Developer's Commentary

[Jenius]

Note: This thread is here because I'm having you guys beta test the game, so I'll be placing information about why I'm doing what I'm doing, and hopefully you guys will comment on whether or not I'm accomplishing my actual goals. You can also talk about the difficulty (or lack there of) of encounters and other misc information here. Basically use this thread to make fun of how lousy of a job I'm doing or tell me when you think I'm doing something right.

Info on my background will be coming soon, but until then I'm afk. Also if mods could lock my initial thread I'd be grateful.

[Cloneysocks]

I'm pretty excited from the first intro post. Games where we become the warriors of a dying planet with the pressure of time against us have a nice feel to them. Hopefully we'll learn of the causes of and the cure to this catastrophe over the course of the campaign.

Also, once the admins figure out how to set up local mods they would do well to give you that power here.

[Jenius]

I'm pretty excited from the first intro post. Games where we become the warriors of a dying planet with the pressure of time against us have a nice feel to them. Hopefully we'll learn of the causes of and the cure to this catastrophe over the course of the campaign.

This is basically the point of the campaign, it's going to be kinda cliche, but I feel it suits DnD playstyle quite nicely.

A couple notes on the background, Impact was obviously stolen from NGE, however, it's really only stolen in name. I simply liked the name impact to describe the catastrophe, and causes/motives/etc behind it won't really be following suite.

Also, as the story develops, I'll hope you see even a lot of the small things tie into the actual background, I kind of wrote it to be flexible and resuable. The background is intended to give you a brief glimpse of the world that can be fleshed out as people get farther into it. That is to say, I plan on revealing more about the world as the players go, and my goal is that people will enjoy learning about it more as they play rather than staying in a stock dnd universe where they merely have to kill an evil threat because there simply has to be an evil villain.

Finally, the setting will be such that at least in the beginning, there likely won't be a notable villain. If and when I introduce a main villain, he'll have motives and goals that let you see him or her as an actual person, I don't plan on just putting an evil person there so that you have someone's ass to kick. The start of the campaign is going to focus on world restoration.

[Cloneysocks]

Do you plan on using maps (of the world, and of the battlefield), or will we just navigate by text?

[Jenius]

There will be maps of the battlefield and I may have a singular worldmap, but more likely world pathing will be handled by text or speech.

[Cloneysocks]

I'd really love a world map, but it needn't include the entire world at first. Just a map of where we've been, and what is speculated to still be where we haven't, yet.

[Jenius]

Also, I'm currently waffling back and forth on something. My first option is to just say you all recieved a letter, my second option is to actually give you guys letters. I was initially planning on the latter, but then I thought that might not work so well IRL, but then I still thought it might be a good idea from a flavor standpoint.

So if you want a letter, you can provide your characters back story (in a pm to me) and I will in return pm you a letter, otherwise I'll just post that you all received a letter. Perhaps for the best of both worlds, I will simply post that you all received a letter, but if someone decides they want a personal letter for flavor, they can pm me their back story and I will create one for you.

Note I'm still at work so I might not get around to telling everyone to start for another 3 hours or so (so at 5pm pacific).

[Jenius]

I'd really love a world map, but it needn't include the entire world at first. Just a map of where we've been, and what is speculated to still be where we haven't, yet.

The problem with this is it would be kind of a pain to handle this and I'm not sure it would work irl at all. It's easy to say draw us a world map but there's no generate worldmap button, it'd take a decent amount of time and effort on my part unless I wanted to halfass it in ms paint.

[Cloneysocks]

I've got a scanner at home - I'm willing to try out cartography for the group, to give us a visual aid in all this.

Also, how long ago was the Impact? I'm devising Reisa's backstory and hometown, and it'd be helpful to know, because I'm thinking that the area became unsafe after the Impact, so I need to figure out how long she lived there. I'm hoping it's a rather recent event.

[Jenius]

I've got a scanner at home - I'm willing to try out cartography for the group, to give us a visual aid in all this.

Also, how long ago was the Impact? I'm devising Reisa's backstory and hometown, and it'd be helpful to know, because I'm thinking that the area became unsafe after the Impact, so I need to figure out how long she lived there. I'm hoping it's a rather recent event.

