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fjeTheNarrator Human (4/4/04 2:28 pm) Reply	Fire Bridge Fiasco We played really late last night and the fight at the Fire Bridge went very badly. I forgot alot of abilities (we played to 5am) and the Wizard forgot to use half his spells. One of the players wasn't there and his character is probably going to die. Then I totally forgot Slaazh untill the last round of combat. He's coming on the scene full HP and the whole damn party is out of spells and out of HP. One frontline fighter is at -5 across the room from the rest of the party and the other one is going to come out of rage the next round, with something like 3hp. The only healing they have is 2-3 2nd level spells that the out-of-rage BBn can burn to heal and some CLW wands ... not enough to keep them alive. The party wizard has one spell left ... Oti's Resilient Sphere. Unfortunately, it isn't big enough to contain D'Gran OR the Troll ... D'Gran currently has something like 37 real HP left and 32 Subdual damage, is Invis, and has pulled back. In a few rounds, he can be back. Looking over my notes, they WILL die. All of their spells are ending in 1-2 rounds (other than Bless and Mage Armor) and they just have absolutely no hope of surviving if they stand and fight. I made some mistakes, and forgot Slaazh, so bringing him in the last round is mildly unfair. They have nothing that can actually do real damage to him. I'm willing to tell them that there's no hope, and I told this to the Wizard's player already, because he's the one with Oti's Sphere. They could drop that in the doorway and keep even D'Gran from coming through as mist for 10 minutes, allowing them to retreat and heal up. Unfortunately the player is a battle-thirsty hothead and wants to either A) keep fighting, maybe they'll get lucky or B) start the entire battle over again because he cast some fire spells on fiendish and half-fiend creatures and tried to capture two hill giants with Evard's Black Tentacles ... so he wants to redo everything to correct his "mistakes". --fje Edited by: fjeTheNarrator at: 4/4/04 5:12 pm
ieri Staj (4/4/04 4:40 pm) Reply	Re: Fire Bridge Fiasco First of all, don't redo the battle. That's a VERY bad precedent. If he made mistakes, he can learn from them and not make them again next time. From there, the trick is making sure there's a next time. I wouldn't bring Slaazh in now. Why would he hold back this long and THEN join the combat... if you do that, you're showing your players that you goofed up, or it looks like you WANT them to die. Instead, figure out why he didn't show. (not the real reason, ie you forgot him, but the justification. Your players don't have to know that it wasn't planned that way...) Without referencing a good portion of the module I haven't run yet, I can't say exactly what his excuse should be, but I'm sure you can come up with some reason why he wasn't in the area when combat started. He's not home now, so he can't fight. But he'll make sure he's ready next time. Given that, let them sit for a few rounds while D'Gran heals up, then have him return and do something dramatic. Make it clear he's totally healed, and do your best to scare them. The goal is to convince them to run without killing all of them (killing one or even two of them may be necessary). Yes, it could still be a TPK, but if you give them every opportunity to run, and they don't take it, it's their own fault. Sucks for the campaign, but it doesn't suck as much as if it's obvious you're letting them live when they deserve to die. I know from experience, that destroys campaigns. -Ieri
fjeTheNarrator Human (4/4/04 5:29 pm) Reply	Re: Fire Bridge Fiasco Well NOBODY but him wants to start over. I never even considered it. Looking, I thought Slaazh was trapped in the throne room by Evard's Black Tentacles for most of the battle, but he could have come around the other side, so yea, bringing him in would be bad. BUT ... discussing it with the rest of the group, the Barbarian/Druid currently down at -5 has suggested that, as a Narrative Act, his character could rouse himself into barbarian rage and stand against the hulking menace long enough for the others to escape. Which is pretty cool, as far as storyline goes. It's my honest thought that if we start from the round we left off, the wizard's player will browbeat everybody else into facing down the troll/D'gran or whoever is there and both frontline fighters will die. i guess they'll stop listening to him when he gets half the party killed on Sunday. --fje
ieri Staj (4/4/04 5:39 pm) Reply	Re: Fire Bridge Fiasco If that's what it takes to teach them the lesson, then that's what it takes. I'd suggest you do your best to kill or nearly kill the toughest front line fighter in a single blow. Cheat if you have to ("roll" a crit). When they see that happen, if they have any sense, they'll run. Yes, you'll be killing a PC out of hand, but it's better than killing half the party. -Ieri
Caedrel Ghoul Worm (4/4/04 6:43 pm) Reply ezSupporter	Re: Fire Bridge Fiasco Ouch! My group starts making bad decisions at about 1-2am... "One more room!" is a catchcry they now use when they're about to do something they think is going to be fatal It sounds like Slaazh has already appeared and made himself known to the party, which eliminates the preferred option of just not having him show up. Has he actually attacked or interacted with the party in any way yet? Has he spoken? If not, you could say it's not really Slaazh, but an illusion of him - the real Slaazh is out killing umber hulks with the almost wild trolls, and D'Gran has used the illusion as a distraction for him to escape and lick his wounds. You'd have to figure out how and why D'Gran has this ability, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch for an ogre mage. Also, D'Gran doesn't necessarily know how low the party is on resources. For all he knows, by the time he's fully healed up, the party may be as well. These guys have just defeated the bulk of his forces in a large scale battle - is D'Gran going to want to face them alone? Although he now has a better idea of their tactics, they'll have seen some of his too. Being "intensely chaotic", maybe D'Gran would come back very soon. It would actually be worse for the party if he lurked invisibly for a while before picking his time eg. while everyone was looting the bodies. But he may also think that going back is a bit too risky for a little while yet, and decide that he would like a few more minions before he ventures back into the complex...
Crellan Staj (4/5/04 11:39 am) Reply	Re: Fire Bridge Fiasco My party lost 4 of 6 characters at this juncture. The campaign is even more fun now. The two characters went to Chendl (following up on a Thromell lead, so Chendl, not Verbobonc) and have recruited a new party using the Thrommel angle. D'Garn knows them, they know D'Garn so the next fight should be MORE fun. D'Garn is tough. He's supposed to be. Your party screwed up and if you bail them out (including sending Slaazsh back) then the game will eventually fail becuase there is no real reward without real risk. I did that with a character earlier in the campaign, and that player stopped having fun from that point on. They hit -10 and I let them stabalize with a DC 15 Con Check... the person lost interest in the character almost immediately afterwards and the player has since left the campaign... As for Slaazsh, he was back there thinking the party was coming to free a certain halfling... now that he realizes that isn't what is needed here he comes! The party can run from Slaazsh as he is in armor and slowed down a little. Let them run, and let some die. Your campaign should be stronger for it even if just if one or two escape...
Infiniti2000 Night Beast (4/5/04 11:55 am) Reply ezSupporter	Re: Fire Bridge Fiasco As an idea, Slaazh could be off 'mingling' with the troll tribe, trying to get more recruits. Something to this effect could be in D'Gran's diary or latest (unsent) report to Naquent or Tessimon. Definitely do not restart the battle and I would firmly admonish the battle-hungry player for being an idiot. If anything, have D'Gran heal up and show up behind that player. Does he have see invisible going? No? Then, so much the better. D'Gran might kill the wretched mage (he doesn't trust other mages) and then offer a more peacable solution to the remaining, living PC's. After all, he doesn't know that the party is that badly hurt and he presumably just fought them to a standstill. So, D'Gran has no overriding reason to fight to the death. He might offer a truce. Overall, though, I agree with the others. Don't do anything that doesn't seem reasonable. If Slaazh indeed already showed up, don't change it. Don't ever be worried about pulling out a TPK. However, don't let the actions of one player cause a TPK. If the others have a chance to flee and the one player bullies them into fighting, then certainly go for the TPK and teach them a lesson. Oftentimes, you'll be pleasantly surprised at the results and the change in attitude (of the players) for the better. If they don't handle the TPK well, it's far better to find that out now instead of halfway through the Outer Fane against Hedrack, Thrommel, and Chymon.
