House of Ainsley: Out-of-Character Discussion

In hindsight, I probably should have invested a bit more thought into my homebrewed geography.

So that big, former tsardom was (and, colloquially, is still) named Karkova. But its former capitol (and now an ordinary large, isolated, sparsely populated and mostly ruined city) is named Karkovia.

Confused yet?

Seeing as Karkova is pretty much an analog of medieval Russia (all the way down to being the biggest nation on the map, yes) with a few Czech and Romanian smudges mixed in, I probably could have given the capitol city a more unique name, like Platinagrad ("the Platinum City," unless Google Translate and/or my Cyrillic-to-Romanized-English translator are lying to me...) or something similar.

Ah, well. Hindsight's 20/20, right?

Anyway, with my next two days off I'd like to knuckle down and get that Ainsley family tree finished; it's been lying half-finished for years now, and I need to take care of it. Out-of-character knowledge is still taboo, of course; if your characters want to know all about the highlights of their family tree or why Lord Borogon was so roundly reviled, they're just going to have to invest some points in Knowledge: Royalty and Nobility like everyone else does.

Apologies for disappearing for over a week. But it had something to do with this.

I joined City of Heroes about two weeks after the MMO launched back on April 28th of 2004. I still remember that "new car" sensation of rolling up my very first superhero (The Widowed), exiting character creation and finding myself in the Outbreak zone, with rioting thugs doped up on some super-drug or another, widespread property damage for far around and police bots lined up to contain the threat. Sure enough, I talked to the first police detective I saw, and he told me to go into that little war zone and beat up some of those crazed rioters. And these were measly Level 1 punks; I hadn't even begun to imagine what kinds of nasty global threats would be dusting up with Widdy at Level 50.

I'd experienced that "new car" feeling with Ultima Online and Anarchy Online, but it wasn't anywhere near as heady as the euphoria I found in City of Heroes. The surrounding virtual world looked so much alive, with cars and trucks prowling around the city streets, people idly walking their pedestrian paths and talking to you when you'd click on them, trash blowing lazily down the sidewalk, old refrigerators and shopping carts strewn around neglected alleyways along with other assorted junk and debris, rioters hurling Molotov cocktails into lashing blazes...none of the other MMOs I had ever played gave me such a vivid and living world, nor would any MMO come close to rivaling the vitality of this game's electron world until The Matrix Online launched a year later.

But it was that same year later when Cryptic Studios unveiled the Beta phase for City of Villains, and I was pleasantly surprised to receive a Beta invite. Before too long, I was rolling up an assortment of supervillains, all of them trying to break out of a maximum security prison and crush any prison guards, rival criminals or cadres of superheroes who got in their way. The Beta testing drew to a close, but by then I was already so impressed that I reserved a Special Edition copy of City of Villains from Gamestop, complete with artwork from the game and a little HeroClix miniature of Ghost Widow, one of the signature archvillains from City of Villains. Soon, the ruinous, beguiling and psychotic psionicist Bloodywedd took to the skies over the Rogue Isles, leaving spates of pain, destruction and anarchy in her wake.

City of Villains offered one delight which City of Heroes did not: bank robberies. For some nebulous reason, those missions grabbed me like no other missions did, whether that feeling came from the nefarious background music, the panicking citizens racing around the bank or the stress and claustrophobia of being trapped in the bank vault chamber, furiously trying to batter through a massive vault door while waves upon waves of security guards and police officers were flooding into the bank, trying to stop you.

About a year after that, Cryptic gave us one better: Mayhem Missions, which not only included the bank robbery itself but the supervillains' approach to the bank across several city blocks. And unlike the original bank robberies, Mayhem Missions put you on the clock: take too long getting to the bank and looting the vault and you scuttle the mission. Fortunately, the surrounding city offered plenty of opportunities to extend your time window by committing other crimes, thus distracting the authorities and pushing back their closing stranglehold. The more destructive or severe the crime, the greater the time bonus...30 seconds for beating up a squad of police interceptors and resisting arrest, four minutes for arson, six minutes for plundering a pawn shop, and so on. I was so impressed with the Mayhem Missions that I went so far as to record one of Bloodywedd's exploits and preserve it on my YouTube channel for posterity.


