[OOC] Overlords. (Sarpedon/Sanquin)

[Sarpedon]

That seems totally fair to me.

finally had session two of D&D today. Remind me tomorrow for storytime if you want.

[sanquin]

Oh, story time! yes please, as long as it isn't too long. xD

[Sarpedon]

I don't care how long you want it! ;D

Storytime!

So I show up, and it turns out I am the only one prepared. The GM hasn't even shown up yet, and needs to be picked up. His SO is at work, and on top of having a terrible day at work, she is also sick. So he's got his phone out ready to answer her calls at any second. We spent an hour or so, prolly longer, generating characters for the other two players, who weren't even sure which system we were playing when I showed up. Then we got started with my intro. Having rolled up a slightly outlandish character, it took some improv from the GM just to get me into the game. What followed was a half-hour of shenanigans as my character attempted to escape from a city, having landed at the pier furthest from a gate. On top of obviously being a cyborg, he also had spider legs, so everyone hated him on sight. But thanks to his spider legs, he could climb walls no problem. Of course, I would roll a natural 20 to get most of the way up the wall in one go, and then the next round I wouldn't get higher than a 10 and end up back on the ground. And when I got over the wall, I ended up getting tangled in the same ropes that let me get down safely. After a natural 1 at the start of my attempt to escape prison my character was summarily executed. It was hilarious the whole time, though. I had a good time.

So then we moved on to intro number two for the other two players while I did some final prep on my back-up character. The GM gave one of them a solid end-goal, but she wouldn't run with it. She encountered the other player, and they ended up non-committally following a caravan that was heading in the vague direction of their goal. My character was posing as a caravaner and tried to pry anything out of them, and despite the best efforts of myself and the GM they wouldn't split off from the group and go do the quest, and then I got attacked by our back-up main character's lizard-dog. A well-timed and possibly scripted call from the GM's SO resulted in us switching systems after nearly a two-hour IRL adventure where I took my tiny two-seater truck all over the city with the GM to pick up his very sick SO. Then we got back and switched back to D&D

Last time we left off imposing heavily on the hospitality of a surprisingly angry blind gnome who was also very good with magical stuff. We were given two options. We could get in line and spend the day trying to get into Baldur's Gate before nightfall, or we could spend the day at The Green Man Inn and Tavern, and at the bazaar set up across the road by a surprisingly large caravan of calimshani merchants.

Playing a Kobold, my first decision is "I'm going to the bazaar, and I'm going to find the magic items vendor paying the least amount of attention." a barely flubbed roll later and I'm being watched like a hawk. My next declaration of "Next vendor" followed by a 19 modified up to a 21 netted me a magic lamp. This wasn't full on Aladdin, though. I only got one wish, and I didn't know if it was a genie or a djinn or a demon or what was in it. But I'm playing a kobold warlock. All I want is the power to kill all the gnomes. But I'm intelligent enough to know that wishes need to be either vague enough that I can't lose, or iron-clad contracts. So I went the vague route because I didn't have a wish-lawyer handy.

Of course, I couldn't just use the lamp anywhere. The Calimshani people everywhere would know immediately what was going on and freak out. So I spent the rest of the game trying to find a quiet place to rub the lamp and get my wish. At one point I was captured, knocked unconscious, and about to be eaten. I woke up in time to grab the lamp that had been carelessly left beside me, before our half-giant GMPC tore the entire wall out of a caravan wagon to get me out. What followed was the 6'4" dragonborn in what are probably lifted boots, and the half-giant running amok through the bazaar. They did a couple laps of the place before escaping to the packed tavern. It was mostly standing room, so they found seats and managed to disappear with some aggressive stealth rolling. From there, I was berated and ordered to stop my shenanigans. But I still hadn't made a wish. So more shenanigans it was.

After our bard cast a disguise spell on me, I fucked off to the woods, and managed to get my wish. I am now a +1 Kobold of Spell Storing. Everyone within 30 feet of me gets a free extra cast of any spell they've already prepared for that day, up to one level below their maximum. So it tops out at 8th for most casters, and 4th for me. And the best part is, it works for me too!

