Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Chronicles of Darkness, Other TTRPGs

[Passacaglia]

I just thought the whole wizard-stomping thing was funny, though. Everyone knew he was a glass cannon and couldn't be allowed to get any kind of spell off.

Yup, that's D&D for ya.* I love how casters become virtually godlike, and I'm only being half sarcastic here. I say definitely go for lichdom, btw. It's the chance of a lifetime, especially with that sweet Cha=+hp!

*Except for 4e; curb-stomping happens a bit differently in 4e.

 

[Totenkindly]

I love how casters become virtually godlike, and I'm only being half sarcastic here. I say definitely go for lichdom, btw. It's the chance of a lifetime, especially with that sweet Cha=hp!

Yeah, I'm going for it. [And that CHA = hp is cray!]

My disguise will be raised btw, so I'll have close to a +20 (can I hide that I'm not a lich?), and I have a psionic power (aura alteration) and could otherwise get a Ring of Mind Shielding to keep from being viewed as evil.

Also, the GM mentioned SUmiko's ridiculous ability to escape: Because she's a cryptic (aka psionic rogue) and gets auto-stealth bonuses, because she got blessed by the Goddess of Monsters (getting a +8 on stealth + Hide in Plain Sight), because she has a psionic power to add to her stealth (another +8), and by becoming a lich (another +10?), plus, her normal ranks in Stealth, she will have a ridiculous +42 skill rating in Stealth. IOW, without even rolling a d20 to add, she already won't be seen by almost anyone... and she can hide in plain sight as an action.

I'm also picking up Fold Space, which gives her a 50' teleport, and she has Escape the Bonds power which allows her to ignore any movement-hindering spell + any grapple condition.

So yeah, keeping the soulstone inside makes sense for her, she'll just vanish. Poof. She's like a Force ninja at least in terms of slipping away. Aside from being a thrallherd or finding/opening traps or wielding soulstones, it's what she does best.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I have a psionic power (aura alteration) and could otherwise get a Ring of Mind Shielding to keep from being viewed as evil.

Is it possible to learn this power?

 

[Totenkindly]

Is it possible to learn this power?

bwa ha ha -- you mean for your character or for you personally?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

bwa ha ha -- you mean for your character or for you personally?

Uuuuuuh..... for my character.

 

[Totenkindly]

Uuuuuuh..... for my character.

It's a level 6 psionic power.
But it's probably duplicated by arcane and divine spells in some way.

Aura Alteration

Discipline telepathy [mind-affecting]
Level cryptic 6, psion/wilder 6

MANIFESTING
Display Material
Manifesting Time 1 standard action

EFFECT
Range Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./ level)
Target One willing creature
Duration 10 min./level or instantaneous; see text
Power Points 11


DESCRIPTION
You can use this power in one of two ways: to disguise the subject’s aura (alignment) and level, or to remove a compulsion or charm effect from the subject.

Disguise: If you use this power to disguise the subject’s alignment and level, the power has a duration of 10 minutes per level. You can change the subject’s alignment by only one step. You can adjust the subject’s apparent level up or down by a number equal to one-half your own level (rounded down) or less.

Remove Compulsion: If you use this power to attempt to cleanse the subject’s aura of a baleful or controlling effect, the duration is instantaneous. This power can remove the compulsion of a curse or a geas/quest effect. It can also negate any charm and compulsion powers or spells of 6th level or lower, such as crisis of breath or death urge. When aura alteration is manifested for this purpose, the subject gains another saving throw to remove the compulsion afflicting it against the original save DC, but with a +2 bonus.

Augment: You can augment this power in one of the following ways:
1.For every additional power point you spend, the duration of the disguise aura increases by 10 minutes.
2.If you spend 2 additional power points, the subject’s alignment shifts an additional step; if you spend 4 additional power points, the subject’s alignment changes to its opposite.
3.For every 3 additional power points you spend, the bonus against the original save is increased by 1.

Psionics - Pathfinder_OGC

 

[Passacaglia]

I would have been one of those types of people who would have loved playing D&D but sadly everyone I knew growing up was very not interested in that sort of thing. Or just hated me

It's never too late to start! There are forums dedicated to D&D and similar games, including sites like Pen and Paper Games which include built-in group-finder functions. There are also sites that host online tabletop (D&D) gaming, like Roll20, which Jennifer uses.