And then I moved to Texas, and I ended up cancelling my City of Heroes/Villains account three years ago due to tightening purse strings. So imagine what sort of regret I now feel for missing out on the past three years of development and gameplay, now that NCsoft has announced that they're pulling the plug on Paragon Studios--and with them, CoX--on November 30th.

And through it all, I fail to understand how CoX remains the most profitable of NCsoft's games in the Western Hemisphere, yet it's the one getting the axe.

Friggin' corporate cluelessness....

So I've been playing my little heart out on City of Awesomeness, futilely hoping that I can somehow experience three years' worth of twists and turns and evolution in the space of three months. At least I'm just about over the big, initial grief stage, so I'll make a point of wandering back here more often. And, of course, after November 30th, I'll be back on here regularly. Hang in there, please.

Yeah, I've found that NCsoft has weird people in management.

But the move is probably due to the release of Guild Wars 2. They have so many games like Lineage and Aion but nothing like COH. And their western audience is a fickle bunch lol

Oh, I think their western audience has been pretty steadfast and loyal, at least to City of Heroes.

But yes, NCsoft is probably gearing up for Guild Wars 2. There's also talk that they're slowly pulling out of their North American and European markets to focus on their Korean market, and that that's why CoH is getting the axe instead of Aion; even though Aion has floundered and CoH has soared in both North America and Europe, the exact opposite has been true in Korea. And, none too coincidentally, NCsoft is a South Korean corporation.

It sounds like a dumb idea to forsake two markets for the sake of one, but like you said, this wouldn't be the first boneheaded decision that NCsoft has made.

It might also have something to do with the world perception the the US and European ecconomies are about to tank.

Well, I can't speak for Europe, but I lay our own mess at the feet of both the Republicans and the Democrats, seeing as their stupid, neverending feud has turned our Congress into one big millstone around this nation's neck. "Well, we could cut the taxpayers a break by eliminating wasteful spending, reinforcing the nation's infrastructure and education programs and otherwise investing in our nation's future, orrrrr...we can keep spending the people's tax money to stick it to the other team and get ourselves re-elected over and over with gazillion-dollar election campaigns, then simply shuffle the debt around until we owe half of everything to China! What a super-de-dooper idea! Maybe we can divert another creek around John Kerry's house while we're at it. Screw the peasants! We don't need 'em. Derp."

So I'm pretty well convinced that our Government has become the tyrants which Thomas Jefferson warned us about. And maybe when the next Revolution comes, we'll take all the non-Third-Party senators and representatives and put them all against the wall first. it wouldn't bring back all the tax revenue and Social Security revenue which they so selfishly wasted, but it would pull the thorn out of our paw so that this nation can heal and return to some degree of prosperity. It would also send a warning to the next guys...at least until their political descendants decide that they're above the lessons of history in another 200 years.

Okay, I become a real boor when I get political. So...how 'bout those 2012 Olympic games?

*pokes Drakon*

....

*fit of giggles*

....

*CACKLE!*

....

>End/HiJack>

*Gets poked*

*Eats Wraith*

*looks around*

What? She started it.

*SNERKLE!*

I tried looking on YouTube for that Robot Chicken segment with Wesley Crusher and Snerkles, but I couldn't find it. Regardless, it would be highly relevant here.

Also, I'll be spending much of today drawing up new stuff for Gametable...new walls, new doors, new pogs, new traps and so on. We may never actually use things like walls and doors made of silver or gold or emerald or diamond or mithril or adamantine, but you never know....

I'll also be adding 45-degree-angle variants for walls, doors, rowboats and such, seeing as Gametable's Rotation tool doesn't do 45-degree rotations for some odd reason. 60 degrees is okay, but 45 isn't. Odd, huh?

