Flipz

I do have something like that ready (aimed at low-Level Heroes), I'm just waiting on sets. That said, I know a lot of people are looking forward to my Cathedral Quest, and I don't want to let them down (especially Brickdoctor and his incredible set-building) by never getting around to finishing and hosting it.

"Minoid, grab that horseshoe and prepare to throw it. Erdy, Grimwald, I want those magic thingys Blind and Frail, in that order. Next Round, we take out whatever's both Blind and Frail, or Frail and kill a Puppetstring if one's been created." Arthur uses his powers of flight to zip in between the Dauntlets, striking twice at the Magic Dauntlet on the right before retreating to the safety of the Back Row. Battle Order: Grimwald Arthur Grimwald Erdy Erdy Minoid Arthur Next Round Battle Order: If Arthur is Hexed: Grimwald Grimwald Minoid vs. Claw Dauntlet Right (Unlucky Horseshoe) Erdathcath Erdathcath Arthur (attacks an un-targeted enemy) Arthur (attacks an un-targeted enemy) If Arthur isn't Hexed: Minoid vs. Claw Dauntlet Right (Unlucky Horseshoe) Arthur (attacks weakest Blind and Frail enemy that isn't Claw Dauntlet (Right) ) Arthur (attacks weakest Blind and Frail enemy that isn't Claw Dauntlet (Right) ) Grimwald Grimwald Erdathcath Erdathcath

How does Guts deal 300 damage to Heroes? Players are basically Ancient-type and thus are not weak to Darkness--I'm getting 190, which when divided by 5 comes out to 38 damage. (And yes, I get that Guts and Lifestealer inherently imbalance everything and therefore skew the numbers--though it should be noted that the divisor to weapon damage essentially becomes a multiplier to SP, so Hoke had what was effectively SP:300 against other Heroes. Even Nerwen and Tensi came out with SP:140-SP:160.) 1/3 might indeed be a bit low, but I think in a normal scenario 1/5 would be just right.

It sort of is, but mostly because I haven't organized my files and notes well, which makes it hard to know what I need to work on and would definitely make it impossible to run. The real killer is the sheer number of characters I have to keep track of. I need to stat out a good thirty or more unique NPCs, and a fair chunk of those need to have both "enemy" and "ally" versions (though if I can do enough testing, I may just use a tweaked version of the PvP from Baltarok instead)--and that's not counting mooks and minibosses. I also have to track individual plotlines for each of these characters and factions, because that's the real meat of the Quest--yes, there's one plot/mystery I consider to be the "main" one, but it's a bit of a misnomer to refer to it as a "plot", it's more along the lines of "Quest-long puzzle". It's a lot of material, but once I've got it into this organization scheme, it should be a LOT easier to work with. (Let's also not forget the massive amount of info I have lost amongst my PMs, some of which is current and some of which is not... )

Nope, MyInfo. http://www.roleplayingtips.com/tools/dungeon-master-tools-myinfo-software/

EDIT: Holy hell, I made MORE?! How many different places did I spread my planning notes for this thing?!

Dum de dum...oh, don't mind me, just transferring all six seven nine documents into one singular source for easier use...

Eric kills the Falconer, Quest over.

It's interesting that you thought PvP was broken; although I think the 10x damage divisor was a bit much, I definitely liked everything else about it. Do some specific testing with different divisors (3-5 seems to be within the right range) and it'd be just fine.

OOC: You have been rolling for my Cloak of Deception on those Free Hits against me, right? Also, I believe Claw Dauntlet L should have given me a Free Hit as well. Question: if Minoid rolls Special Damage again this Round, will that reset his timer? What if one of us rolls Special Damage, will it take the heat off Minoid? "Damn it. Minoid, you, me, and Grimwald are going to kill the Left Claw; Grimwald, see if you can't Weaken it in between your two attacks. Erdy, we could use those Roots of yours right about now..." Battle Order: Grimwald Arthur Arthur Grimwald Minoid Erdathcath Erdathcath Arthur whips Claw Dauntlet (Left) twice with his tentacles (Zoot's Rebel) from the Back Row.

