Charn -- 617/3/27 aka July 27th, 2009

[David]

The heroes (Ichi, Maedhros, Torr, Idky, Squattingbeaver, Lowdog, and Yavin) continue their battle from the previous game...

'Beaver shoots straight up to disengage himself from the ghoul and zombie threatening him while Ichi rushes to save Maedhros from the alu-demon trying to drag him off. The monk lands a stunning blow, forcing the demoness to drop the half-elf and leaving her vulnerable to further attack. At roughly the same moment, another alu-demon attempts to grab Yavin from beneath Torr's feet, but misses and receives a nasty slash from the paladin's holy sword for her efforts, stunning her. And yet, despite this, a second alu-demon attempts the same feat and succeeds, appearing a short distance away on deck with the now-recovered cleric.

Idky disengages from his foes and unleashes a sundazzle against the ghouls attacking Torr. Most are blinded and find it all-but-impossible to strike the young paladin. One attempts instead to suggest Torr to "fight would your bare hands against my bare breasts", but the magic fails.

As a new group of ghouls surges down from the aftcastle, half of them get caught in another sundazzle from Idky. 'Beaver attempts to heal Maedhros, but can't get there in time without being attacked, so he leads his pursuers on another chase, this time only Jean-Luc following the shaman. Lowdog, Ichi and Torr, meanwhile, are swarmed by ghouls, zombies, and/or alu-demons. At the same time, however, Ichi drops the alu-demon that had charmed Jean-Luc, freeing him from her influence.
Jean-Luc spins around and attempts to command the zombies but fails. Unfortunately, Ichi gets dropped by the swarming ghouls and zombies as 'Beaver catches the remaining two alu-demons with a hold monster. Despite this, things start looking bleak...

Yavin quaffs his potion of lightning breath and unleashes on the swarms of ghouls and zombies that were on Ichi and Lowdog and coming down from the aftcastle. As the undead swarm the cleric, he jumps out of harms way. Unfortunately, Lowdog isn't able to spring out of the way in time and gets caught in the blast.

Lowdog, Jean-Luc, Idky and 'Beaver swoop in to assist Yavin, Ichi and Maedhros. Jean-Luc grabs a potion of mass destruction from Maedhros' pouches and drops a few of ghouls, mostly those already wounded from Yavin's lightning. But this give Idky and 'Beaver the respite they need to heal Ichi and Maedhros and restore the pair to consciousness. Maedhros quaffs another potion of mass destruction and the blast clears almost all the rest of the monsters on this end of the ship. The stragglers are quickly taken out by the rest of the party.

Ichi runs over to snap the neck of the remaining held alu-demon and gets swarmed by ghouls from the otherside of the ship. Yavin through some strange twist of fate, find himself nearly disembowled by a ghoul as the ghouls and zombies from the forecastle surge to attack. Torr moves into the mass, trusting his armor and holy sword and 'Beaver turns into lion and attacks the zombies Lowdog is dealing with. The totemic warrior finishes of the last of the juju zombies. Ichi grabs Jean-Luc and Maedhros and flies them off the deck of the ship.

About this time the two alu-demons which had fled the previous battle begin to use their magics in order to attempt to turn the tide of battle. One charms Jean-Luc and the necromancer begins to smack the monk with his shovel. A single strike stuns Jean-Luc and Ichi beats the man senseless. Meanwhile, still in lionform, Squattingbeaver pounces on and kills one of the alu-demons and starts on the undead that Torr is fighting. The other demoness flees back into the cabin where she was hiding while the fighters are still dealing with the handful of remaining undead.

A few moments later, Torr and 'Beaver finish the last of the ghouls. The shaman resumes human form to tend to Lowdog while Idky heals Yavin. Torr, however, is not going to let the one demoness escape and throws himself at the cabin door, breaking it down. In the intervening time, however, the alu-demon had made her escape for the cabin was empty. Instead of chasing her through the bowels of the ship, Torr returned to his companions to help them safely return to the ground.

The whole party flies back to the refugee camp in the Flan maize fields where they heal up and plan their next move...

Eeps: 16,413 each (that's 230 higher than I told you, Ray -- I forgot the jujus). Aaron/Jean-Luc gets a half share.

[David]

Oh, yeah, and by morning, everyone will be at full hit points...IFF they survive til the morning...

That battle happened in the early afternoon and by evening, the skies grow a little cloudy. After sunset, cracks of lightning thunder in the darkness above Calvados although no rain falls. Well into the night, several of the braves on watch mention hearing terrible screams followed by loud thuds in the night...

[Van]

I think I know where that damned alu-bitch went.

Enter the balrog . . .

[Van]

Idky's looking for something to burn eeps for. Preferably, I'd like for it to be something that will make him a bit more useful in combat. Upon leveling to 9th, he has one open weapon slot, and he also has four open non-weapons that he can use. I'm looking for suggestions, and I'd like to think outside the box. Is it possible for him to specialize in one of his weapons? I was also thinking of combat dodge. I know at least one of the party could teach him. He could also learn a martial arts technique, I suppose, though I'm not so sure that would really be in keeping with his character. Any other ideas? This is what he has already--

Weapons:
Staff
Sling
Flight (as a Krolli)

Non-weapons:
Healing
Tracking
Direction sense
Herbalism (being taught by 'Beaver)
Steam engines (Charn)
Knowledge of the Baklunish gate network

Another question: Is it possible for a priest to gain the penetrating spell skill that Maedhros just gained? Their magic relies on their faith and their god's power rather than on personal skill and training, so I'm guessing it's not.