If D&D has taught me anything, it's that if you wait until you run into a group of people who happens to like a particular hobby, you'll probably be waiting a long looong time. By way of my own anecdote, I knew virtually nobody growing up who was interested in D&D. The friend who taught me the game is one of those people who find a new hobby, get rapidly obsessed with it, and then move on to a new pastime a month later. But after 20 years, I still love table top gaming even though I hardly ever have a group to actually play with. Right now I don't even have time to get involved in a Roll20 group...but I still find time to brainstorm game ideas!

*goes back to re-imagining the Great Wheel*

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It's a level 6 psionic power.
But it's probably duplicated by arcane and divine spells in some way.

Aura Alteration

Discipline telepathy [mind-affecting]
Level cryptic 6, psion/wilder 6

MANIFESTING
Display Material
Manifesting Time 1 standard action

EFFECT
Range Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./ level)
Target One willing creature
Duration 10 min./level or instantaneous; see text
Power Points 11


DESCRIPTION
You can use this power in one of two ways: to disguise the subject’s aura (alignment) and level, or to remove a compulsion or charm effect from the subject.

Disguise: If you use this power to disguise the subject’s alignment and level, the power has a duration of 10 minutes per level. You can change the subject’s alignment by only one step. You can adjust the subject’s apparent level up or down by a number equal to one-half your own level (rounded down) or less.

Remove Compulsion: If you use this power to attempt to cleanse the subject’s aura of a baleful or controlling effect, the duration is instantaneous. This power can remove the compulsion of a curse or a geas/quest effect. It can also negate any charm and compulsion powers or spells of 6th level or lower, such as crisis of breath or death urge. When aura alteration is manifested for this purpose, the subject gains another saving throw to remove the compulsion afflicting it against the original save DC, but with a +2 bonus.

Augment: You can augment this power in one of the following ways:
1.For every additional power point you spend, the duration of the disguise aura increases by 10 minutes.
2.If you spend 2 additional power points, the subject’s alignment shifts an additional step; if you spend 4 additional power points, the subject’s alignment changes to its opposite.
3.For every 3 additional power points you spend, the bonus against the original save is increased by 1.

Psionics - Pathfinder_OGC

Oooh... I like the part about removing charm effects. That sounds useful for my campaigns.

 

[Totenkindly]

My recommendation if you don't have friends but want to play is that you tap into the gaming networks / local play groups. There are different possibilities for doing this, even if sometimes it can feel hard to find people....

- Meetup.com

- Check Wizards.com, Paizo.com, or other game forum websites (minmaxboards.com, giantitp.com)... depending on the game(s) you're interested in, White Wolf is out there too, etc. Maybe there will be regional / local resources you can tap into.

- Local hobby and game shops. Many stores now will have gaming space for people to run weekly games in, and at the least they might have bulletin boards with lists of GMs and groups looking for additional players.

Once you find some local people, sometimes there's "word of mouth' games going on and they can put you in contact with those groups.

Usually you are just invited to attend a session, see if you fit with the group, and if everyone is happy, they'll invite you to join.

Oooh... I like the part about removing charm effects. That sounds useful for my campaigns.

Yeah, it's kind of a cool power that way -- dual use.

I think a new Psionics Unleashed just came out, Mythic Psionics is supposed to release this month, and isn't there an Ultimate Psionics? (all by Dreamscarred in conjunection with Paizo.) Much of the basic Psionics is free online, d20 system. But I have trouble finding the newest stuff. You can also pick up a data file for free (or at least I could) for Hero Lab.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

My recommendation if you don't have friends but want to play is that you tap into the gaming networks / local play groups. There are different possibilities for doing this, even if sometimes it can feel hard to find people....

- Meetup.com

- Check Wizards.com, Paizo.com, or other game forum websites (minmaxboards.com, giantitp.com)... depending on the game(s) you're interested in, White Wolf is out there too, etc. Maybe there will be regional / local resources you can tap into.

- Local hobby and game shops. Many stores now will have gaming space for people to run weekly games in, and at the least they might have bulletin boards with lists of GMs and groups looking for additional players.

Once you find some local people, sometimes there's "word of mouth' games going on and they can put you in contact with those groups.

Usually you are just invited to attend a session, see if you fit with the group, and if everyone is happy, they'll invite you to join.

This might be worth looking into. I think I figured out what kind of character I would like to play: a cambion. A cambion is the offspring of a human woman and a demon father (this particular group of demons is misunderstood, rather than malevolent). Merlin was a cambion, so he'd be in good company.

 

[Totenkindly]

Worst is when you're part of a gaming group that can be unfocused/ambling in approach.

My one group is only scheduled every other weekend, but we keep missing sessions because almost everyone is a P type and no one uses a calendar. I have to basically play "organizer" and check the "weekend of" so that people remember. How hard is it to even just remember from the last session, where we all say, "Okay, our next play session is <date>" and decide it right then and there? These aren't even college kids or anything, everyone's actually mid-30's or older. Yet we've missed a ton of sessions on an already slow schedule because of people not keeping track of the date two weeks hence.

Yesterday one guy came an hour late after we contacted him, because he "didn't know we were playing."

So we had only about three hours of playtime instead of four, and the group kept screwing off without actually doing anything. On numerous occasions, people would be arguing with each other about irrelevant points. (For example, two months back, some critters got turned to gold and people were trying to smelt things out of them... although it was unfortunate that the effect was only temporary and they turned back to flesh after. Gnoll dip, anyone? Anyway, two of the characters got into a heated debate about how heavy one cubic foot of gold would weigh and whether it was heavier than another element. Not for any game-related purpose, just for argument's sake. Fifteen minutes of this argument, while everyone else was, "Okay, let's move on." And so on, and so forth.)

So we barely play, and then we literally got almost nothing done yesterday because of the off-topic banter that dominated the entire session. (All we accomplished in about three hours: Talking to two different NPCs, one character ate a ton of fruit, and two of us flew 30 miles inland and almost fell to our deaths when the magic stopped working. In three hours. That's it. It was probably 45-60 minutes of activity. And technically it was four hours of playtime since the rest of us were there waiting for the one guy who was an hour late.)

It's almost like you just gotta view it as a "hang out" session rather than a game session. This campaign has been going on since I moved to this state in 2012, it's a published campaign that we're just following, and I didn't even join at the beginning of it. The kind of campaign that if you played weekly and stayed on task you could finish in probably 8-9 months easily.

Oh well, I needed to verbalize that and get it out of my system.

 

[Totenkindly]

Well, we just killed a dragon. The coolest part for me was Sumiko grabbing her thrall and teleporting waaaaaay in the air onto the dragon's back. (He was a big dragon.)

The group emerged from the old-city tunnels back into the current town, in time to see the inhabitants being terrorized by packs of kobolds and a large bad-ass dragon straffing the air with large bursts of cold. The group spent a few rounds buffing, then engaging the kobolds. The kobolds ended up being a bit tougher than they looked, but the group really did not have an issue defeating them, with every member chipping in with their particular skills (Bobby slashing stuff, Logen hacking stuff, Sumiko debuffing stuff, Carnage scaring stuff, Clover casting spells at stuff, Nod punching stuff, etc.)

The group was smart enough to set up Cold Energy protections, so even taking a hit from the dragon's breath and an unexpected Freezing Sphere barely caused damage.

The biggest problem with the dragon was how to get it from Up There to Down Here.

Sumiko grabbed Carnage and using the power of her Wyrmstone teleported both of them high up to the dragon's back. As they appeared, Carnage launched himself growling at the dragon's wing and, despite most of his blows being deflected by the unexpected resilience of the creature's hide, managed to tear a large chunk of the behemoth's flesh, making it lurch in the air [it failed a Fly check]. Sumiko was thrown off its back but safely glided towards the ground. Carnage managed to hang on for another few seconds before losing his grip but on the way down shifted to a protoplasmic shape that cushioned his fall. The dragon continued to drop heavily towards the ground.

Clover cast a spell on Logen so he could charge up through the air to reach the dragon and attack. Schnitzel stood near where Sumiko was landing and begged to be teleported; Sumiko grabbed him and tried, but the Wyrmstone didn't work quite right and they ended up appearing higher in the air near the dragon.

