Aldath's recent activity

  1. D&D session report, 24-11-16

    The game is AD&D 1e. I'm happy to discuss any mechanics behind the report if anyone asks. The party: Iskandar, human Magic-User 7 Jurgen, human Ranger 6 DeBeaux, half-orc Cleric 1 / Fighter 1 /...

    The game is AD&D 1e. I'm happy to discuss any mechanics behind the report if anyone asks.

    The party:

    • Iskandar, human Magic-User 7
    • Jurgen, human Ranger 6
    • DeBeaux, half-orc Cleric 1 / Fighter 1 / Assassin 1
    • Bite, half-orc Fighter 1
    • Rowan, human Magic-User 6
      • Henchman Freya, human Fighter 4
      • Henchman Rikka, human Fighter 4
    • Vortigern, dwarf Fighter 6 / Thief 6
      • Henchman Ingrid, human Ranger 4
      • Henchman Runa, human Magic-User 4

    The location: an underwater facility inhabited by aquatic elves who are currently suffering from a wasting disease of the mind that's been spreading amongst them. Those affected have been forcibly sent to the lower levels. A faerie elf (C6/F6/MU9) named Alfred has enlisted the party's assistance.

    The plan this evening was to delve into the third floor of this facility. They left the safety of the first floor and quickly navigated through the second, back to the lift that would take them down to the third.

    The party wanders through the halls, checking each of the iron doors for traps before attempting to pry them open. During one such attempt, a few dozen elves (and then some), horribly mutated into beings with sightless orbs but exceptional hearing, approaches from behind. The party was not caught unawares, and one fireball from Rowan later, they finish up with the door and loot the bodies of any loose coin. It's noted that many of the coins were destroyed in the blast.

    They make their way through a kitchen and eventually come across a dead-end hallway with seemingly no purpose. Before they can do much with that information, another group of a couple dozen mutant elves shows up, but the party catches them by surprise and manages to shock & awe in a way that led to the mutant elves fleeing.

    A few members of the party spread out to start checking the walls, and Rikka stumbles through one of the walls with a shout. An illusory wall hid a room with an elven corpse in full battle gear and another lift to a fourth floor. Rowan begins unstrapping the armor from the corpse and then he stops, now unresponsive and non-verbal. Seeing his ally struck with a feeblemind curse, Jurgen does the most sensible thing and tries to loot the sword off the corpse, falling prey to the same curse.

    Iskandar borrows some rope and creates a leash for his allies, leading them along. The party decides they should leave and see if Alfred can fix this. He can, and does, for a total sum of 5200 gold. During this, Vortigern's player began feeling unwell and stepped away for the evening.

    The party goes back down and decides to try a different direction, bringing them to a hallway filled with razor wire, thickly enough that passage would be both slow and painful. After some discussion, Iskandar uses levitate on himself and creates a tightrope above the wire, along the wall, utilizing some rope and door spikes.

    They follow the hall to another couple of doors, one straight ahead and one to their left. Their attentions turns to the left one, which has been locked from this side and welded shut. DeBeaux unlatches the door as Bite moves forward to force it open with his exceptionally high strength. The party moves into the room, seeing a number of effigies fashioned from elven flesh placed around a bone ramp that ends at an altar with a large marble bowl resting on it. Iskandar approaches and sees text inscribed in Elvish within the bowl, so he casts comprehend languages and runs his hands along it. 'The rowan wand lies in blood'.

    Unsure of how to proceed with that, he steps away as Rowan approaches, dagger in hand. Rowan cuts across his palm and bleeds into the bowl, at which point an unseen force pulls his hand within, drawing yet more and more of his essence into it, the blood forming and solidifying into a wand. Upon inspection, it has inscribed 'fir-aga' on the bottom.

