Steerpike's All-Hallows IRC

[sparkletwist]

Yes and no. People might react oddly to someone talking with a strange robot voice or whatever, but it's not the same as being in a situation where it can't communicate with NPCs at all, which is what would happen if all it could do was talk in its normal voice that the PC party was immune to. It depends on where you want the challenge to come from, I guess. You're correct that well-prepared enemies might develop some sort of technique that lets them circumvent it, but then again, enemies might use cold iron against Spriggan or throw holy water at Abyzou or whatever other special weakness someone has, too, so as long as this isn't abused (by the GM, I mean) I see it as a source of challenges and not a problem.

I also don't want to let this minor disagreement about my secondary point (since it has generated so many more posts) become too much of a tangled mess, to the point that it derails other more important discussion about the way the game went and how it could be improved. :)

[Steerpike]

My last word on Mandrake for now: the only other thought I have is that Tenebrae could wear some kind of noise-canceling/nullifying earpiece, but the problem with both that and the "Tenebrae aren't affected" thing is that in every combat Mandrake can just shriek its lungs out to take down enemies en masse, which would tend to make fights sort of boring.  The Maiming Voice is designed to be tricky to use because it's so powerful.  Either the ability would need to be neutered (which makes it less cool) or I'd have to add some sort of cooldown thingy, like the voice can only be used once every 3 rounds or something, which could be a pain to keep track of and doesn't (I think) feel as interesting and tragic for the character.

Other than the slow start and occasional technical difficulties, though, I thought the session went reasonably well...

[sparkletwist]

That makes sense, although I can't resist throwing out there it would be both a meaningful mechanical limit and also a rather tragic story element if Mandrake itself was not completely immune to its own voice. This would also help to mitigate any cheese where it divides and then all of them make a full-Puissance voice attack, because they'd be harming themselves and each other as well. That is of course not directly compatible with "magical immunity," but you weren't really interested in that anyway, so it probably doesn't matter. (And I don't want to belabor the point, just throw out one more potentially interesting angle on it)

[Steerpike]

Thanks for the thoughts!

Would people be up for continuing this?  Especially since we got through that Council-of-Elrond of a briefing?

[SA]

I'm game.

[Rhamnousia]

Absolutely! I still want to crack some hillbilly heads.

[Steerpike]

Awesome!

Hillbillies will be the least of your worries, I'm afraid.  Which is not to say that there won't be backwoods clansmen thirsting for your blood.

HippopotamusDundee, sparkletwist, would you also be up for continuing at some point?

[HippopotamusDundee]

I'm definitely in!

[sparkletwist]

Yes, I'd like to try again.

[Steerpike]

Great!  I can promise the next session will be less of this:



And more of this:



Now that we don't have a fixed date, what days/times would work well for you guys?

[SA]

You're in Canada, right? I'm at least half a day ahead of you, but if you have it on Friday or Saturday the time difference shouldn't matter.

[Steerpike]

Fridays aren't especially good for me (at least not for the next month or so) but some Saturdays do work - next Saturday, for example, I could probably play in the afternoon PST.

[Steerpike]

Could other people play on Saturdays or is that a no go?

[HippopotamusDundee]

Could other people play on Saturdays or is that a no go?

Depending on which Saturdays and how late it would run (I have a CoC game every other weekend).

[sparkletwist]

I am pretty sure I could do this coming Saturday.
I'm not so sure about others.