Dungeon Master Forum

Ameena will just have a wash, maybe a bite to eat too, and hopefully get some heals (still 12hp down), after which she'll try getting her mind back into the phase of thinkng of lovely nice murafu things before Deephold thwacks her with his big spiky mace thingy and probably kills her or something .

Just as a warning, I might get distracted in the next week by work stuff, though I should post at some point each day!

At the start of Novemeber (Thursday 4th) my mother is once again down, so I will be on reduced posting around about that time. Again, depends upon what happens but I will probably be quite distracted across that timeframe.

Just remembered to level myself up...only rolled a 1 on the d6 for my hp so bleh to that, lol - I think I got minimum hp last time as well. Oh well, she's not exactly big strong tough dude anyway . Oh, and I increased my current hp to maximum 'cause I figure this is the RnR stage where everyone can just heal up fully and stuff.
I posted my updated character into my character page-thread thingy, but I left the previous level one there in case you want to check it and see if I messed anything up (but I don't think I did this time...I hope ).

Occasionally you've got to ignore the numbers and actually play the game Ameena re-roll!

You on't need to re-roll, a 1 goes to a 4!

Ahhh, I see. It's actually a smart move by the gm there We have 1d6.min(4) as they say at invisiblecastle.com

Lol, indeed we do Eh, I thought the swing of D&D for rolling hitpoints didn't work too well for giving the feel of DM in respect to increasing in health/stamina for a rogue and fighter as opposed to wizard/priest, so I introduced the minimums.

Technically the higher player hit points and easy ability to heal fully should have been an issue in terms of making the dungeon challenging. Glad to see the RP of you guys have made sure that you haven't really metagamed and played it like a computer game, hence you have had a more realistic and challenging series of healing pauses and fights.

Ok, it doens't hurt that because of your RP and playing styles, I'm a little more confident of throwing powerful glass cannons at you and know thta I probably can't kill you guys outright.

Speaking of killing people outright, let's see how Ameena the murafu is doing...

OK, and Garax wasn't a glass cannon, he was an overpowered brute, but to be fair you guys weren't supposed to actually encounter him, and if you did, you weren't supposed to almost kill him

Well no, technically a 1 goes to a 3, when you take my Con penalty into account...which I already did, hence my hp having gone up from 23 to 26 on my character sheet .
Meanwhile, yes, we did pretty well, I think, at almost kicking Garax's arse. Aaww, I just remembered we never really got a very good look inside that funky-looking chest of stuff in Dolo's room. Oh well, what with Haynuus getting his arse kicked at the time, I thought that returning to the fight to add a bit more Flanking bonus might have been a good idea. Shame we still both got downed but maybe we'll have another chance later, or something. I suppose for now the thing is to get rid of the nasty Dolo-stone thingy, wait for Westy (and Aurek) to get back from wherever, and then get on with sorting out this Soulstone, or something. And yeah, I notice from thread titles that Falkor's back and apparently with Westian, but none of the rest of us have any idea about that IC, so...

Edit - Did I do my levelling-up right, btw? My level 6 profile is still on there if you scroll down past the new level 7 one. I think I got everything and gave myself the right number of skill points and stuff...

Does anyone have any ideas about what we should do with the stone? How do we 'distract' it? Maybe Haynuus could do a song and dance routine?

The water elementals are already offering to do just that while Ameena is in the water. They just aren't offering to put themselves in harm's way and 'feed' it, which would really distract it.

What exactly does it feed on? Magic? Could someone pour a (harmless, eg Vi) potion on it and let it feed on that magic? Or would that not work/be used up too quickly? Ameena herself is of course gonna be a bit rubbish for suggestions 'cause she doesn't really understand all this magic stuff everyone's talking about. She just wants to feel better and not have a horrible black lumpy thingy sticking out of her and putting nasty voices in her head and making her do horrible things .

It doens't feed really, it simply pulls in life force or binds it. Hence it's bound to your soul and Dolo's. The water elementals are offering to essentially dangling VI-like life energy around it, so that by being distracted by general life energy, it hopefully would be holding less tightly onto Ameena's. Obviously, if they could actually channel life energy into it, that would be better. And no, the VI flask is just far too little. Even the water itself isn't special, but the elementals inside actively working would be.

