swils

Can we revisit and possibly apply that logic to the: Please, pretty please?

Try it in Firefox--Chrome wouldn't load the preview for me. I'm really tempted to print & paint one of Thormy. If I can find a dragonling or full-grown dragon model that I like to accompany it, I might have to cave and paint it, alongside all those Eldar I have yet to get around to...

Sure there is. Order an appropriate fig, then when it arrives, cut the arm off and file down the nub. Then you've even got a lovely arm bit to use... wherever! Can never have enough bitz.

If you're looking to part with the Netherwings, I could be tempted to take them off your back, so to speak. Haha

But then he'll surely see it coming... so the real joke would be to have us not betray him, but not tell him that, so that he just comes out of it seeming very paranoid! Heh Honestly, I really don't begrudge Palathadric for playing that role. Nor does Thormy hate Pretzel for it--this is just another of Baba's tricks, to him.

Quest #135: Others have said it already, and I can only echo it: the sets and builds were really well done. The backstory we got on Baba was great, too. In many regards, this was a perfectly Sandy-level quest. However, I am leaving #135 with a sour taste in my mouth. As a player, I really feel cheated. I was excited for this quest, for the chance to develop some more interaction between Thormy & Baba. Of course, I never expected to face her directly in combat, and if we somehow did, I had no expectations of winning. However, Thormy never really got any of that. He got to crawl through a few bosses and barely pick up scraps of information about Baba. The interludes were great, but as was already mentioned, they didn't do much for the characters who were actually on the quest. To me, it felt like we were still really early in the quest. We had barely had the chance to make headway towards our destination. That definitely leaves me with the feeling of us being tools to advancing a greater story without actually having any influence over it. I don't even care about loot that much, I really was here for the story. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy leaving with a new piece of gear, because that's always nice (Although, could we perhaps consider making that shield upgradable via bright polish, just not via smithy? Heh). I think the battles were all pretty fair. As a party of heroes (ignoring the traitor factor for the moment), we obviously had a high power level. But that was balanced by the danger of some of the specials we had to face off against, deadly in their own right. Given that I felt as though we were early in the quest, I thought it was a fine power curve and expected the difficulty to ramp up, as it began to with Farfarello, a bit. Now, the traitor thing. I have no problems with the mechanic in its own right, and think that it has the potential to be a fun (rare) twist for all parties. I do have quite a few critiques of it here, though. Firstly, the actual betrayal happened, as far as I understand it, before the quest itself. No one but Pala had even inkling that something was amiss, or could be. The party didn't get jumped upon entering the portal and wake up a few hours later with some bumps and bruises, opening the window to that brainslug being put in place. The only time that would have been reasonable for us to think anything could have happened would have been during that first shift at the ruins (or, for a real stretch, when he got eaten during the void battle). That is just far too much withholding of information, in my eyes. Looking back over the quest, I can, of course, see a few instances where we were perhaps expected to catch on such as during the conversation with Rastaban and then during the night at the ruins. As far as Rastaban was concerned, well, I'll take some blame there: I'm not the strongest roleplayer, and I felt helpless there. I knew I wasn't asking the right questions in the right way, but didn't know quite what I was supposed to be asking, or how. I knew I had missed something, but knowing that you missed something is a lot different from knowing the circumstances and knowing that you missed something. It was like being told to go somewhere and find something that piqued your interest, versus knowing that you're a detective, and being told to go to that same place (a crime scene) to find something incriminating. Without the context, it was really just a shot in the dark. We knew that Baba had a myriad of tricks up her sleeve, and Rastaban clearly knew something (and, okay, he was under some sort of influence himself, so that could have been a clue), but as I said before, without any window for Pretzel to have been separated from us and turned, why should I have any cause to think that he (or any of the PCs) had already been turned? There's the chance that somewhere down the line, someone would be abducted and returned to us, and that definitely occurred to me as a possibility, but not that we were down a party member from the get-go. And I did hope that Namyrra would get the chance to pry information from Rastaban once he had been reanimated, but that never came to fruition, so maybe that's on us. The second instance was during the night at the ruins. I have no idea what happened in the PMs between you, Pala, and B&P, but I'd hope that there was some indication in there that it was Pretzel who rang the bell, and that B&P simply failed to pass that along to us. I want to think that you at least gave us that information, or the chance to glean it. So right now, I could three opportunities to find out what was wrong: My talk with Rastaban, Namyrra's talk with reanimated Rastaban (which didn't happen), and Johon's shift with Pretzel at night. That's actually a reasonable amount of opportunities, but I still feel that it was a complete shot in the dark as far as conversation was concerned. My attempts certainly proved rather fruitless, and maybe that discouraged Quarry from trying to talk with him as well. When Quarry probed about a way out, he was rather dismissive, so I can't argue with not pursuing that much further. I'm going to quote myself here, because it is pertinent: In addition, Pala mentioned that he was required to post his actions in the thread unless he was controlled by Farfarello. That's fine, it says that Farf will dictate actions of the strung-up PC. However, at the time that his actions got declared that really screwed us (the bombs), he wasn't Dance Macabre'd, Thormy was (and we'd already decided that the Soul Link didn't transfer the effect as such). I really can't see any reason why his actions shouldn't have been made clear in thread, that he planned to throw those bombs. I hold no grudge against Pala, he played his role well. I don't hold a grudge against you, either, Sandy, to be clear. You were testing the waters with a new concept, and unfortunately it just didn't work out as well as you may have hoped (at least, not if you ask most of us who were on the quest, haha). I don't think I've quested with Pala before, but anyone who has quested with me will likely know that Thormy isn't generally one to turn down a fight. Rastaban's reluctance to being talked down wasn't really an obstacle for him; he had no qualms about dropping another dragon who was intent on roasting him otherwise. Having another player in the party who was intent on getting into a fight wasn't a red flag for me (who doesn't love more exp & loot?). I honestly considered joking around about just ringing the bell during the daytime--loot and exp, baby. Actually: I could have sworn, at the time, that there was some visible-context for that, maybe in the battle's flavor text, but I'm missing it now if it was there. If there wasn't any, then that was some wonderful characterization by Pala. However, we still didn't know that there's anything amiss, so no one really knew to ask about it. --- I'm sure I'm missing something, but I really want to stress that for what we did get to play, I mostly enjoyed the quest. I'm perfectly at home in a boss crawl, and blending that with a chance to get back at Baba (as Thormy saw it)? Perfect! Unfortunately, as I said, there really wasn't much development for Thormy on that front, just another "Oh, Baba tricked you and got the better of you and beat you. Again." And of course there's the betrayal which I think I've harped on enough. All of that said, I do still want to thank you for the quest. Going on your quests is always a treat.

