House of Ainsley: Out-of-Character Discussion

A Macedonian prince who was leading an army of cavalrymen by Age 16 and earned his place in history as a shrewd tactician? Sounds like Alexander III of Macedonia (aka. Alexander the Great) to me. Now how do I spend those five points?

Also, bonny news! As of yesterday, I am no longer unemployed! And that's good. I was getting very depressed (again) over being jobless. It's at the local Dairy Palace, where I'll be working nights for $8.50 an hour. Plus, I still have the iron in the fire for the Detention Officer position at the Van Zandt County Sheriff Department, and that pays over $24,000 a year. Things are finally looking up now.

That said, let's see what I can do for Gustov and Sylvea tonight. I might even add all the spells from Stormwrack to the list of Cleric Spells while I'm at it. Stay tuned.

Well, after a weekend of getting the house clean and prepping our guest room for a new boarder, I'm off to my first night of work at Dairy Palace. It's not a job that I plan on sticking with for very long, but it'll pay the bills until I find something better. All the same, I feel those familiar butterflies in my stomach. Hope everything goes well.

And you know what? I probably should have packed some catapults for Darrovan's army or for one or more of the generals, considering that there's a siege after Zelezo Ford. That iron golem might be able to batter down a gate or two, but surely it can't do all the work by itself. Plus, if what General Hurrinog related to Karnoz is true, that golem might not survive Zelezo Ford anyway.

Think I should nix some of Darrovan's longbowmen and replace them with catapults and engineers? Catapults may not be as mobile, but load them with cobblestones and they're terrors against infantry. Whadyathink?

Okay, I'm out. I'll give a full report in the morning, peeps.

Yeah, this is definitely just a job to tide me over until I find something better. I'm not even sure if I should add it to my resumes and applications. At least the shift doesn't rotate around; it's straight-up Monday through Friday.

So how's the exciting world of employment treating you people?

*swats at the crickets*

Ah, screw the catapults.  Gustov's not afraid to bash a breach through an entire barbican with that hammer of his, right?  We'll manage.  

I'll go ahead and add the narrative and dialogue, and then it's back to Gustov.  He'll get to lay out some Karkovan dogs yet!


Also, the music boxes (as I like to call them).  You've probably seen them in my posts, whenever I decide that a change in background music would suit the mood of the post.  I've been wondering if their present unlabeled look is too plain or just right.  These clickies, as they look right now:




...and how they might look if I went ahead and started labeling them:




I dunno...in case somebody started wondering what tune that was, I guess.

So what do you think?  The unlabeled music notes are fine, or the labeled music notes look better?  You decide!

I think having the titles and credits for the song is a nice touch.

Sorry I've been out for awhile. This is a busy time for Scouting; recruitment, popcorn sales (which if anyone wants to buy any, let me know...) recharter and the new year starting up for den meetings. lots to plan for and get done. Almost a good thing that I have no life......

Anyway, lots of things going on for Jaz at the mo too. (give her some mad props, she just rescued a $41K deal for the ranch!!) so I am playing Mr. mom while she does all the business stuff.

We'll be back asap....

I like the descriptive thingies. That way I know what I'm listening to

Two in favor, then?  That's good enough for me.  I'll start labeling the music boxes.  Thank you for your input.  

So what was this $41,000 deal all about, GD? (Or Jazman, if you're looking in?)

Also, Gustov's ready. So are Karnoz, Sylvea, Keitha and even Keagon and Corwin (if they ever decide to wander back).

So Sylvea has now become the first character in this campaign to suffer elemental damage.  And thus, her present situation serves to illustrate how spells from the Endure Elements family (Endure Elements < Resist Elements < Protection from Elements) can be useful in certain circumstances.  These spells are good for mitigating or even negating damage from elemental attacks (whether the damage type be Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire or Sonic, color-coded for your convenience).  As one might expect, the higher the spell's Level, the better the protection it offers; Endure Elements (Acid) will protect you just fine if someone hurls a flask of aqua regia at you, but if a competent wizard blasts you with an Acid Fog spell, Endure Elements isn't going to cut it; you're better off going with Protection from Elements (Acid) in that instance.

These spells don't stack, unfortunately; as each spell wards against one elemental damage type (chosen by the spellcaster during the spell's casting), multiple castings of the same spell have no effect if they're of the same type.  So casting Resist Elements (Fire) twice will simply negate the first casting, but casting Resist Elements (Fire) and Resist Elements (Acid) will help protect the spellcaster from both Fire damage and Acid damage.  And while the separate spells from this chain can be cast together, the strongest spell supercedes the rest.  So if Sylvea casts both Resist Elements (Cold) and Protection from Elements (Cold) on herself, she'll only be protected by the Protection from Elements spell, at least until it absorbs too much Cold damage and collapses, at which point the Resist Elements spell will take over (provided that its duration hasn't lapsed yet).

