DM themed play-by-post D&D game : OOC thread

[money]

Sorry all - been manic at work, not had much time to update - happy with story, although i did want to throw in a little bit of a twist... if you can wait I'll pm to Wuuffy a quick update, then add to story in the morning.

[beowuuf]

Not a problem, it's the weekend after all and LB still has to weight in.

Update tomorrow from me then, to set you guys up for posting again Monday

Have a good weekend! Money: DOn't wait too long to PM me, I'm eager to find out the twist now

[Ameena]

Heh..a twist, eh? Maybe he means he wants to give Brighteyes's neck a little twist or something .

[beowuuf]

Posted the latest map in the map section - it actually will be the map for the update, so just ignore the bits beyond the door

Just to note, I'm currently orienting the map to where Haynuus's snatched compass is pointing to north, which is co-incidentally(?) the same orientation as I gave the last map. Do you guys want me to orient an assumed 'north' based on his compass from now on? In the past I've oriented either party come in from the top or come in from the bottom, usually dependant on how it connects to the previous map (ie, the mummy hall you came in from the top, since you left from the bottom of the previous map, whereas the orientation was reset for a while when you came through the teleporter to this level, and I re-oriented it again when you travelled into this set of corridors, due to the length of the passages)

[ian_scho]

I really don't mind - although you're talking to people who will probably have an above average ability to orientate themselves in their head - making dungeon master mental maps!

[beowuuf]

I hope so, sometimes I've been lax providing those darn things!

Now all I need to do is not be so slap-dash and unclear in my room descriptions :p

[beowuuf]

Obviously, waiting for OB's lunchtime post just to see if there are any final reactions/checks, and money if he wants to post a reaction to things.

Update this evening, let's get this show on the road.

[beowuuf]

Sorry Ian, I just realised I hadn't answered the thoeron question! Added a quick alteration, the question might be answered better later...you know, if you guys aren't scared of a little set of steon golems

[beowuuf]

Here's the latest map, you guys are walking left to right. I've re-oriented the map, but you were coming form the top.
http://www.dmjump.net/golemcorr.jpg

[ian_scho]

Great map!
Tread veeery carefulllyyy

[beowuuf]

Lol, how can you possibly be intimidated by four little golems?*


*Those are the ones standing behind the legs of the massive terrifying golems

[ian_scho]

Nice turn of events. Exactly when we need to move, Haynuus gets himself stunned. Ignore my last comment about waiting for the end of the round as he can't even move now!

[beowuuf]

I thought it was quite funny you chose that exact time to be curious. Also, sometimes those natural 20s... not so good

[Lord_BoNes]

That's a bit of a "bugger" moment...
Rolls an epic 20 and then gets stunned because it WORKED. You're evil sometimes, Beo... you really are. Hehehe.

[beowuuf]

If I only punish you guys for low rolls, I'm missing out on half my prospective fun, aren't I? I take a page out of Call of Cthulhu, where you sometimes don't want to succeed in your Spot Hidden

And the success is still a good one - after all, if you have nasty armour don't you want to know about it? Just there might have been a better discovery time!

[Lord_BoNes]

Initiative 1d20 = 18.

[Ameena]

Wasn't a natural 20 though, was it? It said "1d20+2" so Haynuus actually rolled an 18 .

[beowuuf]

Well, he still equalled a DC20, which is the point. Natural 20s mean nothing except if rolled in combat. Just feels satisfying to roll one when it happens

[Ameena]

Ahh. More satisfying to get a natural 20 than roll something less and hit 20 with the bonuses though .

[beowuuf]

And less satisfying to get a 20 and have your penalties knock you just under

[Ameena]

Lol true...but in cases where getting a natural 20 means Extra Good Things happen, I don't think any bonuses/penalties matter becuase a nat-20 is a nat-20 .

[beowuuf]

This is true, but as I said only a combat roll does anything cool with a natural 20 in D&D 3.5. Everything else, it's just a number

[Ameena]

I know, hence why I said "...in cases where...", meaning any time it matters as opposed to all the times it doesn't .