    The party moves into another room through a stuck iron door and sees a big cylinder of glass holding a mass of slime, vegetation, and refuse. Laid around said cylinder is a small hoard; silver, jewelry, scroll cases. Iskandar rushes forth to the scroll cases, Jurgen and Bite close behind, which angers the shambling mound in its glass container. Breaking forth from its cage, the shambling mound strikes at the lot of them, landing hits on Rikka and Bite. Many attacks fly towards it as Iskandar carefully backs away from the creature, and Bite is struck by one of its limbs, going down with broken ribs. Iskandar follows up with a magic missile, which is sufficient to kill the creature. Jurgen applies healing to Bite via a potion of light healing, the party gathers all the loot they've found, and then they all leave for the first floor.

    Notable magic items found

    • ivory goat trio figurines of wondrous power [sold]
    • scroll of protection from earth elementals [sold]
    • scroll containing three cleric spells [sold]
    • wand of fireballs [kept]
    • scroll containing seven magic-user spells [kept]
    • frostbrand [kept]

    Current player-kept map of the third floor.

    11 votes
  2. Comment on D&D session report, 24-11-09 in ~games.tabletop

    Aldath
    Link Parent
    Aye, I'm the GM. I get a marching order at the top of the session and default to that unless circumstances dictate otherwise, so it's not overly difficult to keep track of, really. Henchmen are...

    Aye, I'm the GM. I get a marching order at the top of the session and default to that unless circumstances dictate otherwise, so it's not overly difficult to keep track of, really. Henchmen are largely played by the player of the PC employing them. Combat is side vs. side, with initiative rolled each round. Actions are declared by the players before the dice are rolled, and then we resolve actions in steps based on who won.

    Elves have a 90% chance to resist any magical sleep or charm effect placed on them. A number of them failed that night, lol.

    3 votes
  3. D&D session report, 24-11-09

    The game is AD&D 1e. The party: Jurgen, human Ranger 6 Aeliana, elf Fighter 3 / Magic-User 2 / Thief 4 DeBeaux, half-orc Cleric 1 / Fighter 1 / Assassin 1 Iskandar, human Magic-User 7 Henchman...

    The game is AD&D 1e. The party:

    • Jurgen, human Ranger 6
    • Aeliana, elf Fighter 3 / Magic-User 2 / Thief 4
    • DeBeaux, half-orc Cleric 1 / Fighter 1 / Assassin 1
    • Iskandar, human Magic-User 7
      • Henchman Thorgisl, Fighter 1
    • Vortigern, dwarf Fighter 6 / Thief 6
      • Henchman Runa, human Magic-User 4
      • Henchman Ingrid, human Ranger 4
    • 6 crossbowmen and 2 infantrymen

    The location: an underwater facility inhabited by aquatic elves who are currently suffering from a wasting disease of the mind that's been spreading amongst them. Those affected have been forcibly sent to the lower levels. A faerie elf (C6/F6/MU9) named Alfred has enlisted the party's assistance.

    This is not their first foray into the dungeon, but they have their first encounter with the affected elves here. The ten elves are immediately suspicious and eventually attack once they learn the party was sent here by Alfred. One successful sleep and a decent set of rolls later, the remaining three elves flee. The sleeping ones were tied up, and the party attempted an inquiry, but the elves decided a forever-sleep was preferable, though their movements prior to that were oddly jerky.

    They wander the halls of this facility, eventually encountering a gelatinous cube, which two magic missiles from Iskandar & Runa took care of.

    In one chamber, they solved a puzzle and activated a Shrine (from the TSR Diablo supplement for 2e) that opened town portals back to the safe floor. Through trial, they discovered what these do, but only two (Aeliana's and Iskandar's portals) remained.

    The highlight of the evening was the party coming across a set-up they'd seen in another room; two ceremonial masks kept inside a glass case, framed with iron, and watched by nearby metal torches that would loose blasts of arcane energy at any that got too close. Aeliana and Vortigern attempt to disarm the trap. Vortigern succeeds, but Aeliana fails significantly enough to accidentally trigger the trap, forcing a save vs. breath for 15 damage. She fails, and with her maximum HP of 8, she is incinerated on the spot. Luckily, her gear remains. They travel back to the portals activated earlier and send a hobilar in with Aeliana's corpse while the rest of them found their way back up. They petition Alfred for a revival, and he does have a scroll with a couple castings of raise dead on them, and the party can certainly afford the price for it, but he gently reminds them that elves are soulless, requiring more powerful magic to revive than he has access to.

