Homebrew system thread II, section 3

[Jub]

"That's all beyond me. Is there anything somebody who doesn't know a lick about magic and bringing a building down can do to help?" Bertram asks as he paces trying not show the nerves that have built up after the spell nearly turned him into a puppet.

[Simon_Jester]

"Tell people to run away because magic's about to explode next door?"

[Fiji_Fury]

Dale, unable to assist with the fireworks due to (a) not having any mana left and (b) not having particularly powerful skills that would be handy for demolition work (physical or magical) decides to have a go at the Valdemironi symbols and relics in the place. He's not destroying them though... trying to pick any of the obviously important ones up.

"These may be prudent to preserve. Not all of Valdemiron's servants can be so stupid as the leaders here."

OOC: You're doing well with the character voice Simon. I'm doing much less well with mine.

[Simon_Jester]

I do it on purpose as an exercise in literary discipline; can I represent an intelligent man with a solid dose of sense, one who is by no means ignorant or unlettered... but whose spoken vocabulary consists largely of words of one or two syllables? And who simply doesn't share the generally accepted frame of reference on the subjects of which he speaks?

[Jub]

"Getting people clear is something I can do," replies Bertram before heading out of the building.

Once before the crowd he looks for something elevated to stand on and gets atop it before projecting, "We need you all back outside the walls. The magic within is too dangerous and un-weaving the ritual is likely to cause this building to come down. Stay alert and be ready to take cover when you hear a bang, I don't know how much of a blast we might be dealing with."

[Kaelan]

Dirt shakes his head, trying to clear the remnants of the control magic as the world slowly comes back into focus. Lets not try that again. He reaches out and passes Larric a quarrel from his crossbow.
"Magic boom stick? Like with hammer."

He approaches Dale & Jub. "Maybe you two go to castle and be ready for when spell ends. May need fast help there to take control."

[Simon_Jester]

Larric looks confused "What do you want to shoot it at?"

[Kaelan]

Dirt points to Larrics mixtures and then to the quarrel head, "sky magic on end. Make boom from further away. Yes?"

[Simon_Jester]

"We'd need a clear shot. I think I can manage, but thanks."

[The ritual circle is inside a building that is inside a walled enclosure. Larric can probably create a runic spark-trigger that will trigger exploding methanol fumes from much farther away than any arrow (lightning or otherwise) could be fired into the vicinity of the circle]

[Jub]

"I can't think of much better to do," replies Bertram before he calls back to the crowd again, "Alright, lets move towards the castle. Try to avoid any fights that we can, if this all goes right these people should stop fighting and we'll have our hands full dealing with confused people, and the wounded."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Gloomphings; spent most of yesterday on the move, writing. I have to produce something at some point, after all.

To Bertram's comment that it's all beyond him, Lisanna says 'Yes, you can act as the sanity and common sense of most of this lot. It helps to have someone who isn't blinded by the shiny possibilities- without having both feet on the ground, they would have charged straight in, fallen into the trap and be building siege catapults by now. Ready?'

[Simon_Jester]

You know, I never did get anyone's reaction to my actual plan, except Dirt (who had a good idea I'm pretty sure won't work) and Jub. While Larric's happy to come up with an idea, he really isn't going to trust himself to handle this fully without at least consulting the priests and court wizard's response to my post on the last page.

[Fiji_Fury]

Dale is on the same page as Larric. The destruction the tower was effective, though we'll need to keep people at range from the site of this particular collapsing ritual. Otherwise though, the Ikrahni priests haven't offered up a better/viable option yet, and Lisanna is generally in agreement with Larric. Dale has little power of the sort needed in this case, but he's seen the same urgency as the two mages and can't identify any better way of dealing with this crisis so: all in.

"Bertram, I will help you direct our allies away from the temple. Larric... if you can, end this."

[Jub]

"I'm ready." He says to Lisanna.

Turning to the men before him he calls out, "Come on people, let's get moving towards that castle. The longer we stay here the more pits we'll have to dig come morning."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Lord, I hate windows 8.1...this password thing, just after I had got the new rig all set up (well, ish) is the last straw. Argh. Explorer 11 has such a complicated startup/setup procedure that I bailed halfway through and installed Chrome instead. I feel like I have a giant spider sitting on my back. Still don't know if I actually got stung or not.


The priests and acolytes were trying, as befits followers of the god of craftsmen, to find a constructive solution. What the party's charades and probing did for them was to prove that it wouldn't work. (A story from the world of live roleplaying; this is when I was trying to get into the faction ritual team and got landed the job of writing a ritual. We had stolen from the evil queen one of the few things that could really hurt her, and she was trying to track it down, what we were going to do was lay a false trail for her, so that she would chase off in the wrong direction after it and give team A the chance to turn it from a glorified bit of random arcane scrap into a real weapon. I got so into it, I didn't realise how much of a certain death suicide mission- hey, megabad, come and chase us- it was going to be until after it had been cancelled.)