I'm thinking it happens around 1.5k years ago, so no, not recently. I could perhaps reduce it to the hundreds but keep in mind civilization basically had to be rebuilt from close to scratch after it. It would take a while. So there's pretty much no way it would have happened within anyone's lifespan, or even shortly before anyone's lifespan.

And basically I'm DM smashing that there will be no world map, unless I feel like making one at some point in the future, but basically, no. You won't really need one either, so don't worry about it. It's going to be fairly linear because you have no idea how much work would go into making a branched campaign.

[Cloneysocks]

Oh. My background totally doesn't work then. Just add a lot more years to the time my people wandered through the desert, I guess? :V

Alternately the thing that I said happened with the Impact could have happened later, spontaneously.

[Jenius]

Well I mean it's theoretically possible your people were nomads for a couple hundred years or something, but pretty much the most recent I could say impact happened would probably be 250-500 years ago.

If you want to just say it happened later spontaneously I could totally work that in. It'd actually fit in quite well for reason you'll see when I send your letter, so I'd strongly recommend keeping your backstory the way it is.

[Van]

I am still alive, just busy for the early evening because I'm going out with my parents.

[Jenius]

I've sent clone his letter, anybody else who wants a letter get your backstory to me by tomorrow morning (preferably this evening) or simply post here that you are abstaining from this feature. The game will not start until I hear one way or the other from Van and Cara.

[Jenius]

I have sent Cara her letter. Also I stated this in my pm's to you guys but I'll repost it here.

You will be starting with 10 gold, your adventurer's pack, and the gear on your back. Do not worry about potions and such as you will be given some as part of the story.

Also, please post your character sheet asap in the main thread (the one with the background post in it). Preferably spoilered, but that was kind of obvious.

Or in other words, I'd like the three character sheets to be in that thread before I make my post there (for the sake of organization).

[Jenius]

So for your intro into the town, aside from some light exposition, there's not much I designed for here. You can look around town, maybe make a few skill checks if you want to know some history/religion/perception/whatever. Or you can just head to the tavern, chat with each other and the bartender/made and call it a night. The story itself won't really progress until the next day, but there are a few tidbits you can learn/see if you make the right rolls.

[Cloneysocks]

Is there a preferred format for rolling?

[Cara]

I'm giving someone else the first move.

[Jenius]

As far as rolling goes, use this http://invisiblecastle.com/.
Any roll not done using the same name won't be counted (because I can check your rolling history to see whether or not you rolled several times and then just used the highest number).

For checks like religion/history/perception, you can post/pm/aim me that you're doing it, and I'll pm you the result. I may make a separate thread for people to post rolls like that in if I feel it might make it easier for people to see what their teamates are attempting to do.

For combat, roll tohit and damage at same time as well as rping your attack, put the numbers at the bottom of your post in ooc (possibly spoilers), I will then rp whether or not the monster is wounded.

Edit: Example
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/2062862/
http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/search/428779

See that you can see my past rolls. I believe if you make an account you can put notes, but I won't probably be that naziish.

Edit 2: If you're doing checks and having me roll for you tell me your mods please.

[Cloneysocks]

I may make a separate thread for people to post rolls like that in if I feel it might make it easier for people to see what their teamates are attempting to do.

This seems like a good plan - I'd rather not simply pm my actions to you - better for our cohesion as a group if we post our actions, and if anything is private, it is simply their results.

[Jenius]

Keep in mind it's night time, so aside from any general checks you want to make, there's not really much to do in town. The only places open are taverns or higher class inns.

[Van]

Another note: I'd be more up for RP, but I'm really tired and going to bed now. Seeya guys tomorrow.

[Jenius]

Also RP thread is for RP, please refrain from posting stuff like "God damnit" and if you could, take the time to rp your actions even if they're relatively minor. I'll just assume Van's char went to the tavern and went to bed, and the other two are still out and about for now.

[Jenius]

The DC for this check was kinda set ridiculously high at 20, but in my defense it was nighttime and the figure was in the alleyway.

