The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: Lord VreegMiston Group
For those wondering about the dragonrider fight  This was posted by one of the players finally.
 1/6/895--group leaves on carpets, gets spotted by Anchal the Black and Horak Vos Intervok, ograk Dragonrider, of the Giantclans Silverworth.  This will be a fierce battle to the death...

The group stops and prepares for battle. Amber touches Grak's, Elm's, Snowpacker's, and her own weapon and envenoms them. She also drinks a potion of fire affect. Grak hides and shadow and moves silently. Morgan takes out her staff of thunder and lightning. Drono takes a potion of dragon breath immunity and a potion of heroism and hands it off to Morgan. Elm, Snowpacker, and Jolen also take doses of dragon breath immunity and heroism. As the dragon lands, it casts a spell that tries to ensnare people with thorns. This ends up slowing some people down. Iesu is also running around trying to cast preparation for combat. Amber also ends up getting frozen in fear from the dragon. Morgan uses her staff of lightning and damages the dragon and kills the ograc. The dragon uses its breath on Gaba, Amber, and Morgan. Gaba ends up dying. Amber casts a flame surge at the dragon and does a large amount of damage. The dragon casts a magma spell near Amber, Iesu, and Morgan. Iesu had just finished healing Amber from the last attack. Amber and Iesu get injured. Iesu heals herself. The dragon uses its breath on snowpacker, jolen and Angus. Angus is not immune to the dragon breath and dies. Snowpacker hits and damages the dragon. Xia tries to attack the dragon from the back and doesn't do any damage. Grak is also getting ready to attack the dragon from the back. Elm attacks the dragon and delivers a critical blow killing the dragon.

Iesu uses raise from the dead and full healing on Gaba. Drono uses his food preservation kit on Angus.

The Ograc had Dragonscale and ceramic armor. 48av/36 prot +10% on all elemental. Demilune of control +19% to hit +2 dam after divide. -2 sp -2 animist. Lizard tongue 2/day. Blessing of snake and spider 2/day

SO a few interesting notes here.  This was written by Grakdung, one of the original PCs of Celtricia.  This group has been played now for 14 years.  This means that the above is a PC's view of how a combat feels and runs with a VERY powerful group.  
A couple things to note.
1) the group has a lot of stuff.  Frankly, I'd forgotten things like the potions of dragon breath immunity.  I actually asked to see their character sheets.  But is shows how tough a dragon is even for a 14 yr old group when they pull out all the stops.  Potions are the most common form of artificed items, as you can see.
2) Dragonriders always get killed before their mounts.  Always.  His spell casting was fun for a the early part of the fight when he was gflying and each group was looking for an advantage.  But anything tough enough to hurt a Dragon in Celtricia....
3) I know I offed a few PCs and NPCs, but I frankly expected the death toll to be higher.  They were extremely smart, spread out, and expended a ton of resources.  The use of the potion of fire affect reduces spell resistance, which is what allowed Amber to crush the Dragon with her Flame Surge, as well as max damage.  Grak also forget to mention that everyone in the group either had been or was still below 10 hp at the end of the conmbat, except for Chicke Xia Du Ping.
4) my PCs are extremely humourous in their use of skills.  Witness Drono the Former peasants clever use of 'Game Preparation/preservation' on Dead Angus.  

Ugg
 
So we've had major attrition in Igbar lately.
Not Players, thank god, but 4 PCs and 4 NPCs in the last 3 sessions.  Squire Tusnus, George the Mysteriarch, Bard Cucino...all 1-2 year old PC's gone due to player mistakes.  And as a long-time GM, I just can't let them be injured or badly hurt, they were SO dead.

But the players immediately took responsibility.  A little grumbling from one, but the drive to make new PCs (complete with the new soc acquisition chart) and the 6k base exp I gave them has them pretty excited.

Tough for me to do, as especially Bard Cucino was popular in ton and had made trhe most with the social rules...but it had to be.

And for those who feel fear killing off PCs and losing players, I won't be losing anyone.  If the game is good enough, they may be frustrated, but they will stay.

Worse than running past a guy swinging a scythe on a bridge?

Must suck to loose a PC after a year, but I've got to say the social acquisition chart is nice thing to have (now).

Quote from: LlumWorse than running past a guy swinging a scythe on a bridge?

Must suck to loose a PC after a year, but I've got to say the social acquisition chart is nice thing to have (now).