'That's a bit drastic- granted this lot may be all mad, but...he is the chief of the gods, and the main temple is not going to be happy about this. Monumentally unhappy, in fact- one of the reasons we wanted to do it the complicated way is to avoid the saner end of their faith deciding that regardless of the circumstances this is an attack they can't ignore, and landing on us with such force as they can muster.' The senior acolyte points out. 'I don't like how the straight, explosive solution could come back to rebound on us later on.'

Lisanna's response is 'Assuming the worst, you had a taste of the mind magic- I'd rather stand against that than for it. Larric? It's interesting explosion time. Yours first, I think.'

[Simon_Jester]

"If we can, let's try to keep the flash and bang bottled up. On the mountain, the magics were into the building itself- here, not so much. And less of it's pure force, less that has to go "bang" rather than "that was a funny idea."

He scratches his chin and looks at the altar, its statuary and movable runestones. He wants a 'thump' that will knock over and misalign those things, which presumably would be enough to disrupt the enchantment... without necessarily causing major structural damage. If major structural damage happens it should be a side-effect of the force of the Valdemironi's own magic- them having done a wrong thing, and done it so hard that there was no way to stop it without the backlash wrecking their own temple.

He has a bowl of wood alcohol, and the werewithal to tightly mix its fumes with (oxygen-enriched?) air in a small pocket, warded and contained by a bubble of overpressure. As fuel-air grenades go, it could be worse- but it could also be a lot bigger and nastier.

The real problem is going to be getting his 'thump' onto the altar itself without getting brainwashed- or, given how close that would bring him to the effect, brainsterilized. On that, he'll ask for ideas.

He holds up the bowl- it's safe to touch as long as there are no sparks, and that reminds him, is there any fire on the altar? If there is, slight change of plans before he says this next thing.

"What I'm not sure of is how to put this in there safely. It won't balance properly on a stick, which is how we did it on the mountain. And... maybe you can ward yourselves? I'm not sure I have the knowing of that."

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Sorry for the long absence; I have been away from the computer and away from home over the Easter weekend- in Ireland in fact, being part of the thousandth anniversary re- enactment of the Battle of Clontarf. First we play it out as it actually happened a thousand years ago, then we get to the important part- the two sides form back up and have a free for all go at each other. The score was six each over the two fighting days, and it was a good example to hold up of exactly how to properly organise a show and keep a horde of armed mercenary lunatics happy. Great fun; look for it on youtube, there are several up.


Back to normal, then, and the thing to do is to execute the detonation and demolition, yes? Thanks largely to the acting earlier, the rite has been teased out, forced to open itself up, it's vulnerabilities charted- by Lisanna if no-one else, who has the eyes to see.

The crossbow idea has merit- why not? Dirt's ballista (near enough, anyway) could do the job; might be able to shoot through the doors, for that matter. Although probably not carrying a burning band, so that's out. Putting a charge on it, however, will.

Boom. To go through what happens, there is a fireball- a peculiarly pale first flash, so much so as to be almost invisible, then a more coloured fire as the objects in the temple catch fire and are driven on the expanding flame then a silvery blue flare of trails and knotwork and faces in the mist as the mind affecting magic, boosted by the destruction of it's physical anchor, begins to expand- and then is caught by an expanding, outreaching burst of green fire that begins to unravel and erase it, itself driven by the blast.

There is a twisting, spiralling column of light, ghost and green crystal, tangling around each other, wrestling for supremacy- and the green light gains the upper hand, as both fade to nothing.

plot point done. Everybody, 6 XP and you may argue for more. Sort that, then move to the aftermath and the situation at the castle.

[Jub]

Is exp spent like starting skill points, or does it follow some other system?

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

That was fast. Probably the best possible call; unfortunately, we just don't seem to have quite the level of skill required to be, ah, independently formidable when dealing with a problem like this. We have, essentially, one magic-user, and he lacks the range and depth of technical skills to handle this sort of thing.

Due to my ignorance of the actual game rules*, it's hard for me to predict exactly what will be useful for a wizard who does want to be effective, to have the ancillary skills required to effectively analyze and break up hostile magic.

*[grumbles again, but this grumble is essentially no different from any other in the past two years]

As for XP...


Larric got thrown brutally up against the power of religious magic and mind-foggery, and the experience of fighting it was rather like trying to pick up a temple on his back and carry it up a mountain. I think it reasonable to presume that the sheer will to hit others over the head with the obvious may actually be enough to allow him a breakout into making that possible, given a great deal more training.

Can you use Vision to encourage others to perceive the truth of an idea as you do? To see a trickster as a trickster, a knave as a knave? It sounds like the magic of perspective- or is it meant purely to create ordinary illusions about physical things?

If the latter, I think I'll spend my points differently than I would if this idea can work.

[Jub]

(OOC: I looked back to the first thread and found out how leveling works.

I think I'll go with an even spread between Axe, Shield, Resist Injury, Dodge, Leadership, and Inspire. I don't know what the per skill gains will be, but those were the skills I found myself using the most.)