[beowuuf]

At least it's easier to roll a natural 20 than a percentage game where the really cool rolls is the 100. Though I know crits are always on a range in those.

[Ameena]

In Dark Heresy,a ctually, rolling 100 is Very Very Bad - rolling low is what you want to do in that (because you roll to try and get under a total, so for example my Psyker currently has a Willpower of 61, so I need to roll lower than that to pass on a roll when, say, trying to use one of my powers...though there was a rather umm...interesting incident the other day when I was casting something, though that was on a different roll, but anyway...). So good crits are a roll of 1-5, while bad crits are 95-100.

[beowuuf]

Lol, oops, I knew that. But ought-one just sounds so much less impressive. I think I'd rather take the 100 and have my head blown off by psychic blowback or whatever

[Ameena]

Well, when using psychic powers, when you roll the crit-fail is what affects what happens. First you roll Willpower to see whether you cast the power - a crit-fail here would probably just mean you fail to cast it and you get such a headache you can't try casting anything more for a few game-hours or something. Then you roll a number of dice up to your Psy Rating (which in my case is 4, so I can roll up to four dice here) to see how effective the power is - there is a certain number called a Threshold which you have to beat in order for the power to "go off", then lots of powers have Overbleed, which is extra effects (eg increased range, the power affects more targets or does moreo damage, etc) depending on how much over the Threshold you get (so Minor Powers tend to have a Threshold of around 5-10...given that my WP bonus is 6, which is added to your Thredhold-check roll, failing these rolls would be a rather difficult thing to do at my level ). But if any of these dice come up as a 9, that can trigger Psychic Phenomena. I think if you get one of these when casting a Minor Power, they are only minor effects - once I got one and all that happened was I had a very brief sort of passing sense of paranoia which passed almost immediately with no further effects.
But the other day I was trying to cast a non-minor Psychic Power, and I rolled two 9s, therefore triggered two Psychic Phenomena. Actually I think those ones are called Perils of the Warp (the demon-infested other-dimensiony place where Psykers draw their power from). Anyway, on rolling any number of 9s you still continue with casting the power as normal (it failed - it was resisted or I think the demon I was casting it on was already dead or something), then you deal with the 9s by rolling 1d100 and comparing to a table to see which effect you trigger. So in this case, one of these effects caused all mirrors and other reflective surfaces (like knife blades, computer screens, etc) within a certain range (which I rolled dice for - it was something like 60m or so) to either distort or shatter (I think people rolled dice to determine which). The other effect I triggered umm...well, it zapped everything within range for 1d10+5 damage (minus AC and Toughness bonus), so my whole party got zapped, including me - ouch. And it basically disintegrated my entire inventory. Armour, money, weapons (well, okay I never used my weapons so that wasn't a great loss), comm bead, couple of grenades I was carrying, literally my whole inventory, poof! And left me (errr, well, my character) standing there, smouldering and in the nude. On 1hp.
And then our Inquisitor turned up to help kill the demon which we'd already managed to kill.
Ahh, good fun .

[beowuuf]

Ok, to get this of topic bit back on topic for the people who are actually in the main party ( ) , just waiting for Ian to add anything new (I'll let him have a reaction, plus another will save would be good), and also money to add any reaction to the mix. Oh, and money, the 'If you are still around, give me both a knowledge (arcana) check and a will save please!' was directed to you Plus initiative!


So will do the update tomorrow morning instead, looking to update again tomorrow evening


I hate to add time pressure if everyone is busy, so let me know how everyone is placed this week before I add some definite cut-offs each day. As said, you're in a situation where initiative is being tracked... I'm pretty sure I could easily kill two of the characters by the end of the week if you guys aren't co-ordinated!

[ian_scho]

Ufff, apologies. This one completely escaped me! Will update now - but I can't actually move though

[beowuuf]

Woohoo, full house! Will update early lunctime... and money, since most of those rolls are reactions, you can have the sense motive as your action no problem