Clark and Joe (the guys who lost folks last night) are very 'kinetic' players, in that they need things to be happenning and to be affecting the world around them.  The group had bogged down in terms of options, so Bard Cucino (Joe), Undersquire Jonas (CLark), and Mage Ebeneezer (Thorson) decided to try to run across the large bridge above a huge room in the Tomb of the Steel Libram.  Bridge is arching stone, 200' long (below are bridges going the other way, and 100' doewn, a strange idol on the south wall lit by fire).
Now, point of fact, the group had gotten 1/2 way over this bridge before when they found themselves hit by Firebolts coming from 2 deep, concave opennings 30' up on the left and right sides of the room, which killed some NPCs.  So this was something of a 'fuck it' move, and 2 of them died stupidly, thee other was knocked into negatives and was dragged back...Ebeneezer has a 60% fortitude roll, and started at -3, briefly rose to -2, then dropped to -3, -4, -5 (which is -50% on a roll, he could only fail one more and then he was dead with the others) but they finished dragging him back to the healers literally with seconds to spare.

Bard Cucino is a loss for the group, but also for me.  He represents the 'stats and abilities don't matter, playing matters" school that I aspire towards.  Cucino was Joe's first character, and he sort of max/min'd it, if that is thew proper opposite to Min/Maxing.  He took the wrong amount of skills to do anything.  His school derided armor use (so he ain't going to be front rank in GS), he was a BArd who did not take basic social, he only took one level in Mentalist and rolled 1 spell point, so he could not cast any of his spells...
Basically he survivced about 2 years on sheer chutzpa and great role playing, and a lot of HP.  He was the one we said, "Took damage like it was his job."  He networked well, spreading money and influence around.  He brought Squire Tusnus' ashes back to the Armor of Trade and deeply moved them, and he became a popular performer at the Sweet Retreat, sometimes showing up with the rest of the New Legion in the Dockside neighborhood of Igbar, still covered in gore and blood, and hit the stage with s few other members of the Martial School of Song, creating song that derided whoever in town was bothering the group or trying to use song sand verse to describe the harrowing nights spent in the Sunken Boneyard.

SO it sucks he got himself killed, -23 in HP from firebolts normally means 'pile of ashes.'  But Joe will make a new character.  And Bard Pharren will go to the Sweet retreat on the night of 2/25, with just his Lyre and a stool, and he will, in meter and time, tell the story of Brave Bard Cucino.  

Quote from: LVAnd Bard Pharren will go to the Sweet retreat on the night of 2/25, with just his Lyre and a stool, and he will, in meter and time, tell the story of Brave Bard Cucino.

The best kind of happy ending.

Bard Cucino sounds like an awesome character. I am glad he will live on in rhyme and verse, immortalized.

Bleu Lantern of Ambretta

This wrought iron and silver-chased, circular, oil lantern is sought after by casters. It is small, 18" tall and 6" inches diameter, with oculars on opposite sides. The oculars are 5" tall, and are covered in a light blue quarts, and the top of the lantern is studded with beryls. The silver accents are brushes into circular culiques. It is a masterwork item of high quality, worth over 800 horn for the workmanship alone, with the jewelry worth adding another 1200 horn.

It's functions will operate only when lit, so a caster must open the top and fill the small (1 hr) reservoir as well as light it.

It has the following functions.

Bleu Lantern on command, cast as lvl 10.
Bleu Eyes 4/day, cast as lvl 10.
Enhance Detection, minor 3/day, as level 10.
Lesser Eye 2/day, as level 10.
The Shared Word 1/day, as 10th level.

The lantern is delicate and can only take 3 HP of damage and has a protection value of 10.

Heh... so the group can hide in a pitch black room in total silence and prepare an ambush without being seen or heard while still able to see and hear their target and direct each other during the ambush.

Quote from: NomadicHeh... so the group can hide in a pitch black room in total silence and prepare an ambush without being seen or heard while still able to see and hear their target and direct each other during the ambush.

why yes, you get it.
it may not seem that useful, until you get that idea.

I just read the first page for the first time, and may I just say that this is amazing and you should be published. You and your players, who I am guessing helped, have created an amazingly original, interesting and aparrently very playable (since you've been playing in it for so long) system.

 That being said, I completely agree with you on many topics, especially the one regarding hitpoints. It was something I could not stand. Stabbing somebody with a big sharp knife does 3 out of 24 damage? It's ridiculous.

 I'm going to read more, but I just don't have time now.

Quote from: SurvivormanI just read the first page for the first time, and may I just say that this is amazing and you should be published. You and your players, who I am guessing helped, have created an amazingly original, interesting and aparrently very playable (since you've been playing in it for so long) system.

