swils

No! Not Houdini Jr... (muttering)He was the only attractive man amongst you freaks...

OOC: Previous post has been edited to reflect this a bit (see below). Curse you, simultaneous posting! Heh. Left the sense of urgency in, just because I'm too lazy to reword the entirety of it Also, I'm off to my second round of lectures for the day, so I'll try to check back via mobile, but hopefully someone else can handle the situation from here.

Thormanil swiftly moves to parry the lunge, being careful to only knock the shade backwards, rather than inflict any harm. Fortunately, as the result of a coin toss luck was on his side, and he managed to avoid being nicked by the blade in the process. Cinna, dear, could REALLY use your help over here! Or if anyone has been dying to show off their fancypants talents, now's the time to step up and give us a show..! I'm afraid that if I go and punch a tree over or something, I might just end up scaring the lil' guy even worse. OOC: I believe it was, but I wanted to be thorough Hope I picked out the proper detail here? Only clue De'kra verbalized regarding his voice was:

Thormanil notices the shade acting strangely. Not wanting to lose his cleric to a stab-happy rogue, he stepped between the two, towering over the shade, and shielding Tomas from any assault De'kra might make. Staring the shade dead in the eyes, Thormanil points at him and says, in a loud, commanding tone: Now listen here! You're gonna stop acting crazy, got it? We've got work to d--(pausing) Recognizing De'kra's trembling and the look in his eyes as signs of great fear, and not aggression, he takes a step back and loosens his grip on his axes, though still ready to move to intercept De'kra should the need arise. Thinking back, he calls Cinna over, recalling that the shade had something of an affinity for her dark magicks. Cinna, can you do something to help, here? If I'm remembering it right, the poor lil' fella's had something of an amnesiac episode. Probably took one too many blows to the head, heh! But between the clicks and whirs, he's always asking about your ability to manipulate dark energy, so maybe you could put on a little fireworks show for us, eh? Might help fix him up, at least, I think it triggered a series of memories for him, before.

swils Stephanie checking in. Pray tell why has this meeting been called? I've got plenty of glamming that I still need to do, I mean, just look at me.. so disheveled! OOC: I'll get to updating my signature sometime this afternoon.

OOC: Working on it! Just went back through the entire quest so far and have copied all of De'kra's "words" (clicks, words, and whatnot), haha I've got me a mystery to solve (and a lab report to avoid writing, what a coincidence!)

Thormanil realizes that the thug, agile as he may be, is barely standing. Hoping to avoid any unnecessary injuries, he takes a step backwards and prepares to attack Thug A from the back row.

Yar. And if you were a cleric healing an undead enemy, the damage would be halved anyway (unless magic wasn't affected by the "heavy armor" classification, I suppose). If you had an enemy healing another enemy with this attribute, then just have any beneficial heals have their power doubled? Meh. No question, it would be much easier to simply allow for passives. I was just trying to make a funny

I can't speak to the first question, but for this one, at least for this particular example, I'd say just double the health from the get-go I can understand other passives though, such as a damage-return, or dispersing incoming damage across the group of enemies, etc.

Thormanil will attack Thug A from the front row. Edit: New action posted below

Ooh, you're a trickster, you are! QMs, hurry up and ding someone to 15, the suspense is killing me

You got that right, that fella meant business! Let's make him regret knocking out De'kra! Thormanil will attack Thug A from the front row.

Ah, right then. Well what kind of a redheaded RPG system is it where even a healer-type can't get you back in the fight? I call shenanigans, Sandy! Edit: Post-victory, De'kra ==> De'kr, having lost a part of himself during his time out cold? Also, doc, here's the link for my updated character pic http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6118/6227298131_2a2c036037_t.jpg

When an ally is KO'ed, can any sort of healing be used to bring them back, or must it be Cleric healing/Phoenix essence, or could I dump my potion all over De'Kra's face and have him snap back to attention?

1) Unless something unexpected occurs, no. 2) No forum-base games, though I've followed along with a few here on EB, and played a fair few Mafia-style custom maps in games like WC3/SC2. 3) Trapeize! "The Marvelous Monkey Man" I'd love to get the experience here, been wanting to get involved with some of the Mafia games.

Thormanil will attack the Blacksmith from the front row.

OOC: Thanks for the clarification. I *meant* to order my hypothetical attacks such that Seaian was attacking the thug in the next round, as described, perhaps I went back and rewrote that bit while trying to fix something else. Oops, heh.