Hey, I'm no QM yet (and that's a very firm yet, because I am going to get these Quests I'm working on out the door if it kills me ), so don't consider it a "ruling" just yet--for now it's just an opinion. I'd actually wait for another response from WBD before appealing to Sandy. (Though even I'll admit that doing grunt work for QMs is one of the things I'm most skilled at as Masked, Kinto, and Endgame can all attest. )

Let me put this another way: he's Jim from Darths and Droids, or Minmax from Goblins. In fairness, I did say yours resonated most, and this is why; 89 was by far the most Dastan-like of this trilogy. (And truthfully, 30 was the most impactful of Dastan, because the choices made there mattered--with all respect to JimBee and Doc, the actual plot of Dastan came mostly from 30; if you wanted to explain Dastan to a total outsider, you'd probably tell the story of Quest 30 and then interject with how 31 and 29 affected it.) Look at it this way (and again, I say this with all respect to the players and QMs of 88 and 90): how different would 89 specifically have been with the Heroes of 88 and 90 replaced by QM-controlled NPCs? From where I was sitting, not very. Q90 was a little more involved because, as pointed out, they set off the whole war, but for the most part they seemed pretty tangential to the main action--in that specific case it was obviously intentional, but I don't think 88 was intended to be unimportant to the happenings in the Orcish clans, which is what it ended up feeling like. Part of that also ties into the less-hidden railroading 88 and 90 had; the circus had to break out Grishnod, they had to keep Grishnod out of Mint's hands, they had to help Grishnod win the trials and return Valentino to the Kingdoms. Anything else would have made no sense and destroyed the plot (I mean, the choices there were all framed to favor that one solution, and the times that Baradock challenged it he came off as and was treated like a madman or a stubborn fool going against the flow for the sake of going against it) because the alternative would be to ride the eagles into Mordor--logically, it would make sense, but at the same time would make for a much worse narrative. In that sense, the circus performers could have worked alone, the Nord raid on the Kingdoms could have been put down by superior military forces, and the Kingdoms and paladins would have marched off to war anyway. The only real effect Q90 and Q88 had on the Q89 party (or at least, the only one visible at all from my perspective) was that they chose to fight for the neutral option instead of just marching with the troops across the bridge into the Kingdoms. Just my two cents, of course, and I do believe that ultimately the trilogy as it turned out is superior to what a solo 89 would have been...but I don't think it would have been as different as if, say, Quest 29 or 31 were taken out of the Dastan trilogy. I will say, in fairness, that Dastan was what it was, really, because of who went on it (can anyone actually imagine a Dastan without Atramor or Tarn or Nyx? didn't think so), and 88 in particular suffered there because there weren't really many "whos" on it to have that sort of personal effect.

I don't know, a poisoned crossbow will deal poison on a Tripleshot; why not the cannon? It's really simple to make a chart: Enemy above target: Takes 1x damage (hit 1 spill) Target: Takes 2x damage (hit 1, hit 2 spill) Enemy 1 below target: Takes 3x damage (hit 1 spill, hit 2, hit 3 spill) Enemy 2 below target: Takes 2x damage (hit 2 spill, hit 3) Enemy 3 below target: Takes 1x damage (hit 3 spill) If there's less than 5 enemies, add the multipliers together; i.e. in a battle with 3 enemies a Tripleshot would look like this (assuming targeting Enemy A: Enemy A Enemy B Enemy C Enemy A: Target, Enemy 3 below target = 2x + 1x = 3x damage Enemy B: Enemy 1 below target = 3x damage Enemy C: Enemy 2 below target, Enemy above target = 2x + 1x = 3x damage Actually, since small groups like that would be edge cases anyway for the table above, why don't I just whip up a simple "cheat sheet" nstickney can put in his Hero Stats page? Simple.