    After some discussion, Runa rests a while before casting invisibility on herself and her horse so that she might make a trip to a town some 35 miles out to grab:

    • Rowan, a human MU 6
      • Henchman Rikka & Freya, both human Fighter 4

    Rowan uses invisibility, 10' radius on everyone relevant and they travel back to the elven city to continue exploring. In doing so, they encounter another set of 15 elves, but dispatch them quickly and decisively due to surprise, though Ingrid took a heavy amount of damage (10 damage to her maximum of 22 HP).

    We stop shortly after the group finds the lift to the lower level, whereupon their crossbowmen and hobilars refuse to go any deeper, indicating a dungeon floor of at least DL 4 difficulty.

    11 votes
  4. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Aldath
    Link
    The Callisto Protocol I've been playing this in sporadic bursts since release. I didn't have the issues so many others were reporting, so I won't really speak much to that; I told NVIDIA to...

    The Callisto Protocol
    I've been playing this in sporadic bursts since release. I didn't have the issues so many others were reporting, so I won't really speak much to that; I told NVIDIA to optimize my settings, then adjusted a couple of things, and it's been running well.

    It's been a competent survival horror so far. As loathe as I am to make comparisons, the moment-to-moment gameplay feels like a melee-focused Dead Space. Once you've gotten a couple of the baton upgrades (which can happen very quickly) it feels good to bash the creatures around. The boxer-esque dodge mechanic took very little time to get used to. The GRP feels great after upgrading the throw velocity, but aiming it can be a chore at times, as on more than one occasion I've tried to throw a creature into an environmental hazard that instead stopped dead five feet away because its pinky toe caressed the top corner of a knee-high box.

    The story... works, for what it's doing. It's nothing groundbreaking or new, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, and I've really only felt one contrivance WRT an NPC you meet early on, but that could be tied to the story, so perhaps it'll get better.


    Apex Legends
    Not much to say on this one; it's something I play a couple times a week with some friends. Entertaining enough Battle Royale.


    Warhammer 40k: Darktide
    I will sum up my feelings here because I don't want to get too into it.
    The moment-to-moment gameplay is phenomenal, but everything around it is such an un-fun, near insulting chore.


    Hades
    Another game I play sporadically in bursts of one or two runs, I've got about 40 hours into it so far. A staple of modern roguelikes is having some form of permanent progression baked in, but this goes a step further and incorporates that mechanic into the story. It is expected that you die to further conversations and relationships with the various characters, on top of the usual permanent progression systems. Very easily one of the best roguelikes I've played.

    2 votes
  5. Comment on What have yo been playing recently? in ~games.tabletop

    Aldath
    Link
    I play on multiple platforms at once, but here's what I've been spending my time on: PC - Pillars of Eternity 2 - I'm level 8 at the moment, still running around the first major city, Neketaka....

    I play on multiple platforms at once, but here's what I've been spending my time on:

    • PC - Pillars of Eternity 2 - I'm level 8 at the moment, still running around the first major city, Neketaka. I've always disliked big cities in cRPGs, if only because of how large they are. Ratio of running around and talking to people vs. combat is too skewed. I can't wait to be done and go back to being a pira-imean Gentleman of Fortune.

    • PS4 - Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix - Played KH1 and 2 back on the PS2, bought the remix so I could experience the full game again before the third one comes out. Being able to watch some of the other games as cutscenes is also nice. I've missed out on a lot by only having played KH1, 2, and BBB. I will say that KH1 has not aged well, but I dipped into the 2.5 Remix and it seemed like it would hold up.

    • PS Vita - Demon Gaze - A dungeon crawler that was recommended to me by a friend. Some of the art is pretty fan servicey, but the game itself is solid.

    1 vote