Thormanil will attack the Blacksmith from the front row. OOC: #1) I've got an updated picture for Thormanil in my signature, I'll let you know if I make any future changes. #2) Two items of clarification on the Thugs' special: --2a) When it says "all thugs", does this mean only "Thug A" and "Thug B", or is the Blacksmith included as part of the gang of thugs that have confronted us? --2b) What is the +/- weight of various rolls? Imagine we're in the middle of the fight, and Seaian has only 1 health remaining. Tomas attacks last, targeting a thug, but ends up proc'ing "Regroup" for the next round. Now, let's say Leo lands a hit and so we're left with just the Blacksmith. I've got 6 health, and it's my turn to attack. Unfortunately, I roll a "Damage" and "Muscular Strength". If I take the damage, I'm KO'ed. If the Muscular Strength goes through, I am left with 1 health, but there is a chance that Seaian takes that random damage and is KO'ed. Which roll is deemed worse for the party? I'd imagine it'd be the Muscular Strength, in this case, but I'm not sure. Another scenario, Sir Leo proc'ing Sentinel vs Sir Leo dealing the final hit to one of the enemies? #3) @Tanma (slightly delayed, ooops), I realized that De'Kra was in his head at the time, and so spoke through Thormanil as though De'Kra had hinted at his confusion through his facial expression, but then was curious if your idea of a shade even allowed for facial expressions, heh.

Noticing the confused look on the shade's face... OOC: Would Thormanil even be able to tell if De'Kra had a confused look on his face? Does he have features/employ expressions? Heh ...Thormanil winks at De'Kra and grins, saying: 'Click click' YOU! 'click' Me no speaky the 'clickity click'! He chuckles, and hopes the shade doesn't mind a little ribbing to lighten the mood

I don't think the bestiary needs multiple entries of any baddie just because it was encountered at different levels. If you wanted to get fancy and ambitious, you could include under a list of all levels it has thus far been encountered at, and link those levels to the encounters. E.g. Basic Brown Rat Levels: (url=post_from_questX_of_battle_where_rat_lvl_2_is_fought)2(/url), (url=post_from_questY_of_battle_where_rat_lvl_8_is_fought)8(/url) Where, obviously, the stuff in parenthesis is code and will merely make the "2" and "8" into hyperlinks. But that's really not necessary at all, and would just be garnishing an already great resource. If you really wanted to get into it, you could expand upon THAT by including the habitat: (url)2 Freeport Sewers(/url), (url)8 Catacombs(/url) But again, that's a whole lot of fancy polish. Up to you For classification/indexing, I'd break it into two parts. The first would be each archetype, as laid out in the elemental weakness chart (Vermin, Humanoid, Beast, etc.), and following each, a list of *all* baddies that have that type. This means that foes such as the Pongcanae from Q5 would be listed twice, once in Beast and once in Humanoid. To keep things clean, I'd limit these lists to species, like "Pongcanae" "Rats" "Frogs" "Skeletons" "Zombies" "Humans" "Elves" etc. This would enable people to see what sorts of enemies have been used for encounters vs. any given archetype. The second part would be an alphabetical list of species, perhaps using spoiler tags to keep things neat and clean. So "Pongcanae" would then have an individual entry for each "Pongcanae" type foe, listing the particular details (archetype(s), levels/locations/quests where it was encountered, special ability, etc). For Uniques & Named's, I'd organize them separately, and do it by quest. So, as some quick examples, I already mentioned the Pongcanae enemies. They'd only be indexed in the general bestiary. The transmogrified mages from Sandy's quest could be referenced in the generalized bestiary, but would have their actual entries in the By-Quest section. Continuing with Sandy's quest, if there were any additional foes that fought alongside the uniques, they could be referenced here, but their entries would be in the generalized bestiary. So the entourage of flying, colored books could be noted in the flavor text for that particular mage, but would have their detailed entries in the generalized bestiary, under "Flying > Flying Book", with a note in the entry that the books came in a variety of colors (perhaps list the colors). From Zephyr's quest, the NPC Gladiators could be referenced in the generalized bestiary as "Humanoid > Factionless > Gladiators", but would have an expanded entry in the Uniques section, where each gladiator is given an individual entry. That reminded me of another classification/tiering issue. For Humanoids in particular, I think their allegiance should be a level of distinction. So from Q6, the thugs would be "Humanoid > Wolfgang > Wolfgang Thug", then make a note that they have been encountered wielding daggers and clubs, unless the distinction between their weapons affects their special skills or something (though in this case, it doesn't). From Q4, I would index the Pongcanae as "Humanoid > Factionless > Pongcanae > Pongcanae Mage(/Cleric/Ranger/etc)". I think it would be a good idea if you came up with a template for each entry, and requested that the QM's submit a log of all their encountered enemies to you at the conclusion of a quest, just so all you have to do is organize it, rather than gather the data AND organize it. Whew, essay! Love having free time between classes, heh

If we want to get at any information these elves have, seems all we can do is work with them here. If I'm understanding Mr Clicktastic over there properly, then I'd support his idea. That is to say, tell 'em enough to answer and if they want more, levy it against more information for our own cause. Speakin' of our own cause, though, in the face of execution, we're puttin' Mr. Shawe's interests in the hands of Keveak. Who knows what he'll cook up for us, or how far off from our original mission we'll end up under his command. We'll definitely be wantin' his signed permission up front for us to continue aiding Mr. Shawe throughout our service to Keveak, until/unless it interferes WITH that service. Leaves us a little wiggle room, at least. I'm lookin' for two causes for early termination of the contract, though: First, Keveak can't charge us with a task that'll result in our certain deaths. I ain't signin' up to be no martyr. Secondly, should we come to be tasked to act against the House of Shadeaux, we'd have the right to resign ourselves from the elves' service if we so desire, unless it can be reasonably proven that the Shadeaux have double-crossed us, or have otherwise acted so as to become our(the party's, not necessarily the elves') enemies.

Aye, 'partial truths,' you've got the right idea! We tell them enough to answer their questions, but we take care to omit any details that involve us with our employer or similar. If, by chance, they are already aware of our friend's identity, and bring it against us at some point, then we must unanimously agree that we had no clue--his name was on the list back at the Hall as well, and for all we knew, he was merely another member of our party. You and I share many of the same concerns, Cinna. I'd love to have taken a swing at the fellow back at the gate, myself... But the fact is, even if we were to overpower them here, I can't imagine we'd have much luck getting into Brobrick if the elves there caught wind of our aggression. Worse comes to worst, we find ourselves standing against them anyway. We really haven't come that far in our investigation, and what we have found has led us to the elves. If we can garner any more information from them... I hate to say it, but I think we need to give them a chance. Try not to think of it as lying, merely... omitting! Heh heh

Thormanil, of course, has no way of knowing what the unfortunate group of adventurers who signed up to participate in the Arena competition actually got themselves into... Edit: Haha, so I just realized that "(If) The Elves Dont Ask" doesn't quite equate to "TLDR", as I meant it to The "A" in "Arr" threw me off, even in my own writing. Derp! Uhh, "Tell Enough, Don't Reveal" ? haha

Thormanil walks to the room with the party. Upon entering, he scans the room, searching for anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps a painting with eyes that seem to follow your movements. He walks around the room, tapping on the walls, listening for anything that sounds hollow, and the floor, walls, and ceiling for vents or anything of the sort that could carry their conversation to prying ears. Those elves can be sneaky, after all. OOC: For the sake of keeping things moving, I'll continue as though I rolled perfect Spot checks (PnP ftw), and under the assumption that we are, in fact, in a private setting. Alright, well, much as I hate to say it, I think we've gotta work with these elves. They control our access to not only R'kilf, but certainly to Brobric in its entirety. I'm not too keen on this whole idea of the elves keeping us on a tight leash, but if that's the only way we can get their help, then so be it. I'm no fool, though, and don't expect them to keep us privy to all of their operations, so I'd vote that we return the favor in kind. They ask who we're working for, we tell them 'An anonymous employer, who contacted us through the Heroica Guild.' Our mission? We're to investigate the presence of the Lion Knights here on the Free Islands, with the goal of finding their main base of operations and acquiring intelligence regarding their involvement in a series of criminal acts and aggression, with our only lead being the dagger found at the site of a raided caravan. And, as for our quiet friend here, if they should inquire... Thormanil looks towards Shawe This here's just another eager adventurer, a bit of an introverted rogue, who has a knack for never landing a hit in combat, but being so nimble that none have managed to scratch him thus far, either. It's almost as if he's not even there when we get into a brawl. But get him drunk enough and he makes for quite the life of the party, and besides, he 'signed up for the quest as well', so we kind of have to let him tag along anyway. Looking around, he realizes his little monologue has weighed heavily on the eyelids of his companions, he shouts, Tee El Dee Arr! After several questioning stares, but nonetheless having gotten their attention, he explains, *sigh* '(If) The Elves Don't Ask'! It'll be our M.O.! Only tell 'em what they ask, and only enough to answer the question. Why're we here? Hired through Heroica. What're we after? The Lion Knights. Who's the old guy? A quiet, clumsy rogue. Are we working with/for anyone other than the Elves? We dunno, we just answered an ad back in the Hall in Freeport, and haven't the slightest who posted the ad, we just trust the Guild to filter out any ignoble 'quests'. Whaddya say?

Right then. Might I have a moment to speak with my friends here outside your earshot?