#just dropping 0 hp and falling unconscious

[thoughtfullyrainynightmare]

Aleyna's player: it’s funny because children have 4hp and Vicious Mockery hits 4hp.

Lia's player: And that’s why you always Vicious Mockery the child.

-Black Clover DnD

[princess-of-the-corner]

Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix Recap: Space Paranoids (DTD)

As stated last time, Tron is nowhere to be found when our heroes return to the Pit Cell, and we are now in a textbox cutscene.

“Gawrsh, I wonder where Tron is,” Goofy questions as he looks at the terminal that allows them to return to the real world.

“Don’t touch that!” Donald warns.

Goofy notably does not touch it, but the screen still turns on.

“Huh?” Goofy remarks.

“Goofy!” Sora shouts.

Sora and Donald are swiftly beamed out.

Goofy turns around.

“Uh… I didn’t do it!”

He is beamed out as well.

We now get a voice acted cutscene in a large, square, walled-in grid, the red beam from before still visible in the distance.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy materialize all at once.

“I didn’t touch nothin’!” Goofy insists.

“Welcome to the game grid,” Sark announces via PA system.

“Game grid?” Sora questions.

“That’s right, you’ve been chosen to play a few games,” Sark elaborates, “Lose, and you will be subject to immediate de-resolution. Win? Well,” Sark chuckles, “no one wins.”

“We’re not gonna play your games!” Donald declares.

“You have no choice!” Sark scoffs.

“Well then, get on with it!” Sora shouts.

Welcome to Light Cycle, the life-or-death minigame where you ride a Light Cycle.

You drive in one direction, using the left stick to reposition yourself. To change the direction you’re driving in, use the left or right shoulder buttons. Arrows will appear on screen to indicate what direction you want to turn in (typically when you’re heading for a wall).

However, you’ll also have to battle Magnum Loaders, robotic Emblem Heartless who ride on wheels. If you’ve ever watched Beast Machines, think the robot modes of Thrust and his Motorcycle Drones. They come in 5 colors: Red, White, Yellow, Blue, and Green.

They can Attack, Guard, or Charge.

Fortunately, you can too. Use the Attack button to Attack, Guard Button to Charge, and Jump Button to Guard.

Attacks break Charges, Charges break Guards, and Guards break Attacks.

As a tutorial, you need to defeat 5 Magnum Loaders, which all go down in one hit.

After the 5th Magnum Loader falls, a cutscene plays, where a Devestator (purple, tank-like Emblem Heartless that walk around on four legs) drops in from a Corridor of Darkness and attempts to blast Sora.

Sora, still on foot (Light Cycles never appear in cutscenes in this game) just jumps out of the way, leading to the blast instead blowing a MASSIVE hole in the wall our Junior Heroes can use to escape.

Sora loudly points it out, and the next round of the minigame begins.

You now need to dodge Heartless and weave through the rapidly generating labyrinth of barriers and pillars in order to get to the hole in the wall.

Whenever you hit a wall or an enemy’s attack/guard/charge, you’ll take damage.

If your HP drops to 0, Sora is de-rezzed.

The theme for this minigame is “Byte Striking”.

Sora attempts to drive straight for the exit, but Sark raises up some walls to block it off, forcing him to take a scenic route around the game grid in order to get through.

When it’s finally time to exit, two Devestators guard the hole you need to escape through, and fire on Sora in one final attempt to stop him.

Driving into it ends the minigame.

Our Junior Heroes automatically beam back into the Pit Cell, and let out a sigh of relief.

Then Sora notices an unconscious Tron laying on the ground a few feet away, and rushes over to check on him.

Tron is able to push himself off the floor and onto his feet before Sora reaches him, but is clearly still a little dazed.

“I don’t understand,” he remarks, “Why are you here?”

“We came to give you the password!” Sora answers.

“Why didn’t you just transmit the data?” Tron asks as he rubs his still aching head.

“Transmit?” Donald inquires.

Tron topples over, but Sora catches him.

“Hey, are you okay?” the Keyblade Wielder asks.

“I’ll be all right…” Tron answers as he pushes himself back to his feet, “once we access the DTD.”

Tron rejoins the party, but it would still be better to keep him in the reserves at this point.

Also, remember those yellow Emblem Heartless Sark used to arrest Donald and Goofy?

You can now encounter them in the Canyon. They’re known as Strafers, are physically frail, absorb Thunder Magic, and have a deadly homing attack that WILL hit Sora eventually.

Also, some of Hollow Bastion’s Heartless have received new, Tron-ish looks and invaded this world as well.

To continue the story, enter the Dataspace through the Canyon.

The Dataspace is an elevated platform between and below three MASSIVE monitors, a control panel opposite the entrance.

Using the “Access Computer” Reaction Command has Tron walk up to the control panel and hold his hands out in front of it, resulting in a holographic keyboard materializing at his fingertips.

“All right, what’s the password?” he asks.

“Well…” Donald opens, “Belle, Snow White…”

“Aurora, Alice, Jasmine, Cinderella…” Goofy continues.

Everyone turns to face Sora.

“Kairi,” he finishes.

“Kairi, got it!” Tron replies, before turning in and appending her name to the end of the password.

The Dataspace shakes, and reactivates, accessing the DTD.

“That did it!” Tron cheers.

Then an alarm goes off.

“No switching DTD  from passive to active mode,” the Dataspace announces, “This process will take some time.

“Please enjoy a game while the process is running.”

“Oh no!” Tron shouts as he tries to fiddle with the keyboard to terminate the game.

“Not another game!” Sora protests.

“No, it’s the DTD’s final security routine,” Tron explains, “This isn’t a game. Stay focused!”

The battle theme kicks in as Heartless Emblems appear on all three monitors, each one spawning a Strafer to battle our Junior Heroes and Tron.

The path back to the Canyon has disappeared. You cannot exit the Dataspace until you’ve cleared this “game”.

You have two minutes to stop all three monitors.

To do this, destroy the endlessly spawning Strafers to get Data Clusters.

When the Cluster meter is full, Sora can get in range of one of the Monitors to use the “Freeze” Reaction Command to shut it down.

Doing so empties your Cluster meter, so be quick and efficient.

Stopping all three monitors earns Sora +5 Max HP, Donald Thunder Boost, Goofy +4 Max HP, and Tron + 10 Max HP.

The Keyboard turns into a panel with what appears to be a handprint scanner.

Tron places his hand on it, and something flows out of the DTD and into his circuitry. A smile breaks out onto Tron’s face as he examines himself.

“I’m as good as new!” he declares, “All my functions have been restored!”

“Oh boy!” Donald cheers.

The panels above the keyboard-turned-handprint-scanenr-UI flash red as an alarm goes off.

A red beam strikes the ground between Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Tron, forcing all four apart (though Tron is forced closer to the DTD’s interface).

“Finally,” the MCP announces, “I have full access to the DTD. My takeover of the system is now complete. I might have anticipated such a simple password.

“What’s this? An emergency destruct program for the town.

“Let’s see how it performs.”

“No!” Tron shouts, before placing his hand back on the handprint, and pressing the keys around it.

“Program!” the MCP shouts, “You changed the password!”

“There, that should buy us some time,” Tron declares.

“Tron! Tell us what’s going on!” Sora begs.

“The MCP’s loaded a hostile program into the I/O Tower,” Tron explains.

“What do we do?” Donald asks.

“We’ve got to protect the User town,” Tron answers, “Let’s head to the tower!”

Restoring Tron’s functions gives him 8 more AP, and the following abilities:

Auto Limit: Automatically sets Reaction Command to Tron’s Limit whenever possible.

Scouting Disk: Spends 10 MP to throw his homing Identity Disk. It has good homing, but will always remain at its initial elevation.

Pulsing Thunder: Spends 10 MP to release five electric shocks around himself.

Tron’s Limit is Complete Compilement.

The initial command is “Set Up” in which Tron calls up streams of data, followed by Sora swinging his Keyblade, damaging enemies. The two remain back-to-back for the duration of the Limit’s use.

After this, the Attack command becomes Cluster Code, wherein Sora and Tron send out a wave of data at close range. The Reaction Command, Burst Code, has the two open a computer grid and compile digital cubes to attack distant opponents. After four cumulative uses of either attack, you gain access to the finisher: Reprogram.

A holographic button appears before Sora. He slams his hand down on it, sending out a mass of digital cubes rapidly into the air, damaging any enemies they touch.

Until the limit ends, Tron and Sora will be riding a slow-moving disk that cannot jump. As always, the “Stop” Command is in the Limit Slot.

In order to get to the I/O Tower, you must return to the Canyon and step on the new platform that’s appeared near the Dataspace’s entrance.

This will take you to the I/O Tower Hallway.

Additionally, this is the first time where you’ll encounter Devestators outside of a minigame. Be warned that they also have a satellite-like form they can use by inverting their legs and the gun, but that they ALSO release a lot of electricity when changing forms.

To progress, you’ll need to step into the doorway in the large chamber the hallway leads into.

This is the I/O Tower Communications Room. (Note: I/O is short for Input/Output.)

In the original movie, the I/O Towers were treated like temples by the Programs, due to it allowing them to communicate and interact with the Users. It was the ONLY place in the whole Grid where it was possible. This is less so the case here.

Upon stepping out of the entryway and into the main chamber, we get an aerial view of the I/O Tower’s interior, with an elevated platform in the center, and another terminal by the wall.

A faint pillar of darkness is rising up from the elevated platform and into the hole in the ceiling.

“It must be total chaos outside,” Tron remarks via textbox.

“I think there’s gonna be trouble INSIDE, too…” Donald notes.

Goofy points at the terminal.

One of the two large chests here holds an Armor Item, while the other holds the I/O Tower map.

If you wish, you can use the terminal to leave Space Paranoids and handle your business on other worlds. You can return straight to the I/O Tower via the computer in Ansem’s Study, as these terminals serve as destinations to make up for how you can’t choose a landing spot via the Gummi Ship.

You can also talk to Donald, Goofy, and Tron.

In order to progress the story, you must go back out to the I/O Tower Hallway.

The Hostile Program descends from above.

It has three golden, Heartless-like eyes in the center of its bulbous body. Its oval-shaped form is contained in a mechanical shell. It’s disembodied, robotic arms float on either side of its body. Said form is balanced atop a cylinder with four, insect-like legs.

This robotic entity is an entirely new “character” created for Kingdom Hearts II, and was not featured in the original movie. Thus why it looks more like an Emblem Heartless than a Tron character.

“I’m disappointed in you, Program,” the MCP announces, “Why do you insist on allying with these selfish Users?”

“Because I want to help them!” Tron answers, “Something written into my code commands me to do what is right.”

“Really?” the MCP incredulously replies, “And what command would that be?”

Tron shrugs.

“I can’t really say for sure,” he admits.

“Friends – They help each other, that’s all,” Sora explains, “Uh-oh – look out!”

The Hostile Program fires lasers from the spikes along the sides of its body, generating physical walls that keep our Junior Heroes and Tron trapped inside the arena.

The Hostile Program’s primary strategy is to keep its distance and attack with lasers. Whenever it’s hit, it’ll drop data clusters to fill the Clusters Meter.

Fill it up entirely, and Sora can use the “Freeze” Reaction Command to pause it in place, allowing our Junior Heroes and Tron to wail on it with impunity until the Clusters Meter runs out, at which point it’ll unfreeze. Once it’s unfrozen, all the attacks you landed will register (just like with the Stop series of spells in the last two games) and it’ll “bleed” clusters in response, meaning that you’ve basically won the battle as soon as you use “Freeze” for the first time, so long as you remember to chase it down to pick up the clusters after it unfreezes.

As it takes damage, the purple panels protecting its spherical body will break.

Once its shell completely breaks off, it’ll gain a new attack where it engages a hidden rocket booster to zip around the room at high speeds. It’ll still drop clusters when it and is still susceptible to the “Freeze” Reaction Command, but I think it’s invincible in this state (even while frozen) so it might not be the best time to Freeze.

If you play well, it’ll only take 3 or 4 Freezes to win the battle.

De-rezzing the Hostile Program earns Sora an additional Drive Gauge (bringing the total up to 5) and Vicinity Break (Action Ability that allows Sora to unleash a powerful attack when surrounded), Donald +3 Max HP, Goofy Jackpot, and Tron +15 Max HP.

The de-rezzed Hostile Program explodes into light as Sora and Tron shield their eyes, the few shattered fragments of its body left behind fading into nothingness.

The elevated platform in the middle of the I/O Tower now fires a beam of brilliant light into the sky as Sora, Donald, and Goofy watch Tron fiddle with the terminal.

“I really owe you one,” Tron states, “With all my functions up and running, I think I’ve got a chance of getting system control away from the MCP.

“Now I’d better get to work. It’s what my User would want.”

“What Ansem would want…” Sora remarks.

He looks to Donald and Goofy, and they nod. They all feel the same.

“Listen, Tron,” Sora begins, “We didn’t get the password from Ansem. We just sort of found it, back in the User world. By accident.

“And one more thing… Ansem–” Sora pauses, “he was our enemy.

“I mean… he still is… I guess.”

Tron rises to his feet.

“Well, actually…” he explains, “he’s my enemy, too.”

“What do you mean?” Sora asks, Donald and Goofy shocked to hear Tron say that.

“Ansem took ENCOM’s original system and customized it for his own use,” Tron explains, “I was part of the original system, and Ansem modified me too.

“So, that makes him my User.”

Sora, Donald, and Goofy nod to show their understanding.

“But Ansem is also the one who brought back the MCP,” Tron continues, “The Ansem I first knew wouldn’t do that.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“That’s okay, but… now I REALLY don’t get it,” Sora replies.

“I don’t… understand it either,” Tron admits, “But I think Users, like you, are going to be the ones who will finally figure it out.

“You have the ability to take illogical routes and still arrive at the answers you seek.

“Now go – before the MCP starts acting up again!”

In order to progress the story, you must use the terminal to return to Ansem’s study.

Tron reveals that SDG can access any data from the DTD they need via Ansem’s computer. He’s keeping a dedicated access panel open for them.

They also won’t have to worry about the MCP for a while, since Tron changed the password.

Sora doesn’t know what an access channel is, and Tron amusingly notes that he knew Sora would ask. He explains that it’s a link between their worlds that’ll allow them to stay in touch as he pushes a button on the terminal.

Wireframe cylinders form around Sora, Donald, and Goofy.

“You… my friends… are the new password.”

“Thanks Tron,” Sora replies with a smile, “Take care!”

“You too!” Tron replies, “And give my best to the Users!”

Our Junior Heroes are beamed back to Ansem’s Study.

Sora receives Photon Debugger. It grants +3 Attack, +2 Magic, and Thunder Boost (Increases damage user deals with Thunder-based attacks by 20%. Stacks with other Thunder Boosts).

“Well, that’s that!” Sora declares after they materialize back in Hollow Bastion.

“Look,” Leon points out the message on the screen.

It shows 8-bit sprites of Sora, Donald, and Goofy dancing above the words “Thank you!”

“Tron…” Sora comments, “Hang in there.”

Leon asks where to start, and Sora suggests accessing the DTD.

Leon types on the keyboard for a bit, explaining that the King’s checking the situation in the town and will be back soon. He reaches the DTD asks for the password, and the trio give the password like so:

“Sora!”

“Donald!”

“Goofy!”

“That’s… to the point,” Leon remarks.

“Well?” Sora questions as he walks up to the computer.

“That did it,” Leon announces, the DTD and its contents now proudly displayed on screen. He turns to face Sora. “I need to go into town. Need to see what that last shake-up did.”

“You’re not gonna check out the data?” Sora asks, “It wasn’t exactly easy to get!”

Leon promises that he’ll be coming right back, and suggests that Sora get started on loading the data and copying it down.

Sora, who as we’ve established cannot computer, looks apprehensive.

“It’s just a few keystrokes,” Leon assures, before patting Sora on the shoulder and leaving, “Easy, right?”

I COULD end this recap right here, but I want to get one more thing in before cutting you off again, and so we’ll forge on.

In order to progress the story any further, you need to use Ansem’s computer one more time.

I was originally going to conclude with THAT cutscene to leave off on a DIFFERENT cliffhanger, BUT it was longer than I thought, so this little arc is gonna wrap up next recap.

See ya whenever that is!

-

I am getting Code Lyoko flashbacks lmao

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #203

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we've only got one goal in mind: Golems! Thanks to Avicebron, we'll make just that; lots and lots of golems! Avicebron is a Battle Smith Artificer, so you'll always have at least one on standby.

Check out his build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

Next up: I did naht kill him, I did naht. Oh hi Mark.

Race and Background

Avvy might not look it, but he's still a Variant Human, giving him +1 Intelligence and Wisdom, plus proficiency with Deception to keep your mentees close and your golem ingredients just as close, plus you get the Servo Crafting feat! You can cast Find Familiar as a ritual, but instead of getting an animal, you build a small golem called a Servo. You can speak with and through the servo, plus sense through it, as long as you share a plane of existence. You can also attack with the servo instead of your wimpy noodlearms once per attack action.

You're also a Cloistered Scholar, which gives you History and Religion proficiency. You are nerd! No duh!

Ability Scores

Your Intelligence should be pretty high, you make golems and you don't afraid of anything, that's what you do. After that is Dexterity, you're better off not getting hit than anything else, and also having 4 arms means you're pretty good at sleight of hand. Wisdom is also pretty good, you're a religious man, and while you don't get power from that you're still wise. Unfortunately we gotta make Strength the next highest stat. I mean, two of your arms are robots, so I guess it kinda works? Your Charisma is pretty low, you just don't care about people that much, but we're dumping Constitution. Trust me, it'll make sense in a bit. (Don't do this in-game, this is a flavor thing, you WILL DIE)

Class Levels

You're 100% artificer, so you start off with Magical Tinkering, letting you stuff minor magical effects into tiny items. I don't know why you'd make a fart sound producing golem out of a pen, but I'm not Avicebron. You also learn Spells. They use your Intelligence score for prep and casting. Grab Mage Hand to build a little drone to carry stuff for you, and Message for a messenger golem. Really you can take whatever spells you like as long as you call them golems, but the most golemy are Alarm golem and Catapult golem. Why throw stuff when you can just make it throw itself? You also get proficiency in a buncha stuff, like Constitution and Intelligence saves, plus Nature to figure out good materials for golems and Arcana to build them!

Second level artificers can Infuse Items, adding cool effects to up to two items per long rest from a list of four options. Grab Armor of Tools so you'll always have your golem-making kit on ya, Enhanced Arcane Focus for stronger golems, Homunculus Servant for a golem, and Mind Sharpener to help keep track of your golems. I can already tell golem isn't even gonna look like a word by the end of this build.

Your artificer subclass is the Battle Smith, which makes you Battle Ready, so your golems can use martial weapons. Of course you're not swinging them yourself, so you can use your intelligence instead of strength when attacking with magical weapons. You also get a second permanent golem, the Steel Defender! You gotta use your bonus action to make it do stuff, but it'll hit people, repair stuff, and protect its allies! Also, you can cast Mending on it to heal it. You don't have that yet, but you will! You can also make The Right Tool for the Job over a long rest, and you also get subclass spells for free. Heroism makes a very pretty golem that inspires all your allies to not get scared and get temporary HP. Shield makes a golem that'll stand in front of someone as a reaction, adding 5 to their AC and blocking magic missiles for a round.

Use your first Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Intelligence. You use it for pretty much everything, so your brain's gotta be good!

Fifth level battlesmiths get an Extra Attack, so your servo, your steel defender, and your sword-holding golem can all attack at the same time. You also get second level spells, like Branding Smite and Warding Bond. Neither of those are golems tho. Grab Rope Trick for the first of many rope golems, and Enlarge/Reduce for later. Adam's a big boy, so you've gotta make a big golem.

Sixth level artificers get Tool Expertise, doubling your proficiency bonus with all tools. Golem making is complicated, the DCs are gonna be high. You also get two more blueprints and one more infused item, like a Spell-Refueling Ring for extra spell slots and a Rope of Climbing for another rope-based golem to help your bad climbing skills.

At seventh level you get so smart you have Flashes of Genius, adding your intelligence modifier to checks and saves near you intelligence modifier times per long rest. Yeah, it's actually just weirdly specific golems.

Bump up your Intelligence this ASI for more of everything you like. Smrt.

Ninth level battle smiths add an Arcane Jolt to their steel defender and magical weapons. Once per turn, intelligence modifier times per long rest, you can either add extra force damage to the hit, or heal a nearby creature. Still not sure how to make those golems, but you'll figure something out, you've got 20 Intelligence! You also get third level spells, like an Aura of Vitality golem and a Conjure Barrage golem. You can also can Create Food and Water golems for gathering, or turn just about anything into a Tiny Servant. For up to 8 hours after casting, you can turn a tiny object into a tiny creature, commanding it as a bonus action. Finally, a spell that makes golems! You can also use Glyph of Warding now, though it won't be that useful for the build until you get fourth level spells. The idea is, you can keep a bunch of these bad boys in your base, all set to trigger against a creature that knocks you down to 0 HP. All of them summon constructs, beating up the guy after you're already unconscious. This is the closest we could get to Avicebron's third skill, D&D doesn't really plan for character death that well. Also, just a correction. I just found out you can't carry glyphs around without them breaking :(

Tenth level artificers are Magic Item Adepts, giving you an extra attunement slot and you can create uncommon magic items for cheaper. You also get the Mending cantrip for golems, and two more blueprints for an extra infused item. The Helm of Awareness will help you stay out of trouble, and the Periapt of Wound Closure makes it easier to not die. Your master strategy is all about getting knocked out, so it would be nice if you automatically stabilize.

Eleventh level artificers can create Spell-Storing Items, stuffing weapons or focii full of first/second level magical goodness. It's like you're casting the spell, but it uses the other guy's concentration.

Another ASI! Bump up your Dexterity for less dying.

With fourth level spells, you can cast all sorts of golems. You're stuck with Aura of Purity and Fire Shield, but you also get an Arcane Eye for a drone golem, plus Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound and Summon Construct for fighting golems.

As a Magic Item Savant you get another attunement slot, and you can ignore requirements when attuning magic items. You also get the Prestidigitation cantrip to make whatever small tools you need for a second, and two more blueprints for one more infusion. Bracers of Defense will help you not die if you don't think Avicebron's outfit is armor, and the Ring of Protection will also do that regardless.

At fifteenth level you get your last subclass improvement, the Improved Defender. Your arcane jolt gets bigger, and your golem gets tougher and can reflect damage, not just deflect it.

Use the rest of your ASI to bump up your Wisdom. Making yourself better isn't in character, so just be wise.

You've got fifth level spells! Banishing smite isn't a golem, but I guess Mass Cure Wounds could be Adam's feet? Idk. You can also use Bigby's Hand for Adam's hand, and Animate Objects for more item-based golems. Now you can turn your trusty frying pan into a-golem. Everything turns into a golem.

Eighteenth level artificers are Magic Item Masters, letting you attune to six items at the same time. You also get two more blueprints, so grab two copies of Arcane Propulsion Arm for the four arms of your third ascension. Arms are cool.

One last ASI, grab more Wisdom.

Your capstone ability grants you a Soul of Artifice, giving you a +1 bonus to all your saves for each magic item you're attuned to, and you can destroy an infusion to drop to 1 HP instead of 0. Remember, getting KOd only helps if you're near one of your glyphs.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Between your Steel Defender, servo, tiny servants, and animated objects, you don't have to do much. Plus you can just rope trick away and let them take care of everything!

If your DM ever tries to spook the party by fighting you in your own base, you can spook him right back by taking a fall and filling your study with angry golems.

With expertise and flashes to help your repairs along plus mending, you're a great repairman. If the DM tries to block your path with a broken bridge, it won't stay broken for long. Plus, your warforged allies will love you.

Cons:

DONT DUMP CON. You have less than 100 HP at level 20, and your constitution save is really bad (for an artificer). Don't do it. Look me in the eyes, don't. do it!

Having any part of your battle plan being getting knocked out is not going to make you popular with your party members. Maybe you should help out yourself? Nah, golems are better.

All of your infusions and spells are focused on helping yourself, a stark contrast to most of our artificer builds. Keeping all your toys to yourself will not help your party like you, especially with a +0 charisma.

[ninbinary]

...Am I the only one who finds this weird? That like, all the beautiful, intricate, nuanced, well-realized 5th Edition DnD Player Characters I've read about are fighting-fit and in the pink all the way down to 1 hit point...

But the moment they drop BELOW 1 hitpoint -- & assuming no outside interference or bonuses -- they're basically flipping a coin with Death, and the first one to get 3 'successes' (aka, best [most wins] out of five) determines the PC's life or death?

AND WE'RE ALL OK WITH THAT?

..I have alternative suggestions* it's just weird to me this is The Mechanism that 5e went with. Modern DnD-ers, plz explain what you think? I'm #modern DnD curious but this one baffles me a bit!

*: primarily, "0 HP = Unconscious, you gotta fall a lot BELOW zero to get into actively-bleeding-to-death or even insta-dead territory" -- which makes it less dramatic and risky** (unless you're low-level and/or the thing that knocks you down Absolutely Clobbered you), but also isn't "any final hitpoint poke puts you in a game of heads-or-tails for The Big Sleep"

**: ALSO allows the option of "total party battered unconscious... then wake up in the bad guy's jail" as the default, rather than "total party battered unconscious... those lucky at coin-flipping wake up in the bad guy's jail, the others died hours ago"

[theworldbrewery]

manual monday!

here at The World Brewery, we finally got our hands on that most basic of tools, the Player’s Handbook.

as a consequence, today I’m unpacking an oft-overlooked section of the PHB: “The Environment,” spanning pages 183-185 for those following along at home.

this section is professed as rules covering “the most important ways in which adventurers interact with the environment” in dungeons and dangerous places. so, naturally, it begins with the rules on Falling.

Falling

Unless your PCs can fly, falling can be a deeply dangerous thing. the rulebook mainly states that a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage per 10 feet fallen, to a max of 20d6 (read: after 200ft, you’re probably screwed no matter the change in distance). For context, falling 200ft will deal an average of 70 damage. For a low-level PC, that’s instant death; for a mid-level PC, it’s instant unconsciousness, but not necessarily insta-kill. Crucially, you also land prone, which means in battle, a hostile creature can attack (in melee) with advantage.

But most falls are not, in fact, 200ft. More often, a fall is 10, maybe 20--the depth of a pit trap, or a few stories if the party is in a cave system and goes down a vertical tunnel unexpectedly.

It does not, however, discuss how to handle rolling for these things. In the case of pit traps, the DMG does have handy guides on perceiving traps, but notably does not require a saving throw to evade falling. As far as the DMG is concerned, if you miss the signs of an imminent fall, you can’t avoid it. 

However, many DMs house-rule in a Dex save, either to avoid falling altogether, or to reduce the overall damage. In that case, I recommend Dex checks when a character is trying to maneuver around a trap or chasm, and Dex saves to potentially halve the damage of a fall by bracing for impact.

Suffocating

Every PC can hold its breath for 30 seconds, regardless of how bad their Con modifier is. The PHB does not specify whether or not a creature has to make some kind of check if they start suffocating suddenly, so as a general rule, I would go with no. That is, if a character is surprised in combat and the enemy holds a bag over their head, they still get their usual held-breath amount before they start suffocating. Use suffocation judiciously--it’s less a combat mechanic and more a feature of underwater passages, areas filled with natural gas, or other terrain effects.

When you run out of air, you do get at least 1 round before you drop to 0 HP and are dying. This has everything that comes with it, including Death Saves, falling prone, and all the rules of the unconscious condition.

Vision and Light

Vision is hotly contested, frequently brought up, and oft-misused. According to the PHB, we can divide light into 3 categories: Bright light, Dim light, and Darkness. In bright light, most creatures have normal vision; overcast skies, torches, and lanterns generally provide bright light. Dim light refers to twilight or dawn hours or the area around an area of bright light. Darkness is present at night, even when the moon is out, in unlit areas, or in magical darkness.

The rules of light intersect with the rules of obscured areas. Lightly obscured areas can be caused by dim light as well as weather effects like fog, or terrain effects like some foliage. In a lightly obscured area, creatures have disadvantage on perception checks--but a reminder that creatures with Darkvision are able to see normally when the obscured area is caused by dim light. Similarly, heavily obscured areas include darkness and more opaque versions of other obstructions (fog, foliage)--so again, creatures with Darkvision are not affected by the rules of heavily obscured areas when it comes to darkness. And that’s a good thing, too--because creatures are effectively blinded when trying to see a heavily obscured area.

Blindsight similarly is not affected by these rules of light and obscurity, nor are creatures with Truesight.

Food and Water

I’ll be honest, I don’t know any DMs who care about tracking food and water--largely because PCs can afford to stock up well on rations. However, there are moments when it can be useful: say the water supply was poisoned by an enemy, and the party is trying to survive without it. In the wilderness, they may need to find a water source before starting to accrue exhaustion-- which makes them weaker and weaker. Worse, when it comes to food and water, if you already have a level of exhaustion, going without food or water causes two levels of exhaustion to be added, rather than just one, so the effects are increasingly dire with time. Now, characters can usually ration just fine, but again--if food is eaten by a hungry pack of rats, or spoiled by a regional effect like intense heat, the rations may dwindle and characters could have to spend time dealing with that.

If that sounds intensely boring, no big deal! Either ignore the consequences of food and water entirely, or use them to lead characters to other storylines. For instance, running low on rations might make characters explore an area in search of wild game, and from there they stumble upon a den of Giant Elk...which have made their home near the entrance of a mysterious ruin. Seeking water might be dull until the local water source is being contaminated by evil magic, and the party has to find a solution or die of dehydration. Not to be overused, but these are certainly options to incorporate these rules.

Interacting with Objects

Most objects are up to the DM’s discretion--requiring a Strength check to move a rusted lever, for instance--but there are more guidelines when it comes to breaking objects: objects are immune to poison and psychic damage, but they can be attacked. The DM sets an object’s AC and hit points, and adds in any other caveats for damaging an object. When it comes to saving throws, they are immune to all saves except Strength and Dexterity, which they automatically fail. Objects break when they reach 0HP. Strength checks can also be used to break an object outright, using the DM’s DC.

In house-rule terms, a DM might also decide to add a check of Intelligence or Wisdom for a character to determine how to use an unfamiliar object. I would use something like that sparingly, though, since most objects are fairly intuitive and you don’t want to accidentally give a PC the power to use an item when it would normally require proficiency to use. In my own game, such rolls apply for properly using tools that a character lacks proficiency in, as well as situations where characters are faced with totally unfamiliar or even alien technology.

[primatechnosynthpop]

A lot of my posts on such topics aren't really tagged, and my writings are scattered, and some thoughts I've only communicated through tumblr DMs, or just kept to myself and never really detailed publicly at all, so I figured it was time to make a ""masterpost"" of sorts in which I explain every idea I have about needlessly edgy scenarios involving everyone's favourite (?) mid-2000s comedy web series. Because there are issues with my brain.

1. The one where it's the suffering game arc of The Adventure Zone: Balance but with the new kids. I'm probably never gonna properly write this, but I'm imagining it having a tone that gets progressively more serious and intense than the actual series, but still with a decent amount of comedy.

This is the only entry on the list that definitively does not involve any of them dying, although if I was gonna properly write this (which, again, I'm probably never going to) then I would almost certainly include a couple of fake-out deaths (i.e. when Kevin drops to 0 HP and falls unconscious, or at the end when Neil comes back and sees the near-death state that Ryan and Kevin are in). But they all make it out ok.

2. Computer Fighters canon divergence au where they actually do use the computer virus floppy disk to defeat Gunfoot, but the virus takes them over and turns them into fucked up glitch monstrosities.

Also, alternate outcome of that same premise in which only Neil gets taken over by the computer virus, leaving Ryan and Kevin to figure out how to get him back to normal... or whether that's even possible.

(Edit: I've published this now! You can read it here)

3. Just a run-of-the-mill permadeath au. Most events play out the same, but Kevin stays dead after spooky manor, and in between getting up to wacky hijinks, Neil and Ryan go through a tumultuous grieving process which ultimately results in them forging a stronger bond. Maybe in this au the studio sends Spencer in specifically as a "replacement" for Kevin, which forces Ryan and Neil to come to terms with the fact that Kevin is actually gone, when maybe up until that point they'd sort of subconsciously been expecting him to come back somehow.

Later, Ryan getting frozen by the misery meister takes him out of the picture permanently in this au. Either A) without having Kevin there to encourage him, Neil can't work up the courage to go back to the lair, or B) ...well, uh, think about what might happen to a human body in the real world if it got frozen in ice and then someone tried thawing them out with a hairdryer. Yeah. Very icky, very unpleasant, very traumatizing for Neil.

There are two possibilities as to how Neil himself would meet his end without having his friends at his side anymore. Either the bad luck curse from the lost episode does him in, or he gets gunned down while inside the game world of computer fighters 2000. Either way, this is definitely an "everybody dies in horrific and depressing ways" scenario.

4. The fic where they get attacked by Rorschach watchmen, and the elaborate continuation of it that I have not written and probably will not write, but it sure does exist inside my brain. Here's the play-by-play, ft. accompanying notebook doodles (click for full view because some of them are formatted weird)

So, two distinct timelines here. In Timeline A, Ryan manages to avenge his friends' deaths and kill the original Rorschach. However, since he can't go back to his old life, he takes the Rorschach mask and adopts the Rorschach identity.

In Timeline B, Kevin and Neil recover from their injuries, but the first responders recognize Ryan as a vigilante and just leave him in the alley. Neil and Kevin return to the alleyway after recovering and leaving the hospital, and they find a stray dog chewing on a pile of human bones. Kevin blames both himself and Neil for what happened to Ryan, but Neil refuses to (outwardly) accept any blame. This leads to them having a big argument and going their separate ways.

Cut to several years later in Timeline B. Neil has devoted himself to advanced computer science, whereas Kevin (who has an eye scar in this timeline from when Rorschach punched him in the face) has devoted himself to such hobbies as violence, guns, and dramatically holding Ryan's skull (because yeah that's whose bones it was if that wasn't clear) and vowing revenge.

Kevin's plan is to kill Rorschach, but for some reason in all these years he's never been able to find him. This is probably just because this timeline's Rorschach also died ""offscreen"" at some point. Maybe the actual plot of watchmen happened, who knows. Either way, Neil has a loftier plan: opening a portal to an alternate reality, finding an alternate version of Ryan, and bringing him into this universe (because, plot twist, Neil DOES feel extremely bad about what happened!! He's just unwilling to admit to all the guilt he's wracked with!!)

So Neil's plan actually works, and a version of Ryan manifests outside his science building. However, just then, Kevin was heading over to Neil's science building to yell at him or something, because that's something he does occasionally. That, or everyone is just incredibly in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Because, guess what, it's Rorschach!Ryan from Timeline A, who all this time has just been doing the edgy vigilante thing and being depressed and alone. He appears, with the Rorschach mask on, and Kevin immediately shoots him. Neil gets there just in time to catch him as he falls.

Kevin rips off the Rorschach mask in a classic "let's see who you really are!" moment, and is shocked and horrified to find that it's Ryan. At this point, Neil breaks down and admits to all the guilt he's been wracked with all these years.

Does Ryan survive? That's up to you to decide for yourself, I guess. Do you think you could survive getting shot point-blank with an entire round of bullets? Either way, it's definitely a big moment of emotional catharsis.

[sloshdoescurseofstrahd]

Session 7: Frog Murder

SPOILERS FOR CURSE OF STRAHD

In the last session, Warlock had left his frog familiar hidden in the Burgomaster of Valaki’s manor so he could later look into some rumors he had been hearing in the tavern. Warlock waited until it was dark and then sent his frog out to explore the manor.

He ignored the first floor and made his way to the second floor. As he shoved himself under the doors of various rooms in search of the attic, he eventually found the bathroom and impulsively decided to (using his strength of 1) drag a towel out from under the door and into the hall. He left the towel there and wandered into the next room -- which happened to be the master bedroom.

Seeing the Burgomaster and his wife sleeping, Warlock sent his frog back to grab the towel. He dragged the towel down the hall and under the door to the master bedroom. He concidered trying to murder the burgomaster in his sleep but decided against it when realized frogs have no attacks and no strength. In the end he decided to drape the towel over their eyes with a high stealth check and snuck out the window. he climbed up the outside wall and went in through a window to the attic.

The frog made its way through the attic and to large door with a skull carved into it. He could hear someone muttering incantations so he decided to try and get whoever was inside to come out. He sat above the door and croaked as loud as possible. The person inside could hear him but decided to ignore it. Eventually the frog climbed down and knocked over a lantern. The clatter got the man inside to open the door and look around -- buying just enough time for the frog to slip into the room unnoticed.

The frog rolled and extremely high stealth check and managed to evade the man and the six skeletal cats wandering the room. He acquired ink and a bit of parchment and wrote a little note on it then climbed to the ceiling above the man. from this vantage point he dropped the note down to him.

As the man resumed the casting of his spell, a note drifted down from above him, startling him out of his concentration. He plucked the note out of the air and read it:

NOT ALONE

Confused and more than a little frightened, the man franticly searched the room before looking to the ceiling. At this point, a frog leaped from the shadows, fell 20 feet, and hit the man square in the face.

2d6 damage and three death saves later, the man lie dead in the attic and the frog - being a familiar - was vaporized on impact.

From outside, Warlock heard a thump from the attic of the house and took it as a success.

Warlock made his way into the house to search the room of the man he just had murdered. The operation went rather smoothly and even when he rolled rather low to go up the ladder to the attic, the towel over the Burgomaster’s face kept him from being caught for just long enough to get to the attic. Warlock looted the dead man’s corpse of his spellbook then returned downstairs to look for where the burgomaster kept his money. Unable to find the strongbox, Warlock settled for his  boots and silverware.

The party met back up at the tavern and agreed to leave tomorrow morning for Krezk.

Their travels to Krezk were more or less uninterrupted, though they did take note of a large ruined tower off to the side of the road.

Once they arrived at Krezk, they spoke to the guards who retrieved the Burgomaster. The Burgomaster of Krezk told the party that he could not let them in since he has no reason to trust them. After a heated argument, the party agreed to retrieve a missing shipment of wine so long as they took in the young woman under the party’s protection.

The party left Krezk and decided to check out the tower they saw first.

Now at the foot of the tower, the party could see a large iron door and a brightly painted wagon parked outside. The whole party crowed around the wagon and tried to figure out how to get in. No one has thieves’ tools so they tell Paladin to break it open. Paladin headbutts the lock (nat 1) and falls unconscious for one round. Wizard breaks open a window and drops his familiar inside to look around. Monk - coming to the conclusion that the wall would be weaker than the door - decides to punch a way in through the wall. Glass shatters inside as he goes to town on the wagon. Instantly, the wagon is blown to pieces and emerald flames erupt from the wreckage. All members of the party are reduced to 0 HP and Wizard is killed outright. The rest of the party succeeds their death saves and go to explore the tower.

[orderofthedyingstar]

Death & Resurrection

A basic outline/reminder of the 5e rules on death + resurrection as well as additions on how the party’s dynamics affect that since we just had a death 

UNCONSCIOUSNESS

When you drop to 0 hp, you either die outright* or fall unconscious

When you drop to 0hp and it does not kill you, you go unconscious, which ends if you regain any hp (like getting healed with Healing Hands by Verrix/Inigo or getting Cure Wounds cast on you by Rhododendron, Raz, Marlee, or Morel). Death save rolls (both successes and failures) are reset when you regain hp or become stable.

When you start a turn with 0hp, you must make death saving throws. If the roll is 10 or higher, you succeed. If it is 9 or lower, you fail. Marlee’s Aura of Protection modifier may be added to death saves (if she is conscious), and Marlee’s Lucky, Verrix’s Tides of Chaos, or Jun’s Portent can be swapped in for death save rolls. Raz’s spell Beacon of Hope grants advantage on death saves.

Rolling a 1 on a death save counts a two failures, rolling a 20 allows you to regain 1hp.

If you take damage at 0hp, you suffer a failed death save. If the damage is from a critical roll it counts for two failed saves; as you are prone when you are unconscious all attack from melee range count as critical hits.

STABILIZATION

An unconscious creature can be stabilized with an action requiring a successful DC 10 Medicine check, or someone proficient with a healer’s kit (Jun) automatically passing the check by using the kit.

Stable creatures do not have to make death saving throws even though they are at 0hp, but remain unconscious. Stable creatures must make death saves again if they take any damage.

A stable creature regain 1hp after 1d4 hours if not healed.

DEATH

*INSTANT DEATH: When damage drops you to 0hp and the remaining damage is greater/equal to your max hp, you are killed instantly. (Example, character X has 12 max hp, and takes 30 damage; or character X has 12 max hp, is at 6 remaining, and takes 18 damage.)

A character that fails 3 death saves counts as dead, and cannot be healed or stabilized.

RESURRECTION

You have a few options to bring people back! Resurrection (Raz lvl 13), Revivify (Raz, Marlee lvl 9), Reincarnate (Morel lvl 9), Raise Dead (Raz lvl 9, Marlee lvl 17), and True Resurrection (Raz lvl 17, Morel lvl 17). 

Revivify only works within 1 minute of the creature’s death, Reincarnate and Raise Dead only work within 10 days, and Resurrection can affect creatures that have been dead for up to a century. True Resurrection can bring back creatures that died up to two centuries ago.

Gentle Repose also allows the time limit on on Raise Dead to be extended by an extra ten days at a time.

[dailycharacteroption]

Conversion Corner: Mass Effect Races part 5

Krogan and Turian

 With a history  mired in enduring hardship, the krogan are a fierce race of warriors who have faced setback after setback, from the nuclear war that forced them into tribal, survivalist cultures, to the viral genetic disorder engineered to stop their invading rebellion in it’s tracks.

A race built for a harsh environment, krogan are the only bipedal race in the ME universe to have wide-set eyes, a necessary adaptation given how many species of powerful predators live on their homeworld. They are a tall and swarthy race of reptilian humanoids with thick skin and osteoderms, as well as a large fat-hump above the head behind the shoulders for storing nutrition and water during lean times. Internally, their great fortitude is in part due to the abundance of redundant organs in their body, including a secondary fluid-channel-based nervous system which makes them nearly impossible to paralyze.

In addition to this, krogan are similar to boars and other particularly ferocious beasts In that they can ignore incredible pain when heavily injured, making them incredibly dangerous in combat.

Once, a long time ago, the krogan had made great strides in advancing as a civilization, building walls and cities. However, this ensured a greater survival rate for an already fecund race, leading to a population boom and a lot of bored krogan looking for a real challenge. So they turned on each other, wars and conflicts escalating until weapons of mass destruction plunged their world into a nuclear winter, and forced the krogan back into a tribal lifestyle, that is until they were approached by the salarians to be uplifted to the galactic community as a warrior force against the encroaching rachni.

While this was effective, the krogan proved to be utterly self-serving, using the gifted technology to start their own war to conquer the galaxy, and were only stopped by the turians using a devastating bioweapon developed by the salarians as a deterrent, the Genophage.

This virus dropped the viable birthrate of krogan infants to a mere fraction of what it once was, crippling their previous style of warfare by removing their numbers advantage.

This sudden change had massive repercussions on krogan culture, and now a malaise of fatalism has overtaken them. While they still live in tribes and seek fulfillment in combat, few see any hope, and the already self-focused people  struggle to find meaning in the krogan ways anymore.

Those that do hold out hope still work to restore their people, the females of which live in separate tribes judging applicants worthy to try and mate with, not to mention pouring funds into finding a way to reverse the genophage. Make no mistake though, the females of the species are just as fierce and motivated, and are not just waiting around for someone to fix their problems, but who knows? By the end of the series perhaps a certain protagonist has helped them out?

 +4 Str, +2 Con, -2 Wis

Hp 6

Size and Type: Krogan are medium humanoids of the krogan subtype

Racial Traits:

Krogan Ferocity: Once per day, a krogan brought to 0 Hit Points but not killed can fight on for 1 more round. The krogan drops to 0 HP and is dying (following the normal rules for death and dying) but can continue to act normally until the end of their next turn, when they become unconscious as normal. If they take additional damage before this, they cease to be able to act and falls unconscious.

Natural Armor: The thick hide and plating of a krogan grants them a +1 racial bonus to AC

Shoulder Hump: Krogan double the number of days without food or water they can go without having to make fortitude saves against starvation and thirst. After having done so, a krogan must spend a week eating one and half times their normal meal requirements in order to restock their internal stores and use this ability again.

Redundant Organs: When a krogan fails a fortitude save against an effect and gain a condition or ongoing effect because of this, at the beginning of their next turn, as a swift action they can attempt another fortitude save at the same DC to remove the effect, even if they wouldn’t normally get another save. If the effect already grants later saves to throw off the effect, the krogan gains a +2 to that save. This also applies to poison and disease.

Resilient: Krogan gain a +2 to Fortitude saves against environmental effects like temperature and radiation.

 And finally, let’s focus on one last iconic race of the ME universe, the Turians!

Clad in a flexible metallic carapace, turians are a disciplined race from a world of harsh radiation, their society based on survival through military might.

Standing at about a head’s height over humans, turians are a lean, muscular race of humanoids that resemble a missing link between earth birds and reptiles, with sharp teeth and claws definitely left over from predatory ancestors, and a dull metallic sheen to their plated skin, a thin-layer of thulium that helps block out the worst of the solar radiation that blasts their homeworld. The males also boast a crest of backwards-sweeping horns on their craniums.

Turian society is very much hierarchy-based, with individuals advancing based on their skill and merit. As a heavily militarized society, service in both warfare or peacekeeping capacity is the most common form of advancement, a prospect they approach dutifully and eagerly.

This is because the turian mindset very much focuses on the value of service to others, and while there is still room for individual goals and desires, the turians tend to conflate the needs of others as being their needs as well, which makes them naturally dutiful, if at risk of being loyal to unworthy leaders, which is a hard concept for turians to deal with, especially among their own, since theirs is a society of honesty and duty, where the general expectation is that everyone above and below you in the hierarchy knows what their job is and is doing it competently. After all, if they couldn’t do that, according to turian society, they couldn’t have made it into that position in the first place.

Turian society also teaches it’s people the value of responsibility. A turian must own their actions, for good or bad. This does not mean they find deception impossible, but turian spies typically put themselves in a position where they cannot be asked directly about their loyalties whenever possible, since they have difficulty when directly asked.

Since the military serves as such a pivotal part of their society, entirely colonies can be hired as a private military company, or may serve the interests of their species in colonizing or fighting against threats. Turians don’t believe in half-assing war, either. If they are fighting against a foe, they bring their full military might to the table. No border skirmishes, no small-scale conflicts. This however, has gotten them into trouble in the past, particularly during first contact with humans.

 +2 Dex, +2 Wis, -2 Cha

Hp 4

Size and Type: Turians are medium humanoids of the turian subtype

Racial Traits:

Military Heritage: Turians gain a +2 to Culture and Profession (soldier) skill checks to recall information about military, tactics, and weaponry.

Reflective Hide: Turians treat areas with a radiation level as one step lower than normal to determine if they need to save against it and/or what the save DC is. This does not give them immunity to weapons with the radioactive special property or the irradiate critical hit effect, but it does grant them a +2 bonus to the save against the effect.

Sense of Duty: Turians gain a +1 to attack rolls when using the harrying fire or covering fire action, as well as increasing the bonus they grant when using aid another with an ally to +3.

[monstersdownthepath]

Spiritual Spotlight: Dammar the Denied

True Neutral Psychopomp Usher of Liquor, Luck, and Medicine

Domains: Healing, Luck, Protection, Repose Subdomains*: Resurrection, Curse, Purity, Psychopomp

Concordance of Rivals, pg. 8

Obedience**: Consume a full serving of alcohol and spend an hour reflecting on the intricacies of the living form. At the conclusion, pour a second serving at the base of a tree or a large stone. Benefit: Gain a +4 insight bonus on Heal checks and saving throws against the effects of alcohol and swarm attacks.

(*IMPORTANT NOTE: The Subdomains are my best guess; Subdomains are not listed in Concordance of Rivals. **ALSO SOMEWHAT IMPORTANT: Dammar’s true Obedience squicks me out something fierce, so the one provided is an alternate take with only a slight deviation from its written form. The actual Obedience will be in the link at the end of the article, as always, but be wary if you have emetophobia or are otherwise sensitive to people un-eating things)

A single bottle typically contains six servings, by the way. Gutter-quality swill will maybe run you 5cp a cask, assuring you’ll more or less always have some on you provided you aren’t robbed, set on fire, or stranded away from civilization for weeks on end, eliminating the bookkeeping nonsense that Obediences with material components usually require. It doesn’t even have to be any specific kind of alcohol! ANY old stuff will do, including any you make yourself.

The tricky part is the second portion of the Obedience, requiring you to sacrifice a serving to a tree or rock. This means one bottle will carry you through three Obediences, which doesn’t sound like much until you have to start devoting a good portion of your carrying capacity to wine casks. Get yourself a cart! As for why the rock/tree bit is tricky, well, you won’t always have access to such terrain features! Sometimes you just get stuck underground, or in a frozen tundra, or in the Plane of Air for a few days! Maybe the DM will let you substitute the symbolic offering by just pouring it on an altar you make, but that’s something to discuss with them beforehand.

The benefit is mmmmmmmmmnot great, despite being a triple threat. It’s a triple threat against threats that aren’t super threatening; unless you invest in Signature Skill, the Heal skill in general has few uses. Being more tolerant of alcohol is impressive for roleplaying but not typically useful in combat, and while bolstering yourself against a swarm’s lethal Distraction ability IS good, it’s too niche to be impressive.

Boons are gained slowly, gained at levels 12, 16, and 20. Servants of the Monitors, though, can enter the Proctor Prestige Class as early as level 8. If entered as early as possible, you can earn your Boons at levels 10, 14, and 16. You MUST take the Monitor Obedience feat, NOT Deific Obedience. Monitors grant only a single set of Boons.

Boon 1: Mixed Blessings. Gain Enhance Water 3/day, Vomit Swarm 2/day, or Neutralize Poison 1/day.

Oooh, three spells I don’t think we’ve seen in a Boon before! Exciting!

Enhance Water turns any water you touch into some form of alcoholic drink, but here’s the twist: any diseases, poisons, minerals, and other contaminants within the liquid are transmuted into seasonings/flavoring and additional alcohol. Plain old purified water will get you a passable beer, but irradiated scum-filled poisoned pond water will get you several pints of top-shelf, sealed-behind-glass-and-rigged-with-an-alarm bourbon or wine that you can potentially sell to people for outrageous prices (by that I mean about 50gp to 100gp a bottle).

The unfortunate downside is that it only affects water, meaning no cheating and dipping your finger into a glass of wine that’s been served to you to clear out the poison your gracious host slipped in... However, the spell makes no distinction between free-floating water or water in a container, only that that it cannot affect Unholy Water and has no effect on magical liquids within the water (only mundane contaminants). While your round could certainly be better spent elsewhere, there’s something funny about having the ability to turn several pints of water surrounding an underwater enemy into cloudy alcohol. Aboleths aren’t immune to poison! And god, can you imagine how agonizing it must be to have alcohol rush through your gills AND into your eyes? Even if it’s just for a few seconds--ouch!

Now, Vomit Swarm is a good combat spell for those who wish to abstain from drinking too much. Sadly, no “drop the swarm in an enemy’s pants” casting range here, but the swarm starts adjacent to you and moves in a direction of your choice once its supply of victims is exhausted. Even better, though, is that the spell’s power scales with level; by the time you get this ability you can choose to spit out a swarm of spiders OR a swarm of wasps, and on hitting 13 Hit Dice you can spew a ravenous horde of army ants instead! And army ants are nasty, let me tell you. A swarm of them moving in their slow march will disassemble anything in their path, so make sure your allies aren’t in said path.

Neutralize Poison, predictably, neutralizes poison. It’s a good spell to have on standby, because some poisons can be nasty. Especially Con-damaging ones! All three of these spells have their own uses, but unless you’re short on liquor for your Obedience, I’d stick to Vomit Swarm unless you planned on heading into the Darklands or a jungle/swamp.

Boon 2: Dammar’s Mercy. 1/day, you may cast Maximized Breath of Life as a spell-like ability.

That’s 40+Caster level (max +25; you start with +10) HP restored to a single target. Breath of Life is an... interesting, very oddly-worded spell. As written, it’s effectively worthless for anything but death through HP damage (which, don’t get me wrong, is the #1 killer for many creatures) as it does not cure ability score damage/drain or negative levels. In addition, since it instills a negative level on its--oh hold on I forgot to explain how it worked, didn’t I?

You cast Breath of Life on someone who’s already dead, you see, and it restores HP to their corpse. Lets say Mr. Squishly, the local Wizard with an impressive Constitution score of 10 and 30 HP to his name is instantaneously blended by a monster with six natural attacks which all rolled maximum damage on every dice, bringing Squishly to -54 HP! You’re unconscious at 0 HP and dead once your HP hits a negative number equal to your Con score, so -10 in Squishly’s case. That means poor Squishly just up and croaked!

But you, Helpful Proctor, have Drammar's Mercy available. With a flourish of your fingers and a reassuring pat on the back (delivered within 1 round of death!), you give Squishly 50 HP back, taking him to -4. Since -4 is within his death threshold, Squishly is brought back to life!!! Unconscious, but alive! And then he gets a negative level slapped on him, bringing him to dangerous territory and teetering on the brink at -9, a papercut from death. But alive!

However, if he got an additional bump on his way to the ground and brought himself to -55 HP, there’d be nothing your spell could do; yes he’d come back to life for one brief and stellar moment just before the negative level killed him again. And at -60? Sorry, you’ll need some stronger juice here.

Thankfully, cases where you’re overkilled by a ludicrous amount are rare, especially if you’re smarter than Squishly and get out of the Adventurer Disassembly Zones that are threatened squares. 50 HP is a lot, enough to bring most people back from death unless their bodies were torn to pieces or disintegrated... Or if they died from Con damage or, again, negative levels. Healing in combat is generally not what you want to do, but Breath of Life CAN indeed be used on targets that are still alive, instantly granting them a huge chunk of hitpoints to keep on trucking in the current battle!

The most unfortunate part about Breath of Life is that it can only work on a corpse that’s been a corpse for 1 round or less, but Dammar has forseen that issue and gives their followers a bit more wiggle room...

Boon 3: Uncertain Fates. You may keep the souls of any intelligent creature that dies within 30ft of you, which orbit you as disembodied lights. You have a cumulative +1 bonus to AC and caster level checks to overcome spell resistance and a -1 penalty to Fortitude saves for each soul you keep in this way. You may hold a number of souls equal to half your Hit Dice plus your Charisma modifier, and they are immediately released to the River of Souls if you are stunned, unconscious, or fall asleep. If you have a creature’s soul and access to their body, you may use Breath of Life on that creature as though they had died on the previous round.

yyYYYEEEAAAAH

How would YOU like to have additional AC equal to half your Hit Dice? That’s 7+Cha mod when you first get this power and it only raises as your power does. Dammar is the Usher responsible for making the trip from the Boneyard back to the land of the living as grueling as possible, but this ability allows you to briefly cheat that system by preventing the souls from reaching the Boneyard at all. You can have a halo of flickering, moaning lights dancing around you, deflecting incoming blows as well as any armor. The more people that die around you, the more difficult it is to actually hurt you--it’s like Death Knell except better! Those hovering souls don’t even get a saving throw to avoid joining your little menagerie, though your ‘hold’ on them is so tenuous that you don’t actually stop them from coming back to life if they get raised by other means.

The fact that ONLY Breath of Life actually benefits from this ability is a little disappointing, but you DO get that 1/day for free, and Clerics, Oracles, and Shamans all get it as well. and since it requires no material components, it’s rather simple to get scrolls made--it costs around 600gp to make or a little over 1100gp to buy one--for later use. You can even make the scrolls yourself, given that you have it as a spell-like! The restriction that you can’t fall asleep or otherwise go helpless without losing your collection is pretty harsh, but if your allies NEED you to make it back to town with their souls in tow, just slap yourself with Lesser Restoration and keep trucking until all of them are back safe and sound.

Every ally that falls also make it harder to fell you! ... Just uh, be real careful around poison-wielders since your Fortitude save hemorrhages as your AC is bolstered. But hey, that’s why Dammar also gives you Neutralize Poison!

You can read more about them here.

[thelastarchangelaskblog]

DJ & Tony & Rhodey

Another chat post-Clint! This one covers DJ hitting 0 hp while we were in the dungeon and getting knocked unconscious. No death saving throws were required thanks to Zira but it was still scary.

Also thanks so much to @rebaobsessions and @thechaoticwave for helping with formatting!!! <3

Tony & Zira’s Chat                                        Charcoal as Breakfast

Tony & Rhodey’s Chat                                  Tony & Luna

Tony & Rhodey Compile a List                     Clint & Tony

The Trouble with Two Tonys                         Rhodey & Bob(Tim)

Rhodey & Bob(Tony)                                    About Death (Tony & Zira)

Rhodey & Zira (and Tony)                            Pre-Campaign Tony & Rhodey

DJ & Zira                                                      Bob(Tim) & Luna

DJ & Tony

Rhodey & DJ

**

(Read more.)

DJ sat in his hiding place feeling guilty as he listed to Zira and Tony talk. On the one hand, he was hiding for a reason, but on the other, he didn't want Tony to worry even more. He put on a false smile and poked his head up to peak out from under the tarp and over the side of the wagon.

DJ: Hi, Tony

Tony startles, head jerking up. He hadn't expected anyone else to be here, especially since Zira had stormed off.

Tony: DJ! Buddy! Er, how much did you hear?

DJ: I wasn't really trying to listen. I just...I was mostly just thinking. But I heard my name.

Tony: ...

Tony: (sigh) Did you, buddy. How you feeling?

DJ: (with the fakest smile ever) Great!

Tony squints at him, then raises his eyebrows. 

Tony: Sure about that? Because it's okay to not be feeling great.

DJ: (still faking chipper) Zira healed me right up. No reason not to feel great.

Tony: Yeah, I bet. (He comes over to stand right by DJ, fidgeting.) But, uh...you can be physically feeling great and yet not be great. So want to try that again?

DJ: (smile wavering slightly) No? I'm… (His smile drops, and he speaks softly now) If I talk about it, it will make it real.

Tony looks to the side, folding his arms over his chest as he keeps pace with the cart.

Tony: I'm not feeling too great at the moment. It was a bit of a shock seeing what happened. Because I gave you the go-ahead. I keep seeing what happened. And I'm thinking...if I'm feeling this way, how's DJ?

DJ scrambles up so he's standing and leaning out towards Tony.

DJ: No, Tony, you saw me. I wanted to do it. I was asking and everything. I didn't know my aim would be so bad.

Tony: Would you have done it if I hadn't given the go-ahead? We could've stopped and talked. There wasn't any need to immediately go in for the kill.  But I guess...there was too much else going on. And I've never known a bugbear to be willing to sit down and talk. I'm just sorry you got hit and almost...

DJ: (eyes wide) Don't say it!

Tony: (pauses, glances askance at DJ) Well, all right. (He smiles wryly) But does it help? Not talking about it? Because for me, it feels pretty fucking real, buddy.

DJ: (miserable) No. (He turns towards the front and shouts at Rhodey.) Rhodey stop for a second I wanna get out and walk!

Rhodey pulls the cart to a halt, stopping long enough for DJ to get out if he wants.

DJ scrambled out and then yells up at Rhodey to start again. 

DJ: Not talking doesn't help at all. That whole thing was awful. First I...and the goblin...and... (He pulls his staff off his back and starts scrubbing the end off in the grass even though there isn't anything left visible because he washed the gore off in the stream.) And then Klaarg and.... I don't like this...

Tony: ...

Tony: I don't either. Do you...want me to clean that for you?

DJ: (stares at the tip of the quarterstaff) Is it bad that killing that goblin like that almost bothers me more than almost... I mean, I know I've used my bombs against people before, but doing it with my own hands up close like that...I...why does it feel worse?

Tony: I don't know. Something about it...it's personal. Seeing what happens when you take someone's life... It's different when you're up close.

DJ: I don't like up close. I like distance. I'm just not a very good shot.

Tony: You can get better. Do you think I hit all my marks with my crossbow? You don't have to be up close if you don't want to be, but sometimes there's no other choice. You just...have to be prepared for the consequences.

DJ: How? And why does it bother me so much when the bombs and the infusions don't. And why am I fixating on this instead of the fact I almost... Tony, I almost died!

Tony looks down at DJ. He doesn't look happy.

Tony: Yeah, I know. I'm...trying not to think about that too much myself, but it's not really working. As for how I deal with this kind of stuff...I don't think I do. I mean, getting drunk helps, but I tried that one time and er - you don't need to know about that. For the most part I just...try not to think about it

DJ gives a wobbly half smile at the drunk part, but it fades quickly.

Tony: Can't say it works, but it's what I do. I don't know about the bombs and infusions. But that kind of stuff...it's at a distance. It's impersonal. So it doesn't feel the same way. If you're going to be in the business of killing...I don't know if it's better to be impersonal or personal.

DJ: I was trying to not think about. That was why I was hiding. (He frowns and looks down.) It wasn't really working for me either. I...if we are gonna do more stuff like this, than I have to get used to it...or at least figure out how to be more objective, don't I? I'm just not sure how I do that.

Tony: Then don't. Because the moment you start becoming objective is when you start looking at people like casualties. And people aren't casualties. They're not numbers. But don't beat yourself up over it either. Because when it comes down to it...if it's you or them? I'd rather it be you.

DJ: Me, too. I love travelling with you, Tony. But I'm not sure I am cut out for adventuring. I was so excited to use the bomb. And then everything went black and... And then I woke up and I was terrified.

Tony lays a hand on DJ's shoulder, squeezing it.

DJ glomps Tony.

Tony hugs him back tightly. The cart's trundling away at a steady pace but they can catch up later.

Tony: I was just as terrified when you went down. If Zira hadn't gotten to you first... I've gotta admit I'm a little glad we didn't manage to talk the bugbear down. And if you're not cut out for this...if you don't want to do this...you don't have to.

DJ: I know you would have saved me if Zira didn't. You've always saved me before. Well, you and occasionally Rhodey. I don't know if I am cut out for it or not. Nothing we've done before has ever been like that was.

Tony: (smiles slightly and ruffles a hand through DJ's hair) I would have, yeah. You're right about that. Yeah, this is a bit above our usual paygrade...

DJ: (extra quiet even though the cart has pulled ahead) But if we're gonna help Zira, then that is probably gonna be even worse. That's why I know I have to learn to be better, to deal with this. Because helping people like Zira, that's the kind of stuff I want to do.

Tony: ...You can help people like Zira without necessarily needing to do...that. You don't need to do it. Not if you don't want to. And...well...you can get better at it, but I don't want you to stop feeling bad about taking a life .Because when that stops...we'll probably need another kind of talk.

DJ: I want to do it, Tony. I don't want to spend my whole career holed up in a lab doing research. Theory is fine, but I want to do more. And that means I have to be out here learning and helping people and making a difference. And if I get to the point that its just numbers...Tony, make sure we have that talk before we get there because that means I'd've forgotten everything my parents and you have taught me.

Tony squeezes the back of DJ's neck reassuringly.

Tony: You got it. And, hey...research's not that bad. I'm sure... But I get wanting to do more. But you don't have to help people my way, DJ. There's lots of ways to help.

DJ: I know. But this work is important. 

DJ hems and haws and shuffles in place. 

DJ: Plus I really like traveling with you. Even more than I like bombs.

Tony: (smiles a bit more broadly) More than you like bombs, huh? That’s a lot.

Tony: (serious again) And sure it’s important; but I don’t want you doing something you’re not comfortable with. You don’t have to do this, not if you know you’re uncomfortable about it.

DJ: I know. And I promise I'll tell you if it gets to be too much. But I want to keep trying. Because it's important. I just...I might need your help...or to talk about things more...especially if things get worse. But I want to keep moving forward.

Tony: Okay. I'll hold you to that. But...I may just be a little more watchful from now on, okay? You scared the shit out of me.

DJ: Tony, I scared the shit out of myself. I never want that to happen again. To any of us.

DJ turns to look towards where the wagon is moving steadily away.

DJ: It is gonna suck to catch up to them.

Tony: ...point. Want a ride?

He gestures to his back, raising an eyebrow.

DJ: (tries not to appear eager...probably fails spectacularly) As long as you promise not to hold it against me later. No short jokes. Or kid jokes.

Tony: (entirely seriously with only a small smile) I would never. Besides, you've seen me on Rhodey's back, haven't you?: Nothing wrong with a nice piggy-back ride!

DJ snorts at the memory and at Tony's fib.

DJ: Well, if you want to so much. 

DJ scrambles up onto Tony's back. He may or may not say "Forward Mighty Stead."

Tony: Your wish is my command, my liege.

He's smirking and adjusts his grip under DJ's legs before he starts walking. Tony catches up to the wagon, then looks up at Rhodey.

Tony: Room for another passenger?

Rhodey: Oh, uh, sure thing, Tones.

DJ: What, no! (while laughing)

Rhodey: C'mon, up you get

Tony: Or you could ride the Tony Express the whole way...

DJ just laughs. 

DJ: Wouldn't want to tire you out too much!

He assists in the transfer as much as he can.

Rhodey reaches over to give DJ a hand up

Tony shakes out his shoulders and gives DJ a wave and Rhodey a meaningful look before falling back

DJ: (settles in the seat and looks ahead) You did a great job with the sneaking and the climbing earlier. I mean, you had a big glowy axe on your back and you still didn't get caught.

Rhodey: (laughs) I know, right? I was a little shocked, to be honest.

Rhodey: (after a moment of watching the road, he gives DJ a sideways look) How are you doing, DJ?

DJ frowns and looks like he his considering his options before he moves his hand in a so-so motion. 

DJ: Ehhhh. Talking to Tony helped. A lot more than hiding was, but I am pretty sure I'm not gonna sleep very well tonight even though I'm already tired.

Rhodey: Yeah. I...I'm glad you're feeling better. That kind of thing... It doesn't go away easy. I'm here, if you need anything. I'm not sure what I can do, but I'm here, DJ.

DJ: You do a lot, Rhodey. I'm just not sure what I need. (He frowns.) Besides time. And better aim.

Rhodey: Unfortunately, time is the only thing that can really help. And even then, sometimes it doesn't help enough. And... I don't. I don't think your aim's a problem. We all...have problems sometimes, and I...I just wish I had been more prepared to step in front of you. You're much more of a ranged fighter, but I....

DJ: Rhodey, besides bombs, my only weapon - the weapon I chose - is a quarterstaff. That is hardly what one would call a ranged weapon.

Rhodey: Ok, maybe I'm projecting. I'd prefer you to be a ranged fighter. You're going to give me grey hairs or something.

DJ: Well to do that, I think I need to better my aim. I mean remember what happened the last time I tried Tony's crossbow? That bird didn't deserve that. Of course than, neither did any of the possums.

Rhodey laughs a little.

Rhodey: I guess what I meant was, I'm sorry I wasn't there faster. And it's too bad your bomb didn't land where you wanted it-- that would have been really cool.

DJ frowns and looks down. 

DJ: Rhodey, it isn't your fault for not blocking the shot any more than it was Tony's fault because he gave me the go ahead. I know I'm young, but I'm still an adult. It might have gotten a bit more...intense...than I was expecting, but I knew it would be dangerous. We were going in to fight a freaking bugbear.

Rhodey: Whoa, DJ, I didn't mean... I know you can take care of yourself as much as the rest of us, but that doesn't change the fact that I... (Rhodey sighs, and gives DJ a little nudge in the side) It's my problem that I want to protect everyone. I know I can't, but... I still try.

DJ: I get that. Tony was saying that I could stop adventuring if I wanted, if it was too much, but I want to keep helping people, too.

Rhodey: (takes a moment to process that, then nods) Well, if you ever change your mind, that point stands, but to be honest here... I'm kinda glad you want to stick around. I...yeah. It's good to have you around, DJ.

DJ: I'm glad to stick around. I like travelling with you and Tony. It was a lot of fun. And even though it's a lot more intense now, I still like travelling with the others. I think we can do good things and help--(DJ glances at the faded and smudged ink on his hand and pauses minutely)--people. Like rescuing this dude. 

DJ points to the sleeping Clint

Rhodey gives him a side eye, but glosses over the slightly odd behavior.

Rhodey: Yeah, I do, too. I have no real idea where we're going or what we're doing, but I think this new group is pretty cool.

DJ: I don't know where we are going either. But I think whereever it ends up being, it will do a lot of good. Probably much more good than I could do tucked away in a lab or anything like that. I just wish it came with a little less peril.

Rhodey: And more good than I could do wandering around by myself like I used to. Yeah, that would be nice.

DJ nods again and then looks around. 

DJ: We're just going to have to look out for each other to keep it as peril free as possible then.

Rhodey: Now that sounds like a perfect plan. (He holds out his hand, smiling at DJ.) I've got your back. You've got mine?

DJ: Yeah. I've got your back, Rhodey. (shakes Rhodey's hand.)

Rhodey: And we'll watch the others, too, of course.

DJ: Of course.

Rhodey: Ok. Enough serious...stuff. You got anything cool in the works? I think I may have figured out how to shield someone from a distance.

They continue to talk about new skills they've been working on learning as the cart trundles along.

[cerastes]

Years ago, I wanted to make a game. It didn’t pan out due to problems in the team, but I’ve always kept the plot and details of the game dear and never really put it out there in hopes of turning it into a short story instead, some 11 to 13 chapters. However, the more I think about it, the more I realize it is impossible to do so in a direct manner, due to how Video Game the core concept is, that is, it simply wouldn’t work in a literary format, at least not with the same oopmh it’d have as the game I conceived it as. Today, I will reveal all of it, in part because I want to get it out of my chest, in part because I don’t want for this to go unshared and forever trapped in the sands of “maybe one day”. A writing prompt I have pending has to do with this, and that is still coming, but otherwise, this is all about the game I wanted to make, “Notches”, a side-scroller action-platformer game.

Big, long post under the cut. It’s a design document, after all!

This is Part 2, in which I will explain the Shattering and the Grievous Attack mechanics, gameplay mechanics exclusive to Lantern Boss Fights, which are different from the regular Boss Fights we’ve discussed so far. We’ll also get acquainted with three boss fights: The Spider-legged Doctor, Delwin, The 4th Lantern of Manjha, Mirko, and The 6th Lantern of Gemini, Cecile/Vogt. We’ll explore the boss fights themselves as well as the lore of the characters and their place in the story.

Here’s a link to Part 1!

Let’s change up the pace and introduce a Boss Fight that isn’t a dual boss fight! Doctor Delwin Pardosa shall meet you as the boss of the Anti-Soul Laboratories stage. Delwin “wields” what seems to be several small black cubes with blue “veins” that float around him, but you’d be surprised to hear that this isn’t what’s most notorious about Delwin! See, out of his right shoulder, four massive, long, thick spider legs protrude, upon which he normally stands. He looks like a regular scientist, he does, with a lab coat, some khakis, and a coffee-stained green shirt, just, with four massive spider legs protruding from his right shoulder, slicked back hair, black hands with blue veins, and long fangs that suggest that maybe there’s nothing mere about this human any longer. It seems the good doctor has been playing with things we should say “no” to, morally speaking, but would immediately say “hell yeah!” to should the chance present itself (don’t lie). In any case, Doctor Delwin opens up with saying “You’ve caused enough trouble, you little skunk. You’re coming back with us, senseless or limbless if you must. In fact, you get to choose, and I recommend the former”. Summergale simply smirks, golden smile flashing a shine, and responds with “You know, Doc, I always none too subtly wanted to throttle your pencil-pushing neck, I just really wish it wasn’t under these damn circumstances, man”. Delwin lowers his gaze just slightly, his cubes still floating around him in orderly chaos, and murmurs back, “Believe me, Summer, neither did I wish for this, but you leave us no choice”. The cutscene ends, and the fight begins. Delwin has immense mobility thanks to his mutant spider legs, being able to move fast and to stick to the walls of the arena. You must constantly stay on the move while dodging the cubes he seemingly magnetically throws at you. Whenever a cube has missed or you have shot it to deflect it, don’t get careless, because cubes then re-lock onto you and go at you again! There’s three different kinds of cubes: Small, Medium, and Big. The Big ones only go at you once before returning to Delwin, the Medium ones will go at you twice, while the Small ones will pursue you three times before going back to the good doctor. For the First Phase, he mostly just sticks to the walls and ceiling while launching cubes at you, with the occasional swipe of a big hitbox leg to catch you off guard when you’re all up in his grill, shooting the hell out of him. Of note is, if you can get close enough to him, using a Ruby Shot (point blank explosion shot) will knock him right out of the wall or ceiling, making him crash onto the floor and leaving him vulnerable for a couple of shots. Usage of the Ruby Vulture technique (using Ruby Shots to navigate mid air via the explosions, launching yourself in the opposite direction of where you shoot a Ruby Shot midair) is recommended, although in moderation, as many Ruby Shots will exhaust your Mana quickly! Once you reach 75% of his HP, Delwin’s true strategy, Phase Two, begins! Using the magnetic connection between his hands and his cubes, Delwin assembles the cubes together in different shapes, creating Weapon Formations. By combining his many cubes in different shapes, Delwin is able to create different weapons, using a rich diversity of attacks. He’ll sometimes form the cubes in a Sword Formation, always Dyed blue, swiping at you a number of times before dissolving the formation (or immediately, if you clash it thrice). There’s also the Guillotine Formation, which consists of a number of cubes swarming you quickly, colliding with you for no damage, but pushing you and trying to hold you still, while the rest of the cubes form a guillotine blade above you, which soon comes chopping down for big damage. Melee and shoot at the cubes rapidly so you can move out of the way in time, simply jumping or Quickstepping away won’t work! Delwin can also form the cubes together in a Flak Formation, forming several autocannons around him briefly before they all begin shooting a barrage of bullets at you. Keep moving or you’ll get caught! Last but not least, there’s the Prowler Formation, which assembles the cubes into many different flying pods that pursue you and open fire autonomously while the good doctor tries to bum rush you with spider kicks. Watch out for the shots and the spider leg strikes, and don’t panic! The Prowlers are Dyed red, so shoot them out of the air while timing your Quicksteps so as to not get hit by Delwin’s spider kicks and stomps. Keep dodging and responding appropriately to each Formation until you empty his life bar, making him collapse, the cubes falling helplessly, raining around him as the harmlessly hit the floor. The “STAGE COMPLETE” message begins to appear from the bottom of the screen, but as the letters ascend, Delwin knocks them away with a spider kick. “No! Not yet! You stubborn fool, you selfish imbecile! It doesn’t end like this! I’m dragging you back comatose if I have to, Summer!” As he yells, Delwin’s life bar reappears, and it fills back to 30%. This begins the Third and final Phase of Doctor Delwin. Standing up on his human legs, not his spider legs, Delwin raises an arm and assembles all of his cubes in Prowler Formation, in which they will remain for the rest of the fight, and then produces a retractable baton. Not using his big mutated spider legs, the doctor moves far less than before, but he moves around with Quicksteps now that, much like your own, have i-frames. He becomes practically impossible to hit with his Quickstep spam, and attacking too much will prompt a counterswing or leave you open to Prowler fire. His Prowlers are still Dyed red, but shooting them out just temporarily puts them out. He’ll Quickstep towards you and swipe, during which he becomes Dyed blue. You can clash with him by using melee, and you’ll enter a button mashing mini-game, in which you must press melee or space (if you don’t feel comfortable with mashing your right click too hard so as to not abuse your mouse) repeatedly as Summergale clutches the baton and tries to overpower Delwin. Be careful! Prowlers still shoot at you in this situation, not dealing damage but giving advantage to Delwin, so shoot down as many as you can before engaging in the clash. If Delwin wins the mash-out, he bashes the baton against Summergale’s head, damaging and paralyzing her before lashing out at her with all four legs, hitting her for heavy damage and blowing her away. If Summergale wins the mash-out, she throws the baton away, grabs her rifle by the barrel like a baseball bat, and swings it violently at Delwin, dealing a heavy damage and leaving him at a smidgen of HP (near 8%). After this, the player loses control of Summergale as she drops her rifle, approaches the downed Delwin and puts him in a Sleeper Hold. You must then mash Space again to slowly deplete the rest of his life bar. This is more of an ‘interactive’ cutscene at this point, with Summergale pleading for him to just give up while he keeps screaming back at her. “It’ll all be over before you know it, you dumbass! Let me do my job!” Summergale chastises as she chokes Delwin out. “You... Arc damned... Fool... You won’t surv... We can find another... Way to do this... Summer... Think of Sigrun and... The rest of...!” As he finally hits 0% HP, he’s finally out for good, unconscious, and you’ve defeated Doctor Delwin. “There’s simply no time, Delwin...” Summergale murmurs before picking up her rifle and moving on as the “Stage Complete” message pops up again. Momentum opportunities come from interacting with anything Dyed (clashing melee against his Sword Formation and shooting Prowlers), but otherwise, don’t expect much Avalanche against him; he’s a cautious man, which is reflected by how little Momentum you receive (by design, you’re expected to get one, maybe two Avalanches against him).

Haunted Tea Sets reveal that Delwin, along with Sigrun, were the ones that found Summergale in the first place. As her body was carried by the river, they were the ones that were there and hauled her out of it, immediately bringing her back to Delwin’s laboratory in Oflans, the only place remotely technological in the otherwise small town, where they tried their best to care for her. Delwin might be a doctor, but he’s not the healing kind of doctor, so it was all a process of trial and hopefully no error. Summergale was lucky that Delwin was adept enough, and when she woke up, she thanked him and introduced herself as... As... Ah, hey, sorry, do you know who I might be...? Those words came out of her mouth as Sigrun and Delwin looked at her with concern: Amnesiac and beaten up all over. No doubt whatever left her to die in the river didn’t go easy on her. She also made a rather honest and rude comment on his spider legs, but Delwin would like us to not go into that. Delwin is a magitech and physics-focused scientist who enjoys a productive partnership with Sigrun the Blacksmith: He comes up with innovative designs, and Sigrun helps him with the manufacturing process. Sigrun’s clearly much more interested in the more traditional kind of weaponry, but the techniques she’s learned from making Delwin’s ideas into reality has been an invaluable experience. While Sigrun and Summergale became fast friends, the same cannot be said about Delwin and Summergale. Their relationship was vitriolic, and not in the fun and games way, but Summergale knew he was a good man despite his crude, caustic personality, and Delwin knew she was a good woman despite her rowdy, devil-may-care attitude, so they put up with the situation and had a real, if unspoken, respect for each other. Delwin was heavily opposed to Summergale interfering with Markus when he came to squat, but following the voice of her heart, and also Sigrun’s cheering for her to break his nose, she went and beat him up. He’s also the one who cooked up a method to get in the castle: By using samples of Summergale’s blood that he took to determine her blood type in case she ever needed a blood transfusion (a thorough man, this Delwin), he made a “blood perfume” that he sprayed on himself, Sigrun, and Axehilt, riding on the hypothesis that Ceoca Castle searches for specific blood matches in order to determine who goes in and who doesn’t. Seeing as the castle let them in, it seems he was right! Or not. It’s not the blood perfume that let them in, as an out-of-the-way Haunted Tea Set will reveal. The blood perfume was a red herring crafted by the good doctor, and the castle simply recognized Delwin, as he used to work in its Research And Development division at the Anti-Soul Laboratories, where he is a boss. This is lightly hinted at because, while Sigrun and Axehilt are lost as all hell and basically wandering around having their own adventure while hoping to come across Summergale, Delwin knew more or less exactly where to go, as there IS a sense of consistency even with the spatial chaos that rends and twists the castle’s insides, and he banked on Summergale needing to go through the Laboratories. His dialogue is intended to imply that he was waiting for her there, unlike Sigrun, who runs into you. Delwin’s spider legs... Will be elaborated on later.

But that’s enough of these outliers, right? Let’s talk about the Dim Lanterns. The Dim Lanterns are Royal Operatives of Phebea that answer directly to the King and Queen of Phebea, and while they are an elite unit dispatched for important tasks, they were assembled for a very, very specific purpose, and to be able to carry out this important mission, Phebea, a small time kingdom trapped between giants, developed truly remarkable weapons: The Lanterns. The Lanterns possess great power and allow very specific manners of rending reality apart to accomplish something or emulate an ability, and nothing like them has ever been created before. Armed with these, the Dim Lanterns were loved by those who knew of them and feared by those who opposed them. When Ceoca Castle closed up, however, people stopped seeing them, and rumors immediately began popping up that, perhaps, it was them that put the chairs up, turned the lights off, and locked those doors...

The Dim Lanterns serve as the main “Boss Squad”, if you will, in the game. They are very explicitly hostile towards Summergale, and she’d REALLY love to know why this is. Let’s talk about the first Lantern you meet in battle! Mirko The 4th Lantern wields the Manjha Lantern, visually identical to a regular railroad lantern, which Mirko holds by the handle. swinging lo and forth with his every footstep. However, this Lantern endows Mirko with the ability to use razor light. Every light source in a radius around him can be controlled into tendrils of cutting light by Mirko. Mirko is actually a very early game boss, and as mentioned previously, the first Lantern you fight. The purpose of Mirko was not only to introduce the player to Lantern Bosses, but also to drive home the point that Notches is in media res, as in, things were definitely happening before the start of the game, things you can and will find out about, but that you don’t initially know, even if the characters do. When Mirko shows up, his upper torso is covered in bandages and he clearly isn’t at his best. “You ended up coming, you mongrel! Couldn’t just leave it alone, huh? Turning around and walking away just isn’t in your dictionary… And I banked on that.”. Summergale shakes her head and simply points her rifle at him. “I already mangled you once, I sure as hell can and want to do it again”. Mirko fakes a guffaw and then turns his Lantern on, a myriad of tentacles of light sprawling out of the bulbs. “Oh no, don’t get me wrong, you lowlife. We’ve already won. The party’s already going on in the Throne room, and there’s no way for you to stop the gears. I’m just here for myself. Can’t quite let you walk away after leaving me like this, now can I, mongrel!?” The fight begins and, as Mirko is an early game boss, he’s very straight forward and not too fancy. A bit of etymology! “Manjha” is cured and gummed thread covered in powdered glass used in kite fights. The Manjha Lantern takes its name from this thread, as its ability to manipulate light into something physical is used primarily, but not exclusively, to generate hundreds of light threads to cut down foes. Mirko will telegraph long range attacks and lash out with tendrils of light in different patterns: Two tendril thrust, three tendril ascending lashes, a number of tendrils raining on you from above, attempting to pincushion you to the ground, etc. He’s straight forward and attacks with his razor light as you’d expect. Hitting 75% of his HP adds a new move: Matches. Mirko will produce three matches on one hand and, by striking them against his coarse, falconer-like leather gauntlet, will light them. Mirko then flicks the lit matches at Summergale. Lit matches are a source of light, and thus, fall within the jurisdiction of his power, letting him sprawl tendrils of light from them, thus giving Mirko a lot more points of attack from which to strike at you. It all becomes a fight about managing his matches (by shooting them) and dodging appropriately. Shooting matches will award Momentum. Mirko also functions as the tutorial for the Shattering mechanic. Shattering is exclusive to Lantern Boss Fights, and it involves attacking the Lantern during a specific window of time (Shatter Moments) to inflict Shatter on the boss, and what does Shatter do? It functions as a special stun state that allow you to land a Grievous Attack on the boss, powerful attacks with special animations that deal considerable damage. Mirko’s particular Shatter Moment is when he’s striking his matches, taking attention off from his Lantern. Hitting the Lantern doesn’t deal damage to the boss (usually), but it does deplete their Lantern HP, which takes the form of icons depicting their Lantern under their HP bar. Each boss has different amounts of Lantern HP, with Mirko having 2. You hit his Shatter Moment twice, and BAM, you earn a Grievous Attack. The moment you earn a Grievous Attack, a marker will appear somewhere on the arena, such as right next to the boss, or a few character’s width away, or maybe above the boss. Move to the marker during the Shatter Stun and then use Shoot or Melee to use the Grievous Attack. In Mirko’s case, you need to stand right next to him. Using Shoot results in Summergale hitting Mirko in the stomach with three consecutive uppercuts, lifting him off the floor and then using her rifle while he’s above her to stab him in the stomach, exploding him away with a Ruby Shot. Melee, on the other hand, has Summergale thrust her hand in his bandaged injuries, draining a ton of Mana from his and then kicking him away. This deals less damage that the Shoot Grievous, but it seals away his Match attack for a while and restores your MP! That’s the general rule behind Grievous Attacks! A Shoot Grievous does a lot of damage, while a Melee Grievous recharges all of your MP and inflicts a debuff on the boss, usually locking away their most powerful attacks for a bit. Knowing whether to use Shoot G or Melee G is essential: Do I go for big damage? Or do I seal an annoying attack for a while at the cost of damage? I want the player to ask themselves this question when fighting different Lantern Bosses! Maybe you’re good at dealing with the particular attack the Melee G seals, so you go for extra damage instead! Maybe you particularly have trouble with the move, so you seal it and thus are able to deal with the fight much more easily for some time, racking up damage! It’s up to you! This continues until he drops. Simple! Very early game boss, and in fact he was designed with “First boss of the game” in mind. He’s actually the prototype of the Dim Lanterns in general, with a simplistic power compared to those of his peers. As the boss ends, Mirko curses your name and bleeds out, forcing a stiff, bitter laughter as the light abandons his eyes, reminding you that “the ball is already rolling, mongrel...!”. And so ends Mirko’s life, his Lantern shattering. Instead of her usual Stage Complete pose, Summergale instead takes out a small knife and carves another notch on the stock of her rifle.

...However, this is not the last you see of Mirko! Well, in a way, it is, but remember what I said before? That Mirko was meant to show that the narrative of Notches is in media res? Well! Let’s introduce a new gameplay mechanic! Some Haunted Tea Sets unlock boss fights that took place before the game’s start in the form of playable flashbacks. After unlocking certain Haunted Tea Sets that have to do with each other (let’s say, for example, #3, #7, and #21), the memories jostled by these associated flashbacks will unlock a new memory in Summergale, which allows her to remember or reminisce about events that took place before the game’s chronological beginning, especially fights! Mirko dies as the first boss, but MUCH later in the game, you unlock his Flashback Fight! In this fight, Mirko is much tougher. He’s not wounded and he’s at top condition, unlike the ‘first’ fight, which had him severely wounded. I had the idea of giving Mirko a pretty big HP bar in the first fight, but only filled up to around a third of its total capacity, to reflect that he was badly, badly wounded. Now, that big HP bar is full, and Mirko gets access to his full moveset! Unlike the prior fights, I will begin explaining the lore and plot of the fight, and then proceed to the boss fight per se, as it is important to know the context for Mirko’s second round (but first chronologically) to make sense of a big part of his arsenal this time around.

Mirko is the 4th Lantern of the Dim Lanterns, a hot headed young adult who’s got what it takes to talk the talk and walk the walk. Rising the ranks of the Phebean Army quickly thanks to his motivation and vim, he was hand-picked by the King to participate in the Lantern Project after winning an unsanctioned fistfight tournament the soldiers organized by themselves and that the King caught wind of. The King of Phebea, a capricious man with an intense love for the people and the things the people did for entertainment, disguised himself as a civilian and attended the tournament, cheering and jeering with the best of them. After Mirko won, some bad cats that didn’t particularly agree to his underdog victory, mostly due to losing big at the betting table, were looking to introduce Mirko to their daggers, but the King, a man with experience in the realm of rotten eggs due to his political background, immediately caught on and announced his presence, stopping them in their tracks and inducting Mirko to the good life of high society and elite guardsmanship. After a brief stint as a royal guard and tavern hero at Ceoca Castle, the King asked him if he wished to volunteer for the Lantern Project, and Mirko, eternally thankful to the King, accepted. Mirko was assigned the 4th Lantern, the Manjha Lantern, which made good use of his imagination and stamina to properly draw out the hidden potential of the otherwise simple Lantern; The Manjha Lantern was always meant to be a support Lantern to the others, not one to operate by itself. The ability to manipulate light as a hard construct might sound simple, but it is its simplicity that makes it so strong: By functioning as support to other Lanterns, he effectively can keep their Lanterns safe by erecting razor tendrils from them, as their Lanterns, being a source of light, fall under the jurisdiction of his power.

When Markus reported that someone name of ‘Summergale’ had thoroughly trounced him, Mirko immediately departed the castle and headed for this backwater village. Though he didn’t find her in Oflans, he simply asked if anyone knew where she was, and the townspeople, who admire the Dim Lanterns and Summergale, thought he came to offer her a job with them, and immediately told him her whereabouts: The Jalibu Plains, to the northwest of Oflans Town. The Jalibu Plains were known for being beautiful and full of greenery, and on that particular day, Summergale was accompanying the wheelchair-bound Benson Lomprat, aspiring mapmaker, through the plains so he could properly draw the map of the geography on his up-and-coming map. The Lomprat Family (more on them later when we tackle the plot in full!) is the household that took Summergale in initially after she was found in the river. Benson, 15 years old, the son of the household, has always been handy with ink, his dreams of drawing an accurate map of Phebea were only slightly curbed by his disability. He didn’t want to make just any old map, oh no, he wanted to make a truly dedicated, detailed map of his homeland, with illustrations and trivia of the flora and fauna, where one could find cultural heritage, the whole nine (and more!) yards. Summergale would take the passionate Benson on treks through the Oflans countryside to help him with his dream. Unfortunately, this particular outing to the Jalibu Plains would see some problem: Bugbears. Creatures native to these plains, these brutish monsters are intensely territorial, and while they usually keep to the hillside borders just outside the Plains, they sometimes intrude, and today seemed to be one day. There’s a cutscene here, where Summergale and Benson have some small talk before two Bugbears arrive and threaten them. “Alright, Benny, hang on tight, I’ll deal with these punks before the ink on your feather dries!” “...That sounded cooler in your head, didn’t it, Summer?” “I’m going to feed you to them.” The cutscene ends and you fight these two enemies. Despite their intimidating appearance, they are actually an easy fight. However, once you finish them off, a clapping is heard in the distance. It’s Mirko, and he compliments you on your fine riflemanship: “...Well, you were always pretty damn formidable with your hands.” Summergale is shocked, as that statement implies he knows her. “Wait... You know who I am? E-excellent…! Please, please tell me, who was I in the past?” It’s here that Mirko realizes she’s amnesiac, and he can only laugh. Plead as she might, however, the mysterious man refuses to divulge any information, and ultimately says “beat it out of me, if you can, you filthy dog!”.

The real boss fight with Mirko begins now. His patterns are far more complex and he plays a lot more with delays to throw off your dodge timing. Unlike before, shooting at him wildly will prompt a counterattack in the form of him catching your bullets and shooting them back at you with Light Tendrils if you overdo it. He also uses the matches from the get-go, meaning you can have to keep an eye out for his multiple sources of light and their fluid attacks at all times. Unlike the first fight, Mirko also tosses out flashbangs, which, if your are caught in the blast radius off, stun you, but even without the stun effect, they produce short-lived, VERY damaging masses of Light Tendrils. The flashbangs are Dyed red, and shooting them makes them explode. If you can shoot one in front of Mirko, he will become stunned himself, an act that awards you plenty of Momentum. His Lantern HP is now 5 instead of 2. However, the true terror of Mirko starts at 50% HP. When he hits half health, a small cutscene begins in which he yells “Every time…. Every time! You Arc damned obstinate, obscene mongrel! Even back in the castle, every time, you…!” A myriad of tendrils sprawl out of Mirko’s Lantern and start piercing the Bugbear corpses, making them rise on their feet as puppets controlled by Mirko’s threads of cruel light. The fight resumes, and now you have to fight the ever-rising Bugbears as you handle Mirko himself simultaneously. Emptying the Bugbears’ HP bars makes them collapse momentarily, but Mirko soon enough sews them back together and makes them rise and haul with his Tendrils. In addition to his prior strategies, now he organizes team attacks with the Bugbears, such as making them rush you and then attacking you right after you Quickstep with a tight timing, or making them do a grapple attack that holds you in place while he uses a powerful charge attack or throws a flashbang to deal big damage to you. Mirko’s Flashback Boss Fight is meant to be a fairly difficult micromanagement-based fight that tests you on quick decisions, but it’s still mid-game level stuff. The Bugbears are pretty fragile, and if you hit Mirko with the flashbang trick, he loses control of them, making them crumple. It’s all about finding the right timing, as there’s a lot to keep in mind, but Mirko and the Bugbears are rather slow. Keep a calm head, deal with each attack as it comes, and you should emerge victorious.

After the fight, Mirko, gravely wounded, still refuses to speak a word about Summergale’s past, claims this isn’t over, and rips open the Bugbears, spreading their blood around in a spectacular manner. Summergale is about to go at him again, but Benson cries out to Summer, warning her that they must leave immediately: Bugbear blood is pungent, and it attracts other Bugbears, enraging them. The area will soon crawl with Bugbears from all the blood spread from these two, and so Summergale gives up and takes Benson and herself out of there… But not before Mirko says one last thing: “It doesn’t matter if you have your memories or not… It’s already begun, and not even you can stop it now. Just go back to your hovel and await the great news, traitor”. Summergale didn’t quite fully understand this, but her stomach felt like a bottomless chasm when the words “It’s already begun” reached her ears: She didn’t know what that meant, but just judging from her body’s response, she knew something: It was bad, and it had to do with her.

Well… More on Mirko later, when we tackle the plot in full. He is, in a way, one of the catalysts of the story, after all. After this, they meet in the castle and Summergale kills him, as mentioned previously.

But enough about Mirko, let’s meet the last entry in this post… Or shall I say, Entries. Plural.

“Another dual boss, Dreamer?” you no doubt asked yourself. No, but at the same time, yes! That’s my answer, and this is my explanation: The 6th Lantern of Gemini, Cecile/Vogt.

In an area known as the “Numb Gaol”, the otherwise unnamed underground prison of Ceoca Castle, Summergale and the player, surrounded by torture tools and chains that have not seen sunlight in years, will do battle with Cecile. Cecile, much like Summergale, is tanned, which contrasts beautifully with her light blue hair. However, neither of these is the most striking aspect of Cecile, oh no, that’d be her crown of horns. Cecile’s eyes are completely covered by what can only be described as a crown of horns. Cecile is a Glaistan, from the Glais Commonwealth, a country in the Southern Half of the continent known for its goat-like people. Most Glaistans have a set of two long horns, but Cecile is an abnormality, possessing instead an innumerable amount of smaller horns that grew like an unkempt garden on her forehead area and around her head, covering her eyes. Cecile wields the 6th Lantern, the Pact Lantern, which looks exactly like a traffic light. Cecile wears the seemingly unwieldy pole-supported traffic light on her back without a problem, which contrasts with her purple robes with silver patterns. The Glaistan expresses her gratitude for being able to confront Summergale, telling her not to worry about the torture tools surrounding them: She plans to kill her at the first opportunity. Summergale responds with “What, you don’t want to hear how I did that in the first place?”, which is immediately shot down by Cecile with “Oh, don’t try to to get any impassioned hint from me like that. Mirko already told me you don’t remember a thing. It’s a pity you’ll die without knowing why… You won’t be able to repent in the afterlife, and the mere thought makes me ache, but it is what it is.”

“Tch… Arc damned slimy bastard made sure to let everyone know about my little memory loss problem, huh? Hey, I’ve come this far, at least talk to me a bit. You’re going to kill me, right? At least let me know what I did to you all!”

“...No,” replies Cecile, “there’s no need to te… To te… Hrrrg… YYYYYOU FLACCID BACK ALLEY WHORE, YOU’VE GOT A LOT OF NERVE SHOWING UP HERE!”

As she’s saying this, Cecile suddenly clutches her chest, and her horns begin to shift, opening the way to her eyes and accommodating themselves more orderly, on her forehead and to the side of her head, completely unlike the unkempt garden of horns she previously had. Her red eyes now visible, it seems her change was not only physical.

“You! How dare you forget about everything! How dare you just relinquish your sins as if you weren’t the one who ki-- No, shut up, Cecile, I’m letting her have it! This bitch will die regretting what she did, she doesn’t deserve a pleasant passing!” -- ‘Cecile’ convulses once anew, and her horns become an messy crown that covers her eyes again -- “You don’t get to decide that, Volg. On the off chance that she beats us, she’ll armed with more knowledge, and knowing is half the--” -- Cecile’s horns shift once again -- “BY THE ARC, yes yes, it’s half the damn fuckin’ battle, yes, you say that every time, would it KILL you to look up some new phrases or proverbs? You ok we beat her to an inch of her life, then I tell her, then we kill her, then?” -- Volg once again turns into Cecile -- “That’s acceptable, actually.”

“Well, you can tell my amnesia is particularly terrible, because there’s no way I would otherwise forget a freakshow like you,” snarks Summergale as she assumes her combat stance.

“My, how rude.” “Choke on dick and die!”

Cecile and Vogt reply in quick succession and the Lantern Boss Fight against Cecile/Vogt begins.

Cecile and Vogt are two personalities that are housed within the same body. Cecile is the more rational and calm of the two, while Vogt is rowdy and aggressive. Despite their fundamental differences, however, the two consciousnesses usually find a middle ground where they can agree to do something, for they come from the same psyche, after all. The Pact Lantern that they wield has the special power of allowing the wielder to do “intrinsic transactions”. That means they can trade aspects of themselves for other aspects, or to heighten something they already have. Cecile and Vogt, however, utilize the Lantern in a different manner: Cecile, a skilled and intelligent spellcaster, trades her physical faculties for heightened mental faculties. This manifests around her as a transparent green ‘command center’ that surrounds her (imagine keyboards, monitors, a little spinning radar, etc), with the Lantern standing tall behind her as the centerpiece. She floats around very slowly, but she is constantly bombarding the player with different spells. As she’s traded most of her physical faculties, she can only move her arms and hands, and does so to operate her ‘command center’, which is how she launches spells (it makes her own advanced spellcasting easier to comprehend to herself by associating some physical actions to it is the lore reasoning, and the design reasoning is that it looks cool). Cecile bombards the player with the Four Elements, in contrast to her otherwise technological look (intentional; she might be using the primordially technological Pact Lantern, but she is from a Southern Half nation, and an expert traditional spellcaster), all of which have a different tell before assailing Summergale. The Glaistan will shoot quick blue-Dyed Firebolts directly at Summergale, (you can melee these to absorb them; the tell is her mashing on her keyboard), splash around blobs of water that remain suspended in the air before sharpening into ice spikes that descend all at once (you can shoot attack these blobs in any manner to get rid of them, which is recommended as they are numerous and descend quickly and all at once, which might catch you off-guard as you’re dealing with other attacks; the tell is Cecile spinning a steam valve with her right hand), creating a Summergale-sized wave of earth that comes from behind you or, if used on one of the platforms in the arena, makes that platform unusable for a while (there’s nothing you can do about these other than dodge them; the tell is her yanking on a lever with her left hand), and creating delayed blasts of wind where you stand (keep moving, nothing to do about these; the tell is Cecile manually making the radar device on the command center spin faster with her hand). Cecile moves slowly across the air and doesn’t really do much to defend herself other than viciously launch attacks. Periodically, an Earth Carapace generates around her, which takes a couple of shots or melees to break, and if you hit her too many times, she’ll use a blast of wind to propel herself away, regenerating a set amount of Earth Carapace. At set intervals, however, Cecil will tag Volg in by yelling her name. When Volg is in control, she becomes a completely different boss. Volg’s usage of the Pact Lantern is to trade “perception” for “wrath” and “instinct”. In place of the ‘command center’, Volg wears a transparent red spiritual armor, and instead of using magic, she uses the Pact Lantern itself as a large polearm-club. She attacks in a variety of ways by swinging the traffic light around. Her main attacks are a warcry followed by a quick thrust with the Lantern, dragging the Lantern across the ground in an uppercut motion to launch damaging torture tools at you (Dyed red), and spinning the Lantern rapidly to deflect shots and advance towards you. Shooting at Volg is mostly useless, as she will block most bullet. All of her attacks, however, are dyed Blue, and clashing is how you mostly will defend against her. Trying to simply dodge her around is going to get you beaten to pulp, as most of her ferocious moves have follow ups with very strict timing to dodge, or frame trap you entirely if you don’t clash. Volg can also stomp hard on the ground to make torture tools near her bounce upwards, catching a cleaver between her teeth, and VERY quickly lunge at you with the Lantern, spitting the cleaver either mid-sprint or immediately after the attack. Unlike Cecile, Volg is an expert physical fighter, especially trained against ranged foes. Volg can also tag Cecile back in by yelling her name.

So, how do you even deal with this boss? Cecile is what I’d call “HP Phase” and Volg is what I’d call “Lantern Phase”. When Cecile’s out, you mostly have to dodge, Quickstep, and disable her attacks while putting damage into her. If her floating away is too annoying, use the Amethyst Shot (Chain shot) to pull yourself to surrounding platforms, to the ceiling, or, if you can, to hit her and pull her to you. Summergale’s melee attacks drain magic, remember? Chain her in and melee her to debilitate her magic powers while refilling your own Mana. Directly after meleeing Cecile, she’ll use her wind to pull herself away from you, but will fly noticeably slower, attack slower (and her magic is smaller), and generate Earth Carapace slower. Melee her a certain amount of times, and you’ll forcefully make the AI tag out. It’s important to note that Cecile will cancel out all of your Gem Shots except Amethyst Shot with her own magic, so you’ll rely mostly on normal attacks and Chain for this. While she’s Volg, shots are mostly useless, and instead of dodging, you’ll want to meet her attacks with clashes. Volg phases are mostly to deal Lantern Damage and fill Avalanche when mastered. Clashing any of her attacks builds Momentum, every third clash you land directly against the head of her traffic light Lantern will take one Lantern HP out of her total of 4. But watch out, Volg’s attacks reduce a lot of Momentum if they land! Taking out one Lantern HP from Volg stuns her momentarily, dissipating her “armor” and letting you hit her for increased damage (especially with a Ruby Shot, the explosive one). Do NOT use Amethyst Shot (Chain shot) on her, as she’ll catch the chain’s head and throw you across the screen with a special counterattack. The main advantage to use on Volg, as mana allows, is to use the expensive Topaz Shots (hitscan thunder shots that immediately travel the screen and deal good damage, but use a third of a full MP bar per pop). Volg can block bullets, but not thunder, which will electrify the metal Pact Lantern and hurt her. The optimal moment to use it, however, is when she’s preparing her Lunge attack! Once she has caught the cleaver between her teeth, get ready. The moment she starts running at you, hit her with the Topaz Shot. This will cause her to crash from the velocity and force of her sprint being broken and will send her cleaver flying, Dying it red (remember this). At this moment, you can attack her directly briefly, BUT, if you are a true Notches pro (and you are), you can wait until the cleaver is aligned with her. If you shoot the cleaver at the right moment, it will be sent hurtling towards Volg, hitting her for big damage and giving you a huge boost to Momentum. Once only 15% HP remains, whichever boss is currently active will get away from your and say something (Cecil: “That’s far enough… Volg, she cannot leave this gaol alive! Engage Blood Pact!/ Volg: “Damn you, damn you, damn you! Oi, Cecil! That’s enough shitting around! Blood Pact time!”). The active boss then sends the Pact Lantern into overdrive, changing their color to yellow and emitting a powerful aura. Cecil and Volg can now tag each other in and out extremely fast, mid-attack even, so it will become a test to everything you’ve dealt with so far. The way this works is that Volg will mostly be in command, leaping at you, and while she’s midair, she’ll tag to Cecile, who’ll let out a magic attack or infusion, and quickly tag back to Volg so she can finish the melee attack. It’s a strategy based on their perfect coordination, but you can use this against them! Remember how Cecile blocks Gem Shots and Volg blocks normal shots? Using two shots quickly followed by a Gem Shot will trick Volg into trying to block the Gem Shot as if it were a normal shot, getting hit. Likewise, using two Gem Shots followed by a normal shot with get Cecile mixed up and make her unable to block it. The advantage of the former is obvious, but why would you depend on the latter strategy? To hit the Lantern, of course, and deal Lantern Damage. Shots directly to the Lantern in this phase deal one Lantern HP. With so little HP remaining, it might be wise to do so! Keep up the mix-ups and finish them up in whatever way you wish. Grievous Attacks against Cecil are activated directly below her. Shot Grievous makes Summergale use her Chain Shot to pull her to herself, blasting her away with a point black explosion from the Ruby Shot, while Melee Grievous makes Summergale use her Chain Shot to pull herself up to Cecile, punching her square in the face and bringing her all the way to the ground with, disabling her flight, Ice Spikes, and Earth Carapace temporarily. Grievous Attacks against Volg (including the Blood Pact phase) are activated adjacent to Volg. Shot Grievous makes Summergale jump kick Volg in the chin, land behind her as she’s collapsing backwards, pressing the barrel of her rifle against her back, lifting her, and letting loose three consecutive Topaz Shots pointblank, while Melee Grievous makes Summergale give Volg a firm uppercut to the chin, followed by gripping her rifle by the barrel like a baseball bat, and smashing it against Volg’s kneecap, disabling her dash attacks and slowing her down temporarily.

After being defeated, Cecile lies midst the many torture tools. “And so, you claim another one of us, you greedy nobody… Haha…”

“...I couldn’t convince you to at least give me a hint, could I?” Summergale inquires as she looms over the dying Glaistan.

“You’re getting nothing out of m--EAT SHIT.” interrupts Volg with her usual glamour.

“Ah. The other one. Well, I don’t exactly have all the time in the world, so I have to get going.”

“Wait,” Volg hails, standing up with what little strength her broken body has left. “...I hate your guts, but I ain’t a pussy like Cecile. You fought us directly and you beat us. If nothing else, I can give you a hint -- Volg, stop right now, die with some dignity! -- I should say the same to you, Cecile. It’s over. We already played our part, we can just keel over and die, knowing those Urelian shitheads will get what’s coming to them.”

“...So you’re really targeting the Ureles Empire. Don’t you realize that this will only fan the flames of their wrath!? I hate those bastards as much as the next girl, but I also know how to not sign a death warrant for my country!” yells Summergale.

“And whose fault do you think that is!?” Volg chastises as she crumples once more, her wounds too great for her. “We had the perfect plan! We had the perfect way to exterminate all of those bastards in one fell swoop! And you ruined it all in one day, you smashed this carefully calculated clusterfuck of righteous retribution!”

“I… Did? How could I alone have done that?”

“Ask your partner over there,” Volg whispers as she points at the rifle. “The second notch holds the answer, you sick bastard.”

“The second notch?”

“Yeah… That rifle should have had two notches carved on the stock when you came by, no? Ever wondered about them?”

“Who did I kill?”

But Volg simply smiles. “See, Cecile? Someone that doesn’t know anything can’t feel any pain, but give them a little morsel… And… Suddenly… They realize just how badly… They are starving…”

With Volg’s sick smile, Cecile and Volg pass away, not before taking one last jab at Summergale: Giving her just enough information for her to realize just how little she knows. Summergale silently takes out her small knife and carves not one, but two new notches on the stock of the rifle.

As for their lore, to close up this post, Cecile used to be a single consciousness, but during the tests and development of the Pact Lantern, she grew very close to a rowdy scientist named Volg. The two became inseparable friends, if not more, who would often banter and take jabs at each other, but all in good fun. Cecile was a foreigner from the Glais Commonwealth, and while Phebea is known for its hospitality for foreigners, the ambiance in the castle was a little different. While not xenophobic, the royal guard is rather nationalistic, so Cecile, who was brought in by the King of Phebea as his Court Wizard, received a rather cold treatment. Volg, on the other hand, always treated her fairly and warmly, if not lacking at all in friendly vitriol. During research, however, a certain incident occurred in which an Ureles Empire spy found his way to the Laboratories one day, late at night. Volg, who was the only one still working there, saw him, and just as she rang the alarm, a poisoned dagger thrown by the spy pierced her neck. By the time help came, Cecile included, Volg was already dead. Consumed by her wrath, Cecile eviscerated the spy with her deadly magic, swore revenge, and volunteered for the Dim Lanterns project. The Pact Lantern’s special ability is to do “intrinsic transactions”, and so Cecile’s first transaction was to bring Volg to life. By sacrificing part of herself, Volg was revived! In her mind, at least. Rather, what Cecile did was give part of her identity away so it would become a facsimile of Volg who would live in her forever. It was the only solution she had, and ever since, Cecile and “Volg” have shared a body, a mind, and a reality submerged in denial. Cecile’s horns move way to reveal Volg’s eyes when Volg is the dominant personality because Volg’s eyes were Cecile’s favorite part of her, and the Pact Lantern’s power was so absolute due to Cecile’s conviction that she could revive her this way that her body changes to fit this ideal. In other words, it’s an unnatural metamorphosis brought by the Lantern. Change the inside enough, and changes reflect on the outside, after all.

Well, that’s that for this post! I hope you enjoyed it. The next post is more technical-minded, with stuff like controls, level design, and other such things. See you next time!

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #22: Romulus

Welcome back to Fate and Phantasms, today we’re building Rome, possibly in a day. Roma may be all things, but we’re going to narrow it down to three goals:

Magna Voluisse Magnum: We need “tree manipulation abilities” to match his Noble Phantasm.

The Seven Hills: You can grant blessings to your “children”.

Weirdly enough, talking to animals isn’t a named skill, but it is something you can do.

As usual, a spreadsheet for this build can be found over here, and a detailed explanation for the build is below the cut!

Race and Background

You are the son of a human and Mars (or possibly Heracles, ancient stories are iffy like that), making you a pretty clear-cut Aasimar. Building and protecting civilization is also your thing, making you an Aasimar of the Protector variety. As an Aasimar, you get +1 to Wisdom and +2 to Charisma, 60′ of Darkvision, Healing Hands, letting you spend an action to heal a creature for your level in hit points once per long rest, Celestial Resistance, letting you resist necrotic and radiant damage, and the Light cantrip.

As for your background, there’s equal arguments for making you an outlander or a noble. On one hand, you raised up a major civilization, and that makes you kind of a big deal. On the other, you were raised by wolves. I think we’ll save the noble background for the second go at romulus down the line, though. As an Outlander, you have proficiency in Athletics and Survival, and can memorize terrain and forage for food better than others.

Piety

Mythic Odyssey of Theros overhauled D&D’s piety system into something DMs might actually remember to use, opening up new character customization options. Since Piety is heavily dependent on DM participation and is relatively new, it won’t be a major part of this build, but could add extra flavor to the character if the DM is okay with it. You gain piety by acting in ways that your god of choice is cool with, and lose piety by acting in ways your god isn’t. When you pass certain thresholds of piety, you gain benefits relating to that god. Ephara is the god of city building, which is kind of your thing, so it shouldn’t be too hard for you to rack up piety with her. At 3+ piety, you can cast Comprehend Languages a number of times per long rest equal to your intelligence modifier. At 10+ piety, you gain advantage on persuasion checks while inside a city, and can reroll a failed intelligence save once per long rest. At 25+ piety, you can cast Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum once per long rest, letting you thwart any dramatic teleportation based kidnappings that would normally happen. Finally, if you get 50 piety or more you can improve your intelligence or charisma score by 2, even if that score is already at 20.

Admittedly, invoking the name of a Magic the Gathering god here is a pretty major flavor fail, but you can always just say you’re really getting help from Mercury, and that will be a little closer to the point.

Stats

Put your highest stat into Wisdom. You built one of the greatest nations in the world, that generally requires a good understanding of the people you’re ruling. Next is Strength. Much like Leonidas, those abs aren’t for show. Next will be Constitution, trust me you’ll be needing that health. Follow that up with Dexterity. There isn’t much evidence to put it one way or the other, but we need it for your AC. After that comes Intelligence, you’re not stupid, but you can be a little hot blooded, and also we needed other stats more. Finally, dump Charisma. You do have a way with words, in your own strange way, but it’s definitely not your standard charisma. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to persuade people in a couple levels.

Class Levels

1. Fighter 1: When you start as a fighter, you get proficiency in Strength and Constitution saves as well as two skills from the fighter list; grab Animal Handling to wrangle your brothers better and Insight, because you’re good at knowing what makes Rome so Rome.

At first level you get a Fighting Style. Grab Dueling, adding 2 to damage rolls made while wielding only a one-handed weapon, because nothing else really applies to you. You also have a Second Wind, letting you heal as a bonus action, giving back 1d10 plus your fighter level in HP.

2. Fighter 2: At second level, you gain an Action Surge, letting you add another action to one turn once per short rest. A lot can happen in a Roma minute, so you want to be able to stuff as much into one turn as possible.

3. Fighter 3: A third level, fighters pick their martial archetype. Flavor wise, you’re probably more of a Champion, but we’re trying to fit 21 levels of classes into a 20 level character, so instead of a second level of Barbarian (oops, spoilers) we’re taking the Samurai archetype. When you take the archetype, you gain proficiency in one of several skills, and we’re grabbing Persuasion to help bring the city-states together. Samurai also gain a Fighting Spirit, giving you advantage on all weapon attacks this turn as a bonus action, and also giving you 5 temporary hit points. You can use the feature three times per long rest.

As a Protector Aasimar, you also have a Radiant Soul, letting you spend an action once per long rest to transform yourself, gaining a flight speed of 30′, and you can add your level in radiant damage to attacks you make once per turn. The transformation lasts for a minute, or until you end it as a bonus action.

4. Fighter 4: Use your first ASI to improve your Constitution, for more health, and better AC in a bit.

5. Barbarian 1: Hop over to barbarian for a bit to show off those abs of yours thanks to Unarmored Defense, turning your AC into 10 + Con + Dex when you aren’t wearing armor. You also gain access to Rage, and we’ve been through this song and dance before. You can’t use or concentrate on spells while raging, get resistance to common weapon attacks, deal extra damage while making strength based attacks, and have advantage on strength saves and checks. A lot of that isn’t going to be that useful this time around, but the damage reduction may come in handy.

6. Druid 1: Continuing our tour of the class system, bounce into druid for some more goodies. You surprisingly fit well as a druid. You can talk to animals (maybe) and control trees. On all levels except second, you are pretty druidic. At this level you learn Druidic, letting you speak a language that no one will use, and leave secret messages in that language. Those who know druidic can spot and read them immediately, but anyone else needs to succeed on a dc 15 wisdom check to find them, and even then will need a spell to translate the message. 

You also get spellcasting at this level, including two cantrips and first level spells. Druids can technically use any spell they have the slots for, but it needs to be prepared at the start of the day. You can prepare a number of spells equal to your druid level + your wisdom modifier at the end of a long rest, and use your wisdom as your spellcasting ability. For your cantrips, grab Resistance to give “your children” a minor blessing in the form of a d4 they can add to one save, and Shillelagh to make your weapon attacks surprisingly strong. I know officially you use a spear, but you’re never really able to see the head of it, so that’s just enough leeway for me to call it a quarterstaff. For a minute after casting the spell, you can use wisdom instead of strength when making attack and damage rolls with your weapon, and the damage die used becomes a d8. You can only have one casting of Shillelagh going at a time, despite not being a concentration spell, and it also ends early if you let go of your weapon.

As far as level one spells go, I would suggest using spells that involve your kinship with beasts, such as Animal Friendship or Beast Bond, or spells that help other members of you party who you consider children of Roma, such as Cure Wounds or Longstrider. You can prepare damaging spells if you want, but you can already hit people with a stick to do that.

7. Druid 2: As a second level druid, you gain the feature you’ll probably be ignoring to stay in character, Wild Shape. This abilities lets you spend an action twice per short rest to transform into a beast. At 2nd level, the beast has to be at most CR 1/4, with no flying or swimming speed. You can stay in this form a number of hours equal to half your druid level, or until you fall unconscious, drop to 0 hp, or die. While transformed, your physical stats and HP total are equal to the creature’s  You also gain the beasts’ skills and saving throw proficiencies if they’re better than yours. Transforming back leaves you at whatever HP you had before you transformed, unless you turn back by taking damage. Whatever damage is left over after dropping you to 0 hp then gets applied to your normal form. You can’t cast spells while transformed, but you can still concentrate or take actions as a part of a spell you’ve already cast. You can use other abilities from class level and racial feats, but special senses like darkvision don’t work unless the beast form also have them. Finally, you have to either drop all your gear, make it disappear for a bit, or continue wearing it, the last one at your DM’s discretion. Equipment that is merged into your body doesn’t have any effect.

Now that all that text is out of the way, here’s more text. You also join a Druid Circle at this level. You’re joining the Circle of the Land for an extra cantrip and more spell slots. Land druids have a Natural Recovery, letting you recover a number of spell slots during a short rest that combine to equal half your druid level. For example, right now you’ll just be able to get back one level one slot. For your bonus cantrip, grab the most powerful spell in the game, Druidcraft, the only spell that always predicts the future with 100% accuracy. Casting the spell can create one of several effects, including a weather prediction for up to 24 hours, an instantly blooming flower, a harmless sensory effect of your choice, or lighting/snuffing out a candle, torch, or campfire.

8. Fighter 5: Fifth level fighters get an extra attack per turn, so you can now make two attacks per turn, or four if you use your Action Surge.

9. Fighter 6: Use another ASI to increase your Wisdom for more damage and better spells.

10. Fighter 7: Seventh level Samurai become an Elegant Courtier, letting you add your wisdom modifier to your persuasion checks, because you’re now clever enough to look like you know what you’re doing. You also gain proficiency in Wisdom saving throws, because you’re awesome like that.

11. Druid 3: Third level druids gain 2nd level spells, and Land druids become a member of a specific circle, either Arctic, Coast, Deseert, Forest, Grassland, Mountain, Swamp, or the Underdark. Given the physical location of Rome, you’ll be a Coastal druid. At this level, you learn Mirror Image and Misty Step, which are always prepared for you, and don’t count for the number of spells you can prepare. For spells at this level, I would suggest spells like Animal Messenger to make some homing pigeons and Enhance Ability for even better blessing to bestow upon your party.

12. Druid 4: At this level your Wild Shape improves. Now you can transform into beasts of CR 1/2 or lower, and you can use beasts that have a swim speed. Also, use your next ASI to become more Durable, adding 1 to your constitution and letting you heal a minimum of 2x your constitution modifier per hit die rolled. To be perfectly honest, this didn’t have much to do with being Romulus, but the extra utility is way more useful than one more point, since every other score you have is even already.

You also learn a new cantrip, so grab Create Bonfire to, well, create a bonfire. Yes, fire, the untamed element, oldest of man’s mysteries! Giver of warmth, destroyer of forests! Right now, you can make fire! And force a dexterity saving throw on whoever is standing in said fire, or they take 3d8 fire damage.

13. Druid 5: Fifth level druids get 3rd level spells, including two circle spells. Your freebie spells for this level are Water Breathing and Water Walk, very helpful for starting a coastal city. Or a religion, I won’t judge. Other spells to look at this level include Conjure Animals to summon your less bipedal children, and Protection from Energy to give protection from the more common spell damage types.

14. Fighter 8: Taking a break in some shorter levels for a bit, Use your next ASI to max out your Wisdom for even more damage and spellpower.

15. Fighter 9: You become Indomitable, giving you a free do-over on a failed save once per long rest.

16. Fighter 10: Tenth level Samurai gain a Tireless Spirit. If you start a fight with no more Fighting Spirit left, you gain one back. Your Fighting spirit also improves, giving you 10 temporary hit points instead of 5.

17. Druid 6: Land druids learn the Land’s Stride, letting you ignore nonmagical difficult terrain and damage from nonmagical plants. You also have advantage on saving throws caused by magical plants, such as the entangle spell.

18. Druid 7: This level gives you 4th level spells and two more freebies, Control Water and Freedom of Movement. The former is great for protecting your city from enemy navies (or starting a religion, we won’t judge), and the latter will help your “children” keep up with you as you already ignore most difficult terrain anyway. 

19. Druid 8: Your Wild Shape improves once again, adding flying creatures to the mix as well as creatures of CR 1 or lower. Use your last ASI to improve your Constitution for more health and a higher AC.

20. Druid 9: With your last level, you access 5th level spells, including your circle spells Conjure Elemental and Scrying. At this level, you finally gain access to the two spells most congruous with your Noble Phantasms. For  Magna Voluisse Magnum, use Wrath of Nature to animate all plant life in a 60′ cube to attack your enemies, also turning any grassland in the area into difficult terrain for your enemies. At the end of your turn, all enemies within 10′ of a tree must succeed on a dex save or take 4d6 slashing damage. One creature on the ground each turn must make a strength saving throw or be restrained by roots and vines. Restrained creatures can also make an Athletics check to try and escape. As a bonus action each turn, you can launch a rock at a creature in the cube. Make a ranged spell attack, and on a hit deal 3d8 nonmagical bludgeoning damage. On a hit, the target must also make a Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.

To emulate Moles Necessarie, use Wall of Stone to create ten 10′ square stone panels to protect yourself and the party. If you can keep your concentration for the full 10 minutes, the walls then become permanent.

[betabites]

Borrowing from Shadow of Mordor

Been playing a lot of that and Shadow of War, so I’ve been thinking about how to steal interesting mechanics.

My first thought was actually about the Last Chance mechanic. If you haven’t played the game, if Talion (the protagonist) loses all his HP, he staggers and falls to his knees, and can only slowly crawl about. If an orc (or beast, or whatever) attacks you at that point, you get a quick time event. If you fail, you die (and the orc that killed you gets promoted, and you get an event to murder them horribly when you reform). If you succeed, you counter the attack and stagger back to your feet with a quarter of your HP. If, somehow, nothing attacks you for a good ten seconds or so, you get back up with a quarter of your health.

My idea here was modify the current death/dying state in the various D&Ds (I’m simultaneously working on two 3.5 games, as a player and a DM, planning a 4e game and a 4e-inspired one-shot, and planning a 5e game, so I am all kinds on confused). Currently, you drop to 0 HP and then sit around making death saving throws (or equivalent) until you die or someone heals you. And if anyone attacks you, you’re more or less dead. 

My idea then, is twofold - first, that dropping to 0 HP isn’t flat on your back unconscious. I know that’s not how some folks run it, but I felt it was important to state it for clarity. If you’re dying, you’re primarily occupied with holding your blood in, and the gray walls of death are closing in about your mind, but you can still sort of move (~5ft/1sq a round), and still sort of act (I’d eyeball it as a minor action every other round. So yes, you can pull that potion from your belt and drink it, or call upon your god to heal your wounds, but it’ll take an agonizingly slow amount of time.

Second, if you are attacked (in melee or otherwise), you can attempt to parry the attack and get back to your feet on momentum and luck. Now, the exact implementation of this will vary depending on edition. In 3.5, call it a Reflex save vs DC 20. In 4E (because everyone should have a good attack line), I’m tempted to call it a <Your main stat> vs enemy’s Reflex, or treat it as [Weapon] vs enemy’s AC. (Maybe verses a static DC based on what tier you’re in). 5E, I don’t know yet. If you succeed, you interrupt their attack and (3.5) become staggered/are set to 1HP, (4E) can spend a healing surge. If you fail, their attack proceeds as normal (and you probably bite it).

The second idea was drawn from the immense frustration I have in how Talion controls. Sometimes, he’ll jump twenty feet vertically up a wall. Sometimes, it’s only to the next handhold. As someone who enjoys parkour games, this is immensely aggravating. So, the idea here is to tie your Acrobatics/Athletics/Climb/Jump/Swim modifiers to a minimum performance. Now, this does take some of the joy out of the various ways to take 10 on skill checks in 3.5 (for instance, as a barbarian with a climb speed), but it also sets a consistent baseline for skillful mobile characters. Which, let’s face it, fly is a third level spell, and feather fall, levitate, and spider climb are all available earlier.

The real question here (that is subject to DM will) is what I’ll call the Wushu Threshold. This is the point beyond which everyone has lightness kungfu, and gravity is more like a guideline (with really harsh enforcers when they do notice you). I like to set the Wushu Threshold about at level 10ish for standard 3.5, with level 7 being whether folks could pick it up if they build their characters around it (just outside of E6, basically). For 4E... could be Paragon, could be Epic. Not sure yet.

Still thinking this one through, so I don’t have numbers yet.

The last idea is more big picture (and undeveloped), and it concerns Rangers. Specifically favored enemies. Basically, instead of the 3.5 categories, Rangers choose two of the following : Beasts (anything covered by Knowledge: Nature; so animals, magical beasts, lycanthropes, etc), Men (any humanoids, be they man, elf, dwarf, goblin, giant, etc), Mages (any arcane phenomena-things,- golems, elementals, actual wizards) and Spirits (mostly undead, but also outsiders, some fey). So Aragorn is a Beast and Man Hunter. Drizzt is a Man and Mage Hunter. Holtzmann from Ghostbusters is a Mage and Spirit Hunter. Between that and wanting Rangers to have more options to use/control/adapt the terrain, I may have to do a ranger prestige class in the same vein as my paladin prestige class.

[mapsmonstersamazing]

Wild Magic!

So this is the first thing I’m putting up of my own -  a 100-item wild magic table!

Yeah, I kinda like the sorcerer class in 5e, and I love the use of wild magic. But it feels like such a ridiculously specific use of a table which could bring some interesting chaos into a game. Do any DMs use wild magic for other situations? Perhaps an area badly affected by a magical war, where natural magic is latent; or a vengeful god warning a follower that their faith is waning? 

However it can be used, here’s my very rough, still-very-much-in-progress wild magic table:

0: The current environment, up to 1 mile, is reshaped in your image.

1: Every other party member grows vestigial dragon wings.

2: Your spell fizzles; the person you aimed it at is in love with you now.

3: you summon a gun into your hands, it replaces any weapons you are currently wielding.

4: Goomba squish! When you cast 1st-level-or-higher offensive spells, you deal the damage by leaping on the target and squishing them. All damage is the same, but now after you cast your spell you automatically move next to the target.

5: whenever you open your mouth to speak, banjo music plays. This effect ends after 24 hours.

6: the spell that activated this effect is cast again, on the same target.

7: your race is now "wombatling". You have the appearance of a humanoid wombat. Your size is small, you can gnaw through thin wood, burrow 20ft, and you gain +1 AC when your back is to the attacker.

8: You are constantly pessimistic when you speak.

9: You meet your doom. But it isn't your doom yet - the thing which will kill you appears before you for one round/6 seconds, and you comprehend that this will be your downfall when you meet it.

10: The next battle or negotiation you are involved in becomes a cooking challenge. Whoever cooks the better meal wins.

11: The ground shakes and quakes. Before you, a hole opens up and reveals an ancient urn filled with copper coins.

12: You turn into a raven for one round.

13: You are slaved to the party member with the most hp; for the next hour, you copy their moves exactly.

14: Anyone within fifty feet of you has a broom appear in their hands. They roll WIS against your spell save; if they fail, they believe they are a street sweeper now (save ends).

15: the cover of all your books turns into "embezzlement for dummies". Every book in your inventory has the exact same cover, and is now the exact same size too. Effect ends when you kill the author, Saldiar Twofang.

16: your gold pieces turn into very high quality forgeries.

17: You gain the favour of a great fiend! When you next make a melee attack, a demonic arm aids you with fiery claws. Add +lvl d8 damage to your attack.

18: every building now has a poster with your face on it. It's not a wanted poster, it's just a plain poster with your face. There is no context for this.

19: gain proficiency in mining.

20: Happy birthday! It's your birthday all of a sudden. Everyone you meet wishes you happy birthday and gives you a small present. There is cake.

21: your face becomes an exposed steel skull. On the one hand, your terrifying visage gives you advantage on intimidate and +1 ac. On the other, disadvantage on all other charisma checks.

22: turn into three goblins in a trench coat. CON save DC15 ends.

23: the spell you cast to cause this effect has a purple aura. You can now change your hair colour at will. If your character did not have hair before, they now sport a cool cyberpunk hairstyle.

24: your hair colour changes based on mood. If your character did not have hair before this, they grow a moustache.

25: For the next three turns, you're an equally levelled barbarian in mid-rage.

26: You and everyone in your sightline are teleported to the middle of a busy market in a port city on the edge of a desert.

27: You have no context for it, but an arcade cabinet appears half-buried in the ground in front of you. It still functions, but you can't reach the coin slot as it's underground.

28: lose a skill proficiency in a skill with your best attribute. Gain proficiency in two skills that don't use your best attribute.

29: You turn into a small red dragon.

30: a mysterious envelope appears in your hands. It's an invitation to a murder mystery party.

31: You shrink. Change your size class to tiny. Your clothes and belongings shrink with you. Effect ends when you use a spell of any level higher than the spell that caused this. If the spell was level 9, another level 9 spell reverts the effect.

32: You grow huge. Change your size class to huge. Your clothes and belongings grow with you. Effect ends when you're knocked unconscious.

33: roll 3d6 for the next thirty seconds. The numbers you roll are your strength score for the days following, equal to the number of rolls you managed.

34: The entire party is spontaneously nude, and their charisma scores are all 18 or above, for the next hour.

35: Every melee attack you make is directionally explosive. Deal +1d10 force damage when you attack with a melee weapon. Effect ends after the next persuasion check.

36: You gain the ability to cast silent spells. Which is good, because you're mute for the next day.

37: Gruumsh One-Eye appears before you, gives you the finger, and disappears.

38: The target of your next spell also receives a pot of healing gumbo. It heals 1d6 hp when consumed and has 10 uses.

39: All fighters are affected by wild magic. When using a fighter ability gained above third level they must roll on the wild magic table too.

40: a bucket of ice water falls on you as you cast the spell.

41: An elf appears beside you and reassures you that everything is going to be okay.

42: whenever you make a ranged attack with a weapon, such as a crossbow or longbow, gold coins fall out of the target on hit.

43: unresolved romantic tension within a mile radius is forthrightly resolved.

44: You gain a robot friend! If you roll this again, you lose a robot friend. The cycle continues.

