There was some discussion along that line before the session started, but as far as I can tell the subject was dropped completely once we started and it was clear your character was already finished.

ZeroAdunn said:
Secondly, I couldn't stand NA. It may have been just that game session but he drove me nuts. I love it when players have different motives and different goals, it produces fun situations when these motives come into conflict. Unfortunately is all NA did was whine. Every thing we did he complained about not wanting to do it, and how it was stupid. This really irked me.

I'd agree with you on that one, but it really was just that session. I can't remember any session where he was even close to as annoying as he was that time. I think the main thing was that he just either didn't understand or didn't agree with that in a medieval setting like standard D&D, it is acceptable and even expected that travellers who are capable of fighting off bandits will do so with lethal force and little care for the bandits' survival unless they have a specific reason to want them captured alive.

ZeroAdunn said:
Third: I felt very much it was a DM ran game. By this I mean in every situation, it was a DM NPC that solves the problem. For me, this takes me out of the game. It may have been sheer coincidence but it seemed to me that the ghost had the solution to all of our problems, and the players were just along for the ride. The players didn't even seem to know their own characters, as it was usually the ghost who gave suggestions on how to use their spells/abilities.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I understand the potential problems with a DM PC, but I didn't notice anything even close to "the ghost had the solution to all of our problems". Sure, he has some useful abilities (Telekinesis at will, for one), but nothing excessive, and I think we could manage just fine without him. As for Jason giving suggestions on how to use our abilities, I'm having a hard time finding more than one example, and that one is incomplete - he suggested trying to detect magic to locate the druid, but I'm the one that came up with Arcane Sight as the spell to use.

ZeroAdunn said:
Fourth: I prefer a game that is more, "Gritty." I like seedy characters, evil monsters and questionable ethics. I don't want to cruise around with a group of peaceniks making friends with the world, but that is just me.

We've had our share of "grittiness", and I expect we'll have plenty more to come, it just wasn't in that session. When I first joined, night watches were a very serious thing because the current BBEG had a habit of sending summoned demons/devils to attack us most nights, and the ghost I believe we referred to a few times in that session had some rather extremely questionable ethics. We were just on a one-session break from that quest, partly to get you introduced, and I think Jack just made up some mostly filler stuff for it, not long enough to properly introduce truly nasty characters. As for "peaceniks", tell that to the beholder that got its brain torn out through its ear (massive overkill from sneak attacks) last session .

ZeroAdunn said:
Finally: I just didn't like the feel of the game. The whole session left me feeling annoyed and bored. It wasn't enjoyable.

Not sure what to say about this one. You can give it another chance, or not, whatever you decide. We have enough players we won't really miss you all that much. You can try going through some of the logs of previous sessions to get a better sense of what's normal for us if you want. They're all posted in this thread.

[douglas]

Violist said:
Spell Like Ability on Greater Teleport sounds extremely useful, since we seem to use that frequently, and I dislike the Teleport's failure chance... so unless anyone can think of some reason not to, I'll do that.

That just doesn't seem like much of a benefit to me. It effectively moves one 5th level spell slot to 7th level in exchange for completely giving up all flexibility with that spell slot and another 7th level spell slot. I don't see the lack of components mattering, as it only has a verbal component which is not a problem for escaping from grapples, the main situation I can think of where it would really matter. Besides, Dimension Door will do that job just fine, and it's only 4th level.

By my count you have 4 7th level spell slots and 3 8th level already, including bonus slots from intelligence, which is quite enough to prepare an adequate number of Greater Teleports and still have enough good combat spells. 6th level and lower spells can still be quite potent in combat, you know.

Being able to toss AoE's like, say, Prismatic Spray, Cone of Cold, Fireball, and Waves of Exhaustion without worrying about where the melee guys are, now that's a handy ability. Unless I miss my guess, the primary reason you haven't been tossing AoE's when we're in melee is entirely because you didn't have Mastery of Shaping.