With the dragon low to the ground, the barbarian steeled himself for the dragon's return attack and cold blast... and that's when Bobby sent three poisonous projectiles at the dragon, coated with ichor from a mysterious cache the party found in its early days of traveling. The poison was virulent and happened to hit just the right spots, and the dragon's system wasn't capable of withstanding the sudden unexpected shock and had not spent years building up a secret immunity to that particular poison. [Note: The dragon actually somehow failed its save; and the three doses apparently were worth 24K gold altogether, so we won't be finding any more of THAT stuff. But it was well-used.]

The dragon belched once, groaned, then died, crashing into the ground and leaving the group standing there with "Did we just do that?" looks on their faces. Barely anyone had taken a scratch. Of course, we looked Awesome.

So I just added a new line to Sumiko's title: "Rider of Dragons," to go along with "Destroyer of Cities / Killer of Angels" ... well, maybe "Killer of Angels" isn't good press.

I think I can get away with "Destroyer of Cities" ... "We made our plea to the city masters to help us, to help the entire realm; our cause is just, our request light, our success essential; and they met our need with growing hostility and even assaulted our friends. Now they have paid the price for their hubris. We need you now to aid our cause; will you not offer succor?"

Full title at this point, with everything added: "Her Grand Precipience, Sumiko Psychus [the Unfettered], Master of Stones, Rider of Dragons, Opener of Doors, Slayer of Serpents, Destroyer of Cities, Sailor of Worlds, She Who Walks Among Us Unseen"

I'll keep adding stuff at the end, and just imagine all of her little believers running around in pairs preaching about "Her Grand Precipience" in their established shrine locations in the major cities. It's hilarious... especially because she's just not actually anywhere near that good [she "rode the dragon" for all of, like, two seconds, although it was pretty ballsy to teleport onto its back]. It's all just been fluke stuff, gone to her head. But no one knows that. It's all media spin. I'm also asking for a bard believer who can make up these songs.

---

I found the perfect miniature for Lich Sumiko over the weekend and managed to get the last one that Miniatures Market had in stock (woo hoo). But I might have to ask someone with decent skillz to paint it for me.

Check this out (someone's painted version of the miniature), I'm still laughing:

 

[Totenkindly]

Well, we ended up leveling again after the dragon's death (which was unexpected but largely insane from an XP POV).

Sumiko now has 40 1st level believers, plus smaller numbers up to level 5. "The Eye of Psychus" will be her own little cult army by the time the final battle comes around; and since I recruited the last 20-25 from a city full of psionic catfolk, I have been able to pick what classes of followers I wanted to develop. (For example, I have a fourth level psionic marksman/sniper who I can send on assassination missions.)

I don't abuse the system, I don't take believers into sessions with me as mine detectors or meat shields, instead I just try to send them on special missions / functions to spread the word and accomplish side tasks for our group.

Anyway, the group keeps joking about my "lich boyfriend," not realizing that SUmiko is in her final throes of plotting her rise to Lichdom herself. She's shaping her Greater Soulstone, and Schnitzel -- the ratfolk guy attracted to her -- got the city officials to invest in her personal shrine as a gesture of goodwill for our saving the city from the dragon. Hilarious. This is the shrine that will house the 12-hour ritual of becoming a lich. (Note: Sumiko won't have to kill anyone to finish the ritual, except herself of course. That's a worry... It would suck to get to the end of this, then die during the ritual without coming back. Lol!)

 

[Passacaglia]

Worst is when you're part of a gaming group that can be unfocused/ambling in approach.

My one group is only scheduled every other weekend, but we keep missing sessions because almost everyone is a P type and no one uses a calendar. I have to basically play "organizer" and check the "weekend of" so that people remember. How hard is it to even just remember from the last session, where we all say, "Okay, our next play session is <date>" and decide it right then and there? These aren't even college kids or anything, everyone's actually mid-30's or older. Yet we've missed a ton of sessions on an already slow schedule because of people not keeping track of the date two weeks hence.

Yesterday one guy came an hour late after we contacted him, because he "didn't know we were playing."

Ugh, this kind of thing drives me crazy. Like, I understand that most people don't love gaming as much as I do, but shit like this makes me wonder if others want to play at all. 'Cause I can't imagine just forgetting plans to do something even moderately fun! On a regular basis, no less! There are calendars, and I'm sure there are calendar apps that remind P-type flakey people of commitments they can't be bothered to remember.