[Simon_Jester]

That'd put you at:

Temper 14:
Determination 15, Resist Magic 9, Resist Persuasion 12

Fellowship 14:
Bargain 15, Human Perception 12, Leadership 10

Charm 15:
Banter 12, Con 15, Persuasion 10


Logic 10:
Economics 7, Perception 10, Politics 5

Creativity 10:
Inspire 11, Tactics 9

Education 10:
Craft (Brewer) 10, Culture (Local) 8, Business 5


Strength 13:
Axe 13, Brawl 8, Shield 12

Endurance 12:
Resist Injury 15, Survival 10

Agility 10:
Riding 10, Dodge 10

Due to your spectacularly high Fellowship score (14 gives you an untrained base of 5) you only pay 0.5 points for each point in Leadership up to 10, so that only cost you 5.5 XP. The remaining half point would be most logically spent on buying either the first point of an entirely new skill, or a single point in something your character is relatively low in.

The existing skills you could upgrade for a half-point are:
Resist Magic (Temper)
Politics (Logic)
Business (Education)

---

Basically, to determine XP costs, take your base stat (such as Logic) and round to the nearest multiple of three. Then divide by three. That's your untrained base skill score.

Thus, Logic 10 gives a base of 3 in all Logic-based skills, while Logic 11 gives a base of 4.

You can buy skills up to twice the base for 0.5 XP per point. After that it's 1 XP per point up to four times the base, and... I think 2 XP per point up to six times the base, which is where diminishing returns start to kick in unless it is really important that you excel in that area.

Larric mostly muddles through with skills in the 1 XP/point range, which may help to explain why he has trouble achieving high-order results in any one area.

My feeling is that to be truly dangerous as a starting character in this system, at least as a human being, you more or less have to either:

1) Be a non-caster, in which case you have good starting ability scores. You may not be able to work magic, but you'll be quite impressive in your chosen physical/social/intellectual fields, and probably have a lot of broad-based talent and ability across the board. If Temper is your strong suit you even have a fighting chance against magic-users, within reason.
or
2) Be a caster, and accept a lot of major Disadvantage points during character creation, which allows you to buy up significant magical power without drawing down your stats too far.

[Jub]

Temper 14:
Determination 15, Resist Magic 10, Resist Persuasion 12

Fellowship 14:
Bargain 15, Human Perception 12, Leadership 10

Charm 15:
Banter 12, Con 15, Persuasion 10

Logic 10:
Economics 7, Perception 10, Politics 5

Creativity 10:
Inspire 11, Tactics 9

Education 10:
Craft (Brewer) 10, Culture (Local) 8, Business 5

Strength 13:
Axe 13, Brawl 8, Shield 12

Endurance 12:
Resist Injury 15, Survival 10

Agility 10:
Riding 10, Dodge 10

Okay, I'll set my skills like this then.

About starting characters. I get the same feeling, but that's true of anything really. The jack of all trades is a good guy to know - and he makes a great NPC - but if the party has those bases covered he's a second fiddle and if the party doesn't he's only halfway good at making up for the lack.

[Simon_Jester]

True.

Well, Larric is a basically functional wizard whose main weakness is his narrow focus of expertise, Dale and Dirt both excel at killing things even if Dale is dangerously rash in a fight at times. If this were a dungeon crawl we'd be all set. But the campaign always circles back to intrigue and we could really use a good social engineer- the character concept I've had kicking around as a backup in case Larric dies/quits (unthinkable! After two years and change?) would be set up with that in mind.

Come to think of it, he'd no longer be wrestling with Sir Alfred for rolespace... but I'm honestly happier playing Larric.

[Jub]

My character can do some of the talky stuff, his main disadvantage is his lack of rank or status and not really knowing precisely what's going on at the moment. Plus the events I was present for didn't really seem like a place to try and bluff somebody.

[Fiji_Fury]

6xp... Hm...

Well, there's been some weapon work (that went fairly well no less) so those skills will have improved. Shaking off the effects of the ritual spell leads to being less persuadable and more magic resistant. Also, between listening to the nut-job Valdemironi something about delivering speeches makes a little more sense now. Let's top it off by recognizing that while stone-cold useless in analysing the ritual, an attempt was made and with others around to explain parts of it (even if only briefly) a tiny bit more understanding of such rituals has fallen into place.

+1 to Resist Persuasion = 11
+1 to Resist Magic = 16
+1 to Long Sword = 15
+1 to Dagger = 13
+1 to Oratory = 8
+1 to Rites & Rituals = 7

Dale still isn't sure whether all of this improvement is for him the development of new skills, or sometimes recalling old ones that have become lost in his amnesia addled consciousness. Either way, he's feeling more competent at his job in combat and is also starting to realize there are many things related to the religious and mystical world that he should know, but doesn't.

More xp at the next juncture will be welcome into whatever skills are being used. We'll see what happens soon though I suspect.

Onward to the castle!