These spells are one more reason (or, perhaps, three more reasons) why the Cleric class, as spellcasters go, tends to be better at defense than Sorcerers, Wizards and perhaps even Druids: because, contrary to colloquial wisdom, the best defense is not necessarily a good offense.  With the right defensive spells (including Protection from Elements and the like), a cleric might be able to stand up to a wizard blasting her with Burning Hands, Sound Burst, Shocking Grasp, Melf's Acid Arrow, Chain Lightning and whatever other attack spells the wizard can pull out of his sleeve.  But if that wizard fails to kill the cleric, eventually that wizard is going to run out of spells; after that, well, for all his arcane powers, a wizard just isn't so hot against a cleric who's angrily whacking his face with a quarterstaff.




While composing Sylvea's post, I was again reminded that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.  I originally converted a 20 minute version of The Hidden Curse, figuring that longer tunes are better tunes; by the time those twenty minutes were up, Wraith might already be done reading, sipping coffee (or whatever Wraith drinks) and replying.


Unfortunately, my Filezilla client disagreed with me and kept choking on the upload to make its point known.  And so, in the end, I had to convert and upload a five-minute version instead.


Neither version ends at a respectable looping point, alas.  But you can't have everything.




Also, while I was rewatching Game of Thrones videos, I once again returned to the scene where Bronn fights Vardis in Lysa's court for Tyrion's exoneration.


And it got me thinking about honor versus honorlessness, and from there about D&D's ethical Alignments, and how characters from these ethical Alignments tend to embody and uphold certain personality traits:


Typically Lawful personality traits:
Honor
Honesty
Loyalty and Obedience
Constance
Premeditation
Duty
Self-Discipline
Perfectionism
Tidiness
Dispassion and Stoicism
Predictability


Typically Chaotic personality traits:
Innovation and Creativity
Unpredictability
Passion
Spontaneity
Wildness
Hedonism
Imprecision
Disloyalty and Rebellion
Sloppiness
Deceitfulness
Honorlessness


(No, your Lawful Whatever guy isn't expected to embody every last one of those Lawful traits; as always, the majority rules.  If his Lawful stuff heavily outweighs his Chaotic stuff, he's Lawful.  If the reverse is true, he's Chaotic.  If his personality's fairly well balanced between the two extremes, he's Neutral.  Karnoz may be a skulking, deceitful and unpredictable little bugger, but he has his own code of honor and a sound work ethic, and he prefers to have a plan for every possible contingency.  So he fits ethical Neutrality quite nicely.)

And so, as we did with Bronn, we hear a lot of chatter about how the honorless dogs have an edge over the honorbound sorts in any tussle: the Chaotic dude will fight dirty and use every trick in the book--however gutless or low it may be--to beat the Lawful dude.  But we never seem to hear about what advantages the honorable sorts have over the dishonorable sorts, one of which comes into play when your opponent gains the upper hand and places you at his mercy.  If you're honorable, you fought honorably and with dignity but you lost anyway, and if your better just happens to respect that, he might actually decide to show you mercy, let you retrieve your sword, help you back up onto the cliff, capture you and send you to the dungeon (as opposed to lopping your head off then and there) or maybe he'll even let you go with a warning...whatever; because of your sense of honor, he can rest assured that you're not faking your surrender or waiting for a chance to stab him in the back.  But if you're an honorless, dirty-fighting dog and you've earned a bad reputation because of that, then he's well within his rights to withhold mercy and finish you off like the mad dog that you are, and he'll probably do just that.

Of course, if your dominator happens to be one of those honorless dogs who has zero respect for honor, then you're probably dead no matter what you are.  So you might as well be the honorable sort either way, right?

Discipline is tied into that as well.  Some people think that training in arms and martial technique is a handicap, and that the wild, erratic, bag-of-tricks fighter will beat him by coming up with an attack which the disciplined guy can't defend against.  But anyone who has trained in the martial arts knows that this isn't the case at all.  The whole point of discipline and training is so that you'll keep a clear and level head throughout the fight, you won't let your emotions cripple you or endanger you, you'll already know your own capabilities and limits, and so you'll already know what works, what doesn't work and why it does or does not work.  The legendary Bruce Lee himself said it best: "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once.  I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."  So you can bet that that guy's one kick is a pretty damned good kick, and you're done if he hits you with it.  And he probably will.

Anyway, believe it or not, honor and discipline do have their perks.  I just thought that I'd state something which, for whatever reason, is woefully understated everywhere we look.