It also sucks that Gametable can't handle partial transparency; it does 100% transparency and 0% transparency (complete opacity), but it can't do anything in between. So as much as I'd like, I can't make a glass door with 50% transparency so I could plunk it down and still see the floor beneath it. I also just tried to make "fading darkness" tiles for Sylvea's map; start on one side of a black tile with 0% transparency, then add stripes of increasing transparency (20%, 40%, 60%...) until you reach 100% on the other side. It would have made the nifty effect of seeing the hallway ahead of you gradually getting engulfed in perfect darkness at the edge of your torchlight, but alas, it didn't work.

Anyway, let me know if y'all have any requests.

Hello again, adventurers!

One of the reasons why I've been having trouble posting whenever it's time for me to roll out a new map is that, for about a year or so, Gametable hasn't done a very good job of saving maps. And by that, I mean that something has apparently corrupted my Gametable copy, some random 1 or 0 falling out of place. Or perhaps my version of Gametable (RC7) was buggy to begin with.

I have several map files where I've been saving your characters' current maps and layouts...MapKarnoz.grm, MapCorwin.grm and so on. But lately, everytime I've gone to Load one of these files, it's been screwed up...lots of missing pieces, reversions to previous maps because the last update didn't save properly, things like that. So after I just loaded Sylvea's map and found the whole thing completely blank--forcing me to rebuild the entire map from scratch...again--I decided that it was time to download a fresh copy of Gametable, install it and try again.

Well, apparently I need to check in on the Gametable site more often, because they're up to Version RC9 now. I've been using RC7 for over a year, so maybe it's time for an upgrade. We'll see if this makes my Gametable's Save and Save As functions work properly again.

And I haven't touched the save files for the Tinstone Warrens and BBB adventures, so those save files should still be good. Feel free to install your own copies of RC9, and maybe we'll get a chance to continue those adventures one of these nights. Stay tuned.

Karnoz is ready, by the way.

Also, if you catch me failing to update certain details of the Party thread in a timely manner, please let me know.

Wraith! This post is all about you, babe.

For all this time, Ariean has been a pretty loose jumble of generic stats. But I feel that, as Sylvea's supporting character and constant ally, she deserves better than that. So she's finally getting her own character sheet. It's about time, huh?

Ariean is actually turning out better than expected, in part because she got some great Ability rolls and in part because of her nifty Ghoul bonuses. But presently I'm stuck at her Feats. As a Level 3 Ghoul, she gets three Feats (as Ghouls get an extra Feat at Level 1). I've already decided that she's getting Lifebond: Sylvea Aringerille no matter what; it was what love remained in Sylvea's bitter heart that coaxed Evening Glory into bringing Ariean back from the grave (albeit as a ghoul), and thus Sylvea's heart and soul empower Ariean when she's near, just as Sylvea's death would all but destroy her. So Lifebond fits perfectly.

But as for the other two Feats, those depend on Ariean's history and/or her approach to her new and dangerous lifestyle. What shall they be? Just a few suggestions:


The Scourge (Contagious Paralysis and Improved Paralysis): Ariean was surprisingly welcoming towards her transformation; it's better than death, and she secretly considered her old elven life of traipsing among the treetops boring. Aside from having to eat the occasional rotting carcass, she has adapted to her undeath very well, pushing herself to study and perfect her newfound ghoulish powers. Not only has her paralyzing touch become much harder to resist, but the touch's power can also spread from her paralyzed victims to anyone hapless enough to touch them in turn. Alas, those who withstand the touch of Ariean's victims will become temporarily innoculated against Ariean's firsthand touch, but every rose has its thorn.

The Marathon Girl (Run and either Skill Focus: Jump or Skill Focus: Climb): Ariean spent a great deal of her youth running cross-country; perhaps she was one of her clan's messengers, perhaps she had a habit of getting into danger and grew better at escaping it, or perhaps she was simply a competitive athlete. But she can outrun or overtake practically anybody, and once she decides on a destination, however distant it may be, no mountain or chasm will stop her from getting there.