So we had only about three hours of playtime instead of four, and the group kept screwing off without actually doing anything. On numerous occasions, people would be arguing with each other about irrelevant points. (For example, two months back, some critters got turned to gold and people were trying to smelt things out of them... although it was unfortunate that the effect was only temporary and they turned back to flesh after. Gnoll dip, anyone? Anyway, two of the characters got into a heated debate about how heavy one cubic foot of gold would weigh and whether it was heavier than another element. Not for any game-related purpose, just for argument's sake. Fifteen minutes of this argument, while everyone else was, "Okay, let's move on." And so on, and so forth.)

Yup, I've been there, even in the best of groups. I remember one campaign I was DMing in which the party found a bag of holding or something, and two players held a lengthy debate as to whether the item description meant '5 cubic feet' or '5 feet cubed,' and what the difference meant. Or something along those lines. Even after I was like "Whatever guys, the brass monkey fits."

I wonder if some groups would really benefit from having designated socialization space, and designated gaming space. Like, when I was talking to doctors about my insomnia, they all told me "To train yourself to sleep when you go to bed, don't do anything in it except sleep and have sex." Maybe the same concept holds for gaming? "To train your group to game during game time, don't do anything in the game room except game and have sex." Set aside say the first 30 minutes of every game session as 'Kitchen catch-up time.' And then when everyone moves into the game room, that's official game-time, and anyone who wants to have a lengthy off-topic conversation has to move back into the kitchen. Or gets docked XP, or whatever, even though I hate being punitive.

And/or maybe this is the sort of player who is best to screen out during the getting-a-group-together process. I'll probably be asking for advice about gamer-screening soon, btw.

PS: How the heck does a dragon fail a Fort save?! They use the fast save-progression, and they've got an insane Con-progression! Maybe I'm suspicious, but I'd be wondering "Nat 1, or DM fudging...?"

 

[Totenkindly]

well, on this one...

...PS: How the heck does a dragon fail a Fort save?! They use the fast save-progression, and they've got an insane Con-progression! Maybe I'm suspicious, but I'd be wondering "Nat 1, or DM fudging...?"

Seriously, he shot three arrows... and the dragon actually rolled a Nat 1 on the third arrow. The GM usually doesn't fudge rolls, he lets them stand for good or ill. And whatever the poison was, it was especially virulent and had some special nastiness to it. We don't have any more, and the ninja was saving it for many many sessions for something useful.

We were all shocked, we didn't even know the arrows were poisoned. We kind of expected to die, and then it just rolled over and crashed into the ground.

Later the GM said he wasn't expecting us to kill it; we would just fight, and eventually someone would retreat (us or him).

It turns out it wasn't necessarily a great option, as it was a captain of the high guard and the Queen's favored (there's a dimension shift occurring that we're trying to reintegrate the dimensions -- and the dragon city is right over top the tengu city we were in, but we didn't know... and somehow the dragons got caught in a warp and thought the tengu had invaded THEIR city), so they might have actually been willing to talk to us, but if they find out we slew the Queen's favored... that would be very ugly.

So while we killed a dragon, it might bite us in the butt later.

--

I will state that Jeremy does seem to like to toss in really powerful stuff, to see what we do with it -- whether it kills us or kills the other guys. I mean, the ninja found this deadly poison; and Sumiko found both a balor stone and a great wyrm stone. She didn't even know the dragon stone was a great wyrm until very recently, and here she's been carting it around for many sessions not trying to use it. (He says I can try to talk to the dragon, but I'm kind of scared to. There's the possibility it might end up controlling me, versus me him.)

I think he likes to throw in stuff and see what we do with it, and if we don't follow up on something, he doesn't say a word. He'll also put in some really nasty stuff, if we're dumb enough to do it... so with him, we just can't tell whether we're going to gain something good or die horribly. (This past week, there was an almost impossible-to-crack dwarven vault that I knew was probably protected in every way possible; Sumiko considered teleporting in but was hesitant to do so, someone in the group taunted her, and she immediately tried to do it anyway Because Roleplay. She had to make a Will save and got a 33 because she happened to have a bonus on it at the time and simply didn't go anywhere... Through a high spellcraft roll, I found out the DC was 30, if she hadn't had the bonus she would have failed, and if you failed that save, the Vault would teleport you 8 leagues out to the ocean floor into a small metal box surrounded by a sphere of anti-magic. Oh good grief!)