[Jenius]

The guy was a nice, somewhat chatty, aging man. You could have probably rolled a 1 with a basic charisma or diplomacy or something check on him, but intimidate autofails.

As an aside, to keep things moving you two should probably just take your keys and go to bed. Because he's less than cooperative now, you prolly won't get any info out of him Cara, so we might as well go to day 2. I'm personally going to bed now so I'll see you guys in the morning.

[Jenius]

Note that there's pretty much nothing to do here, so as soon as a couple of you post that you're simply going to go meet Tyrias, the game will progress.

[Jenius]

I was planning on breaking this into multiple posts with chance for player input in between, but with how infrequently people post I figured I should just wall of text you guys and let you move on. It will flow better in real life because people can more or less interrupt me whenever I pause. Note that the first combat encounter is coming soon, so we may have to work something out for sunday evening to have you all on at once.

[Cara]

Wait

Four orbs

One for each element?

I expect plot twists.

[Jenius]

The overall plot is kinda laughably generic, but I do try to plan to add a bit of flavor to the characters and how the story progresses. But basically yeah, think of it as a jrpg.

Edit: Though I didn't directly rip this off of anything that I know of, if I did it wasn't unintentional. It's just basically very similar to most quest starters for go to save the world.

[Cara]

The four orbs, one of each element, comes from a game called "Final Fantasy."

[Jenius]

Lolol, I never played any of those. I thought I was more closely barning Zelda than anything. Though to think of it, I think Golden Sun also had four orbs, one for each element.

Well I never said I was innovative :V.

Also yes the most recent post does mean you may add 3 potions and 40 gold to your inventory, please edit your initial post to note this.

[Van]

The four orbs, one of each element, comes from a game called "Final Fantasy."

Hell, the 4 elements thing is in 90% of all fantasy

[Cara]

Hell, the 4 elements thing is in 90% of all fantasy

But we're collecting the orbs of these elements from temples.

[Van]

But we're collecting the orbs of these elements from temples.

Oh, I know that. If this was a 4 person campaign, it would pretty much exactly be the plot to FFI :V

[Jenius]

I haven't played that game I promise. Personally I think it doesn't matter that much, It's a generic setting and will probably follow a somewhat predictable path but I hope the journey along it will be interesting at least. There's so many things to account for with DMing that it's unrealistic to expect me to provide a good fantasy novel in addition to everything else.

[Jenius]

Also note that I'm probably going to manually wrap things up before I go to bed tonight. So if anyone wants to ask anymore questions, they should probably do it now, as when I hit the hay, I'll probably just say that Tyrias ushers you out of his office for miscellaneous reasons and you guys head out.

[Jenius]

Tomorrow I will teleport you out of the town and you'll be on your journey towards Iselia, there will be an encounter on the way there so be active or this game will have an untimely death.

Last chance for parting questions/thoughts/whatever with Tyrias.

[Jenius]

I figured I should at least let you guys determine whether you want to pay for transportation, rent horses, or buy something else on your way out.

[Jenius]

If cara is going to be the only notably active person this probably isn't going to work :V.

[Cara]

Writing paper is slacking time!

[Jenius]

Okay due to this and that, people got on kinda late and I'm going to be kinda busy this evening due to guests.

Between Clone and Kara we've agreed more or less on 9pm eastern on Tuesday to start the encounter, I then expect people to be active. If we could get 9pm eastern on wed/thurs/friday too then that would be ideal as next Saturday is when my group starts so I'd like to get through the first temple by then. Any objections?

[Cara]

This thursday would be a bit weird, I may be gone all weekend.

[Van]

Uhmm...

I'm actually going to Memphis on Wednesday...sorrrrryyy...

[Cara]

WILL YOU HAVE AIM IN MEMPHIS?

[Cloneysocks]

True, all we ultimately need to play are AIM and a character sheet.

[Van]

It's not that I won't have internet, but I'm kinda spending all the time with my parents and won't know my schedule.

All else fails, I can txt Jenius :V

[Cara]

True, all we ultimately need to play are AIM and a character sheet.

The PHB helps, but isn't needed.

