Homebrew tabletop game system thread the II

[Panzersharkcat]

(OOC: Well, then, let's hope for Alfred's sake that his path doesn't cross with a squirrel's if that's the case because he's still going to kick them away from him if he can. I don't think it'd be in-character for him to know about the magic surrounding exploding squirrels. The logic behind him trying to kick them away in the first place is to punt them away from rocks they're inscribing runes on, since that's what his experience with them is.)

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Bryan has a brief chance to get D. before the elf can attack; in line with his earlier plan, he could take it- but I'd rather know from SLAcker if he's willing to take the risk of being suicide bombed to do it, or if he has any idea to deal with them. Treat them as not a threat and somebody may end up treating Bryan for traumatic amputation of the body.

Actually, four of them break out of the huddle D. had them in, as he was affecting their minds and giving them their rune-stones, and start scurrying through the gaps in the tree-cover towards Alfred.

Well, that's one way of dealing with it.


What it looks like is D. needed to be in one place for a little while to start the fog and the animal attacks, and if he plays true to form so far he'll use cover and evade until he has enough fog to hide in, then move in it and try to pick you off- probably not with much magic, he has to have used a hell of a lot setting all of this up; bow and sword, as much as he can.

this is one reason why so many people think elves are a shade hypocritical; he's trying to start a race war, and he's just dropped two of his own people without the slightest visible shred of remorse. In practise, he'll have decided ahead of time that he's just going to have to do what he has to do, and he'll moan, and mourn, about it afterwards.

For the moment, Bryan has him pinned- he can't go anywhere or do anything complex until he deals with the warriors coming up after him. Acceting the risk of them and going straight for D, who's about fifteen feet away at this point, he's behind the barrier and Bryan coming round the edge of it, what?

Sorchus, at best if that works it'll knock a couple of points- depends how well it succeeds by- off his skills; and...it works, but whether the wash of cold blue light through the fog that settles on him is enough, Bryan's going to have to find out the hard way.

[S.L.Acker]

The pairs of eyes might not be holding anything, even if they are a real threat Bryan is willing to guess that an attack on the elf might break the concentration required to stop them all just scurrying off, and can still hope that he can resist the magic if they do explode. Mind made up he decides to press the elf, hoping that others are getting close enough that his attack won't be for nothing.

His time in fancy halls have opened his eyes to the idea of words as a weapon as well, anything to ensure that the elf is put off, thus he says, "She died for nothing... More like died because you got greedy. Now the only one left to mourn her is trying to throw his life away."

Words loosed on the few steps to close the gap the mercenary starts his attack with a fake swing high. He then aims to cut the elf down below the knees. He might get lucky and end this in one swing, or he might be slow and take a sword to the heart. Either way his sword is moving and he's ready to face the music.

OOC:

Not sure what sort of luck I have left to spend, but I'll spare a point for the swing if I'll still have one left after.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Expecting to be taunted, but not expecting it to slip under his defences so easily, Dleamthayaran directs the two closest bomb creatures to attack; lunges with his glittering, glowing sword.

The fog rolls in thick in a blizzard of shapes that look strangely like numbers, and when it clears again- Bryan actually hit the elf in the head. He closed the distance too fast, the feint turned into the real attack; would have been brilliant apart from the helmet. Stunned him, dazed him and drew blood, but not enough to drop him.

The two rune- bearing creatures throw themselves against him, he resists, there are two blasts of electricity that leave him burnt, twitching, ready to keel over anyway- then he gets stabbed by the elvish longsword, and defibrillated for the third time.

Praise be to the gods of reckless courage; Bryan drops, he's not a very large man and arguably doesn't have the raw strength and endurance for this- certainly not to ride out a sequence of injuries like that; but none of them individually life threatening. (Three moderate and a light wound- eleven wound levels of a possible five and stay standing. After resist injury.)

If the elf doesn't finish him off he should live through this, and he got a good hit in- one of the squirrels sent to face Alfred loses concentration and wanders off, another two are out of position. A well timed sacrifice play.

[Panzersharkcat]

If one does cross his path, he'll try to kick it out of his way. Otherwise, he tries to run past them and to Bryan's aid.

[Simon_Jester]

IC:

Larric's mind flashes back to Coroghan- smothering the pyre Radulf set for Catarin, and nearly smothering Catarin, Fallard, and that poor nameless Yeoman #11 too.

Elves are damn hard to poison, immune to aging and probably have self-cleaning teeth while we're at it- but they do breathe. The elf's exerting himself, just got a knock on the head... this would not be a convenient time for him to run short of air.

Air and Substance- the alchemist starts trying to draw away the oxygen in a globe several feet across around Dleamthayaran's head. Hopefully, someone else will be shooting at him, too. Rohal? You around?

