Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Other TTRPGs

[The Cat]

 

[Totenkindly]

It sounds like so much fun are y'all playing as mortals?

We have two Changelings, a Werewolf, a Mage, and I'm playing a Deviant (the occult cyborg flavor).

We've had alliances and/or conflicts with vampires, Hunters, Demons, Geists, and other Fey as well. Might have been a Mummy in there too, he was nasty.

 

[Totenkindly]

Rofl no one is buying it after their recent crit fail Deception roll....

 

[Totenkindly]

Looks like shithead behavior by large fantasy publishers is not confined to Hasbro.

NO WAY THIS IS HAPPENING.

Blizzard cuts ties with Netease, to look for a new Chinese partner. Maybe Tencent? NO.

BECAUSE World of Warcraft is shutting down, Tencent uses the time to announces a new WOW CLONE. Now it makes sense, why Blizzard scrambled back to Netease LAST WEEK.

Blizz broke off with net ease, jettisoning the Chinese player base as of next week from wow. Communications were not pleasant, and it scanned as netease feeling screwed while blizz tried to smooth it over.

Blizz this week kinda smeared Netease again over a last minute negotiation they started, that netease now says was sleazy / only of benefit to blizz. The above shows maybe netease has a point about blizz motivation.

 

[Totenkindly]

So in our Pathfinder campaign: The reason we had gone off on this tangent plotline in late Summer was to build up our resources and levels so that we could take on this really nasty Tar Dragon protecting the city of Tsar.

Not only have we leveled once or twice since then, but as a reward for saving the captured wizard the prior week, she turned out to be a crafter and offered to work with the local smith to make us each one magic item at cost. We each had earned about 25K gold to spend, which means getting an at-cost item is like having 50K to spend.

It wasn't a hard choice for my paladin: To fight this tar dragon (and in general one thing I am trying to shore up again), I got a Freedom of Movement ring, as I was only wearing one ring at the time anyway, and it normally would cost around 40K but now was only 20K. So even if that dragon breathes on me, I'm not going to be stuck in the muck. If I have mobility, then it's now a fair fight. I guess there were a few other things I could have gotten (like a final weapon trait upgrade or something), but hey life is full of tough choices.

The NPC cleric I am overseeing chose to upgrade his Wisdom +2 headband to Wisdom +6 -- so he gets three extra spells including an extra level 6 spell. Big quality of life thing there. He is a fire/law cleric. he's pretty blastery for being a cleric, but clerics just aren't really built to be blasters; almost any blastery spell he has is fire, so if you're fighting fire-resistant critters or things with Evasion, it's not very useful. So I have to reexamine his utility spells again and also see mainly if any further destructive spells can come via a wand or item.

 

[Totenkindly]

 

[Coriolis]

We may finally be getting our D&D group back together after it was disrupted by the departure of some members, and then COVID-19. I will need to finish making up my character. May be the first non-mage one I have played in a real campaign.

Then there is all the brouhaha over the new restrictive, almost stifiling, dare I say predatory, licensing Wizards of the Coast are trying to impose on the D&D community. The Hasbro takeover was not a positive development. Moneygrubbers with little regard for how this sort of RPG works.

 

[Totenkindly]

We may finally be getting our D&D group back together after it was disrupted by the departure of some members, and then COVID-19. I will need to finish making up my character. May be the first non-mage one I have played in a real campaign.

Any idea what class/spec you are considering this time?

Then there is all the brouhaha over the new restrictive, almost stifiling, dare I say predatory, licensing Wizards of the Coast are trying to impose on the D&D community. The Hasbro takeover was not a positive development. Moneygrubbers with little regard for how this sort of RPG works.

Yeah, it really hurt them. They had such a market share to start with, but this completely backfired and burned literally the positive goodwill the community had -- giving Paizo and other companies an opening to set up their own open license and driving people to consider other games. [I actually broke down and bought a copy of Pathfinder 2e rulebook, to support Paizo and consider maybe moving to that system.]

Hasbro actually picked up WOTC a LOOOOONG time ago. However, I felt like they let WOTC do their thing and only recently got aggressive about REALLY trying to monetize it due to Critical Role and other groups really publicizing the game and growing it and how D&D has now grown over the last ten years or so. They are looking at it as a viable revenue stream.

From how everything got unfolded, I get the idea that the actual gamer people working at WOTC totally disagreed with Hasbro's move and were very disheartened. So there was a big internal fight and the publicity was so bad that the gamer group won and then they rolled back all these changes -- it looked like the gamer crowd had taken over the PR line trying to salvage goodwill. I believe the folks announcing that were likely sincere and really upset with what Hasbro did. But Hasbro doesn't get it, and no one now trusts the company after what they pulled regardless. I mean, if you were a 3rd party company, would you trust them now enough to make your revenue source dependent on their goodwill? And the player base was really put off too.