 That being said, I completely agree with you on many topics, especially the one regarding hitpoints. It was something I could not stand. Stabbing somebody with a big sharp knife does 3 out of 24 damage? It's ridiculous.

 I'm going to read more, but I just don't have time now.

Time is the Essence,
immutable, untamable, irreplaceable.
In photo-sepia or written remembrance
the pain is unescapable.

Tine is a resource that can be impossible to find or make.  

HP, damage, armor, skill advancement, and lethality scaling all go hand in hand, as well as how heroic the game you want to create is (and what you believe makes heroes).  It can be a hard balancing act to get the right mixture on all of these.  How valuable do you want gear and magic to be?  How will you feed the Player's undeniable Maslowian needs for expression and actualization/improvement without unbalancing the game (which is a BIG problem with most games).

Your big sharp knife should still scare the crap out of an unarmored warrior, even if they have been played for a few years.  However, in many games, due to the other factors listed above, the mighty warrrior played for a few years might have enough HP/Life to get stabbed 10-20 times (including criticals etc).  EEcchh...

I find it interesting how you balance encounters without some form of combat level system myself. Granted it's probably a pain to do with the steel isle group (thanks to kellik being a war beast).

Quote from: NomadicI find it interesting how you balance encounters without some form of combat level system myself. Granted it's probably a pain to do with the steel isle group (thanks to kellik being a war beast).

You know, it really isn't hard.
Because I actually don't try to hard to scale them.

Back in the olden days of yore, when we were deciding the merits to adding some of the rules of new-fangled AD&D to the white book rules we'd been using, no one worried about balancing stuff.  The idea was that since you were trying to model some level of reality, and since you'd write the adventure ahead of time, the PC's would learn caution and investigate/survey the situation first to see if it was something they wanted a part of.
The whole idea of level-appropriate encounters and all of the bastard stepchildren since (that have frankly gotten worse and worse) is one of the primary changes that ruined most later versions of D&D games for me.
Metagaming is considered a bad thing in any games that attempt roleplay and immersion, and yet this most fundamental foundation piece of the later generations of the game, the 'Encounter Level', not only promoted metagaming but insists on it.  The PC's KNOW that the whatever is coming will be suited to their level...built in-metagaming.

So when some of you hear me grouse about rules, a lot of the basis for me has been rules like this.  Metagaming is the opposite of roleplaying, so don't add in rules that ENFORCE metagaming and try to call it a roleplaying game.

I'm not going to say that I don't try to set things up so that harder encounters are harder to find in Celtricia, or that I don't tweak things in game to try to tilt things in the proper direction.  For example, I could have had both of the witches 'pet lycans' attack your group way back when.  But especially for the adventures, I play them as I design them.  The immutablity and consistency of the setting demands this, in my book, so I take very special care in creating each area.  
However, my players all fear the unknown, as they should and is the feel I think most 'world-creators' want.  I aim for verimilitude, so that things in an adventure make sense being there.  Again, for example, in the Steel Isle game the placement of the Cultists and the humanoid guards in the ruins, when looked at in perpsective as to the entrance and proximity to the recent battle zone, all makes logical sense.

So you know what, my friend?  I count on you to be the ultimate encounter-leveler.  I count on you to use clever tactics and sheer chutzpa to overcome tough fights, and to know when to avoid the ones you may not be ready for.

amen to that Lord Vreeg. While i hate to bring a CRGP into this, that is the very reason Morrowind was awesome, and Oblivion was a piece of junk.

Quote from: Leetzamen to that Lord Vreeg. While i hate to bring a CRGP into this, that is the very reason Morrowind was awesome, and Oblivion was a piece of junk.

YESSS!!!
you get it...I wasn't even thinking about that connection now, but that was why I still play Morrowind and hate Oblivion.

Of course for a DM of your experience I doubt you actually calculate out if something is at least a little fair to throw at the players. You wouldn't need to when you probably do it automatically without even realizing it. That means that celtricia is an exceptional game to play, but it also means that a new DM would be hard pressed to give things to the players that would be hard enough but not too hard. Don't be too eager to call DnD or Oblivion or anything else crap because of metagaming rules. Most players and DMs need things like those to walk them through encounters and if they hadn't been added by the creators they would have had trouble ever reaching anything other than a minor niche market (and remember first and foremost from the creators perspective they were a source of revenue and thus needed that player friendly aspect). No insult intended of course, I do love celtricia, but it is not a player friendly game. It requires a VERY experienced DM and quick learning, roleplay focused players.