The Snatcher (Expertise and Improved Disarm): To Ariean's dismay, some enemies--including other elves and other undead--are highly resistant or perhaps even immune to the paralyzing attacks of ghouls. And without the benefit of paralysis, Ariean's natural attacks are quite weak, and a paralysis-proof opponent armed with a battle axe or a greatsword can be menacing indeed. To compensate, Ariean has learned to hang back, elude her enemy's attacks, take measure of her enemy's moves, lunge forward at the right moment and rip the weapons from her enemy's hands, reducing her foe to a more manageable threat and perhaps even turning his own weapons against him in a delicious stroke of irony.

The Hound (Run and Track): At times wood elves form hunting parties, whether out of religious ceremony, out of the needs of survival or for the sake of their colony's defense. Ariean attended so many of these hunts that the clan's rangers themselves came to recognize her talents as a tracker. With such a history (and these Feats), Ariean could hunt down fleeing prey with a head start of several days, stalk their passage through mixed terrain and sprint for the final takedown once her wearied quarry is in sight. Imagine how unshakeable her prey will find her now that she is sleepless and tireless.

The Wolf (Expertise and Improved Trip): Though the essence of nature recoils at the presence of the undead, Ariean has not forgotten nature's lessons. She has cunningly struck a union between the ghoul's savagery and the wolf's cunning, and through this coupling of styles she has learned to fight dirty. Hanging back and dodging her foe's strokes until he shows a moment of weakness, Ariean pounces for the legs and topples her opponent with enough speed to strike him to the earth as he falls. Once on his back, with Ariean kneeling on his chest and raking him madly with her taloned hands, his defeat may not be long in coming.

The Bear (Power Attack and Weapon Focus: Claws): This time, Ariean has remembered a far different lesson from the beasts of the natural order. Her claws may be weak compared to the many weapons of the forges, but compensation for that weakness may simply be a greater measure of strength and physical power behind those claw rakes. Against tougher enemies, her arms often mimic the powerful, sweeping blows of an enraged bear, striking with enough force to rip away large tatters of skin and muscle. And her familiarity with her own hands and arms helps offset the inaccuracy of such wild swinging.

The Spider (Daunting Presence and Improved Paralysis): Through the union of the ghoul's cold, crippling touch and the spider's fearsome presence and natural technique, Ariean has learned the power of intimidation and ambush, giving her prey just enough time to recognize their doombringer and cringe with crippling fear before she darts in, drops them with her fell touch and drags them away into the shadows to finish at her leisure. Combined with expertise in the Hide and Move Silently skills, Ariean stands to become the stalker of many a modern-day horror film, lurking just beyond the reach of her victims and snatching them away one by one.

The Dragonfly (Dodge and Mobility): The key to victory, as some jest and others claim in earnest, is simply to not get hit. Ariean is exceptionally agile, and by perfecting her nimbleness she has become a hard target indeed. Her Dodge talents serve her well against single enemies, while her graceful Mobility can see her ducking and weaving through blade-bristling mobs of enemy warriors while suffering nary a scratch.

The Unholy Fiend (Improved Turn Resistance and Positive Energy Resistance): Though animated through the powers divine, Ariean is no friend to the gods or their servants. Perhaps she secretly resents her undeath and those responsible for it, including Sylvea herself. Perhaps she has personally tasted the powers of Turning or Rebuking and despises those who can strip her of her own free will. Or perhaps she is calculating or paranoid enough to believe that the Twilight Candle themselves may seek to do away with her one day and has steeled herself against that outcome. Whatever her cause, her dark emotions have intensified the animating power of undeath within her body, to the point where the task of Turning or Rebuking her demands a soul vested with the utmost of faith, the destroying power of the Light falters before her corrupt soul, and she mocks priests by drinking their vials of holy water and laughing derisively as she comes to no harm.