Having partaken of the Dastan Trilogy, it was very interesting to get to watch this one from the outside, which I did with great interest. Here's some of my spectator's thoughts. Bridge battle: The only thing I really have to say regarding the bridge battle, speaking from an outside perspective: never ever ever keep melee heroes from attacking from the Back Row (unless you're removing said row entirely--the way you did it in the Harpy battle worked). The decrease in melee damage output is already the necessary drawback in exchange for the decrease in damage taken; not only was the back row ruling crazy unfair for the weaker melee units, it also made no logical sense given that the melee enemies could still damage Heroes in the Back Row. I also wasn't a huge fan of having to take a turn to switch between front and back row, and definitely didn't like the way that the rows could "shift" if there wasn't a Hero up front to define the Front Row, but both of those made sense given the environment and ultimately didn't have nearly as much impact as the inability to melee from the Back Row. Regarding the overall storyline: I do feel that the circus and orc storylines resonated quite a bit more than the Kingdoms one, which ultimately made the Kingdoms heroes seem like huge dicks for opposing the orcs at the bridge; part of that, of course, is the miniscule size and participation of the Kingdoms party, but mostly it just came down to the cast of characters. Once Hamilton was sent off, there was literally no one on the Kingdoms side who was even remotely likeable until Valentino showed up, and even he was useless in the Mallelio sense of "nice enough, but completely useless to the heroes"; they all came off as "generic stuck-up megablocks-hat". The Orcs, meanwhile, while not always helpful or even aligned with the party, were at least interesting to watch, and even when you disagreed with them (i.e. wanting to raze the Kingdoms), you sympathized with their plight. I do feel the stakes would have been higher if the Kingdoms heroes had gotten to see or hear about some of the common people who would suffer either way (the way we did in Dastan) rather than only seeing the generals and kings and lord-high-muckety-mucks. I also got confused a lot between the Red Lizards and the Four Boulders, which made the plotline there hard to follow. Regarding the Heroes: Q90: The Quest 90 newbies were phenomenal, truly. I'm hugely impressed by how much they threw themselves into this larger world, and--well, I've already stated my opinions on how much attention they were paid. I'm glad that Pupearl finally managed to get big, bad, self-centered Guts to pay attention to her, and I was glad to see Matthias become a little more noticed as well. Baradock is, as always, a very unique perspective, and certainly a great source of conflict (though be careful not to let your in-character passivity spill over--but you've done a great job of avoiding that pitfall so far, so I'm sure I have no need to worry). Q89: This was one of the better parties we've had recently. Aside from Alexis, who barely seemed to be there (I honestly thought she was part of the Kingdoms party for most of the Quest until I started writing this), the party played off each other beautifully: Guts, the proud, stubborn, cynical bastard who had no patience for the situation; Thormanil, the cutthroat merc with a little more brains than his boss; Alex, the headstrong kid eager for battle; Dyric, the reluctant, pacifist sympathizer from enemy lands; and Haldor, the wisened warrior who actually believed something good could come out of all this. You had a real Five-Man-Band going on there, and it played well: you played well off each other, and you played well off the NPCs, who in turn played well off of you. Good on you; this is what a party should look like. Hoke and Nerwen: I love how you've transitioned from "quiet, generic hero" to "DM of the Rings"-style hero. I can finally tell with certainty what kind of character Hoke is: an RPG character. Nerwen is great as always, and I agree with Zepher about her being one of the more consistent characters in Heroica. As someone who used to act, part of me wants to pick you apart to figure out where you get it from, but another part of me knows it's like a magic trick: once you know the secret, the magic's gone. Tensi/Benji: I barely got to see you two, so I don't have much to give you. I love Tensi, as always, but I hate how little I get to see of her; it's always really disappointing. Benji had a few nice moments with Arx on the boat and in Carn, but aside from that you sort of faded into the background, even though you were fairly active. Again, I'm disappointed I didn't get to see more. Battles and loot: WBD wins the battles; they were tough, smart, fair, and fun. Pie's come next in line: aside from the bridge battle, they were intense and exhilarating, though they did seem to drag just a little bit more than WBD's. Loot-wise, though I think I like the stuff Zeph gave his Paladins the best; I absolutely know that whoever got that "hits on Meditate" sword can sell it to Boomers for big bucks, he's been complaining about Paladins' hit ratios for ages. When I first thought about loot, I was going to complain that there didn't seem to be a lot of it, but upon closer inspection it seemed like you guys (and WBD in particular) took the "consumables" approach, which I like a lot. Gold seemed a bit light at first as well, but added up across the whole Quest it ended up fair, at least for the Q90-ers (the other two had Guts and Hoke, so there's no room to complain there ). I do think that that rose-mace is one of the more creative weapons we've seen lately (probably since the Oculoid Palm we got from Endgame), and the gifts WBD gave to the newer Heroes at the end were nice as well. Comparing to Dastan: Because you know this is what it's going to get compared to. I'm going to get a lot of hate for saying this, but: I don't think Baltarok was as good as Dastan, for a few simple reasons: 1.) The Heroes seemed to have little to no effect on the world, outside of uniting Baltarok; the Kingdoms and the Nords could care less whether or not Heroes were there. For the majority of the Quest it felt like the Q88 Heroes could have stayed home and Q89 and Q90 would have been unaffected aside from a few minor details. Additionally, it didn't really feel like the three Quests affected each other outside of the designated "interaction zones"; in Dastan, you had Sir Lyons popping up for the Quest 30 Heroes, you had Q31 chasing cultists, you had Wren taunting 31, and of course Emeraldo's betrayal which affected everyone involved. In Dastan, you were constantly hearing about things going on prompted by things the other Heroes were doing; it made the place feel alive and active, like what you said and did mattered beyond just then and there. In Baltarok, the immense separation and isolation prevented this, and as a result it felt a lot more like three separate Quests that happened to take place in the same time and place; while I'd love to see more crossovers like that (i.e. if another Quest set out and passed through Bric'lin the Heroes of that Quest could cameo with those of 101 without really affecting anything), it felt like exactly that: a crossover, not a trilogy. Part of it, though, was that the curtain of railroading wasn't entirely closed. Looking back on it, Dastan had to have been incredibly railroaded, but it certainly didn't feel that way; it felt like we were making our own choices and responding to events as we saw fit. Here, though, the railroading wasn't very well-hidden; the most egregious example was with Q90 and Q89 at the gates of Irlaz; the Q90-ers actually got there first in real-time, but were second in-universe--the two non-orc bystanders talked about how the 89 group went through the gate without them before the 89-ers even managed to convince the guards to let them pass. That part was pretty disheartening, to me anyway. I recognize the need for railroading (hell, especially for something this complex), but I'd rather see it hidden behind a nice layer of polish, so it's easier to suspend my disbelief that the Heroes have any choice in the matter. The illusion of choice, even if no actual choice is present, you know? I also missed the topics separating out into their individual threads for wrapping up and ending off; having everything end in Q90 certainly makes things simpler, but it lacks a certain je ne sais quoi--I guess "closure" is the closest word to what I was looking for. Feels kind of like it just "stopped", rather than ending. That said, the trilogy was by no means bad. The story of how Heroica mended fences with the Orcs they were founded by defeating made for a very emotionally satisfying storyline, and there are certainly lots of great mechanics and Specials I plan to steal from in the future. I loved the circus troupe, and I certainly loved the idea of someone hiring a circus troupe to break a man out of prison. The sets and characters were all visually interesting in their design (save perhaps for perhaps Prince David), and as I said most of the character interaction was excellent. I do look forward to seeing some of those surviving Orc characters again someday, though perhaps in something a little less charged than the fate of empires (a follow-up like the Rito got for Dastan would be pretty nice). Overall, congratulations on surviving, and well done Heroes and QMs!