[Jenius]

Well basically if we fall behind schedule the game dies so if you guys want to call it let me know now.

[Cara]

Or we can replace him with Shady.

[Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician]

Or we can replace him with Shady.
http://www.spurgeonworld.com/blog/images/groucho.jpg

[Jenius]

If you guys want as a last resort to keep the campaign going, if someone is not on, I can play their character for them.

Edit: Also I need a marching order, the path is 5 grids wide so you can either ms paint it or say something like

XXCXX
XVXSX

Where C = cara, V = van, and S = cloney. This is also the marching order I'd suggest, but whatever really.

[Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician]

If you guys want as a last resort to keep the campaign going, if someone is not on, I can play their character for them.
I mean, I could take over his character/make a new one really quickly, if he was actually going to drop out...

[Jenius]

Well considering Van is the one who convinced me to play, I'm going to assume it's simply really unfortunate timing and that after his parents stop fawning over his first return from college he'll actually be on, so it'd be only a temp solution.

If you want to play his character temporarily, that'd be fine too. Just as long as he okays it for either of us.

[Van]

Well considering Van is the one who convinced me to play, I'm going to assume it's simply really unfortunate timing and that after his parents stop fawning over his first return from college he'll actually be on, so it'd be only a temp solution.

If you want to play his character temporarily, that'd be fine too. Just as long as he okays it for either of us.

I mean, yeah. It's 2-3 days is all. At the most, I'd miss the first shrine.

Thing is, I can't sit in front of my laptop for a half-hour to do an encounter while on vacation. I can do AIM on my phone, I believe, which should be enough just to get through encounters. I'm still fairly capable of playing, just not role playing :V

[Jenius]

Aim-only would be difficult as I plan on using a map.

[Cloneysocks]

a1, a2, et cetera; rough terrain in a square from b2-d4, et c. Textually representing space isn't that hard.

For our marching order, can I go in middle?

[Jenius]

I was kind of assuming you'd be walking in a horizontal line and when danger appeared the tank would step forward, it doesn't make a lot of sense that you'd be walking single file on such a large rode. So no you can't go middle, but you may shift on your turn if you'd like :V.

[Cloneysocks]

If we're walking a breast, I'll be wherever.

http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif

[Juliette]

--

[Jenius]

If we're walking a breast, I'll be wherever.

http://l.yimg.com/g/images/spaceball.gif
Img doesn't work but basically it seemed like a fair set up. You're prolly going to get charged on the brute's turn but I wouldn't worry about dying. This is the setup I initially had when testing it anyways.

[Jenius]

Couple of things, this encounter is designed to test the party strength, so it's actually kind of hard. However, I'll let you guys know (and I'll let my irl players know) that this is the only encounter for the day, so feel free to expend action points and dailys. This encounter should help let you know how strong you are when you're running on maximum and where your weaknesses are.

I beat this encounter twice with a party makeup of Cleric, Fighter, Wizard, and all of them were stolen as template builds off wotc's site, so they weren't really built well.

[Van]

alright, so i'm going before cara now?

gimmie a minute to think about how I'm going to stay alive :V

[Jenius]

I'd recommend you pop your daily and then second wind. You could action point a sacred flame in there too to give someone some temp hitpoints if you want.

[Van]

I'm leaving for Memphis tomorrow evening, where internet availability will be questionable. Is it possible to finish up this encounter by tonight?

[Jenius]

We were scheduled to finish it tonight but clone is no where to be found.

[Jenius]

Sorry for rushing that on aim. If we get started at a reasonable hour then we'll kind of have time to play by post our way through combat with the aid of aim, it shouldn't take more than 1-2 hours to get through an encounter of that sized, maybe less than an hour if people moved quickly.

I just wanted to get this one done with faster because we're falling behind schedule.

[Jenius]

As a side note, I may be stealing one or more of your potions soon, on hindsight, having 3-4 going into the shrine will be kind of excessive, either I make the encounters too hard such that you're forced to guzzle through them, or you never really feel threatened with a large safety net of 30-40 hp just waiting for your minor action. We'll see.