Also, is it possible to burn eeps to increase stats? I'm sure it would be a very slow and expensive process. For example, if Idky wanted to increase his dexterity or strength by doing various types of exercises and being helped/coached by someone who had a higher dex/strength than him. I'd imagine something along the lines of it being 1000 eeps per 1/10 of a point increase, cumulative. So it would take a total of 55,000 eeps to increase a full point. And I'm sure a time component would have to be figured in as well. What do you think?

[David]

Combat dodge would be a good start. Only fighter types can take weapon specializations, sorry. You could learn a fighting style, but need a teacher (clerics can't make their own normally, although maybe one non-weapon worth could happen).

I won't rule out "penetrating" for clerics, but I will say it should be hard and doesn't really "vibe" with me for a number of reasons. Just so you know, pretty much any proficiency or feat should be fair game, albeit not in precisely the same way as written up in 3rd Ed. But if you see something there that you like, no worries.

Along those lines, I've allowed PCs to take SKILLS which raise their stats by ONE point. Solinane, for instance, took a skill in weight lifting (for one weapon slot). I would say you can add +1 to STR and CHR for a weapon via weight lifting and beauty secrets, each requiring a little bit of daily time to "keep up". I would also allow you to add +1 to CON and INT for two weapons via stamina regime and intellectual development, which again have a slight "upkeep". Finally, the most difficult to do would be +1 DEX and WIS for three weapons via flexibility and reflexes and insight of the ages and willpower, although the last might not need "updating". But, like you said, these would be HARD to achieve (3 weapons is worth 63k xps and 3 years or more).

[Van]

Okay, I think combat dodge is a good start. That'll give him a slight AC improvement, when he's conscious and facing his opponent, anyway. I'd like to talk to you some more about what it would take to increase his dex, because just one point will give him a +1 AC bonus.

Okay, I know this is a stretch, but I stumbled across this 3.5 edition feat:
Chosen Weapon Specialization You deal more damage than normal when wielding your deity's chosen weapon.

I don't know if it's specifically a priest feat or not, but Farlanghn does have a favored weapon, the quarterstaff. So it would be nice if the exception could be made for priests to be able to specialize in their deity's favored weapon.

[David]

He he he...Elf, are you reading this? My, how things have moved in the last 20 years...?

So, when I was a sophomore in college, I decided that it was fantastically silly that clerics couldn't be proficient in their deities favored weapon. As a result, I began a series of clerical adjustments that culminated in Forgotten Realm's "specialty priests". My first steps, however, were pretty minor and I basically added the blanket caveat that a cleric can ALWAYS use the preferred weapon of their god. What's more, for a few SPECIFIC deities with cleric-friendly weapons (Thor and hammers), the cleric could specialize like a fighter. Later I read a Dragon article and started adding special abilities (like clerics of Zeus getting call lightning and clerics of Aphrodite getting charm person). I remember Chris Stehlik being all up-in-arms that I was "muddying the clear class distinctions" (in my head, as I read this, I heard Chris' voice in my head SHOUTING "but where will it end?" , but one thing life has taught me is that dweebs like Chris always want things "simple and clear" yet life is seldom realistically that way. Anyway, it all started small...and became so convoluted as I rewrote each of the pantheons of gods to match the myths and what worshippers would expect...

Fast forward to 2009...

So, I could sorta see Fharlanghn allowing for staff as a favored weapon, mostly cuz it's a "traveler's tool". I would probably charge TWO weapons for this (unusual) skill as well as a trainer who is already double in staff (which would need to be researched since it is NOT a common weapon at the Guilds). But, yeah, you could do it. Net gain: +1 to hit and +2 to damage with the staff. NO additional attacks per round (sorry, fighter-types only).

As I mentioned on the phone, I allow pretty much any 2nd Ed skill plus will happily find a way to modify 3rd Ed skills and feats. A couple of ideas came to mind...

(From High Level Campaigns):
Divine Will -- make is harder to charm a 10th lvl cleric with this prof
Eminance -- divine aura (like a holy saint) that drives off lesser foes, including undead

(From Spells and Magic -- and filtered for Fharlanghn):
Animal Empathy -- like the 2nd Ed ranger
Pass without Trace -- like a 3rd lvl druid
Spirit Powers -- steal a shaman or animist ability -- each time you save a city, you're invited to change classes, so a little bleed-over seems reasonable.
Investigation -- having a CSI/Saving Grace moment...
Observation -- like alertness, but involves NON-combat situations to notice (as Storm would put it) "something is not right with us"
Undead Lore -- care, feeding, and slaying of ghouls, shadows, zombies, and skeletons, especially...!

And, I think a skill in cartology might be in order too...

[Jeff]

Oooh, Eminance sounds interesting. What does that entail?

[David]

The full write-up is in the High Level Campaigns book (your brother should have a copy), but in short it allows the cleric to "drive off" foes up to 4th lvl or 4 Hd "by his divine presence" -- which does fit with tales of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas...

[Van]

I think I'm going to have Maedhros learn undead lore and Idky learn demonology, considering how much of both these vermin we've encountered on Charn. I don't see much hope of Idky being able to gain specialization in staff, since he needs to find someone with the same specialization to teach him. Not likely to find one on Charn.

[Artec]

how about a martial art? LIke blinding strike? I can take on students now. Hey Martial art gives you base AC and Damge. you get to add your dex bounus, if any. but not allowed to wear armor of any kind.

[David]

Well, Torr can CERTAINLY help teach Idky demonology. I even had him put a +1 in it for his experiences on Charn...!