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Post by Ezeze on Oct 22, 2017 12:14:00 GMT -8
nobody in the party is currently of Evil alignment. Oh, that makes things so much easier. I almost asked in the OOC if the map was to scale and what everyone thinks of bringing a horse or a mule - but then I figured those were also questions that Katya would have and I should probably just ask them in character
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Post by HorizonsDream on Oct 22, 2017 13:30:49 GMT -8
Ah, yes, I have lost characters in Daos' games. In a different version of the Octhanian game, my character Ashlyn (I think she was a ranger) died. We hadn't even entered combat yet with the boss when Daos made all of us roll dice on if we survived the stench of some sort of undead (zombie something? I don't remember). Either way, my character died because the stench literally killed her. Now, I would have been cool with that because they were high enough level at that point that they could have easily had her resurrected by a high level priest. They had the money for it. Though, one of the players picked up Ashlyn's body and promptly threw her overboard once the battle was done, stating that his character didn't believe in resurrection! I don't think I have ever been so pissed off about a character death.
The other character death happened in what Daos and I call the evil campaign. All of us rolled up evil characters, and the point was to have them all work together to achieve their goals. Though, as they were evil characters and evil characters tend to be out for themselves, it didn't work out quite that well. I was also in a game where two of the players didn't like me very much, so they took every opportunity to try and kill my character. The first character that I had in that game was named Odessa, and she was a thief I think. Odessa was a sickly woman to begin with, and I honestly made a lot of mistakes that the other players took advantage of which ended up killing her. Though, without the death of Odessa, I wouldn't have been able to make probably one of my most successful characters which you guys are familiar with: Ladonna.
This version of Ladonna is a little bit different from the version that I played in the evil campaign. In the evil campaign, Ladonna was just a mage instead of an enchantress. I believe she was older too. She was obviously aligned as evil, where as the Ladonna I'm playing now isn't actually necessarily evil, but she certainly does have her own agenda. After the failure of Odessa, I made sure to play Ladonna smarter. The two players that hated me couldn't touch her, and that just pissed them off because Ladonna was going to achieve her goals while simultaneously ruining the other characters. I guess you could say I managed to avenge the death of Odessa.
After asking Daos, the other character death that I had was a fighter woman named Nalini (I think I'm spelling her name right). She had the beast rider kit, so she had a pet panther. Anyway, her whole thing was that she was trying to find her lost tribe. The problem was that the other players didn't want to help her find her tribe. I vaguely remember there being an argument with the other players about the idea of trying to find her tribe. Though, I don't remember why there was an argument in the first place. Either way, the players all went to this town that was overrun with zombies. Nalini's panther died, and then shortly after Nalini died during the boss fight (I think it was a zombie druid).
Keep in mind that I've been in Daos' games since the very beginning. When he first started, he always tried to find ways for the player's characters not to die. Now, he doesn't pull any punches. If you do something stupid that is going to get your character killed, then your character is most likely going to die.
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Post by Ezeze on Oct 22, 2017 13:55:56 GMT -8
I am so glad that Daos uses the "On Death's Door" optional rule.
That rule was made standard in 3.5, because it makes low-level encounters so much more survivable.
It also comes with opportunity for delicious, delicious drama.
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Post by notARobot on Oct 22, 2017 14:00:02 GMT -8
If you do something stupid that is going to get your character killed, then your character is most likely going to die. * gulp!* * phew!* Speak for yourself! Theron wants to live! LIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE! EDIT: I much prefer the "Death's Doorbell" variant, wherein the PC's repeatedly ring the bell at Death's Door, then run away before he can answer ...as a native of Louisiana, I'm fairly comfortable asserting that swamps are more-or-less impassable without one of those big fanboat things. I've heard of people taking pirogues and canoes in there, but I doubt anybody would want to travel more than a short distance like that. Besides, I don't think any of our characters are particularly skilled at steering boats or paddling. EDIT#2: (courtesy of Wikipedia)
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Post by Daos on Oct 22, 2017 14:03:10 GMT -8
Ashling Quinn. She was a Sea Ranger.
Zombie Lord.
Which was ridiculous, because his character was super religions and worshiped the goddess of healing.
He was a druid, but he was officially a Zombie Lord. Uh...you apparently have bad luck with those.
It's technically optional, but I've never known of a 2E game that didn't use it. That's probably why they made it standard in 3E and beyond.
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Post by HorizonsDream on Oct 22, 2017 14:05:01 GMT -8
I am so glad that Daos uses the "On Death's Door" optional rule. Daos had that rule in place when Ashlyn died, but unfortunately that didn't work in her case because I rolled for an instant death. I've had a lot of close calls in Daos' games, even with that rule in place, so it is still wise to be cautious. Right! Zombie Lord. I remember now. I hate those things, and I think Daos purposely puts them into his games because he knows I'm going to freak the hell out. The same happens with spiders. There was a ettercap in the last combat heavy chapter of this game, and I was like "Oh, hell no! I'm not going after that thing. Are you crazy?!" In one of his games he used an actual T-Rex. I don't know why that scared the crap out of me (and all the other players in that game), but it did. We can go up against dragons, no problem, but a T-Rex is more terrifying than a dragon.
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Post by Daos on Oct 22, 2017 14:30:31 GMT -8
Louisiana is next to the sea, though. This swamp may not be as deep. In any case, the party could just circle around the swamp instead of going through it. Once they can see it, they can judge how viable it is to cross it or not.
