OOC Thread

[Jenara]

It's secluded, out of the way, what better place to kill people without anyone knowing...?

And I was thinking Fast Talking... But that might change

[Breila]

I really loved this adventure.

Ouragana knew they would get into trouble with the law and would have to pay for it when pursuing the murderer on their own, but she thought it worth it because the wardens obviously were not able to stop him. She's glad to be off the island, though, because the strict lawfulness is not hers at all.

And don't worry, she will not forget the wand. She knows by now that real life requires her to have some battle magic. You'll read about Ouragana's plans in character shortly...

[JadedDM]

I'm glad you enjoyed it, then.

And yeah, a Lawful Neutral island isn't the best fit for a part like this. The next arc will start on a Chaotic Good island, which should make the group feel more at home.

[JadedDM]

Cognoman hasn't posted in nearly a month, or logged in about two weeks. Not sure what's happening there, I'm afraid.

I'm working on a new game, though; I hope to have it ready by the time Horizon returns from her trip to Italy. When I'm recruiting for it, if Cognoman hasn't reappeared by then, I'll see if I can find another one or two players for this game, too.

[JadedDM]

A couple of notes.

First, after over two years, I've finally registered an official account over at Invisible Castle. Some of you are already registered there, and you can use the campaign name "Lost Souls Octhania" for your rolls. (Registration isn't mandatory for this game, though; you can continue using the site as a guest if you want.) This just makes it easier to find rolls, and creates more transparency on my end, so you guys can see exactly what I'm rolling for.

Also, if you check out the bottom of the Character Stats thread, you'll find some new stuff.

First, there's a 'bath counter.' This shows how many days it has been since your character's last bath. Since you all bathed this morning (in-game time), it currently reads 0. This will be a handy way to keep track of such things, as previously the party had gone almost two weeks without a bath. It's not really important, just a flavor thing to help with verisimilitude.

There's also an area labeled 'Conditions.' These are temporary status effects to help me keep track of the current condition of your character. These can include buffs and debuffs, both magical and mundane. It got to be a pain to constantly modify the stat blocks for such things; now they'll just be added here for reference.

For instance, if Jocelyn would cast Bless on the party, they would get the 'blessed' condition, and it would indicate that everyone has a +1 to hit and morale.

Right now you can see, everyone but Val has the 'clean' condition, because they recently bathed. Val has the 'salty' condition because she recently went swimming in the sea (so she smells like the sea). She's also tipsy, and you can see where I've marked she now suffers a -1 to INT and WIS.

All of this is for verisimilitude, as well. I check the conditions before every post, and they help remind me of what the party looks, smells and sounds like at the moment, as well as how they are feeling. This helps remind me to have NPCs and such react to their conditions. For instance, if the party treads through a sewer, then I'd write 'stinky' under conditions, and this will remind me to have NPCs react to the bad smell. If someone eats a strange mushroom she finds, I might write 'nauseous' and this will remind me to occasionally mention in my post that the character's stomach is gurgling or in pain.

There's a lot of stuff that happens to PCs we just sort of forget about over time. Like maybe your clothes were shredded in the last fight or you were splattered in blood (either yours or the enemy's). Maybe you're covered in bandages, haven't slept in two days, drank putrid water, slept in your armor, etc., etc. Some of these things have mechanical consequences, some are just for flavor. There are good conditions, too, though, like if you just bathed (clean), are wearing perfume (perfumed), are all dolled up (glamorous), that likewise could have mechanical or just flavor effects. It would depend on the situation. (For instance, wearing perfume at a gala or ball might help your reaction with the aristocrats; on the other hand, wearing it in the jungle will probably just increase encounter rates as any nearby predators will be able to sniff you out easier).

My hope is that this will help keep me reminded of the various conditions of the party. If they walk into a town all bandaged up, splattered in blood and haven't bathed in a week, NPCs should be like, "Oh, crap! What happened to you?!" instead of just acting like that's perfectly normal, you know?

What do you all think?

[Breila]

Splendid idea. It's amazing how much work you put into this.

[JadedDM]

Thanks. I am always trying to find ways to improve the immersion and verisimilitude of my games.

[JadedDM]

If there's anything anyone wants to do during the night, before going to bed, let me know.

[Jenara]

No I'm happy to move on.

[JadedDM]

(OOC: It was just and idea I had, trying to be creative. You no makes sense.)

(Emphasis added)

It's not my intention to squash your creativity. I encourage it, in fact. But that doesn't mean I'll rubber stamp any and every idea.

If I were to allow Magic Missile to hit specific parts of the anatomy, it would overpower the spell. It already has a 100% attack rate. That means nothing can stop it save magical resistance or the Shield spell. What's worse, remember that anything the PCs can do, the DM can do, as well. How much fun would the game be if I could use level 1 mages to instantly cripple PCs, no save, by just targeting Magic Missiles to their spines?

If that doesn't make sense to you, I'm not sure how better to clarify it.

[Breila]

Sorry, that was a misspelling!!! I meant to say your no.
Of course your argument is valid, and I wanted to confirm I understand the ruling.

[JadedDM]

Ah, okay. I misunderstood then. My apologies.

So long as we're all on the same page then.

[Nuke]

Crap, I would have thought we had the movement advantage. Now we have a serious issue on our hands.

[JadedDM]

You actually do have a movement advantage. It's just a matter of winning initiative.

[JadedDM]

(Can Arei make it to Val in time? What happens if she goes past her breath holding limit?)

You can reach Val and pull her up to the surface within two rounds, yes. It will take longer if you try and save her coral trident, too.

If Areilon's time runs out, she has to make a CON check each round (starting with no modifiers, than -2, than -4, than -6, and so on...). If she passes, she can continue. If she fails a check, she drowns.