He usually also knows character builds really well and as a player tries weird combinations and also has the highest character mortality rate in our group. it's kind of funny... but it never seems to bother him.

Anyway, yeah, he likes to put a bunch of fun unlabeled toys in the sandbox that might help us as well as kill us, then lets us do what we want and plays it out.

 

[Totenkindly]

Ugh, this kind of thing drives me crazy. Like, I understand that most people don't love gaming as much as I do, but shit like this makes me wonder if others want to play at all. 'Cause I can't imagine just forgetting plans to do something even moderately fun! On a regular basis, no less! There are calendars, and I'm sure there are calendar apps that remind P-type flakey people of commitments they can't be bothered to remember.

Yeah, that guy is a little odd and has been flakey at times. Also:

some months back, he had stated his crossbow fighter didn't like thieves; meanwhile, I play a rogue (although I was careful around him), and the summoner would routinely just take stuff. The guy playing the fighter just seemed to ignore it. One day, the summoner mentioned about POSSIBLY lying in trade negotiations -- it actually was a joke, if you heard it in context -- and out of the blue the fighter just started taking potshots at him (full attack, crossbow specialist)... somehow he missed one of those shots or he would have killed the wizard outright. The next hour was spent on an inter-party combat where we ended up trashing the guy's house where we were staying, the summoner was summoning crap and casting fireballs, and I was sneaking around trying to just slow the fighter guy enough. Finally the fighter apologized and the session ended up being retcon'ed, but pretty much everyone in the group was, "Uh, WTF was THAT about?" No one understood why he just completely went bugnuts on the group.

I guess that player was just having a bad day. Normally you'd just roleplay it, not actually try to kill people in the party.

It's interesting, some people I game with are just "normal" folks, typically in the geeky camp (lots of people who work in tech in their day jobs); others game because they have some issues functioning socially and it provides an even-playing field where they can just be themselves and feel good about their knowledge of the game(s).

Yup, I've been there, even in the best of groups. I remember one campaign I was DMing in which the party found a bag of holding or something, and two players held a lengthy debate as to whether the item description meant '5 cubic feet' or '5 feet cubed,' and what the difference meant. Or something along those lines. Even after I was like "Whatever guys, the brass monkey fits."

O.M.G.

I wonder if some groups would really benefit from having designated socialization space, and designated gaming space. Like, when I was talking to doctors about my insomnia, they all told me "To train yourself to sleep when you go to bed, don't do anything in it except sleep and have sex." Maybe the same concept holds for gaming? "To train your group to game during game time, don't do anything in the game room except game and have sex." Set aside say the first 30 minutes of every game session as 'Kitchen catch-up time.' And then when everyone moves into the game room, that's official game-time, and anyone who wants to have a lengthy off-topic conversation has to move back into the kitchen. Or gets docked XP, or whatever, even though I hate being punitive.

Yeah, I hate doing that too. But when you only play once every two weeks (for that game) at best (and we aren't even playing in May) and have a four-hour session, if you spend half of it talking you never get anywhere. I started with that group in August 2012 or something, and I think I was fourth level, and now I'm ninth. We didn't even get to upgrade gear until level 7. I like the people, but it's a SLOOOOOOOW campaign.

 

[Totenkindly]

Currently developing two Lawful Neutral characters.

One is a Tiefling gunslinger (Tenacity Rue). She's got a tail + a tail feat, so she can thus carry two guns as she has an extra appendage / equivalent of three hands to help her reload. She's kind of scary... and relentless.. and seems to enjoy it.

The other is a dhampir inquisitor (kinslayer) who goes by the name Clarisse Sangfroide. Imagine a pale/grey-skinned thin wiry woman with long pale blonde hair (perhaps back in a tail), wearing green round glasses so that you can never see her eyes, who speaks with a heavy accent and seems to have no compassion in her heart let alone blood in her body.

Overall idea, but (1) the hair is pale and pulled back, (2) there is a stark slash of a mouth, no smile, at least not a pleasant one, and there might even be small fangs, (3) the glasses are wire frames, and (4) the lenses are more like thick pieces of emerald glass [she actually needs them to prevent herself from being blinded in regular daylight, so she wears them everywhere] rather than being reflective.

 

[Passacaglia]

Seriously, he shot three arrows...

Ah, okay, that makes it somewhat less unlikely.

We were all shocked, we didn't even know the arrows were poisoned. We kind of expected to die, and then it just rolled over and crashed into the ground.

I recently saw a comment about poison in a '101 Previous Edition Rules You Would Bring Back for PF' thread, which makes it sound like Jeremy was being old school with this poison. I vaguely remember a 3.5 poison or two with save-or-die effects, but this sort of poison seems to be going out of fashion. (And understandably so.)

Later the GM said he wasn't expecting us to kill it; we would just fight, and eventually someone would retreat (us or him).

Hm, I don't have much experience with this sort of DMing style, and the experience I do have resulted in me rerolling PCs frequently. Maybe it's my J function, but I find it hard to imagine how this style doesn't eventually but inevitably result in TPKs. Like, how does a party retreat from something like a dragon? Does Jeremy consider keeping a teleport on-tap for emergencies is an essential function of high level casters? Or maybe the dragon would have for some reason lost interest in the party, had you retreated for a round or two...

 

[Totenkindly]

Hm, I don't have much experience with this sort of DMing style, and the experience I do have resulted in me rerolling PCs frequently. Maybe it's my J function, but I find it hard to imagine how this style doesn't eventually but inevitably result in TPKs. Like, how does a party retreat from something like a dragon? Does Jeremy consider keeping a teleport on-tap for emergencies is an essential function of high level casters? Or maybe the dragon would have for some reason lost interest in the party, had you retreated for a round or two...

I think he figured we'd retreat if things got bad.
Or maybe he figured we wouldn't be stupid enough to attack it.

We've got some potent powers, but I think the barbarian was actually in the worst shape despite being Superstition since he's still just a toe-to-toe fighter and can be killed, and a dragon does a lot of damage in one round.

Sumiko has Greater Teleport (she has two soulstones with shadow demons in them, that she has immaculate control over), her thrall can go ectoplasmic, we have a Vitalist who can transfer damage of people in the collective (which helps a bit), a ninja who can Vanish, and so on. So most of us had an escape route in mind.

It's possible also whatever dimension blip happened might have blipped again. We're not really sure why the crossover occurred, except that it's like three-way current and the three dimensions are syncing up again as they do every so many centuries. Maybe as the sync gets closer and closer, there are "jolts" flying where things cross over to another dimension unexpectedly; that's how the barbarian got to our dimension. We're trying to investigate and understand, but it takes time. We attacked and somehow killed this dragon ("ooo-kay... not what I had in mind, but whatever"), yet it's possible we would have been able to recruit the dragons to help us in the upcoming battle and now we've kind of screwed ourselves over -- won a battle, but risked losing the war. We can still try to recruit them, but if the dragons figure out we killed one of their champions and then held a huge feast for the city to eat the remains... not good!

Honestly, like I said, I think he finds it more interesting to throw really crazy stuff into the mix and then seeing what we do. He's kind of that way as a player too; he's usually got the most interesting builds, and he has the highest mortality rate in the group of players. He loses at least one character (and sometimes two) per campaign, because he just likes to try things and sometimes it doesn't work. He understands builds better than anyone but is always pushing the boundaries.

He has all of his background material figured out. When I found that book of how soul-shaping goes, he actually sent me paragraphs and paragraphs summarizing excerpts from the book and the theory of how it all works. Lol. And I like how he lets me decide what I'm doing with my character and just makes the world respond appropriately, rather than trying to force me into a predesigned plan.

 

[Passacaglia]

It's interesting, some people I game with are just "normal" folks, typically in the geeky camp (lots of people who work in tech in their day jobs); others game because they have some issues functioning socially and it provides an even-playing field where they can just be themselves and feel good about their knowledge of the game(s).

Yeah, some gamers can prove those ugly gamer stereotypes painfully true. I'm not exactly a social virtuoso myself, so I have sympathy for gamers who use the hobby as a social safe haven, but the older I get the less patience I have for dealing with more extreme examples. Specifically the ones who can't or won't improve themselves. The next time I join or form a group -- hopefully sooner rather than later! -- I'm going to do my best to screen this kind of gamer.