swils

Yeah, they'd make great faces for familiars.

Hey folks, Let's say I wanted to try my hand at Trial Trucks. Knowing that I'll need a solid set of four wheels, a motor (or two), control unit, etc.. Am I better off Bricklinking the essential parts and then buying extra bits (gears, axles, framing, joints, etc) as I need them, or would it be cheaper to buy a set and move on from there? Looking at the electronic pieces from the $199 4x4 set, they come to about $70-80 on their own, and that's from individual stores. I've got the 1999 Mindstorms kit back home, so I've got two of those old motors, as well as a -bunch- of technic axles, gears, frames, etc. I know I don't have any fancier joint-type pieces or such. So, yeah. If I were to get into building Trial Trucks, am I better off Bricklinking, or is there a particular set that, for reasonable cost, has what I need to get started?

No silly, we're talking about the 'Get to the choppa!" Ahnold! Ninja'ed

I didn't plan on doing much LotR collecting, but my disposition quickly changed when there was a "Red-eye Discount" at Fred's last Saturday night. 25% off all Lego? Yes please! 1x Helm's Deep 3x Uruk-hai Army I still haven't unpacked all my minifigs and put them on display like I had them last year, but with this set up, I might not bother. It's got just the right amount of stuff going on to serve as an eye-catching shelf display without cluttering things up. Maybe I'll rebuild the two extra ballistas into a siege tower, somehow.

Certainly none taken on my end! Which iteration of Thorm were you thinking of? or The left one (courtesy of Masked) was how I originally envisioned him, though I didn't have any of my parts/figs with me at the time. The second version came after I picked up a few little sets across a couple of themes, and was able to piece together a slightly more aggressive Thormy, as well as display his shiny new axes. If anything, the current Thorm and revised outfit for when he goes Raider are truer to Thorm's old self (I really feel like that print captures a calm confidence, with a dash of smugness). It's probably just because of the Bright Armor (well, almost matched the piece) and the hood that he looks so different. Edit: I rather like Tesni's new look. The only thing about the picture that sort of bothers me is how much light reflection there is, it makes her look like she's been laminated The fig itself though looks great!

Push 'em off the cliff! Push 'em off the cliff!

Hush, you! Hurry up and clear that place out.. you've got nearly two weeks til our deadline!

Endgame, if you can delay your start until we have a chance to take a brief trip to the fields (can probably happen before the 10th, just need a single battle there), then CJP should still be able to go on Q48. Hey everyone, if you want to see the masterpiece that is my original idea, augmented by Flipz' suggestions, then pressure Cornelius to break Cronk's character for a single battle. Peer pressure, make it happen! Edit: Alas, Cornelius is a brick wall in that regard.

Perhaps we need a "Greatly Blessed", comparable to "Badly Poisoned", where you get maybe +6 to +8 hp per turn? Heh

>_> <_< Yet another example of me missing something rather important and then questioning it later. Whooopsie.

Okay, I see where you're coming from now. I can agree, in the future/in general, decisions to subvert the standard rules like that should be run by the party to make sure they're okay with the deviation. It wasn't too big of an issue here, likely aided by the fact that it happened early and not at a clutch moment when we were counting on that heal to save someone else. If we run into something like this again, it couldn't hurt for the QM to make a note at the start of the battle that they will be handling it as such, just so that the party can plan accordingly and not get caught offguard by the change from the norm. That said, and speaking of Q35, I'm curious, Jeb, how did you determine/decide when the Maa'ri were going to jojn us against the Archivist? Their joining was a game-changer, but I'm inclined to believe (and feel like you've already said) that they were meant to join us there anyway, rather than you throwing us a bone because we were getting decimated.

Third time's a charm!

Accidentally deleted what I'd meant to quote... but I had specified that I was only using Raider as an example because of the nature of their shield (damages all enemies), and how it would relate to an attack with the healing staff. Bah, I say let it heal enemies. If a Shaman can do it to an undead (which may even be unintentional--attempt to heal ally, instead get shield, and have an undead be the first enemy in the line up), then off-healers (healing staff users) should be at risk too! It could also be situationally useful. Like against a giant party of undead.

Well jeez, way to go and make things easy. Edit: Although would that mean that a damaging shield roll would damage enemies instead of healing them, despite the attack being done with the healing staff?

Edit: Oh god I thought I was replying with a quote and I just deleted what I'd typed before.

As Zeph and JimB have said, take it at face value. "Target" means the target, "Opponent" or "Enemy" means just that. If a player targets a teammate and gets a roll that specifies opponents/enemies, then the enemies will be affected by that skill. If a player targets a teammate and gets a roll that specifies target, then the teammate will be affected by that skill, for better or worse. @Masked: Yeah, me too! Then Jeb had to go and put that pesky limitation on 'em...

Not a chance! Killed way too many folks to just let those boots go, heh. They'll be gathering dust on my shelf until the day I can finally equip them.