 

[Totenkindly]

 

[Totenkindly]

[Pathfinder 1e game]

So we killed the tar dragon tonight outside Tsar tonight. We've been discussing ways to kill it for some months, preparing our gears and spells, leveling up, and finally Suun was feeling the voices in her head getting more urgent about needing to move on the dragon, so she encouraged the others that now is the time, and we could triumph over the beast.

We headed up to the area of the dragon's patrol and we actually had a written long checklist of six rounds of casting spells, etc., what everyone was doing, once we saw the dragon approaching. We were disguised as tasty critters for the dragon to munch on, to draw it in (with our illusionist to thank for that). We saw the dragon plunge into a distant tar pit and decided it was trying to sneak up on us by emerging from a near one, so we approached the nearest tar pit, readied actions, and kept scanning the area.

Finally the monster erupted from the tar into the air to come for us, and we launched our plan. Suun had readied her Aura of Justice, which bequeaths the ability to Smite Evil on everyone around her, and then Miette the gnome illusionist dimensioned five of us until the monster's back, with its tar anchoring us there. The dragon meanwhile breathed tar on three people. The rogue NPC rolled a 1 on his save and was engulfed, the cleric had Freedom of Movement, and the necromancer was caught in the tar. Meanwhile everyone had Resist Acid 30 cast in them before the fight so no one took damage from that, they were just stuck in hot tar.

Then everyone in our group went. The spellcasters tried to get spells off but the dragon's spell resistance was so high they had trouble getting through it. Still, all the physical attackers had smites from Suun's cast and with her stats -- so it was like an army of mini-paladins attacking. The fighter shot a dragon bane bow and nailed the dragon. A fighter on the back plunged his sword in the dragon, although his blade then stuck. The monk critted and also hit the dragon, doing a ton of damage. The investigator thrust her rapier of wounding into the dragon's back and could withdraw it as it was a piercing weapon. Every time the dragon took damage, the fire shield it had on itself erupted, burning the attacker, so we were all eating fire damage. Still, all the smiting into the dragon did a shit-ton of damage and it was heavily wounded just in one round as it prepared to swoop down to crush the people on the ground.

Finally Suun reared back and brought her flaming falchion filled with the divine bond (flaming holy axiomatic) spirt into the monster's back with a huge blow, hacking the dragon open and wrenching a huge bellow and glut of acid from its mouth. Since she also had freedom of movement, her blade did not stick. As the monster tried to twist around, she whirled back and brought the blade down heavily in the same spot again, cutting through the monster's spine as it shrieked. While it was literally dead and dropping towards the tar pit, she brought the blade down a final time, wild light in her eyes, gashing its corpse wide open in a final blow -- one devastating blow for each of the divine voices in her head, and each time she struck the monster, flames erupted across her skin from the monster's defenses, burning her, but she didn't care.

"Grab my hands!!!" shouted Miette, touching everyone on the dragon's back, and dimension dooring people back to the shore as we watched it crash into the tar with the one fighter's magic sword still stuck in its back. It quickly sank under the surface, taking the sword with it. But it was dead. The wastelands were now free, and the gates of Tsar lay open before us.

We so over-prepared for this fight, we had six rounds of buffs, smite evil on everyone, half the group had Freedom of Movement, and the two paladins both had Aura of Courage up to prevent the pervasive fear. it was pretty crazy. Normally we would not be that prepared for a fight, and with all the smites and paladin-level damage and bypassing DR, we put out over 400 hps of damage in that round. We just knew we had to kill that thing super-fast or it in turn would kill at least half the group. I can't believe the spells kept bouncing off it.

I have the feeling that the inside of Tsar though is going to be far worse.

 

[Totenkindly]

Now things get worrisome. Tsar is the domain of Orcus and I have a feeling we will be entering some kind of quasi-abyss shit coming up. Real serious interactions with undead and demons, so we're gonna be risking ability/level/energy drain and other crazy shit.

Slumbering Tsar is supposedly for levels 7-20. We might be a little higher than expected for this entry point. We did a different campaign first (THe Lost City of Barakus) from level 1-7, the did the opening chapter of Tsar (the Camp and Wastelands area) + The Grey Citadel module in Dun Eamon and some of the arcs in Bard's Gate. So we are partway through Level 12 currently; I think the dragon was doable as level 10-11. Is this the only time I've started at level 1 and worked my way up to a high-level campaign? Usually we start around level 3-5 to avoid stupid boring death initial levels.