Of course, right after I get my wish, a fuckin' owlbear runs up and just starts wrecking my shit. I took 14 of my 20 hit points after a glancing blow, and died of my wounds as it accidentally threw me through a tree. But I passed my death save, and with the help of our latest NPC, this one introduced through my near-death experience, I survived. Barely. She cast a healing spell on me, and then picked me up and threw a perfect spiral most of the way to the road, before slaughtering the owlbear with the help of her dire wolf companion. I almost died again from the falling damage, and was rendered unconscious. But I recovered, and found the rest of my party still with the gnome that the kobold is hating more every time they meet.

The collar that used to be on the dragonborn's rogue companion was promptly clapped around my neck as they vaguely explained what had gone on in my absence. It tells the dragonborn where I am at all times, and if he rolls a better will check than I do, I am forced to take the shortest route back to him at any time.

Meanwhile, while I was off in the woods getting sick powers, the party rogue pickpocketed Malfeas flawlessly. But it was a trap. And now we're supposed to work for a wizard. But kobolds don't work for wizards. The bard won't either. So it's going to be a split party, and it's going to be a riot XD Plus, the bard has been kind to the kobold, so he'll pretty well do whatever she wants if she bothers to ask. She seems to mostly get drunk and hang out with the gnome though XD

It was super fun, but it was a super late night.

[sanquin]

That sounds like the kind of fun D&D I've never had. xD My friends were always like "let's be valiant heroes!" So boring. :P

[Sarpedon]

Lol. I got the impression from the GM, that we already had valiant heroes, so I try to steer away from that. Turns out we don't really have any valiant heroes, except for the GMPC who doesn't have time to be a hero because he's always committing very well-intentioned crimes against humanity XD

[Sarpedon]

Storytime!

So I get there on time, and the GM hasn't been picked up yet, so I wait around for an hour. Then the GM shows up and had to go all the way back to get his dice. So we only got in 4 hours today. But it was an interesting 4 hours.

My kobold very nearly managed to get into Baldur's Gate after being discovered. And technically, I did make it, but the asshat Dragonborn I was travelling with had put a collar on me, so whenever he wanted, I had to take a will save or get yanked directly in his direction. I passed the first couple with flying colours, and was almost out of sight, when I failed. I ended up caged and then locked in a prison cell, awaiting execution. Assuming no one would bother to help the lizard, I used some tricksy logicing and talked the GM into letting me cast Phantasmal force on myself to escape. But I didn't roll high enough and ended up killing myself. Kobold ded. And no one got to take advantage of his spell storing ability.

So I pull out my back-up character and level him up. Now I'm playing a human cleric of Lathander. Nice enough guy, really doesn't like shady folks tho. So what happens? I roll right into Baldur's Gate with some name dropping, and go to the same tavern everyone else is in, thinking I'll be able to have a couple drinks and get the party back together. Almost immediatetly, the thief splits the party. Just fucks the whole thing up. And since she won't cooperate, the bard went off to do her own thing, and my cleric, having no money, spends the rest of the day split between drinking and working in the kitchen to earn more drinks.

Then I decide to go to the church of Lathander and maybe get some help from the church. But my special ability "Hear of Darkness" that is supposed to inspire fear and aid from the common folk, backfired into me getting jumped in an alley. The GM overestimated my character, but didn't pull any punches. So he died.

1 GM magic later, and I was alive and well, back to full health in the nearby church of the Forge Father. I get some basic information on my quest and directions to the Morninglord's chapel, and head out. So now I have to not only find, but convince the rest of the party to help me. The dragonborn has his own quest, though it's kinda high level, the thief is not helping anyone by fucking off every time, and the bard's player is kinda exasperated, so she just kinda does her own thing while shenanigans happen... If the next session doesn't get things back on track, I'm going to roll another character. Some kind of multi-classed abomination that is durable enough to tank anything so that at least when I wind up on my own I can survive for a while...