U'Vires had one, but only because Lord Blackenord had just invented one, and with him out of the picture no one else has replicated his research. I remember Zepher saying something about having to get special permission from Sandy about flintlocks back when Dastan finished.

Scrolls. Fragile, Armor Sundering, and Poisoning are going to be your big three, along with perhaps Blindness and Confusion.

Mostly I'm poking fun at the way he talked about "The Prophet", since the entire first season of that show was about an enemy called "The Clairvoyant".

Oh gods, it's the friggin' Clairvoyant arc all over again. Someone kill Heweyrt before Ward shoots Hand. (If you don't get that, good; if you do get that and haven't seen the episode in question, I'm sorry. )

OOC: Left Sword Jinxed? "Leave the two counter-strikers be, I'll take their Free Hits. Erdy, take out the left Sword. Master Grimwald, heal yourself, then work on Frail-ing the Left Sword and then the claws. Minoid, you're on the Right Claw this time." Arthur throws his Gladiator Trident at Sword Dauntlet (left), then follows up his attack, Zoot's Rebel using an inky tentacle to strike at Sword Dauntlet (right) from the Back Row, his body levitating slightly as he did so. Battle Order: Grimwald Arthur Arthur Grimwald Minoid Erdathcath Erdathcath OOC: Free Hits should be: Magic Dauntlet (left) vs. Grimwald--no effect, Blind Magic Dauntlet (right) + Claw Dauntlet (left) vs. Arthur--40+31=71/4=17.75-SP:20=0 damage

R.I.P. Flipz Died laughing

Wait with me for the Shadeaux Quest, we'll both be the same Level.

Zepher, please don't give me a heart attack by making me think you're Kinto. Thanks.

OOC: Why am I listed as a Mystic Knight? Also, I gave the Phoenix Essence to Minoid and told him to put it in the Hollow-Blade Dagger. "We need the magic...things...Blinded, Grimwald--be sure to use both your regular and scroll actions. If by some miracle they're both Blind and you have actions remaining, Frail Minoid's target. Minoid, Quick Bow on one of the claws, Back Row--for simplicity, make it the Left one. Erdathcath, Jinx one of these swords, then target the other with your handcannon. Grimwald, you might take a Free Hit this Round, depending on how this all works out--we'll patch you up next Round." Arthur drinks a Nostrum and throws his Gladiator Trident at a Dauntlet according to the following conditions: 1.) if a Magic Dauntlet is not Blind, attack that Dauntlet. 2.) if both Magic Dauntlets are Blind and Minoid has not rolled Special Damage, attack whichever Dauntlet Erdathcath has made Jinxed. 3.) if both Magic Dauntlets are Blind and Minoid has rolled Special Damage, attack the weakest Claw Dauntlet. Battle Order: Grimwald Grimwald Arthur Minoid Erdathcath Erdathcath Arthur

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=59427 That should be the copy of the site as it was on May 14th. I'll go ahead and save the HTML file just in case Google updates its cache, and then I'll grab everything from a copy-paste and PM it to you. I encourage others to work on it as well, just in case something goes wrong.

All right. My last finals ever have been done for two whole days and I'm running out of things to do to pass the time between now and the ceremony. Someone give me another character to minmax. No, but seriously. Someone. Anyone.