 

[Totenkindly]

Was screwing around with Midjourney over the weekend. It's not as easy to use as one might expect, and there's so much randomness that a non-artist is rather stuck with the output. I see it as most useful as a tool to generate ideas, or as something for a total non-artist to get art for themselves for personal gaming characters and stuff where they wouldn't be paying for art and won't be promoting art. I do think it gets more complicated in scenarios where you are doing random clip art for newsletters and projects, where the content doesn't matter as much as the theme of the content -- in that kind of context that could be commercial and/or infringe on things that used to pay an artist a living, it's a conflict.

Anyway, screwing around, this was my pally Suun du Cieldore (Assimar paladin, Pathfinder 1e)... I had to screw around in PIXLR to try to fix some stuff and I'm not a bad photoshop artist, but struggled with that bit myself.

writing prompt -- note the prompt went through various iterations and I probably generated about 80 pictures (in groups of 4) before getting something I actually was interested in:

"fantasy style, mid-20's woman, dark blonde hair, pointed long elf ears, large blue eyes, iridescent skin, with an otherworldly holy look in her eyes, French origin, she reminds one of joan of arc, she is wearing dented ornate silver armor, with bright motes of sunlight dancing around her face, she looks weary and yet she is also a brave vision of faith, hope, and determination in her fight to destroy evil --c 23"

was the original prompt i used, then included the pic + more prompt "radiant purple eyes, whiter skin" ... which gave me modifications I liked except then stuck purple on her face on various pieces of output which is hard to remove, and trying to modify the prompt or run new pictures without it just gave me stuff further from what I wanted. There's a real large range discrepancy on what you can get from a singular prompt, it's hard to control output. The "c" code, you can provide a variance indicator to get more variance among the four panels out of your output result.

She has a high Charisma (24-26) so had to look appealing, but I played around to find something a little different than the junk I was getting in the first iterations where it was cookie cutter beauty. If I was better in Pixlr, I'd probably alter her a bit more with her nose and such to be more unique, but I liked her eyes here, they were more mesmerizing and not just pretty.

Her sidekick fire / war cleric Aleksion was a really easy prompt (" **male sorcerer with long hair who can cast fire, shouting, diving forward his hands ablaze, angry, raging defiance against his enemies --no beard") almost immediate output, i had Cycle #1 output that I could just choose one panel and do a variance on:

Side note: Midjourney has trouble with hands. Not sure how many fingers your person will end up having. Sometimes they've had three arms as well.

 

[Totenkindly]

Went back and played around with a lot of similar files, then tweaked around in PIXLR to get something for Suun and this is probably in better shape.

I also finally got something workable for Dr. Clarisse Sangfroide, my Chronicles of Darkness character (Deviant book -- basically an occult cyborg). This is when she's modded to look human, but she basically has a porcelain mask melded into half of her face plus her arm is made of the same material and is superstrong and has arcane properties. I tweaked her face in PIXLR to give her the appropriate Resting Bitch Face that sums up her personality. She actually looks a bit older / should have some lines on her face now, in her mid-30's (this is probably more representative of her mid-20's).

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

So I'm kind of done with D&D because I felt like only one or two members actually wanted to play D and D.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Actually, I think I might continue. Not sure what's up with one person I'm playing with, but whatever.

 

[The Cat]

Actually, I think I might continue. Not sure what's up with one person I'm playing with, but whatever.

Their family was slaughtered by gnolls. They only managed to survive by rolling a nat 20 on their stealth check. Tragic.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Their family was slaughtered by gnolls. They only managed to survive by rolling a nat 20 on their stealth check. Tragic.

She keeps charging on and attacking random shit with no strategy (which usually results in me taking a lot of damage, and then wants the rest of the team to defend her mentor who is deep into necromancy. I'm like "I don't know why you like this guy so much, He kinda seems like a piece of shit."

 

[The Cat]

She keeps charging on and attacking random shit with no strategy, and then wants the rest of the team to defend her mentor who is deep into necromancy. I'm like "I don't know why you like this guy so much, He kinda seems like a piece of shit."

Gnoll related trauma. You hate to see it happen, but an orphan taken in by a mage who can bring people back from the dead...you can understand how that might appeal to a girl can you not? And Shit makes the grass grow. Circle of life Bird Simba, Circle of life. Praise The Traveler! Can I get a hells yeah brothers and sisters? So tell me about your D&D character Jules, do you play an Aarokokra? ^_^

 

[Totenkindly]

She keeps charging on and attacking random shit with no strategy, and then wants the rest of the team to defend her mentor who is deep into necromancy. I'm like "I don't know why you like this guy so much, He kinda seems like a piece of shit."

 

[The Cat]

View attachment 28662

I want to play D&D with that person.