[sanquin]

Sounds like the D&D group is derailing quite a bit. xD I can understand characters doing shenanigans, but I'd say it kinda sucks when people won't cooperate.

I myself would have probably just tried to leave the rogue behind. Like "So you just want to do your own thing? Okay, goodbye. We need people that know of teamwork for this quest." And then the thief would probably just die somewhere being jumped like you or caught or something. :P

[Sarpedon]

Yeah, it's a bit strange.

The problem is that my new character isn't introduced to the group. He almost threw up on the Bard, but other than that, he didn't get to interact with them at all. The Bard is the GM's SO so they kinda try to work together to do the thing, but it doesn't really work when the thief drags her husband around on some stupid quest. Once I get their attention with "Hay guise! Let's do a kill of the necromongers!" she should tag along, but left to her own devices she's a bit haywire.

On the plus side, I get a free magic item for having lost the second most entertaining character the GM has ever GM'd for.

[sanquin]

Haha, well that's definitely nice. xD I like DM's like that, giving small rewards for good characters. :)

I think my favourite character so far is still a lv 16 monk. The party was level...18 I believe? But I was lower because he was a half-celestial. I discussed with the DM to get claw bracers with a bunch of enchants on them, and he was one HELL of a grappler. So every time shit broke loose between party members my character would just grapple the instigator to calm things down. xD That, and he could really dish out damage... They had to fight a big worm thing at one point, and my monk did like 200-ish damage in one round. xD

The only thing I didn't like about him was how he was lawful neutral aligned, being monk and since the whole party was goody-two-shoes... I would have loved to play him as lawful evil. :P

[Sarpedon]

Yeah, our DM only rewards ROLEplaying. ROLLplayers tend to get fucked out of the good stuff. I was doing really well with my kobold because I was playing him so well. Unfortunately, certain characters are more self-destructive than is worth saving XD

That's quite impressive. I think if my cleric gets ganked again I'm going to roll a Barbarian and see if I can bump him up to like 4th or 5th level so I can tank hard when I get abandoned. I think the DM said he was going to roll up a barbarian NPC companion for my character, though, so that at least I'll have something watching my back when the thief runs off to stir the shit pot. The most hilarious part of the thief was the way she would blame the kobold for everything. She was surprisingly well-behaved for a thief, but that mostly just meant she didn't contribute jack shit. My kobold stirred that pot pretty good, but things always turned out decently for everyone in the end, even when he died. He was the only one not okay after that...

I'm playing with a party of chaotic or neutral characters. my neutral good cleric is probably going to be a debbie downer...

[Sarpedon]

got another storytime for you about DM getting fed up with shenanigans, if you want.

[sanquin]

Of course I want. :P Always fun to hear. Also, sorry it's taking a bit longer this time. Haven't been sleeping too well in the last few days... Probably because of the warm weather.

[Sarpedon]

I'll go find that for ya.

No worries, take your time.

[Sarpedon]

Storytime!

So I woke up yesterday, and get a rant from my GM. He's all upset because the thief just fucks around and doesn't really do much in the way of taking any of the hints he keeps smashing her in the face with. He even straight up gave her a quest and she just ignored it. His SO is also upset and she feels bad that my character died and while it wasn't the thief's fault, if the thief had been more involved, maybe it wouldn't have happened. I'm having a good time, honestly, but I do see where they are coming from, and agree that the thief needs to sort her life out.

So we've given up on D&D apparently, and we're switching to Pathfinder. The GM says we can keep our old characters or roll new ones, either way we are starting at 2nd level. I dunno about anyone else, but both of my characters got free magic items out of it, too. so I roll up a cavalier and get free dragonhide plate armour. Masterwork, non-metallic full plate armour at 2nd level? Fuck yeah. Now I'm rolling an Inquisitor, and he gets an Everflowing Aspergillum. Free, unlimited holy water damage. Holy water is expensive as fuck otherwise, so this is dope.