Now you've gotta let me come back! The Akkabans kinda-sorta-maybe like Thormanil a little bit, so you know some wacky, dangerous hi-jinx will ensue when he once again stands on the battlefield with the Maa'ri! Nice cliffhanger. I'm not sure of the significance of Sarah Tarnackle, so unless it's just a bit of faux-movie-humor, then it went over my head

The bear obviously ate a rich traveler and has just been hauling those coins around in its gut!

I'll need a cooperative team, a decent stack of consumables, a few particular things... and if anyone cares to lend me their Sticky Gloves, I certainly wouldn't mind it! Let's see.. I'll need someone of reasonable level with the following, or just someone willing to loan me/my group... ... Actually, come to think of it, I just need Arthur (Item-wise) And that pair of sticky gloves. Heh. Edit #Lost Count: Okay, so there's way more folks than I thought who'd fit the various roles. Scavenger hunt time! Edit #Lost Count + 1: Okay, maybe not just Arthur. Maybe, but maybe not. Depends on who lets me borrow what!

Color me foolish, then! Didn't see your round-with-slants version until after I'd posted, but given this little revelation.. I'd say it looks great!

Quick shop-job I just did, End:

Glad someone caught that. I even had to go back and do the math on the Orcs' wallets mid-fight to make sure we were getting our +100, yet I still didn't catch that oversight in loot distribution. D'oh!

"Thanky kindly, Elgar. Now if only there wasn't some dang enchantment on these boots that kept me from wearin' em... My feet are killin' me! Shame we got chased outta there, I'd have liked to at least give those three a proper burial. I don't much appreciate their usin' us, but I can't stand the thought of em bein' left down there as playthings for any future experiments... Oh, and Elgar, why dontcha take that rod from Singerson, too? Can't help but feel like you're gettin' the short end of this stick."

*Turning on the Maa'ri, I knew we'd fail. But at least now I've (hopefully) got a fancy pair of boots (for whenever I can get around to hosting ). I thought I remembered it being said that we would just be dumped in the sewers if we got wiped, but can't find such a post right now. *Didn't bother me too much. We hit a lull there for a while, and the roleplaying especially took a hit, but I can't fault you -- heck, I missed my fair share of cues throughout the quest. It was particularly embarrassing the one time that you snuck a round in without my noticing. I think we'd been waiting on JMB's post, but then he must have posted, then you put up the round results, then ADHO and JMB both posted again, so when I saw that JMB was the last poster, opened the thread and hit "END", I completely missed the round you'd posted. Then like a day and a half later, I saw your comment in the R&D thread saying you were waiting on me... whoops! *I'm a strong advocate of currency rewards, or rewards intended to be converted to currency, rather than straight upgrades as rewards, so this didn't bother me in the least. I do wish we'd had one last chance to visit the vendors, but I guess you can only expect it to take so long before the guard captains start to notice a bunch of their patrols have gone missing and decide to take care of the threat. Plus, the Trainer was a great encounter, wish we'd taken advantage of that third opportunity to face him and gain some stat increases. I thoroughly enjoyed your quest, Jeb. You're true to your word when you say that you plan to exhaust your questies' consumables. The encounters were challenging but not insurmountable, the slew of special abilities, mechanics, etc that you employed kept things interesting, even when we fought patrols of similar compositions repeatedly. There are definitely some unique and valuable items coming out of the quest, some which will, I'm sure, see use by our characters, and some which will get traded around, but at least most of them will get used by someone. I wish I'd had more gold at my disposal to pick up a few extra scrolls for artifact infusions. I know I'll have some fun RP opportunities down the line with the masks, though. Speaking of roleplaying, you did an excellent job at setting the scene. The characters were believable (the Trainer came off as a to-the-point combat instructor, the bridge spirit seemed equal parts childishly innocent yet devious, etc), and the story behind the Maa'ri really was powerful. While I had Thorm turn on them, I felt bad for them. They had earned my sympathy, but they had duped Thorm, so I had to split the two. I really appreciate you presenting the strong RP decision in the Archivist fight. Had Thorm known, or had any inkling of an idea, that the Maa'ri were using him as they did, he would have taken that gold without a second thought and walked away right then. Honestly, you gave us all lots of opportunities to develop our characters, both through PC-NPC interactions, and within the party. You went along with a bunch of freeform actions and had them directly affect the quest with more than an extra bit of dialogue. It's not exactly a rare thing here as lots of QMs do it, but I still love seeing that extra interaction between QM and players anyway. Oh, and nice repurposing of the Undercity map! I really hope I have the opportunity to go on another of your quests sometime. Read: I really hope all my OoC and pestering over mechanics/rules and maybe even poking fun at your newborn didn't turn you off from the idea of ever inviting me to participate in one of your quests ever again, because I really enjoyed attending this one!