I Hit It With My Axe: Episode 15: Ambush at the River of Despair
- Thread starter Zak Sabbath
- Start date
It would have been weird if you thought Yoda dog was the hottest. Frankie's precious, and perhaps the funniest one in the bunch. Even as we speak, my old lady is at a family reunion, and took the time to call and ask "what'd Frankie say this week?! Was it adorable?"no_more_usernames said:
"River of Sweetness and Light" is a trap that I would fall right into. Then again that's coming from a grown woman who's cell phone is embellished with dozens of sparkly "My Little Pony" stickers...Keevel said:
The edited foreshadowing worked on me; totally sucked into this episode. As a DM I'm good at giving consequences, but bad at killing PCs-- speaking off, I should kill somebody in my current game, show 'em I mean business.
I pace a lot when I DM; plus I have to whisper stuff to players who roll a certain way or that I want to tempt with certain urges. We don't play around a table though; we play in a living room & the DM gets the big armchair.mandymorbid said:
Wow great episode.
What happens when your character dies in game? Can you be resurrected? Do you have to get a new character?
What happens when your character dies in game? Can you be resurrected? Do you have to get a new character?
If their high is level 5, I don't think resurrection is an option yet. Unless they sign on as someone's new temple mascot and get a courtesy discount, maybe, you figure more than likely they're looking at a new character.
Yeah, I think out of all of them Frankie's the one I would want to date the most. She looks like a cuddle-er and I like that. I like to be hugged.Daselthechaz said:
You are not alone. I followed a car today with a Hello Kitty license plate frame, and no child seat in the back.Connieparts said:
Not sure if she said much adorable this week. But I thought the bit of her trying to balance a pencil on her upper lip was kinda precious.Daselthechaz said:
As far as what could have been done differently to avoid this mess, how about not starting at level 1? And to confirm, it took a YEAR to get to level 5?? I think Zak was screwing you guys on the XP.
Random suggestion for the DM - to be ignored as it's already passed by (probably). Having the goblin high priest animate the corpses of the player's soon-to-be old characters as zombies makes for a cheshire smile. For added fun, mix and match body parts so 3 new character's all recognize themselves in one putrefying zombie. Nothing says win like a party chopping through vast hordes of post-player characters.
Edit: BTW, how are those personalized minis going?
Random suggestion for the DM - to be ignored as it's already passed by (probably). Having the goblin high priest animate the corpses of the player's soon-to-be old characters as zombies makes for a cheshire smile. For added fun, mix and match body parts so 3 new character's all recognize themselves in one putrefying zombie. Nothing says win like a party chopping through vast hordes of post-player characters.
Edit: BTW, how are those personalized minis going?
Zombies were done to death 15 years ago. I'd be so disappointed in my DM if he did something so unoriginal.FearlessFelix said:
We DO NOT want to be coddled--we're not being "screwed on xp" that's ridiculous--who would benefit in such a situation, the DM? Certainly not. Yes, a year because at first we were not playing regularly and at first I only played in 1e AD&D games.
What fun would starting at a higher level be? What sense of accomplishment from surviving and leveling up, the anticipation of better spells, what do you learn from playing all soft like that? And what's so bad about making poor choices and dealing with the consequences--in a game--dying?
You call it a mess. I call it good fun.
Whether to start a new campaign at first level is a group's choice, but mixing first level and fifth level characters risks making some characters visibly suck. Especially I would recommend starting the guest stars at a high enough level that they feel like capable members of the party and not henchmen. (Starting Justine with medusa abilities was a good compromise approach.)
Any DM who's using a crit system owes it to their players to have a fumble system as well. The monsters collectively tend to roll far more attacks than players, and only have to win one fight. Figure what level a rogue or a wizard has to be before they can survive even one critical hit from a battle axe (1d8, tripled.) At least with fumbles some of those monsters' attack rolls are helping the party.Dave Michalak said:
When we all started playing together I was only a level or two ahead of the other girls--now however, yes there is a slight imbalance since I just reached level 5 but due to recent events in the campaign well...not quite an issue yet for new players.Noumenon said:
Okay, ouch. Let me first state that much of what I said was meant as a friendly barb at the players. The mess I was referring to was the debacle of being ripped up by a garrison of goblin soldiers, not the game / session entire. As far as the XP goes, I get that the group wasn't necessarily playing regularly for 6+ hour sessions. It's just a little eye-brow raising is all. One year of play time for a lot of groups that I've played with or talked to on forums can lead to a gain of 7 levels, give or take.mandymorbid said:
On starting at high(er) levels (my group for 4E prefers 6th or so) there really isn't any difference accept for survivability. Every character comes into a campaign with a little background and the more exuberant players can turn it into a short story competition. Just listen to Will Wheaton talk about his characters backstory in the DnD podcast with Penny Arcade. Your average story starts with characters that have already been around the block a few times (Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, whatever). So it isn't too much of a stretch for experienced gamers to want the same.
Which is of course what it really comes down to. For the group you've got, makes good sense to play from 1st level at least a couple of times, but I personally got tired of killing giant rats after my 3rd or 5th time.
On zombies: Would ghouls be better? What about ghasts?
Edit: the friendly barb was also meant with the personalized minis, just cause it seemed snicker worthy especially if they were designed for the exact characters in question.
LOVED the medusa joining the party, that was freaking awesome. One of my favorite campaigns I played in was a monster campaign where the odd man out was an elf ranger. So, medusa's, minotaurs, mind flayers, half fiends were running around with this freaking elf ranger and wondering why we didn't eat him.Noumenon said: