September Update

[jordangreywolf]

Koogrr's Visit
Koogrr visited! He showed up for my "Creature Feature" playtest session. It did not go perfectly -- it had flaws that were obvious in hindsight, but I needed it to actually be in hindsight for me to notice them. Actually, it's a problem I've suffered in several scenarios: I present the PCs with a situation that requires a bit of thinking and coming up with a plan, but I fail to give the PCs enough game-time to plausibly do such a thing, because of a forced need to make things feel "urgent." Even though in *real* time the players might theoretically have enough time to work something out plan-wise, in game time when their actions are constrained to the scale of combat rounds, there are certain actions they can't realistically perform (because there's no time!), and it's a whole lot harder to coordinate.

But more importantly -- yay, Koogrr was here! Gwendel and I took him out to Rock & Brews near JZ's house a couple of times, since it's a nice location, we like the food, and it has some decent low-carb options. We also visited JZ's place and got to meet his dog, "Rocko." (Good doggie!) Yeah, we haven't been over to that part of town in quite a while, actually. Anyway, while we were in a pub that JZ picked out, I took out a notepad and started pencil-sketching a few designs, as I'd reached a point in an art project where I had to make up some sci-fi armor and weapon designs, and I was trying to rough something out. Koogrr had his sketchbook as well, and it was almost like an "art jam" like the old days. (sniffle!) I miss that.

Incidentally, I credit Koogrr with helping me get past something of an artist mental logjam by encouraging me to just do some rough sketches. I work with the Wacom so often, but I still can't really casually "sketch" the way I can with a pencil. (The fact that Photoshop keeps locking up on me when I use the Wacom tablet -- usually in conjunction with using the SHIFT key for various functions, or using CTRL-Z to undo something, or switching tools too quickly -- doesn't help matters either.) I was able to use my smartphone to take photos of the sketches, then used them as "sketch layers" in Photoshop as a starting point for doing more refined finished pieces. Very helpful.

We talked about various things, and of course we wish Koogrr was still down here, but he's been up in Canada so long now -- I just hope he can be happy wherever he's at. It was definitely nice to have the visit. Alas, I had to work during the week, so I only had a brief window of opportunity to see him over the weekend, and then on the following weekend he had a convention to go to.


Art
My big project as of late has been to draw item cards for Pinnacle for the new Savage Worlds book, as a Kickstarter extra. Originally the request was to draw an illustration of every single gear item in the book, but that would translate into a few hundred drawings. That got narrowed down just a little. So far, I've drawn every weapon and armor item in the book, and those sets have been released. They were going to have another artist draw all the vehicles, but apparently the artist they had in mind wasn't available, or whatever, so I'm working on those as well. I just wish I could do them more quickly: drawing all the little engine details on a motorcycle or the treads of a tank -- all that detail takes TIME. So does travel and work and all the other things I've been up to.

At least I'm drawing again.


Work
Work is keeping me busy. As in, double-overtime every now and again when I go significantly past 60 hours a week. Weekends aren't exactly sacrosanct either, and although Saturdays usually escape the travel requirements, I've been having to give up some of those as well. Labor Day, too. (No, I don't really get a comp for that. Or, if I do, it's immaterial, because I never end up able to use all my vacation days before the end of the year anyway, and I don't get compensated for unused vacation.) Stuff's gotta be done. I also have to travel a lot more, because we no longer have a Florida facility -- so there are no longer any local projects. On the flip side, they've been a lot more flexible about me getting work done at home (provided I'm in Florida, that is).

I far prefer being busy to sitting around and worrying that I'm going to be out of a job. I mean, that's always a possibility and at the back of my mind, but for a while I was SERIOUSLY dreading the "inevitable bad news" when things were getting really slow at the office.

At least with all the time I spend in airports, it's pretty easy for me to hit my 5-6 mile daily walking goal on my Fitbit.


Pathfinder "Rise of the Runelords" Campaign End
This past Sunday night, our "Rise of the Runelords" campaign run by Digital_Rampage finally hit its dramatic conclusion. It was pretty tough, as should be expected. In the final battle against Karzoug the Runelord of Greed, things looked pretty bad from the start, and then started to really turn against us. We'd basically stepped through a portal and ended up in his magical sanctum on a platform suspended over a vast lake of lava, with a narrow walkway leading up to his throne -- and Karzoug early on cast a Prismatic Wall that blocked off the only passage. Certain of the spellcasters in the group were able to dimension-door past, or use flight magic to get around it, and Olik (my catfolk bard) was able to precariously hang off the edge of the platform and side-climb his way past so that he could rush up to provide healing to the others (pretty much the only thing he had left since his "big" spells had already been exhausted by this point with no hope of resting and recovering). That left Olik's follower, the half-elf ranger Shalelu, and her pet (Tangletooth the Firepelt Cougar -- an animal sidekick picked up early on in the campaign) trapped behind the wall. Shalelu was occasionally able to provide some fire support at enemies who weren't directly blocked by the wall, while Tangletooth just stuck next to her to try to provide a slight AC bonus, but she was largely rendered moot by the situation for much of the battle.

Our main "tank" hero -- an oracle/cleric type named Larothe -- ended up being felled, and Garfield (the druid's tiger companion) was nearly down. Olik had to rush into the danger zone to try to deliver emergency healing. And at about that point, Karzoug, rather than doing the obvious and clobbering us once and for all ... decided to use his /dimension door/ and go over to take out Shalelu. He popped over there, on the edge of the platform, and obliterated Shalelu with a single /disintegrate/ spell. Shalelu failed her save roll by 1 point. Boom. Not only "mortally wounded," but disintegrated. Cue Olik crying out, "Shalelllluuuuuu!"

And then the turns rolled around, and it was Tangletooth's turn. The fact that Tangletooth couldn't get around that barrier was pretty much inconsequential, because -- as is often the case with animal companions -- his melee attacks weren't too impressive. Even worse was that while I'd invested heavily in an "Amulet of Mighty Paws" to give bonuses to his melee attacks, we all had to wear certain magic amulets or rings that would allow us to enter this realm and survive within a field of magic that was designed to repel invaders. These amulets/rings, incidentally, were issued to all of Karzoug's minions, and although we could wear them to get through, it also meant that Karzoug could monitor our position at all times, effectively negating any attempts we made at stealth or the use of invisibility.

Also, it meant that since a non-anthro kitty-cat can't wear a magic ring, he had to wear an amulet key, so that meant he couldn't wear his "Amulet of Mighty Paws." Consequently, his combat effectiveness took a major dive (particularly against enemies who could only effectively be hurt with magical attacks).

Well ... Tangletooth's turn came up. Karzoug was so beefed up with an amped-up version of mage armor and such, that Tangletooth could only hope to hit Karzoug with a regular attack on a natural 20. The likely scenario was that Tangletooth could take his swipes at Karzoug, but even if he somehow scored natural 20s (unlikely) and dished out some damage that overcame Karzoug's damage reduction from stoneskin (impossible), well, Karzoug still had a ridiculously high number of hit points. Our heavy hitters had slapped him with mega-damage attacks that took him down maybe 100-200 hp or so, and he was still standing, and then used magic (wishes?!) to instantly heal himself and nearby allies back up to full health TWICE now. Whatever Tangletooth did, the next thing Karzoug would do would surely obliterate the kitty in a single blow.

At this, I basically threw up my hands and declared, "Well, this is Shalelu's companion, and he's got a high enough Intellect to know his claws can't even scratch him. Forget it. He's going to leap forward, grab the wizard and shove him into the lava, even if it means he's going with him." It just seemed the thing to do. I didn't really have a good grasp on combat maneuvers (least of all Bull Rush, which this amounted to), but essentially it would mean the kitty would make a to-hit roll against a target number that presumably *would not* include the wizard's beefed-up armor. Maybe it wouldn't take a natural 20 to hit.

I hit the button to roll to hit, and it came up painfully low. A miss. The end.

But ... eh, this was Fantasy Grounds. I realized -- wait a minute -- I hit the button for OLIK'S combat maneuver! (And that's pretty lame. Olik tends to MISS things. A lot.) I could adjust for Tangletooth's bonus, and that should make a hit ... but Digital_Rampage had me reroll for Tangletooth. (Oh great, I'm thinking ... another chance for me to roll a "1" this time, so the higher bonus won't even help.)

... 20.

No, really. A natural 20.

So, Tangletooth lurches forward to smug, smirking Runelord, but instead of taking a pointless slash with his claws, he simply plants his paws on the Runelord's chest ... and pushes.

And the Runelord WAS standing right on the edge of the platform. Tangletooth had interposed himself between Karzoug and Shalelu, but the wizard had just flat-out ignored the cat ("Cast Defensively! ... oh, rolled 50-something. He passes; Tangletooth doesn't get an attack of opportunity -- not that it'd matter anyway.") in order to disintegrate Shalelu. He was a non-entity in the wizard's mind.

A moment later, Karzoug was plummeting off the platform, 150 feet down to the lava, as a glowering cat peered over the edge, hissing at him. And he'd just finished using his quickened dimension door in order to zip over to blast Shalelu, so he couldn't use that to teleport out of his predicament now.

Sure, Karzoug had energy resistance against fire ... but he didn't have fire immunity. He also didn't have featherfall memorized. Also, lava -- being lava -- is rather hard and solid, so there's the fall damage to consider from a 150-foot drop, on top of everything else. Mage armor doesn't do a thing against that.

WHUD. *crackle* *sizzle* *KABOOM*

There was, of course, a magical shockwave that had to radiate outward, calling for save rolls all around, or take massive damage from the aftermath of Karzoug's death. Tangletooth, fortunately, rolled ridiculously high, so taking only half damage, he managed to survive the wave. Olik had healed up Garfield and Larothe enough (and Larothe was able to heal himself past that point) that when the wave hit, they were okay as well.

So ... the bard's follower's pet just offed Karzoug the Runelord.

And, sad to say, all that sweet, sweet magical loot Karzoug was carrying. Nope, he didn't conveniently keep all the goodies tucked away in a treasure chest behind his throne. That was GONE.

Ah well! Win some, you burn some to smithereens.

With Karzoug unceremoniously burnt to a crisp, the remaining minions surrendered on the spot. There wasn't much in the way of treasure at this point, but this was, after all, about saving the world from the threat of the wicked Runelord -- and this was the end of a campaign, so it's not like we'd get to spend it all anyway. ;)

Nonetheless, Olik laid claim to Karzoug's throne. It had no indicated value in gold pieces, but Olik decided that it would now be Tangletooth's new KITTY BED. Larothe proposed that Tangletooth should henceforth be known as Karzougslayer. Tangletooth Karzougslayer. What a name, huh?

In the aftermath, the GM mentioned that Shalelu could be resurrected with a Wish, and apparently we'd reached the point where such things were possible. So, sure -- Olik would gladly spend whatever treasure he had to pay for a scroll to do that, and they all live happily ever after ... at least until the Pathfinder 2.0 campaign of "Return of the Runelords," apparently.

Digital_Rampage is already spinning wheels, planning to start up a Starfinder campaign. I'm giving notice that I'm not going to start ANYTHING new until Necronomicon 2019 is come and gone. (And after that, well, I'll just have to see. I can't say as I'm keen on Pathfinder/Starfinder as a system. Some day, I'd like to actually RUN a campaign again. That's not going to happen at my house, with my regular gamer group, anytime soon. So running something online might be my only outlet at this point.)


Necronomicon
September already. I have precious few weekends until the convention. I'm going to have to cut back on a lot of my grandiose (they didn't seem grandiose at the time!) plans for minis and terrain and handouts and such for the games I planned on running. I've got to focus on ironing out the core points of the adventures themselves, and the player handouts (character sheets, etc.). And, just as important, PRINTING it all, and having backups in case of mishaps.

And of course, the weekend will come and go quickly, and all that effort over that span of time will seem frivolous ... but that's what I get for having such weird hobbies.

Comments

[rowyn]

Yay Koogrr visit!

Tangletooth's victory there was pretty epic. Good kitty!

[jordangreywolf]

It just felt so surreal, the auto 20 coming up right when it mattered most. This was Fantasy Grounds, so the die-rolling is automated, and everyone can see a model representing the die rolling across the screen, and finally landing on whatever the end result is. And in Pathfinder, there are no Fate Chips, no Bennies, no "meta-game" factors to tweak the odds by spending some sort of resource to get another roll. If it's a 1, it's a 1, if it's 20, it's 20, and that's that. Usually, there's just not an opportunity to do anything that's quite so decisive.

(And, after I made that roll, and we checked the rules for Bull Rush, the GM ended spending maybe 5 minutes or so going through Karzoug's abilities and spells to make absolutely, positively sure he didn't have some sort of insta-magic way to get out of this mess. But -- nope! He had several uses of Quickened dimension door, but he'd already used them up earlier: he had been trying to get out of melee with the "tanks" in the group, but our group's wizard had been holding his action and readying dispel magic to counteract ANYTHING that Karzoug attempted to cast (assuming it was going to be BAAAAAD for us), and had succeeded in making Karzoug waste all his previous dimension door castings ... and the one he used to hop over to attack Shalelu turned out to be his *last* one. Oops.)