[S.L.Acker]

Bryan has taken hits in his time, even has some scars to show for it, but he's never put himself in the foolish position to take anything more before; that is, until now. What seemed like a milk run, just transporting a prisoner, turned out to be harder than he could have expected. Things moved quickly enough that he hadn't just left for an easier task. That and after seeing the hopefulness of the young Hywel and hearing what the elves had done he finally had a cause.

Now he's downed, his attack had connected, but the elf was just too quick, too skilled. He hardly had time to feel what happened before things faded. His last thoughts before things go black is hoping that he bought the party enough time.

[Panzersharkcat]

(OOC: He said he's going to be transforming but I want to wait for his final confirmation before anything happens. I may not have done that good a job conveying information to him.)

[Feralgnoll]

Rohal will take a shot at the elf, (using a luck point if possible). then attempt to force a transformation to attack the squirrels.

OOC: hoping that werewolf resistances will allow me to tank damage and save party.

[Agent Sorchus]

I think it is time to palm the wood-compass and get into the action. So set my shield and move in ax ready.

[S.L.Acker]

OOC:

ECR, should I be asking for rolls for a new character at this point? I understand that Bryan isn't dead, I just figured better to create a backup character in case the worst happens.

[Agent Sorchus]

OOC probably not necessary yet. We shall see if Life magic, surgery and other health care skills will be enough. I vote yes.

[S.L.Acker]

OOC:

Yeah, I figure that I'll survive, assuming all goes to plan from this point on. Still, it never hurts to have a second character ready in a game where you can die pretty quickly. Doesn't hurt that I enjoy character creation a lot as well.

[Panzersharkcat]

(OOC: Yeah. If Alfred dies, I have a hypothetical evil necromancer in the wings, if that's allowed.)

[Simon_Jester]

OOC:

Assuming D. doesn't decide that slitting Bryan's throat is more important than whatever else he's doing at the moment (like breathing, not getting hit with a big hammer, and not being eaten by werewolves), I'd say you stand a chance. And you'd think the umpty-hundred year old man would put self-preservation first.

Evil necromancer- the centrifugal effect on the party would be a problem. Larric and a guy like that Would Not Get Along, I can't really come up with a way to reimagine how Larric's played that would make him cool with that. And I would prefer to avoid a situation where two PCs get into heated arguments over methods and it becomes impossible to figure out why they're still traveling together.

See here, under the "Decide to React Differently" thread, for an illustration- only in this case I'm having trouble figuring out how a different reaction could make sense at all.

If we could have a bit of OOC crosstalk in here about how to make the concept work, maybe it could be done though. Dunno- would want advice and third-party opinions.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Non combat bit first;

there are such things as 'good' necromancers- the ability to suppress life can be a valuable talent in healing, as good as you're likely to get for stopping tumours and viruses, as far as they're understood at all- and with extremely fine control possibly even doable for anaesthesia- but that's not really the point, is it?

Remember the Black Towers; necromancy was one of their big hobbies, and it got the entire field a thoroughly evil reputation- any necromancer, anyone showing much proficiency with that or summoning things- who isn't actually a priest and who therefore does not have a right to do so, that is- is very easily assumed to be the bad guy.

New character? Wait until all the area effects are in first.


Actions to resolve; Alfred's running past a suicide critter to get to D., Larric's asphyxiation attempt, Rohal's lob shot over the growth in the way- have to be- hm.

Again, timing works for you on this one. Alfred was thrown and squashed a bit by an earlier blast, wasn't he- this will take him dangerously close to keeling over like Bryan, then; outrunning it almost works.
The one that still has murder on it's controlled mind scampers out after Alfred, he loops wide round it, but at point of closest approach it spitefully detonates itself anyway.
The surge of air, being hit in the back by his own personal hurricane, actually throws Alfred forward against the raised growths D. is using as cover; knocking the breath out of him and leaving him feeling very squashed, but alive and moving.

Weakened but not stopped, he moves round the edge of the overgrowth to spot Bryan on the ground surrounded by fulgurites, and D. trying to overcome Larric's air magic.
Which he does by pulling back the mist, his own air and water, filling the bubble of vacuum- he's more powerful, he can do it, but at the cost of contracting the hidden space and of time, time Alfred uses to close on him.

Rohal's arrow is hardly off the bowstring before he drops, crouches, hopes his sanity doesn't go away during the trransformation, and tries to force it through. (The dice just decided that it works, really well. Should take much longer than this. All hail the tides of fortune.)
Next thing he knows, it's a split second later and he's furry and bounding up towards the hide- arriving at the same time as William, and hoping to get it over with while the adrenalin is still strong and before the shock and pain of transformation actually hits.

Any more detail on Alfred's plans?

[Kaelan]

OOC
waiting to get an update for ECR of where william currenlty is before my next post (in particular distance from D. and the rest of the party).

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Twenty yards away and closing fast; one clash between Alfred and D, then William and Rohal pile in too.