[Cara]

Knowing how I play games, I'll have those potions until level 30.

[Jenius]

While I don't have my phb on me at the moment, even the cheapest level 1 magic item is 360gp last I checked Clone. Basically towns will sell anything you want to buy if you have the currency, but I'm not going to randomly let you buy something for 1/10th it's value. Other than the restriction of being able to pay for it, you can assume every town's market will have every item possible in any of the books. Though I might change that a bit late game if we ever get to buying stuff like masterwork godplate.

You're not going to have magical items until after the water shrine, I may give people stuff before the boss fight though, depending on my mood. It's my opinion that too many magical items is bad for a game.

[Jenius]

Juts doublechecking here that you guys are probably ready to head out, aye or nay?

As far as upcoming combat is concerned, there's a grand total of three encounters that I'd like us to get through before Saturday, but if we only get through 2 more that might be fine. We'll try to keep play by post rolling quickly and if people are around 9pm eastern is a good time for me. If we are in the middle of combat and people are no where to be found, I may play a person at the discretion of the schedule, so do try to be on.

[Jenius]

Between Clone and Kara we've agreed more or less on 9pm eastern on Tuesday to start the encounter, I then expect people to be active. If we could get 9pm eastern on wed/thurs/friday too then that would be ideal as next Saturday is when my group starts so I'd like to get through the first temple by then. Any objections?
Also because clone seemed to have doubted me yesterday.

[Cara]

I'm ready to head out. I couldn't find any rules on throwing axes, so no range for me.

What did we agree was the damage mod on my daily again? +8?

[Jenius]

You have a str mod of +2, you have a feat mod of +2 (dwarven wep training), and your con mod is +4. Therefor any attack that also uses your modifier (of which you have a couple) has a +8 on damage.

Your +to hit is unfortunately only +2 from str and +2 from proficiency (so +4 total). Basically I heavily recommend you take weapon expertise next level cause you're probably going to be disappointed at how much you whiff in the upcoming temple :V. I think on the bossfight your chance to hit is going to be something like 30%.

[Cara]

Yeah, I also plan on raising STR and Con every level and not so much Wis.

[Van]

Jenius, feel free to play my character for the next few encounters. I'm heading out for Memphis tonight and I don't think I'll be back home until Saturday or so. My parents will be with me and wouldn't exactly approve of me going on vacation and ignoring everyone to spend time on the computer, so don't expect me to be on.

[Jenius]

Yeah, don't worry about it.

[Jenius]

So the point of this temple is to be a battle of attrition of sorts. I played out your first encounter for you to gauge the difficulty, it took me less than 5-10 minutes and it cost you all about 1-3 surges, there are a total of three (or four depending on how you count) encounters in this dungeon (including the bossfight), so be weary about spending too many surges, because there's no extended rests in a dungeon. So depending on how badly you play, the bossfight may end up being a real bitch.

But it should be doable.

[Van]

HAY GUYZ LET THE STRIKER TAKE POINT INTO THE NEXT ROOM NOTHING BAD CAN HAPPEN FROM THIS

u r baed @ dnd

[Jenius]

Well Cara was given time to post, it's not really clone's fault.

[Van]

FYI, I'm back from Memphis. Let's get going on this shrine already; I'm itching for some magical loot.

[Jenius]

My apologies for having a job and having to invest significantly more time in this than you do so you're able to play, I'll get on that right away.

[Van]

My apologies for having a job and having to invest significantly more time in this than you do so you're able to play, I'll get on that right away.

Ya know I was more referring to Cara and Clone, but go ahead and get all offended for no reason. :V

[Jenius]

So I'm going to be without internet while I'm not at work for abount a week (lol verizon is terrible but they have a monopoly in this area), so that may considerably slow down the game unless people post between 12-8 eastern time.

However, considering none of you have posted for several days, I'm just considering calling this yet another failed attempt.

Well you guys helped me get some dialogue and balance the first encounter properly, so it wasn't really a bust per se.

[Van]

Sorry about that. I haven't been paying enough attention to TS because I'm getting SO CLOSE to 80 :V.

I'm still up for playing though. I'll try to pay more attention.