The GM is still worried about shenanigans, though, so when I suggested that after these two serious characters, I would begin to descend into nonsensicality if the thief's antics resulted in the death of either or both, he encouraged me greatly. First up is a kobold cavalier on a riding python. Next is either a Fizban-level half-orc wizard, or a Riddick-esque svirfneblin who is going to out-thief the thief. Apparently the GM's SO is working on a character who may very possibly kill and eat the theif.

Then I figgered I would see if my girlfriend wanted to join in, then maybe we could roll characters together, and I wouldn't get abandoned all the time. But she's now worried that we worship Satan or something. I knew she was Christian, but she seemed really open-minded until I brought up D&D XD I think I managed to convince her that we don't worship Satan, though I'm not sure that being Pagan is any better to her... Fuckin' wild ride. I can't wait for Saturday. We might even do a back-to-back on Sunday, too.

Why is the spell checker not working no more?

[sanquin]

Ouch, though to find out your girlfriend doesn't entirely agree with the absolute blast that D&D can be. (for nerds anyway!) I don't get why some religious people think D&D equals satan though. Heck, (evil) roleplay in general. Can't say I'm jealous, especially since I'm an atheist. xD If I had your girlfriend that would probably go wrong really fast...

Anyway, I'm surprised the DM put up with the thief for so long. It's probably a good thing to start over fresh. And I must say I quite like pathfinder. :) My last D&D group that stopped played with it. I played a pyromaniac human sorcerer at level 4 through 6~7 that time. Every time he cast a fire spell he went all "Burn burn burn! Mwahahahaha!" :P

[Sarpedon]

I tried to convince her to try a session. Even offered to roll up a character for her, but she said she doesn't normally enjoy that sort of thing, so I didn't push it. It was weird. She's really nice aside from that, though, and that's the only time religion's ever come up. I will try bringing it up again in a couple weeks, probably. I'll get her eventually. Or she'll get pissed and dump me. One of the two XD

He's a nice guy, but he's got brain issues thanks to his surgery, makes things a bit strange sometimes. Now the thief and her husband are wanting to carry on with D&D so I rolled up a Svirfneblin Arcane Trickster. If my character dies because of her shenanigans, I'mma bust him out, and from there, it's going to get wild. If you have nonsensical D&D or Pathfinder character ideas, please share. This woman is going to know the meaning of insanity if she splits the party again.

And if you know how to get a half-orc to Fizban levels of intensity, I really need to know that XD

I really like pathfinder, but there are so many options. I have to completely reroll my two pathfinder characters because I keep finding new options. I'mma cry if I'm not allowed to multiclass.

[Sarpedon]

Sorry about the wait, things have been crazy. Figured things out with my girlfriend and had some interesting experiences in D&D. Storytime?

[sanquin]

You still have to ask? :P

[Sarpedon]

Friday was a bit of a shitshow. BBQ was supposed to start at 1730, so of course our GM wasn't ready until 1830 and since I had to pick up him and his wife, we didn't show up until 1900. Then, I breezed through three characters. I realised, at some point, that my characters were all being punished for the actions of everyone else. Whenever the party splits, the smallest, or most vulnerable group gets fucked over, and when your character dies, and you start out alone trying to find a logical reason to join the party, you're the most vulnerable. My GM is one of those guys that insists on logical stuff, and normally that works out fine, unless you die and have to find the party.

My second character, was not the sort of person that screws around when it comes to his alcohol. He's sitting down, enjoying his breakfast pitcher, when someone not only knocks it over, but when confronted about knocking it over, punches him in the face. Being a cleric, he responds with a guiding bolt to the chest, immolating the guy with holy fire. My GM then argued that I should lose my divine powers. I insisted that it was self-defence, that he feared for his life, and felt that the offender deserved retribution. But in-game I failed a persuasion roll and ended up bound (magically), and jailed. I managed to escape, with some effort, and some help from a very confused party, and a half-orc fellow prisoner I intimidated by blocking all of his attacks with my face. We were all acquainted and ready to go adventuring, but every time I tried to initiate a quest and get the party moving, the GM shut me down. Three separate occasions, I approached the party, and offered them gold and whatever loot they could carry, to help me out. By the end of the session, the GM vetoed my character and made me pull out number 3. It was retarded, and I don't know why. He wouldn't comment on it afterward.