[Simon_Jester]

IC:

Hm. One-on-one didn't work well for Bryan, I should be trying to take the edge off the elf's swordsmanship a bit until the others catch up with Sir Alfred.

"Sword crackling with St. Elmo's fire... glittering, glowing." That means corona discharges, which means current running along and out the blade, which means... got it.

Elven weapons are designed to channel and mirror their user's abilities and aura, yes? Well then. As above so below, so let's see about trying one seriously torqued sword for one seriously torqued elf.

Lightning, shock waves, night and fog, those are all fairly standard tricks of air magic which D. seems quite well prepared to give and take, or to parry and riposte if he gets the time. Magnetism? Let's find out. Larric concentrates on creating zones of twist around the elf- a magnetic field. Nothing unreasonable, not noticeable for the human body, at most mildly inconvenient if you're swinging a chunk of ordinary ferrous metal around... but definitely a problem if you're trying to whip a current-carrying wire back and forth through the zone of effect. Trying to fight with a sword that's suddenly experiencing sharp tugs perpendicular to the blade's plane of motion isn't going to be fun.

And the faster he moves, the more power he pours down that blade- by rights, the worse the twisting effect gets.

[Simon_Jester]

...Shit. We just lost one of our players, to massive self-inflicted gunshot trauma to the feet.

Now what?

[Feralgnoll]

Now what?

character dies of an aneurysm.

[Simon_Jester]

Hmm. That's actually plausible, under the circumstances...

If anyone wants, I'll see if I can rustle up a new player from somewhere.

[Kaelan]

OOC
I guess that semi fatal wound's gone septic then.

IC
With all the magic flying around williams going to join in. He will attempt to use his metal magic to inflict deep lacerations on the elf with the aid of his wand. Spoiler

Hit him with the axe.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Dear God and bloody hell. I'd dipped into that, caught the bit about him being a submissive but just thought "it takes all sorts", followed through a couple of posts, wondered whether or not to say anything to him about it, such as "don't get yourself banned before we complete the arc, at least"- selfish, but I'm not sure what would have achieved anything.


I thought he couldn't possibly mean the children bit, he must be trolling, and stopped paying attention- didn't really understand how odd he actually was. I mean, there is understanding to be gained there, thinking about the dividing line between youth and maturity and why it is where it is, how it got to be there, but that thread really, spectacularly wasn't it.

How much of that do you think he really believed, how much was exaggeration in the midst of argument, how much caricature? Anyone who comes out with something like that has no place on a web-board aiming to aspire to civilisation- SDN is pretty rough tongued as a rule but there are some things that definitely and instantly go too far, some things that the board accepts are genuinely wrong.

There's no possibility of his being unbanned that I can see, not this side of waiting for reincarnation- that would be what it would take to change him to something the board would want back. The person who posted that, in that thread, isn't the person I thought we were gaming with, let's just say that much; maybe we got the best side of him.

If the consensus is to go on without him, we'll do that; and to drop the subject...yes, I'd rather do that. Just had to sort that out in my head first.



Larric's attempt to create zones of twist is complex and will take time; the first clash with Alfred is going to happen before then, so it's sword on hammer, then that, then William and Rohal, who is in wolf form now.

As both of them are wounded, neither of them actually manage to hit- a charge leaps off D's sword and manages to shock Alfred into twitching and missing, the tired, dazed lunge from D. is batted aside with a quarterstaff- like parry that was actually more than half twitch.
Larric's attempt to bend and bind the air around him into zones of twist is a technical success; posting now while I think abotu the countermove and how the melee is going to go.

[Simon_Jester]

Dear God and bloody hell. I'd dipped into that, caught the bit about him being a submissive but just thought "it takes all sorts", followed through a couple of posts, wondered whether or not to say anything to him about it, such as "don't get yourself banned before we complete the arc, at least"- selfish, but I'm not sure what would have achieved anything.

i doubt it- I tried to warn him that he was digging his way into a pit myself, before he'd said anything entirely irredeemable, but he never saw the PM as far as I can tell.

There's no possibility of his being unbanned that I can see, not this side of waiting for reincarnation- that would be what it would take to change him to something the board would want back. The person who posted that, in that thread, isn't the person I thought we were gaming with, let's just say that much; maybe we got the best side of him.

Sounds about right.

If the consensus is to go on without him, we'll do that; and to drop the subject...yes, I'd rather do that. Just had to sort that out in my head first.

Works for me. I vote that Bryan's fate be deliberately ambiguous- and dropped. There.
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Larric's attempt to create zones of twist is complex and will take time...

To me it's quite simple, but I don't expect the game to agree- do note that I'm not actively trying to control the sword, just to interfere with D.'s use of it by introducing a variable he didn't expect and may not have a carefully-ingrained, long-trained defensive reflex for coping with.