45: You burn all your spell slots at once. Roll all necessary damage dice against a target, and armour and buff effects stack. Roll all necessary wild magic rolls - if this one comes up again add another d12 damage.

46: You summon a flock of angry, biting geese in the square next to the one targeted by your spell. They attack the nearest target with +2 to hit and deal 1d6 damage.

47: the target of your spell turns into a stone giant.

48: demonic possession! The target of your spell is possessed by a demon and deals an extra 1d6 fire damage when using a melee weapon, but they must make a WIS save DC14 to perform the actions they want.

49: Your offensive spells, upon hit, now split off into two smaller spells which fire at 90 degree angles to the original spell.

50: Bisect one enemy.

51: You are hunted by a demon. It appears in the middle of your next battle, sets up a chess set, and stops time. You must defeat this demon in chess or face him in battle.

52: You make a deal.

53: If you're in a battle, the fighting stops as everybody takes their union mandated five minute break. If you're not in battle, a fight breaks out as the people around you begin their union mandated five minute fight club.

54: Your skin becomes transparent. Everyone can see your insides, giving you disadvantage on charisma checks. But everyone gets advantage on medicine checks to heal you.

55: You no longer get drunk. Alcohol heals you for 1d4HP. Drinking any other potion ends this effect.

56: You split the earth in two. A jagged crack runs down the ground between your legs, before widening to 10 feet and forcing you to choose a side.

57: You summon a frigate into the space around you. It puts you into the cannon deck - if the space is not large enough to accommodate an entire ship, it takes up space around the room, expanding to other rooms or filling out through the earth.

58: any metal scraps attach themselves to your body, granting you +1AC.

59: You are somehow really easy to hit. Take -1AC.

60: You're suddenly a sprite in a top-down shooter. For two rounds your height is zero and ranged attacks have disadvantage against you, but your ranged and melee attacks have disadvantage against their targets because they're literally non-existent on one plane of vision.

61: Everyone in a 20ft radius has true strike cast on them. Attacks by those affected have advantage.

62: A pit opens up beneath the target of your spell and drops them five feet behind their original location. If there is a wall or obstruction, they are instead dropped at the opposite end of the space, in front of the next obstruction.

63: Everyone turns into mice. No, literally everyone. All locations are three times larger. Stats are unchanged. Your race is still the same, but you add "-mouse" to the end of it.

64: the target of your spell falls asleep.

65: Your party members gain your-level+1 temporary hit points. When they are struck by a melee attack while they have these hit points, they deal those hit points as damage on the attacker. This effect only ends when they take damage which costs them their temporary hit points.

66: You clone yourself. Your clone is a perfect copy of you in every way, except it has longer hair and better style, and it can't cast spells.

67: your rations turn into ham sandwiches. They taste okay.

68: the target of your spell becomes trapped in a glass dome. It is constantly ringing inside, incapacitating them unless they overcome a constitution save vs your spell save DC.

69: your character swaps gender and their charisma, if not already maxed out, is set to 20. Effect ends after a long rest.

70: everything is eighties! The atmosphere and scenery becomes dystopian and neon, crossbows become future-guns and shortbows and longbows are composite. Melee weapons get a retro-future style. If this has already been rolled - or is already the case - the whole thing reverts to high fantasy.

71: somebody betrays you.

72: You're made of fire! Melee attacks deal 1d6 damage to the attacker, and you deal 1d6 extra damage.

73: worms tumble from your clothing. They're silkworms. They follow you around and attempt to cocoon you. They must swarm over you for an hour to cocoon you. If they succeed, you are cocooned for 24 hours, provided no one intervenes, at which point you emerge with beautiful butterfly wings.

74: Roll your level d6. Add the total to your total HP.

75: Lose your temper with your party.

76: Your body parts separate. Treat each part as a separate entity with your stats. You can perform six separate attacks, but you must use both arms and your head to cast a spell. A restoration or healing spell reverts you back to your form, minus any parts that were "killed".

77: whenever you hit an enemy with a melee attack, they make a glockenspiel sound.

78: You turn into a robot. You do not need to eat, drink or sleep, and are immune to poison and disease, and resistant to fire, ice, and physical attacks. However you are vulnerable to water and electricity damage, and healing has no effect on you - instead you must be fixed with intelligence checks of a DC equal to your level + the value of your last hit dice.

79: your arms turn into bear arms. They are very fluffy and soft.

80: one of your weapons melts. It isn't hot, it's just liquid.

81: You grow three feet taller and turn blue.

82: You shrink three feet and turn blue.

83: for the next minute your hands are constantly shooting out fireworks.

84: All of your gold pieces turn into healing potions.

85: All of your healing potions turn into poison. They're very clearly labelled as poison, however.

86: as you cast the spell that causes this effect, you summon a cheeseburger. It drops into your hand. It's still warm.

87: You're made of paper. Halve your total HP, gain vulnerability to fire AND water, but conversations you hear are automatically written onto your skin. Gain advantage on persuade checks. Effect ends when you gain a level.

88: the DM asks you to think of your characters favourite place. Instead of the spell that caused this effect, you cast teleport. The target of your spell is teleported to your character's favourite place.

89: You can shoot ink from your hands as a defensive mechanism.

90: A bell tolls somewhere. Your hair turns white, you age one hundred years but do not die, and you are covered in cobwebs.

91: a maze grows up around you, leaving you in a dead end. It is made of whatever material the ground is made from, and can be affected as such.

92: two crows land on your shoulders. You can see through their eyes via a psychic link.

93: instead of the spell you cast, birdseed shoots from your hands at the target. Next turn, birds land on the target. You do not lose the spell slot.

94: stalks of corn grow in a 30 ft radius around the caster.

95: Everyone is now wearing a mask.

96: Everyone is now wearing fancy party clothing.

97: Everyone is wearing party hats.

98: your soul separates from your body. You can move around as a ghost but it takes a DC 12 WIS save to return to your body.

99: nothing happens. You are safe... for now.

[a-d-n-d-journal]

Game Session #8

Characters:

Bakunawa, dragonborn paladin; copper scales, chainmail, a shortsword and shield

Zastu, dragonborn rogue; white scales almost completely covered in a hooded cape and mask, leather armor, short bow and shortsword + dagger

Rysiel, half-elf druid; simple clothing and leather armor, scimitar

Teir, tiefling warlock; vibrant gold skin and black hair w/silver highlights, horns, hooves, expensive-looking clothes and leather armor, carries a dagger as his only (physical) weapon

NPCs...

Sydiri Haunlar, human (Chondathan) fighter; brunette, chain shirt, dagger, shortbow, wooden club

Alara Winterspell, human (Rashemi) fighter; deceptively light and warm head wrap, chain shirt, dagger, shortsword

Kaelen Zam, human (Illuskan) fighter; bald, small handlebar mustouche, chain shirt, dagger, greataxe

Bats! Teir and Guard Kaelen manage to leave the swarm, taking minimal damage based on how far they had to move. Bakunawa also leaves the swarm, but takes a swing at the bats flapping around him, causing a few to fall to the ground dead. There are still several hundred bats. Zastu uses her prepared action to breathe acid at the swarm, causing a swath of them to fall to the ground and create a little gap that lasts for half a second. Rysiel casts a really impressive Moonbeam, causing a wide cylinder of silvery light to appear within the swarm, dealing damage on the bats' turn for about a minute. But on the bats' turn, they settle down and return to their roost. Rysiel dismisses his cool moon spell.

DM note: this is a difficult situation for me as a DM--I know that technically the party can completely kill all the bats in the swarm, but it will deplete their resources by quite a bit. While they won't get damaged much, they need these spells for a later fight, which you'll see... The point of this encounter was to fill out the atmosphere of the cave and give a sense of what the villagers have been through--the event was scripted to end when I rolled a 6 on the bats' turn, which happened in round 2... But I can't tell them any of that, so they make the best choices they can based on what they know: there's a swarm of bats attacking them and the villagers they came to rescue.

Rysiel reaches the bad rooster and manages to calm him so he doesn't crow again. Bakunawa talks to the defacto leader of the Nightstone villagers--a dwarf named Morak Ur'gray, the owner of the inn. He explains about leading the villagers to the caves, and their capture by the goblins. The party stops briefly to pick up some weapons, handing shortswords to the injured and disarmed guards they found with the villagers and a shortbow to Baku (with arrows from Zastu). Then they take a Short Rest outside the cave to heal some HP (B:10, R:9, T:5, Z:4) and regain some spells (B:0, R:2, T:2). The priest of Lathandar (Hiral) performs a very fervent prayer over the party--but no one is sure what it does. Hiral isn't a spell-casting cleric. Teir uses a ritual to cast Alarm over the area while Rysiel distributes muffins and cheese to the party members, then smokes a pipe (+inspiration).

The party prepares to fight the mystierous ooze monster that Snigbat told them about by getting into a marching order: Front: Rysiel Middle: Bakunawa, Kaelen Back: Zastu, Teir Rear: Sydiri A lantern still swings from Kaelen's belt, and Zastu manages to rig her bullseye lantern to shine (mostly) ahead of her. After a short winding tunnel, the party arrives in a small cave full of stalagmites. In the middle of the cave is a particularly large stalagmite full of holes. Three swords lie at the base of the stalagmite--two very rusty and pitted, one shiny and nice. Two tunnels branch off the cave on opposite ends. Rysiel casts Produce Flame and tosses it down one each of the tunnels. Nothing happens, but he sees that the tunnels are winding. He picks up a rock and throws it down a tunnel. Again, nothing happens. The druid investigates the cave (roll:3), but just ends up cutting himself on the shiny sword. Teir attempts his own intimidation investigation of the cave (roll:5), but the sword seems to be the only interesting thing to him. His knowledge of history (roll:24) tells him that this unusual sword with strange (giant) runes was one of many used to kill many goblinoids. Bakunawa claims it happily. The party (correctly) deduces that one of the tunnels leads out of the cave complex to an exit they had scouted earlier, so they go the other way.

Rysiel reaches the end of the other tunnel at the head of the party. A nice waterfall splashes into a deep (5ft) pool here, and there are several slightly glowing green mushrooms. Zastu hears a sound behind her, and reacts just in time to see an enourmous black blob oozing toward them!

DM note: I was so, so sad that the characters didn't roll high enough to discover the Black Pudding inside the hollow stalagmite, and NONE of them suggested looking into the holes... SO, they had their squishiest characters placed closest to the monster when it attacked...

Round 0 Zastu breathes out her acid breath in shock, but the acid doesn't affect the oozing blackness. She pushes past Teir and Bakunawa in an effort to get away from the gross thing. With Teir being the closest target now, the Black Pudding stretches out a massive Pseudopod and hits the warlock square-on (critial hit: 10 bludgeoning + 20 acid; Teir had nearly full HP with 17, leaving him at -13), knocking him out and covering him with acid that destroys his armor (-2AC due to a crit). He would have died outright*, but a faint glow covers his body and Hiral's blessing is used up, leaving Teir in a stable condition at 0hp**. Teir tries to use Hellish Rebuke, but he doesn't realize that he's already unconscious, and the ability fails. Bakunawa tries to impose disadvantage with his Protection ability, but he's too far away. Round 1 Bakunawa declares a Vow of Enmity on the Black Pudding for fatally wounding Teir, granting him Advantage on attack rolls. He then swings his new +1 Longsword at the ooze. The ooze quivers and is cut in two, some of its blobby goodness being lost in the process.*** Zastu hides in a dark corner to watch. Rysiel steps up and conjures a flame blade, lighting up the tunnel and dealing a large amount of fire damage to one of the new smaller blobs. He forgets to step back behind Bakunawa though, and both blobs attack him. The first misses, but the second gets its pseudopod on Rysiel, just barely knocking him out as well (5 bludgeoning + 22 acid; -1AC; he had 27 hp) Kaelen steps in, swinging his new Greataxe and cutting the injured ooze in half again. Round 2 Bakunawa breathes out a huge gout of fire, filling the upper parts of the tunnel (missing Rysiel and Teir, who lie on the ground), scorching the Black Pudding on the walls and destroying the two smallest ones.**** Zastu comes out of hiding to shoot an arrow at the remaining ooze, dealing full damage.***** Rysiel and Teir** make death-saving throws. The Black pudding attacks Bakunawa, but misses. Kaelen darts forward and cuts the ooze in half again (dammit Kaelen!), but deals damage. Round 3 Bakunawa swings at one of the ever-splitting, ever-shrinking oozes. He hits, but it doesn't split in half! Zastu aims her bow at that one and shoots. The ooze dissipates and is gone! She shrinks back into the shadows. Rysiel and Teir** make death-saving throws again, and Rysiel gets a crit-fail. Uh oh. The remaining small Black Pudding attacks Bakunawa again, but misses. Kaelen hits the ooze with a critical strike, but oozes are immune to crits... The ooze doesn't split. Round 4 Bakunawa attacks with his sword. The ooze still doesn't split... Zastu fires her bow, but misses. Rysiel and Teir** make death-saving throws. The Black Pudding attacks Bakunawa and gets a critical hit! Bakunawa falls to the ground, unconscious and covered in acid that eats at his armor. (7 bludgeoning + 34 acid; -2AC from the crit leaves his chainmail with 14AC) Kaelen strikes one final time with his greataxe, sundering the remaining ooze. But people are dying!

DM notes: *I made a couple mistakes: First, Hiral's blessing should have left the character at 1hp, not prevented a death; Second: 5e differs from 3.5e in that death doesn't occur at -10hp, it happens at negative max hp, so -18hp for Teir; **Even though I would forget this almost immediately... ***Technically it was immune to Slashing damage, but I thought it was a bit much for it to split AND not take damage, so I dealt half-damage instead ****Pro-tip: If your enemy can split, they probably have half the HP, so area attacks that hit multiple targets are twice as effective!!! *****Black Pudding aren't immune nor resistant to Piercing

Zastu and guard Kaelen stabilize their dying teammates. Sighing, Zastu robs all of them out of spite, coming away with almost 40 gold. She gives 5 to Kaelen to keep quiet, then they fetch the village guards to help carry them out of the cave. The villagers and everyone set up a temporary camp within the treeline, just barely able to see across the meadow out to the walls of Nightstone. Zastu takes a walk in the forest to clear her head and try to find a way to get a message to her gang. She's looking for bandits who might be camping out, but instead a group of Elf scouts finds her. The elves question her as to why she's in their part of the forest. She explains the situation, and they guide her back to the temporary camp, after extracting a promise from her that there will be no hunting. She takes the opportunity to ask about the cloud giants... They answer that there was one very very large cloud castle that came by three days ago, responsible for dropping the boulders on the village. They point the direction it left in (East-north-east). There was also a second, much smaller cloud tower that was seen recently over the forest--this one had a comical pointy-wizard's hat for a roof/spire. When asked if this was normal, the elves reply that it happens fairly often relative to an elf's lifespan--maybe once a decade, but seeing two within a few days is unusual.

By the time Zastu returns to the camp, Rysiel is awake. The druid uses a spell slot to cast Cure Wounds on Bakunawa, waking him. The paladin then wakes Teir with a use of Lay on Hands. Morak explains further to the elves, who allow them to stay where they are if they wish. The dwarven innkeeper agrees with the party members to keep the villagers outside the village, despite days of capture within the caves. However, he insists on sending a few guards to check out these bandits they mentioned and get more info for himself. Zastu still wants to get a message out to her gang in Waterdeep, and sees an opportunity with the bandits inside the village, so she volunteers to go ahead of the guards.

At the gates to Nightstone, Zastu calls up (alone) to the two lookouts that Xolkin has posted in the towers. The fetch the bandit leader and lower the drawbridge for him. When Xolkin comes out, he has a very civil conversation with Zastu, again extending the invitation for her to join the Zhentarim. He compliments her tenacity and ability to stay alive, and agrees to get her message to Waterdeep (for a hefty 5g) even as she declines (again) to join him. He warns her that he intends to keep the village as a Zhentarim outpost, but the villagers are welcome back into their homes (just not her party members who attacked him). He wants a partnership with them, and since the noble controlling the village is dead... Zastu writes a message in code, and gives it to Xolkin to get to her contact (Gervis) in Waterdeep. In brief, it describes how she was able to swindle this noble and paladin to steal some money, and how great an asset she is to the gang. She also asks if they want her continue to siphon money off, or return to Waterdeep with it now?

Zastu goes to the guards standing back from the village and explains the situation, then the return to the camp. Morak takes in all the info and talks further with the party... Sounds like it's possible to return to the village, so the adventurers ask if Morak can maybe distract the bandits so they can get into the fort to spend the night. Morak agrees.

After packing up the camp, Morak, the adventurers, and the villagers walk down to the lowered drawbridge. Xolkin meets them there, but Kella and some of the other bandits are posts in the towers with their crossbows out. The bandit leader and Morak have a conversation with some brief comments from the adventurers. Xolkin points out how respectful they've been to the dead in the town, and how they haven't stolen anything, and even started carting out the bodies of the goblins and orcs--a battle which they could totally have run from, but didn't. He also points out that the adventurers attacked first during their fight*. But Morak is still skeptical, and as Bakunawa points out, the Zhentarim are well-known for trafficking in slaves and black-market items like poison. (*--technically a lie since one of his people let off a crossbow by accident while Teir set off non-damaging spells) In the end, they agree to take the conversation to the inn, and let the villagers in. Zastu sneaks in with them leading Bobble the horse, while Rysiel Wildshapes into a house cat to come as well. The Rillix the tressym flies along nearby, but Jest the Rooster has gone missing again. Once inside, Rysiel and Zastu go to the broken bridge between village and fort, and lower some ropes to help the others up. They spend the night in the fort. (Long Rest and level 4!)

Spells cast:

Bakunawa:

Paladin abilities: Vow of Enmity (Channel Divinity) Lay on Hands

Slots: 1st 3/3 Regained: 0

Rysiel:

Cantrips: Produce Flame x2,

Spells: Moonbeam (2nd), Flame Blade (2nd), Cure Wounds (1st)

Slots: 1st 3/4 +1 used; 2nd 1/2 +2 used Regained: 2 levels (1 2nd-level slot)

Teir:

Rituals: Alarm

Slots: 2/2 Regained: All slots on Short Rest

Killcount:

...It's hazy, but Baknawa, Zastu, and Kaelen all destroyed part of the Black Pudding

Treasure looted:

3 Shortswords for the village guards

+1 Longsword of ?? (Bakunawa)

Zastu looted 39g 18s from her party members! (Giving 5g to Kalen, and 5g to Xolkin)

Other Important Notes:

Teir's leather armor was destroyed (10ac)

Rysiel's leather armor is half-destroyed (11ac)

Bakunawa's chaimnail is partially destroyed (14ac)

All three have major scarring from acid burns, but Rysiel has noticably less