Magic, tied so closely to life force, could be used to distract it, but that way lies personal danger...

I finally got around to reading Petals backstory. Sweet! Loved it.

I think I'll wait till (hopefully) Ameena gets cured and can then spam the faerie with questions herself and find it all out that way .

Just to clarify again, so you guys aren't left hanging, the options seem to boil down to this:

1) Attack the stone physically, distracting it with magic/lifeforece to weaken its magical/spiritual components. Currently Ameena's positive and contemplative mental attitude seems to be a good defense. Hopefully Haynuus's presence is also a comfort. Haynuus's strippign of his armour, words, and petition to the water elementls seem to have won you some powerful aid in distracting the stone (although Petal has realised they could do more to weaken the hold). Rescuing Deephold and ensuring he has his weapon has given you the means - risky as it is - to actually destroy the stone physically while also striking it spiritually. You could do worse than take this option, althoug hthere is still risk. One way or the other, the stone would get removed - but Ameena might die.

2) Petal has been investigating alterative methods, and seen that the stone could be attacked spiritually/magically, while being weakened physically (like, say, the water elementals slowly crushing it. Not sure if anyone spotted that). Spiritually while Deephold is a good cleric, you might guess Westian would have been a better agent fort this (NPC verus PC, you guys are always going to be the better heroes!). Magically trying ot extract the stone alone won't do it, it would still be spiritually tied to Ameena and do her damage. Attackign the sotne this way won't kill Ameena, so is less risky that way, but could ensure something worse happens to more peopel - essentially anyone opening themselves up could be at risk if the battle with the stone went badly. Luckily though, the stone doens';t have anyone like Dolo directing it, so interfacing with the stone only causes issues if you don't protect yourself from its natural 'emptiness' and DES-like void nature that seems to want to suck lifeforce and bind itself to those around.


I would definitely not advice having a paralysis from analysis on this, and that you guys should all pull in one direction or the other. Ameena's life is at risk one way, and her character (and others) are at risk the other way. You've definitelty done alot to mitigate the risks of path 1). But I am certainl;y not going ot railroad you into that risk if you want to spread it out and mutate it to a spiritual risk with 2. Or figure out an option 3)!


Still, I would advise perhaps figuring out going one way or the other by tomorrow. I'll be free (I think) tomorrow evening to be able to right a decent outcome and work it all out. Later this week is looking iffier (didn't get home til 9.20!)

As always, good luck Oh, and could each of you roll me a d20 please? *hehe*

Thanks, Ian. I spent a lot of time on it. Sorry for my lack of posting yesterday. As usual RL gets in the way. Oh well, at least I have a job now, right?

D20 roll = 19. I hope this isn't a Perception for spotting whatever's trying to sneak up on us while we're taking all this time to put my character through the least amount of pain and torment. Or maybe a Will Save to fend off further mental probing from Dolo who's just woken up or something. But since I rolled a 19 hopefully I'm alright anyway .

You're back in employment Raixel? Cool!

I kinda like where you have left off Ian and Ameena, so unless you really feel you want to add something more I would suggest holding off.

Raixel, obviously the group is moving onwards with Deephold's plan. So Petal can obviously argue IC, or can go with one of Deephold's suggestions, or can figure out something else to do.

Whatever she does, remember I'll need a d20 roll from you!


Anyway, once Raixel has posted, I'll resolve the situation. Since Ameena is a pretty passive participant, I think I can move us forwards with a single post. Obviously, any final thoughts ... and you, know, any thoughts afterwards (because it will work out, right?) can be posted after that update.

So yeah, I'll type out ideas for text based on what's goign on so far, so I can quickly make the update post later tonight or first thing tomorrow.

I'm scared....

Hey, if Ameena dies to this, I'm blaming you - she only got into this situation in the first place 'cause she got into a most-likely unavoidable fight with an uber-bad-guy who (eventually) kicked the shit out of her and left her to have a scary magic stone thingy put into her by another uber-bad-guy, which now she has to have removed by yet another NPC who might mess it up and get her killed...so yeah, if she dies it's all your fault, so there .