That's true, and I would say that sleep is extremely powerful in some place like the Fields. However, most quests feature powerful specials rather than overwhelming mobs, and in the current meta of Heroica, being able to negate free hits across a large group of enemies is generally less advantageous than negating that one big special.

If you can only pick one, I'd go frailty. You have Nostrums to increase your odds against a nasty special, and Smelling Salts to limit the number of free hits you take, but meads only double your power. A frail enemy can be taken down in record time. If you're planning to get more than one, I would say Frailty > Silence > Sleep > Blindness > Weakening > Confusion.

"Lucky? That's a joke! This loathsome knight all but spat in our faces when she abandoned us to our tomb. All I know is that her dearly beloved led us to some ancient ruins where this pitiful rock monster slept. Johon and the monk took the first watch, so you'd have to ask the former if he saw anything... but I was awoken to the chime of battle sounds. We overcame that threat, only to have it collapse a sinkhole beneath us and drop us into some catacombs where we met the reanimated skeleton of what could only have been a true giant, and that's when Pretzel revealed his true colors!. Or, well, something happened. A green blob slunk out of him and engulfed his head. He clearly wasn't under his own control, another of that damned witch's tricks! For as powerful as she thinks herself, she has to resort to pathetic underlings and underhanded tricks to beat us!" He turns to Johon, with a glint of hope in his eyes "Johon, what does your Magic Compass say? I came here to hunt that damned witch... will we truly find her through that portal, or are they just trying to corral us back into the freeport?"

And the people that go on the Fields instead of quests get levels insanely fast (esp. with a MoG) compared to those on quests, while those on quests often get more unique and powerful loot. There's nothing to " " about, it's fine as it is. If you want to get rich off the polishes, join Sunwell. If you care more about the RP, join whichever you feels suits you best.

Okay, I'll bite. "Murderers?!" Thormanil roars at the elf, "I should kill you where you stand!" Recognizing the harsh gaze of the Heroica veterans falling upon him, he regains his composure. "Which... I guess would just bring truth to your accusation. Listen, you ungrateful brick, we saved your love. And you for that matter! You could argue all you want that if we hadn't been there, the dragon wouldn't have attacked--it seemed to delight in attacking you plenty on its own." He takes a moment to look around the party, eyes resting on Arx "You alright, buddy?" <A little worse for wear, but I'll be fine. Is this it, are we just giving up now?> "Good... And yeah, if we just do as we're told, then that's it. But damnit, let us go after Pretzel!" he pleads to the Veterans. "The last time I left someone to fend for themselves under Baba's control, well, I've only heard rumors of her atrocities, but I can't let her take a fellow member of Heroica! Let us go back after him. These elves might as well be harboring that witch. I won't go back through that portal of my own will, that's for sure!" He firmly stands his ground, with Arx getting to his feet by Thormanil's side.

This is fairly accurate.

Sandy's enjoying a vacation currently. We're on hold til he's back

I know that I won't. Thormanil is going to be devastated upon return, but he'll recognize that Pretzel wasn't under his own control at the time. Baba's a nasty witch, he knows this first hand.

I feel like I can comment on this without the quest being wrapped up: I strongly disagree with the notion that we had bad rolls in that fight. Granted, we still had to take down a near-full-health Farfarello, but we weren't in a bad spot. Quite the contrary: we were setting up for the possibility that Nerwyn could knock it out with a single roll. Palathadric's bolded action was to repeat his attack, not drop two giant, tide-turning items on us. We were completely blindsided by that, and, without commenting too much on the rest of the quest yet, I feel that we had absolutely zero way to prepare for that/anticpate it. That's not unfortunate rolls. That is, admittedly, a clever move by Palathadric, requesting that he get to act before Namyrra, but I don't think that it was fair to hide his actions from us. He declared that he was repeating his attack (which, without any target specified, should have been against Farfarello or, if you want to say that because he switched sides at that point, it should be against the first person listed in our battle order (because he didn't specify another target), so Thormy should have eaten those attacks. Again without getting into the quest as a whole, I think it was really unfair to us for that round to play out as it did. Without any indication that it could/would, it went against the standard battle mechanics of "declare your actions, in bold, in the thread". Now, I think it would have been perfectly reasonable if he had flipped sides at the start of the round, putting us in a bind, perhaps (It's hard to say whether or not that would have actually hurt us, we are admittedly a very strong party). But when the rug is pulled out from under our feet in a single round where we thought all actions had been submitted, that's just not fair to me. TL;DR I respectfully disagree that we lost this battle because of any bad rolls/running out of luck.

No worries--you were probably typing all that as I submitted, and you got much more into a general case of it, whereas some recent comments are treating 135 as a certain thing that can be reflected upon already.

I think we really should just let this play out before commenting further. We haven't even seen the next round of combat, yet.

Thormanil, if under his own control, attempts to use smoke bombs, too.

Whoever it was, I need to thank them. Glorious exp and a shiny shield to boot! Always fight. Always! Haha

Regarding 135, Sandy seems too happy about it for it to just be a "screw everyone but palathadric, teehee" moment. Reserving judgment/reactions til we see what happens.

Wrong thread, whoops.

It seems like this: is coming full-circle back to "tell us everything about the event now, rather than when it's ready and underway" Seriously, people. Patience is a virtue.

I figured that was the case, but wanted to clarify. So that effectively removes the option of "fight it, pretzel!" and leaves us with... Namyrra hopefully waking up. Heh

Can Pretzel still act in a way that will help us, or is he officially anti-party now?

Helpless to control his limbs and seeing his friends falling around him, Thormanil can only let loose a roar of desperation. "FIGHT IT! DON'T LET THAT WITCH WIN!" He whimpers as he looks at Arx, crumpled on the ground. With every ounce of willpower he can muster, he tries to resist the pull of the strings: "Just... don't let her win..." There's some very convoluted conditionals I could lay out here. Plan?