Yep, and it didn't save Odessa because her teammates killed her. And it didn't save Nalini because she was surrounded by a horde of regular zombies, and the party were all cut off from each other. I think the only survivor of that battle was the mage who polymorphed into a bird and flew the hell out of there.
I blame Jurassic Park. Dragons are far more terrifying. They can fly, they can breathe, and they can use spells. They are super intelligent. T-Rexs have none of those things, just a really big bite attack.
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Post by GravityEmblem on Oct 22, 2017 14:49:29 GMT -8
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Post by HorizonsDream on Oct 22, 2017 14:52:45 GMT -8
Dragons aren't real though. I can really only imagine them in my head (or watch them on Game of Thrones). A T-Rex though, those things use to be real. While the theories on the T-Rex have changed over the years (they are scavengers now rather than hunters), they were still pretty terrifying creatures. Though, honestly enough, I found the raptors in your games to be even more terrifying than the T-Rex because of their intelligence.
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Post by Ezeze on Oct 22, 2017 15:14:55 GMT -8
Okay, before I spend much longer angsting over whether or not to bring Oliver - Daos, can I bring Oliver?
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Post by notARobot on Oct 22, 2017 15:24:46 GMT -8
To be as pedantic as possible -- I think the size and depths of Louisiana's swamps have more to do with being fed by the Mississippi's distributaries, and not proximity to the Gulf. I could be wrong, though -- I am not an hydrologist or wetlands conservationist or anything like that. I guess if you get deep enough into the nitty-gritty details, being at the tail end of the Mississippi and being next to the Gulf of Mexico are pretty closely entwined...geography is complicated! Regardless, I'm sure your point stands...the Dark River is probably not as massive as the Mississippi.
I think we're missing the most important question here -- can a ranger use their animal empathy to tame a T-Rex and ride them?
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Post by Daos on Oct 22, 2017 15:37:10 GMT -8
And their spell-casting abilities. But you still managed to make peace with them with a hell of an unexpected diplomacy roll.
I was going to answer this in my next IC post, but...can you? Sure. Should you? Probably not. There are no suitable roads to their destination, and the fields are filled with animal burrows and other irregularities that could easily break a horse’s leg. The swamp, if the party decides to use it, is completely impassable for horses.
Technically, yes. I looked up the requirements, and a T-Rex fits them all.
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Post by HorizonsDream on Oct 22, 2017 15:49:29 GMT -8
To be as pedantic as possible -- I think the size and depths of Louisiana's swamps have more to do with being fed by the Mississippi's distributaries, and not proximity to the Gulf. I could be wrong, though -- I am not an hydrologist or wetlands conservationist or anything like that. I guess if you get deep enough into the nitty-gritty details, being at the tail end of the Mississippi and being next to the Gulf of Mexico are pretty closely entwined...geography is complicated! Regardless, I'm sure your point stands...the Dark River is probably not as massive as the Mississippi. According to Wikipedia because I was curious, Louisiana is drainage gateway to the Gulf of Mexico for the Lower Mississippi Regional Watershed. Matter of fact, southern Louisiana has 40 to 45 percent of the wetlands found in the lower states, so I think that is part of the reason why the swamps in Louisiana are so deep.
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Post by Jherek Everfull on Oct 22, 2017 15:58:12 GMT -8
laissez les bons temps rouler, mon ami! I knew there was a reason we jelled so well notARobot ! I have three first languages...English, Cajun French, and Spanish...I figure if it got bad enough we could all pile in a couple of pirouges and paddle our way into that little bayou. Watching for chat Tigres and caiman of course! Man! I love how small the world is sometimes! I lived most of my life in Beaumont Texas, and hour and a half at most from Lake Charles and the gateway to Louisiana. My family is from Huma! I am driving back back to Houston from Lake Charles, dropped off my midgets. I will post a reply for Ladonna when I get stopped again.
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Post by notARobot on Oct 22, 2017 17:29:03 GMT -8
Yeah...reflecting on the point I thought I was making, you and Daos are both totally right. Southern Louisiana being the point where the Mississippi dumps a vast amount of its water into the Gulf has a lot to do with both the ubiquity and depth of its swamplands. There was something resembling a meaningful idea in what I'd posted earlier, I think; but whatever distinction I was trying to draw was purely semantic, at best. Before the levee system was built, the Mississippi used to regularly flood -- much of what's now land here was frequently covered in water, until humans engineered ways to prevent that from happening. The elevation of southern Louisiana is, in many places, sea level, and in some places it's even lower. That's why the Mississippi meets the Gulf of Mexico here and not someplace else, and also why so many smaller rivers, lakes, streams, bayous, and bays are interspersed all around Louisiana (particularly its southern half). Both phenomena emerge from the same cause (Louisiana being elevationally-challenged), so pointing to either one or the other as having more to do with the depth of swamps is, I think, failing to acknowledge how they're fundamentally entwined, and missing the bigger picture. Haha...I don't actually speak a lick of French, Cajun or otherwise. Probably the only reason I know what the "laissez les bon temp roulette" phrase means is because of that bar on Magazine Street My great-grandmother used to sing songs in Cajun French, though, when I was a little boy...she had learned them when she herself was little, and if I recall correctly it was her mother who originally came down here from Canada. Compared to the vastness of outer space, we're all next-door neighbors, right?
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