Uhuh. Ameena the swift murafu, who knows a quick way back to a secret exit, and her sense of smell, together with the unarmoured dark-sighted half-orc, had absolutely no way to avoid the heavily armoured blind in darkness enemy soldier. Absolutely none. Completely none. And the fact she went to get stuff, then ignored it to come back, is neither here nor there Ok, ok, the guy did have good perception though... that was (and is) his 'thing'.


In all seriousness, I throw heavy stuff at you, but you really do live and die by your own decisions. I try to make sure of that, so even if I've messed up a few times along the way, I know I can kill you with a clear conscience. And laugh. Well, that's the hope! Besides, if it's not hard and risky, it woulnd't be worth it. You guys almost killed the effective head of the soldiers. Once you find out how going to hell everything is pretty soon, you'll realise if you had killed him (or even just taken him alive) you'd have done something pretty major.

Anyway, you'll just have to see, won't you! :p

Actually, the fact Dolo is down and Garax is currently quivering in the darkness somewhere (alot to do with that forst confrontation)... that's actually already doing some pretty major things that wil make things easier.

Infact, I'm glad thigns look liek they are hard for you - or, you know, are hard for you. Cause from my point of view, you keep making cool decisions and trying things that actually make things much easier for yourselves. You know, putting aside the times you turn your back on major villains when you know they are evil!

Nice entry, Beo. Read all of that last post with a smile!

Well, if I'd been playing a slightly more morally-ambiguous character, Dolo's chest wouldn't even have got a look in - Garax would have been relieved of his need to breathe (or, you know, do pretty much anything else except lie there and start going all stinky) by the quickest means possible...which would also have meant that Haynuus got a bit...sprayed, since the move would have been done from a flanking position, in which case Garax's throat would ahave been facing the unfortunate half-orc . In which case we might not have met Dolo at that time but he'd've followed pretty swiftly if he's had the chance.
I wonder how many more of these uber-bosses would have been dealth with in a similar manner if I'd chosen a different character type (which would have happened in a re-roll had Ameena actually got out of the dungeon waaay back then ).

Glad to entertain Ian! Or do you just like thinking I've wiped everyone out and now you can play Soorec's brother Shinyeyes in an evil focused campaign against Westian and Falkor?

Interesting to untangle the weave of character actions. A more pro-active rogue would have certainly kicked all kinds of arse. The soldiers would all be dead in the teleporter room, I have no doubt, and some other interesting areas where a rogue with sneak damage or tumbling could have aided the fighters.

Still, it's also true that the innocent and slight murafu managed to get non-lethal kicks and berated more than once, instead of actively attacked and killed as a true threat. While still, of course, being a true threat in the right circumstances And remember it was the passive murafu that got the info for not killing Soorec. I'm not sure if you guys would have survived the ensuing fight (still, you might, you would have surprised me before) if the grak-graks would have lept frenzying.

And another character would almost certainly have been harder to get Deephold's sympathy, or any help from say elementals should the stone have been placed anyway. Hopefully, I'm providing 'sinkholes' in the narrative where your RP decisions make enough of a difference that you go down different rabbit hole,s and different hles form them again, depending on what you are or are not willing to do. Good RP against mechanical interests are always harder to do. IN a way that's good, the reward is playign the character, despite it not being optimal. However, I also enjoy when such decisions can eventually work out to your benefit.

Of course, a nastier character causing trouble would also have benefits from RP for making it harder in other ways!

I think a more stab-the-bastards-oriented character probably wouldn't have got on quite so well with religious-types like Westy, Aurek, and Deephold, and probably also not so much with Farel. But then, that character would probably have been alright in conversation and stuff but only when it came to a fight (or even a potential fight) just not really cared much about letting the bastards live . So that could have been fun as well .

Indeed. As long as they mesh with the group in one way or another, any player character should be fun an interesting. It's more a case of pick your path and stay true to it. and see where it all goes!

Lol, funny that the person/people still able to post don't appear to be able to because of RL, and the person/people who could post aren't allowed.

Will answer any PM stuff this evening, have no fear!