So now this is actually my 5th character in one game. I'm playing another Kobold. This one is a rogue though, and he's (normally) much better at stealth and getting magic items. The GM was forced to pull out another NPC because his half-giant wasn't going to fit where the party wanted to go, so he just dragged the kobold with his npc. We got ready for a dungeon crawl through the sewers, and then he called the game.

Saturday, again he's late. But we get to do a proper, traditional dungeon crawl. Right off the bat, I volunteer to take the lead, and get a natural 1 to stealth. I end up walking right up to a zombie, fail to identify it as a zombie, and waste a spell slot casting sleep on it. I also almost put our dragonborn to sleep XD I spend almost the entire rest of the combat getting chewed on, but manage to coup de grace the final zombie. It's at this point that everyone realizes that, not only am I not a gnome, two of us now have some kind of infection that could very possible turn us into zombies. Only the NPC is okay with my being a kobold. But she's also a six-foot tall, half-dwarf, ultra-butch cannibal lesbian, that's falling in love with the bard's character. Even the dragonborn is a little intimidated, and with the GM's rolling, the party decides to deal with the kobold later, as long as he behaves. The more pressing issue is this infection. What follows is a lot of me riding on the NPC's shoulders, taking advantage of my pack tactics ability to get advantage on all my attacks. I'm pretty sure it's half the reason we survived, and we didn't even complete the dungeon. Only at the end of the game, does the GM call bullshit and take away the ability because "it's too powerful". Except that he had to approve it in the first place because kobolds are all homebrewed in 5e. I understand where he is coming from, as a kobold with a crossbow riding around on someone's shoulders picking off enemies with "roll 2 take the highest"+5 to hit, combined with +2d6+3 to damage is quite potent, but I feel like he was blaming me for his own lack of foresight. And the guy's and excellent GM otherwise, I feel like he should have been able to adapt to that. Now, instead of spamming sneak attacks with a crossbow, I get +1 damage.

It's really weird, because sometimes we get incredibly overpowered shit, like the dragonborn that can breathe fire and insta-gib all of the enemies we've encountered so far. Even if every single enemy we fought clustered together into the shape of his fire-breath cone, he would kill all of them in one shot. And the bard tends to get a surprising amount of free shit. It wasn't so bad to start, but it feels like it's escalating slowly. She's really good about sharing with the rest of us, but it does feel a little unbalanced. Plus the Dragonborn got a bunch of free magic items. The thief hasn't gotten much of anything, though that's probably about 50/50 because she doesn't do a whole lot half the time. My lack of survivability makes it hard to last long enough to really get much. And then he goes ahead and takes away the one ability that was really making me useful in combat.

On top of that, the blame game was out in force. The GM blames the thief for shenanigans that are only partially her fault, the thief blames my characters' shenanigans for most of the party's in-game problems. The GM will occasionally accuse a random person of metagaming, and no one listens when I try to justify my way through actions that my characters commit. It's a good game, and they are a good bunch of people, and I'm having fun, but some of them need to work on their punctuality, and I think we all need to communicate a little better. I'm looking forward to playing again, but I dunno what's going to happen. The GM really wants to switch games, and he's suggesting Rogue Trader or Pathfinder. I'm down for both, and have characters for both, but no one else seems to really commit to anything, so we're probably just going to keep playing D&D until we get sick of my characters dying.

[sanquin]

Sounds like the dm is a bit bad at the 'master' part. My parties might have always been good aligned, but at least we got shit done.

Like one time we were guards sent on missions from the king, fought in a war, and became lords with each our own piece of land afterwards.