Speaking of honorable warriors and whatnot...do you need any help with Gustov's post, Tiger?  We're all friends here.  

OMG!! WTH!!!

I hate your die. I hate them sooooo much.....

*evil squint*

Ask Golden Drakon about his red 20 sided death dice.  I hated that dice when he was my GM.

Wraith wrote:

OMG!! WTH!!!

I hate your die. I hate them sooooo much.....

*evil squint*

I normally shun the use of "LOL" and "LMAO," but really.  You should see how hard I'm laughing over this post right now.

But bear in mind that this was the same die that got Sylvea through that fight with the shriekers and their undead buddies all right, so this is just my little black d20 trying to balance out all of this good karma, that's all.  If you want to mop up tons of zombies, sometimes you have to fall off a bridge.  

Spirit of the Tiger wrote:

Ask Golden Drakon about his red 20 sided death dice.  I hated that dice when he was my GM.

Oh, his little red Die of Doom?  My orange 20-sider (one of the "mud dice" that came with my D&D Expert Set) wasn't any better.  I can switch to that die if you want, Wraith!  

Don't you dare!!!!

Should we put this up to a jury of your peers?  What do you think, Tiger?  Drak?  Jazman?  Shadow?  Should I stick to my trusty black 20-sider (previously spotted in this topic), or should I bring out...The Orange Curse?  

No vote:

Admin's vote.

()

But there are only two admins, so that vote could easily end in a deadlock if GD votes "Yes, bring on the Orange Curse!"  But then again, GD's probably clever enough to realize that Karnoz might get caught in the Orange Curse's fallout too.  "Karnoz searches for traps!"  "Karnoz finds no traps.  By the way, Karnoz just stepped on a trap.  And he just pooched his Reflex Save with a Natural 1.  So which of his feet happens to be on the ground when this huge, razor-sharp, Indiana-Jones-and-the-Last-Crusade-sized blade comes slinging out of the wall at around ankle height?  Just asking.  No reason."  

Yeah, I'm predicting a unanimous vote against bringing out the Orange Curse.  Back into the box you go, Orangey.  Sleep for another century or something.

Spirit of the Tiger wrote:

Ask Golden Drakon about his red 20 sided death dice.  I hated that dice when he was my GM.

Considering that particular die is older than Wraith, and has claimed more victims than I can remember...it makes for a good 'you have your nukes, I have mine.' threat when we are playing tabletop games.

Oh, is that a veiled challenge, Drak?  The Orange Crush too is older than Wraith, and it has earned its tally of death and misfortune.  How shall we properly execute this contest and see whether your Death Die or my Orange Curse can claim more characters' lives and reduce more players to blubbering wrecks?  


You tell 'em, Orangey!

You know... its not that great a 'thing' to be older than me. I mean... I'm the youngest one here...

come on...

Middle age is wretched and we envy your youth. So do our jinxed (and questionably sentient) dice.  Just accept it.  

Well, I've been working a lot of overtime this week, trying to scrape together enough money to pay off my credit card and buy gifts for Yulemas.  But I get Sunday and Monday off, so that should be plenty of time for me to get on Gustov and Sylvea.  Thanks for posting, peeps.  Stay tuned.  

(Also, on another forum I'm talking about past episodes of tabletop gaming with other players, you guys came up and someone liked one of the stories enough to get on Meme Generator and make this.  Enjoy!   )

Hilarious

December's a hell of a month, isn't it?

I still haven't finished my Yuletide shoppingfest yet, and I have to wait until December 23 and/or 24 to buy the ingredients for Christmas dinner.  I'm cooking Polish food this year...specifically, pierogi.  I'm hoping it turns out even better than last year's borscht and the-year-before-last's ratatouille.

Also, I'll squeeze in some time and get Sylvea and Gustov back on the road in a few days. I should call Drakon on the phone and see if he's okay while I'm at it, because it's not like him to stay away from IV for this long.  Stay tuned.

Okay, that's enough screwing around.  I'm getting my paycheck at midnight tonight, and with it I should be about to buy whatever I need to get this computer fixed, including but not limited to a freshly formatted SATA hard drive, so I can put the curse of this broken, half-finished, Acer-installed, Windows-7-blocking, Windows-XP-blocking, Linux-blocking, self-defending copy of Windows 8 forever behind me.  And if you want to invest your money in a good computer, avoid Acer by all means.  Acer computers are today's Packard Bell computers.  Buy Vizio, buy Alienware, buy Compaq, buy Dell, buy whatever...just leave those damned Acers alone.

If all goes well, we'll be back in the swing of things soon.  Hang in there!  

*Still hanging in there!*