Quicksilver (Improved Initiative and Lightning Reflexes): Nimble and swift, Ariean took to an adventurous lifestyle early in her life. Her reflexes are as fast as lightning and, more often than not, precise and ideal for the situation confronting her. And in practical application, she is quite skilled at landing the first blows, weaving through gauntlets of traps and instinctively tumbing away at the first whiff of brimstone before the fireburst roars.


So do any of these sound well-suited for Ariean so far? Should I keep going? Or would you like to mix-and-match two Feats on your own?

Oh wow.... ummm....

Is there a feats list? Or do you have some juicy ones you'd like to see.

Its nice because I've always considered Ariean to be her own character, despite always spelling her name wrong lol.

But power and swiftness come to mind when I think of her. Agility, speed and pure malicious harming tends to be more her style. She does the dirty work for her sister. Quite gladly too.

*EDIT*
I saw the list of Monstrous Feats in your feats thread. Above, you've got more feats listed as well. I'll have to think about it, but my earlier comment still stands on what Ariean will most likely pick.

Okay, I'm just popping in to say "Sorry for the delay, I'll get back on Karnoz and Sylvea tomorrow." It's been a crazy week, and Karnoz's map is taking some work anyway.

And I'm off to work. Cheers!

The House of Ainsley wrote:

Okay, I'm just popping in to say "Sorry for the delay, I'll get back on Karnoz and Sylvea tomorrow." It's been a crazy week, and Karnoz's map is taking some work anyway.

And I'm off to work. Cheers!

Yeah, I lied. The job turned out to be bigger than I expected. See this?



That's a significant part of why I took over a week to get back to Karnoz. Yes, that is indeed one big, zoomed-out Gametable map. Peek at Karnoz's thread right quick. Look at the second map with all the jumps and the zoomed-in area of the river immediately around Karnoz. Then look at where it fits into this huge, zoomed-out map.

It's a pretty friggin' big Gametable map, isn't it? And that's just the stuff that I'm showing you! If you could only see all the stuff that I've hidden on the DM's sneaky secret map layer....

But at least this has pretty well set the whole stage for Karnoz's climactic escape from Trock Reik. Karnoz and GD may only get to see a tiny fraction of all my hard work (and with the fuzz on his tail, Karnoz would be a fool to go exploring now), but I like to go the extra mile just in case Karnoz decides to go hither instead of yon. We can expect smooth sailing (and more timely replies) from here till the end of the encounter. Now if only Gametable let me bind underlay tiles into groups so I wouldn't have to keep scooting all those ice floes around one little tiny piece at a time....

Sylvea's map should be cake by comparison. Speaking of which, she's next. Stay tuned.

So I thought to look back over Sylvea's character sheet and its inventory (while I was going over Karnoz's inventory and totaling up his Encumbrance again), and it seems that Sylvea never received the everburning candle which all clerics from the Cult of the Twilight Candle receive before character creation. So here, Sylvea. Have a retroactive Everburning Twilight Candle. Along with the Black Skull Goblet, that makes two holy symbols which Sylvea has at her disposal. Feel free to cast spells or Rebuke Undead with either one, Wraith; they're equally effective.

Also, for Tiger's benefit, I went and added five Ability sets to the first post here. I also replaced a few existing sets that were, quite frankly, crap. We're talking about sets with three or four Abilities below 10 and nothing above a 13. Who would want to play a character with a bad hand like that? So Tiger should now have some good choices for building his new Hextorite. And for convenience of reference, I also added a couple of tables which can also be seen in the Miscellaneous Charts topic. Enjoy!

Also, that big, scary carrion crawler kind of turned into the recipient of a curbstomp battle, didn't it?

Now that I think about it, I'm thinking that the Cleric spells from Libris Mortis shouldn't be included in the list of standard spells, but should instead be quest rewards or knowledge unearthed through roleplay and the story itself. After all, why should Wizards be the only ones to experience the thrill of digging up a lost spell and adding it to their arsenals?

So some lost holy scroll, forgotten prayer or forbidden rite discovered during the course of an adventure could potentially teach the cleric a new way to invoke the power of the cleric's god (and with that, a new cleric spell). Some of those Libris Mortis spells can be particularly nasty (ie. Consumptive Field, Plague of Undead) or from questionable or disfavored origins (ie. Clutch of Orcus), which would explain why these spells are forgotten, forbidden or both.