Mr Kaze Staj (4/5/04 1:58 pm) Reply	Re: Fire Bridge Fiasco Slaazh can be with Eeridik chatting up the other trolls. "Workers of the world, unite!" and all that. D'Gran would probably sit and wait (and regenerate) until the party lets their guard down (Loot!) and then attack somebody -- like a mage -- to catch 'em flat-footed, then retreat when things start going south again. Being a regenerating creature with invisibility makes him very very evil (to PCs). (Either that or finish off that downed barbarian before going and warning Tessimon about the party.) Two metagame notes would be to "Feh" the ret-con suggestion -- this may be a game, but that doesn't mean there's a "reset" button or a "save game" point. The other thing would be -- as previously mentioned -- that party members who are on the front lines shouldn't be taking advice from the people on the back lines. We darn near lost 60% of our party to a Bebelith because the Assassin was saying "Oh, it's just gotta die! Let's get it!" when everybody was evil... The lead fighter (played by the guy who forced his Cleric into a death situation by refusing to surrender), in short, failed the very simple Rimmer Directive of "Never mess with anything that has more teeth than the entire Osmond family." Don't pull punches when your players aren't playing smart (but don't penalize them when you realize that you're not playing smart, either). Cheers, ::Kaze
fjeTheNarrator Human (4/6/04 7:33 am) Reply	D'Gran Hrm. The first thing they'll do, I'm sure, is start to loot the corpses. Especially the wizard looting the other wizards ... mwa ha ha ha ... I know he was eyeballing Tippesh on the ceiling with her hands free, hoping that meant there were some slippers there. It was obvious that D'Gran had fast healing, and pretty high fast-healing at that. It's equally obvious that he's not dead, just invisible and probably retreated. Nothing says how FAR he's retreated, however. I'm contemplating having Slaazh out recruiting more trolls (God I love trolls with PC levels. They're just so horrific and mean.) At this point, nobody's SEEN Slaazh yet. I described that there was the sound of something down the hall and then sat the players down via AIM and told them that they're out of spells, coming down off of rage, and will be out of Prayer in a moment with one guy down to -5. What's down there is mean and they're probably screwed. I offered that since I ended combat for the night anyway, I could Narratively Adjudicate that the party stabilized Benkir and pulled back to the door, or that we could start from the combat round we ended on and they could do their thing, possibly losing the PC of the guy who wasn't there that night. Seeing as he's sorta-okay with losing the PC, I'm going to start from the last round and let the dice fall where they may. He's got another one designed ... this one is a militarily-minded Elf from Celene with Leadership ... specifically created to have an in-game reason to take a leading role in the party and shout down the wizard (also an elf) when he wants to kick the door of ______ temple down and run in swinging. So far the only reason the party has ever even been in danger of losing a member has been when the Wizard has argued for the kicking down of doors. ((The party has so-far studiously avoided the Basilisk near the mine entrance. Every time they go by, the Wizard argues that there's probably an EVIL basilisk there and it seriously needs killing. Nobody else wants to take the chance of getting stoned. To which the player replies: "Dude, it's a DC 12 Fort save ... JONDAR can make that 60% of the time, I'm willing to chance it." The rest of the table then avoids looking at me ... because they know the DC has just jumped at least five points. grumble Contemplating making it a Greater Abyssal Basilisk for the hell of it. TPK, all the way.)) I'm going to give D'Gran an illusion ability ... Major Image once per day or something. If they don't retreat from the "Giant Armored Troll" I'll do something "stupid" to make sure they realize it's an Illusion ... then the wizard will try to make a save ... Make the save, figure all-is-clear and start looting. I'll eyeball what they can do in ONE MINUTE and then D'Gran will reappear, fully-freakin'-healed and scream "NINJA!" as he sunders the wizard like an old used popsicle stick. Maybe then he'll grab the Healer by the neck and fly up, demanding the party strike a deal. I know my fiance won't let the Healer get wasted, so she'll physically assault anybody at the table not willing to deal. She's fiesty. Hrm ... D'Gran doesn't know how screwed they are ... so maybe he'll offer them something to leave. Perhaps Descratid? He he he. I re-wrote her as a "Love Interest" for the annoying wizard. He's an elf, so I made her an Elf ... a Bard/Hexblade who sings ... sort of a Neutral Evil Sirine-type and a distinctly bad influence. Her weapon is also the +1 Keen Falchion they found earlier that they were hoping to sell for "fat cash" ... I'm sure they'll give it back. She can hang out with the party for a while, being worse than the Wizard is for getting them into trouble with every big monster in the CRM. Since they're currently snowed into the mountains they can't get rid of her right away. Then, when they're getting tired of her, she can rob them blind in the middle of the night and take the goods back to D'Gran to buy herself back into his favor. Mmmmmm ... evil. What would D'Gran do after being bested, though? He's got one follower left (Slaazh) and an empty bridge complex. --fje
Narben Human (4/6/04 7:42 am) Reply ezSupporter	idea If you really need to kill someone why not the wizard who is trying to convince the party to stay. Bullying people with "we can take them" kind of stops working when the bad guys have just reduced the character to a small smear on the landscape
Infiniti2000 Night Beast (4/6/04 7:52 am) Reply ezSupporter	Re: idea One way or another you need to have the wizard killed. If for no reason, just to stop his metagaming. That really irks the hell outta me. Tell him his player will be killed every session until he stops metagaming. DC 12 Fort save indeed.
msherman Briar Beast (4/6/04 8:11 am) Reply	Re: idea Meh... While I agree that this Wizard needs some comeuppance, I'm not quite in the same camp as I2k on the "DC 12 fort save" bit. In character, surely the folks who wield magic, and frequently have it wielded against them, have worked out a lingo with which they discuss the relative strengths and types of effects. If an effect is well known (ie: if the wizard has made his knowledge check for Basilisks), then I have no problem letting the players use game terms to discuss it. Of course, I prefer it if the game terms are couched in non-game flourishes (for example, "a ritual of the Third Sphere of Magic", as opposed to "a level 3 spell"), but it's too hobbling to make the players avoid using numerical measures when discussing things their characters know the details of. Now, if the wizard had not previously succeeded on the required knowledge check, and was using OOC knowledge of the Monster Manual, then all bets are off. Smack him down hard.
fjeTheNarrator Human (4/6/04 8:46 am) Reply	To Kill A Metagamer Well, yes, the Wizard needs to die. He's already under a metagame ban, though I forgot to enforce it that night. It was 5am, I'd been up since 6am the day before, so I just wanted to get things over with. As-is, if he uses Non_Character knowledge his CHARACTER gets the knowledge from Tharizdun. Of course the voice of Tharizdun is not something heard lightly, and he takes a point of permanent Con drain. So far it works better for the other players than him, however. They all studiously avoid "hearing the voice of Tharizdun". Actually it fits nicely into the plotline ... nobody's stopped to wonder exactly why Tharizdun would be feeding them knowledge to defeat his own temple, though. In general, though, I'd seriously like to bump the Wizard off. The player is much better when he's playing something simple ... like a paladin. As a Wizard he spends way too much time trying to tell everybody else what to do to maximize his spell effectiveness. Then he casts Scorching Ray from the back ranks without Precise Shot against people with cover granted by his allies. So far he's capped the frontline fighters twice with that ("It's ranged touch, c'mon, that's like 12 AC at best. Unless they have Deflection from something. Eh, I'll chance it. FZZZZSSH."). Always fun to lose 4d6 hp to friendly fire on the first round of combat. The guy's an okay gamer. He just likes the game WAAAY too much. He's sort of a greenhorn, and he still has a huge "I Can Win" mentality about the game. Basilisks are challenges to be weighed and faced at the "proper" time to gain more XP to gain levels to get better to face other challenges. The other players feel that if their characters can pass by a monster that turns people to stone without having to face it, then it's probably a good idea to take the other path and leave the damned thing alone. If -I- were in a world with monsters that turned people to stone, that's probably what I'd do. THEN he "gets into character" for the OTHER players and complains that the Barbarians are always arguing for caution. Mostly I'm trying to break him of bad habbits. I recognize that he's pretty new to the game, and excited about all of the possibilites, but I'm hoping to teach him that it's not all about winning, and reading the MM from cover to cover and memorizing the monster stats isn't cool. They actually added that into this incarnation of D&D (the Knowledge skills) but not to that point. Sometimes he remembers to ask for a knowledge check to see if he knows what something is/ what it does. Sometimes. Unfortunately, I usually can't waste his PC unless I make it obvious that I'm trying to KILL the character. Already he's having the character be more defensive in combat because the CRM residents recognize a wizard when they see one and the archers usually FF on him and the other wizards/casters usually try to fry him first. I need a flying Sorc with 4-5 Scorching Rays to really bust him. He stays firmly in the background and is pretty much attached at the hip to a character with cure spells. Then, if I put too much pressure on him inside the rules, he tends to get really competitive about it, and I don't want to re-inforce that "Us Vs. The DM" video-game mentality. Had I remembered D'Gran could fly, he'd have been toast, but it's one of the things I forgot by the 23 hour of my day. D'Oh. When i did remember he managed to block himself in a room with a normal doorway (so no flying over the front rank) and a stoneskinned Barbarian in the way. D'Gran bull rushed and bullied his way in, taking the AoO but the Wizard immediately took off at 60' a round and the AoO was nasty, bringing D'Gran to 32 Subdual and 37 Real HP. One more hit, he'd be down, so that's when i figured he'd go Invis and sneak off to catch his breath for a minute. They were going to cast Fly on the Barbarian and have a wudan style arial battle with greatswords, but by then I wanted to smite Jondar's head mightily. --fje
N1njato Staj (4/6/04 9:15 am) Reply	Re: To Kill A Metagamer Cast Otilukes on Slazh in there. Let him fail the save... then 'encourage' the party to get the **** outta dodge... Edited by: N1njato at: 4/6/04 9:25 am
msherman Briar Beast (4/6/04 9:32 am) Reply	Re: To Kill A Metagamer Has your party hit the Earth Temple yet? The Xorn is a good back-line killer -- it can earthglide under the front line, and take a 5 foot step out of the earth into range to full-attack the Wizard. You might also want to let the player know that his behaviour has encouraged an entire message board filled with some of the nastiest DMs I know to conspire to bring about his demise. Edited by: msherman at: 4/6/04 9:35 am
N1njato Staj (4/6/04 9:34 am) Reply	Re: To Kill A Metagamer I think they're trying to save the party from anihilation, not ensure it....
fjeTheNarrator Human (4/6/04 10:31 am) Reply	To TPK ... Currently the Wiz is 7th level, giving him a 7' diameter sphere. If a creature can't fit, the spell has no effect and I'm sure Slaazh is too big. If he DID cast Oti'Sphere on Slaazh, I guarantee they wouldn't run. He'd want everybody to tap out their Cure Light Wounds wands (4 people have one) healing everybody then they'd get in flanking positions and wait for the sphere to come down, then gang-beat Slaazh while the wizard crouches behind cover a full move away using his Wand of Magic Missile. If it was just Slaazh, they wouldn't be afraid. That's pretty much why I can't put them up against a single monster of less than Large size. They bottle it, buff to the gills, get in perfect positions and wait for the sphere to come down 10 minutes later before going ninja on it. I actually curtailed that tactic by asking what they were casting to use on it and having them mark off those spells and just skipping the battle altogether. "You wait around for the shell to drop, then everybody pounds the monster to pulp. 275xp. What does the party want to do now?" They like to have the battles, so if I rule it's pointless to even roll the dice because they're too well prepared to even be challenged they feel upset. That and I lower the XP granted by a 5% Circumstance Penalty for Overwhelming Preparedness. It's not nearly as much fun if everybody can sit around planning exactly what they're going to do for 10 minutes and then have a readied action to Gank The Monster the second the sphere drops. The group already wasted the Earth Temple, yes. They hate anything with Earthglide. I keep all of the PCs in DMGenie and print them out at each level for the players, and in each of their "Backstory" areas I have a thing called "Likes: and Dislikes:". If I remember correctly, Jondar's sheet has "Fiendish Xorns" under the Dislikes. Along-side "The Voice Of Tharizdun". I made the Xorn fiendish (it IS evil, after all) and it just tore him up with the Earthglide and SR and Fire resistance. I had him at -7 in one full attack, but relented and decided that the Xorn turned its attention to the barbarian right next to it after it dropped the Wizard. Somebody stabilized him at -8, healed him to a handful of HP, and he used a Bead Of Force on the Xorn a round after that when it came up to chew the face off another PC, who ran from it. That's when he fell in love with Oti's Resilient Sphere. They healed and buffed for ten minutes and readied actions to kill the Xorn. I didn't feel like having the Xorn slink away, so I ruled they killed it with readied actions and we moved on. The Earth Temple can always raise another Xorn ... after it's populated with Evil Myconids. Wonder if I should template them ... hrm. Half-Fiend Myconids from the Depths of Hell. I don't use random encounters, ever, so I have a little XP I can work with to throw something weird like that at them. I'm playing around with the Basilisk, currently. I advanced it to 16 HD ... but that's maybe a bit much. It DOES have a DC 17 gaze now, though. It has 198hp, a +22 to attack, and after adding Improved Natural Attack as a feat it does 3d6+7 damage with it's bite. CR 8. Ha. I just rebuilt it again advanced to 10 HD and added Half-Dragon to it. Green Half-Dragon. We just won't ask Vranthis what he's been doing in the CRM ... ... Now it has 110 HP, but AC 20 (up from 17), a +16 attack, which is down, but 3 attacks per round. Gained flight (he he) and a breath weapon and the Gaze DC is back to DC 17. CR 8 again. That's a mean little bugger. I could definately waste half the party with that thing, easy. Not that I want to waste the party, but if they're stupid enough to listen to Jondar's metagaming about how easy it would be to take on the basilisk, they'll definately pay for it. I've told the players several times that I'm plugged into the RttToEE Hive Mind. He's probably getting the point, or will pretty soon. --fje
Killiak Briar Beast (4/6/04 10:35 am) Reply	Re: To Kill A Metagamer Grumble! If one of my players actually meta gamed to that point, the other players would slap him silly before I could even say a darn thing I do it now and then myself as well, but that's the effect of being a DM as well as a player in other campaigns and having played so many sessions altogether. Anywayz; let them run, have D'Gran order his troops to the retreat. Let Slaazh make some more noise; "D'Gran, who dare defy us? etc etc!!!" Have D'gran fly above it and ready a Cone of Cold on anybody trying to follow Two flies with one smack as for the illusion idea, D'Gran CAN use scrolls ya know
Infiniti2000 Night Beast (4/6/04 12:20 pm) Reply ezSupporter	Re: To TPK ... "It's not nearly as much fun if everybody can sit around planning exactly what they're going to do for 10 minutes and then have a readied action to Gank The Monster the second the sphere drops." Well, you can stop allowing that because you cannot ready an action outside of combat. If there are no other opponents, then it's reasonable to assume combat is over. Also, if combat isn't over, the creature can ready an action, too, like move away. Unless the PC's readied to follow, their actions are wasted. It's not as clear cut as you seem to make it. However, quite honestly it seems like your players (this Jondar in particular) have a videogame-like mentality. It's not necessarily bad in of itself, but it doesn't seem to be what you are looking for in terms of a DM. Perhaps a candid conversation about it would help. Do you have the BoVD? I think the best mage killer would be the Large air elemental, buffed by Fachish, using the great idea by Andorax plus a couple more. Fachish should buff the elemental with (in this order) devil's eye, damning darkness, and silence. Other buff spells would help, but this would surely kill the mage unless he gets very lucky. The damning darkness just does damage in addition to darkness (and it's a 4th level spell, so it cannot be countered by daylight or other spells). The devil's eye allows the elemental to see in magical darkness. Of course, it also helps to use the interpretation that the Temple-summoned elementals are called, and not summoned, thus negating the protection from evil hedging (though not the deflection AC bonus). Should you need other ideas, let us know. Also, I had started a thread on Outer Fane tactics, so when you get to that area, bump that thread for a lot more ideas.
fjeTheNarrator Human (4/6/04 1:46 pm) Reply	Video Game Mentality It's a touch-and-go sort of thing, as far as the mentality of the game goes. I'm sort of a blend ... I like the interworking of the rules and creating/playing out combat. I like seeing what I can do with the rules, etc. At the same time, I like a storyline. The rules should always play second fiddle to creating a story, which is something I try to instill in my players. Each of them, however, is about 4-6 years younger than I am (putting them 18-19) and they're all relatively new to the game. 3 of them have caught on with the "idea" of the game ... Ryan plays Hanaur, a half-Orc Barbarian/Cleric of Kord. I've written a few threads about the character development there, and I'm enjoying where he's taking the PC. Brian plays Benkir, a Barbarian/Druid from the north. A little less development, there, though we've had fun interacting with DMGenie's weather creation (runs for a whole year) and playing out survival checks. "I smell snow. We need to get out of this pass or we'll be snowed in by morning." His next character, however, is a relative of Tenaris Glimmerdawn (from the Earth temple prison). He's worked out a nice backstory, which I like. Kat, my fiance, has Role Played for a long time, but her uncles and cousins never really taught her the rules. It was sort of odd when we first started playing. She's really better suited to a system like Amber, as she complained -I- was a powergamer because I knew the rules. One of those groups where the DM has all the dice. She usually "plays" from somewhere else in the room and only gets involved in decisions and when I'm describing things or when there's RP going on. Return isn't really her favorite campaign ... too much battle. Rob (Jondar) doesn't make things any easier for her, since most of the time when I try to inject RP he's drumming his fingers waiting for them to make a wrong move so he can fry them. Honestly, I think about 1/2 of it is the character. He's playing Jondar as Chaotic Neutral self-serving, which apparently to him means throwing down Scorching Ray on everything that blinks and might have some gold on it. We both played in a Friday game set in FR around the Silver Marches that was about 95% NPC interaction and skill checks (mostly because combat with that DM takes eons). Same guy played a Paladin and was really easy to get along with at the table. There was a whole story-line growing up around the PC involving some dead parents and the ascendance of the next master of the temple of Lathander ... When I finally do manage to bump the damned wizard off, I'm definately suggesting that he play a paladin. A very lawful, very good paladin. Perhaps a deaf-mute. --fje
Infiniti2000 Night Beast (4/6/04 2:46 pm) Reply ezSupporter	Re: Video Game Mentality LMAO!