Necrotic Cyst spells are their own ball game, of course. Like a Little League version of lichdom, any spellcaster deranged enough to dig up the formula for some horrid ritual, conduct that ritual and impregnate his or her own body with a parasitic lump of undead meat deserves all the power--and all the liabilities--that come with it.

Thoughts?

The House of Ainsley wrote:

Thoughts?

I like waffles.

Waffles suck. Pancakes are where it's at.

Relevant thoughts?

On a completely unrelated note, remember those penanggalans that Wraith and I were yammering about? They finally made it into D&D 4th Edition. Apparently they were in 1st Edition too, but I don't remember that. I have no idea why they skipped the two-and-a-half editions in between, either.

Can you imagine trying to keep your focus long enough to smite that beastie with Turn Undead? "By the power of Tyr, I compel...hey, is that lumpy thing her spleen or her gallbladder?" *CHOMP*

Okay, a little something for everyone here:


Wraith: I miss you. Come back.

Also, here's that Feats topic, in case you need help with picking those Feats for Ariean, or to come up with two Feats on your own in case any of my sets don't suit your tastes. Just keep Ariean's limits in mind; she can't take Feats like Cold One, Dead Man Walking, Ghostsight or any of the metamagic Feats, to name a smattering. Remember: the undead are immune to Horror, too.

And in case you need them:

Ariean Aringerille
Level 3 Ghoul, Neutral Evil
Strength 14, Dexterity 17, Constitution N/A, Intelligence 17, Wisdom 11, Charisma 15 (wood elf adjustments and ghoul adjustments have already been applied)
Base Attack Bonus: +1
Armor Class: 15 (base 10 + 3 (Dexterity) + 2 (Natural))


Tiger: We can move the details of your character creation to the appropriate topic, if you like. After all, we've all experienced the delight of other players chiming in with advice while you're creating your character at the pool table. Why not relish the experience here too?

And remember that there's no shame in letting your Abilities have a say in what sort of character you want to roll up; if you want to play a Wizard, and all the other players are saying, "Play a Wizard!" but the stats you just rolled are telling you, "I'm a Barbarian," then try your hand at a Barbarian. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Subnote 1: On the other hand, you should also remember that this is D&D 3. There are no longer any Experience penalties for picking Abilities that don't fit the Class' stereotype. Your Fighter has an 8 Strength and a 17 Intelligence? Okay, he's a tactician and an officer who was dismissed from the army after he contracted a wasting disease. No problem. This character's stats look Barbarian-like except for her 17 Charisma? No problem; she's obviously a diplomat sent from her tribe to negotiate a treaty with the local regent. Your half-orc has a 17 Strength and a 16 Constitution, but only a 15 Intelligence? Yes, you can make him a Wizard; he may not be the most magically powerful Wizard, but unlike most Wizards, he might actually have a decent chance of taking an axe and cutting down those three bugbears who thought to employ the time-honored "Rush the Wizard" gambit. The sky's the limit, mate.

Subnote 2: Don't let other players' Classes dictate your choice of Class. Well-rounded parties may be nice, but sometimes a party of four Fighters just plain works out; they may not have squat for magic power, but they could certainly surround a hill giant and cut him down in record time. Every thorn has its rose.

Apologies if I'm preaching to the choir here. Just trying to give you a boost and all.


SEAMUS: I miss you too. Was it something we said?


Jazman: Put down the kids and come back already!


The Drak: Doing great! Keep it up.


Okay, that's it for now. I really should get back on that list of Cleric spells now.

Hsha sorry guys, been a little preoccupied as of late. I'm finally finishing my apprenticeship!! My boss has also offered me a job after the apprenticeship ends. After some consideration, i said yes. Im only staying a few months though, need to look for another job. Lol.
One more week and i am a fully qualified Chef!!!