[OOC] Death & Taxes

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Mar 30, 2021 5:37 pm
20 seems reasonable to me, especially since this is a very chaotic scene. And considering you didn't know what would happen if the ritual wasn't completed, this option still gives you a chance to mitigate some of the effects of letting the rituals end after all these years. :)

Plus, you have Story Points on your side, and I'm allowing you to try to augment up if you'd like. I'd be surprised if you didn't hit 20 successes. Finally, if things seem too skewed against you (you all roll terribly, say), we can bring Nera in as a pinch hitter.

So, yeah -- let's see what happens! It's not my intention to punish you, but I also don't want to play through the evacuation blow-by-blow, as that will take us another two or three months of play time. Go for it!
Mar 30, 2021 9:07 pm
I've already got a chunk of Strain, but could probably cast one Augment and not be pushing it too much.

Hildar/Nekurr, you want some augmentation?
Mar 31, 2021 2:04 am
Tronus is also free to use Supreme Inspiring Rhetoric on his go (after augmenting folks if he wishes). His successes would count toward your total, and he'd dole out a bunch of boost dice.
Mar 31, 2021 6:15 am
Yeah, I basically averaged Nekurr’s attributes with the transformation so a little green boost could help :D
Mar 31, 2021 12:49 pm
LOL. Looks like Mcneils5 and Remnant may be busy with RL, but, yeah, Bruv is welcome to try for the second augment in the meantime (or replace his own but take in a couple of comrades).
Mar 31, 2021 3:03 pm
Good point, unless I replaced my own, that would put me at sustaining two spells a round... Probably not sustainable for the skill challenge.

With the increased Difficulty of additional targets, I frankly don't want to risk losing my own. The Augmentation may have to be on Tronus...
Mar 31, 2021 9:40 pm
SavageBob says:
LOL. Looks like Mcneils5 and Remnant may be busy with RL, but, yeah, Bruv is welcome to try for the second augment in the meantime (or replace his own but take in a couple of comrades).
Yeah, apologies, have been a bit under the weather the last few days and works been a tad eventful as well.
Mar 31, 2021 9:49 pm
So Hildar would probably try to use magic to delay the rising swamp to buy people time. Thinking either throwing up a barrier around the village of some sort or conjuring a wall/flood break? Not sure if that's too much of a stretch but that would be where he'd end up.
Mar 31, 2021 11:33 pm
I would just say that, remember we need to get successes to "win" this, not superior narrative positioning.

So, if instead of trying to make a HUGE barrier with a really high Difficulty to cast, you can just skin it as making a small barrier in a central canal with a lower Dif to cast, and you'll get more success out of it... That's what you want to do.
Apr 1, 2021 2:36 am
That is a good point that most of the various home-brew rule sets don't seem to consider. Maybe there should be a multiplier for harder difficulties as long as they reasonably contribute to the goal: Average difficulty nets successes on a 1-to-1 basis, Hard is 2-to-1, Daunting is 3-to-1, and Formidable is 4-to-1?

As I read it, Barrier only affects one human-sized target. Making something to cover the whole village would be impossible, since you can't add enough additional targets. You could spin this as Hildar casting Barrier on himself with the max number of additional targets he can muster; we'd then rule that the targets vary depending on where he is, as he escorts people to higher ground.

Alternatively, Conjure might be more appropriate, but then you're limited to levees or raised ground of silhouette 3 max. In this case, though, the levees or dinghies or what have you could move along with Hildar.

Both sound cool, so go for it! High risk, but potentially high reward with the success multiplier.
Apr 1, 2021 7:16 am
SavageBob says:
That is a good point that most of the various home-brew rule sets don't seem to consider. Maybe there should be a multiplier for harder difficulties as long as they reasonably contribute to the goal: Average difficulty nets successes on a 1-to-1 basis, Hard is 2-to-1, Daunting is 3-to-1, and Formidable is 4-to-1?
Since we are already shortcutting the challenge, I suppose we could just ignore the details here and go with a flat difficulty for all actions and then narrate.

Let's say Hildar tries to make barriers (instead of a massive one), he can roll against PP and then how much he manages to protect depends on the overall successes of the party. Maybe he makes just enough barriers before the village sinks, maybe he doesn't. I think this is a good spot to focus on the narrative (though Nekurr can only grunt and push)
Apr 1, 2021 10:45 am
Right a Silhouette 3 Conjuration is quite a large amount of mass - how about Hildar is creating a series of raised paths that lead to each house in the village and all meet up to help people try to evacuate? His Signature Spell has the Grand Summon (Sil 3), Additional Summon, and Summon Ally additional effects rolled in that he can pop at a Hard difficulty with his wand - can we say flip a Story Point to swap the Summon Ally for Range additional effect on the signature spell so it can reach out further?

As for multiplying successes based on difficulty my thoughts would be that would be better handled by Boost or Setback dice - if the proposed action is going to be really helpful in the situation then adding a few Boosts to the check would probably balance out if the person trying it doesn't have a great dice pool for it, conversely if someone wants to do something that they have a really good pool at but would be a really hard fit for it being terribly useful in the situation then perhaps they roll with a few Setbacks to represent trying to square peg the round hole?
Apr 1, 2021 12:28 pm
I like CESN's vote for KISS, but I don't want to make things too easy. Looks like Hildar can do the impressive feat with a Hard spell, so let's do that. Makes sense that if he succeeds, others can do things that synergize to add on boosts, as Mcneils5 suggests.

If we don't hear from Remnant before the end of the day, I'll have Tronus try the augment spell, then the Supreme Inspiring Rhetoric. Then we can get rolling.
Apr 1, 2021 12:43 pm
I'm still here checking out the discussion. Skill challenge is difficult by nature since it's kind of a big moment. It's designed to be difficult and it's skewed to probably not fully make it through with the outlier being skin of the teeth possibility. Advantage just can get pushed to the next roll as boosts though. Skills being used once means if Tronus uses leadership once leadership is not not a skill useage for the rest of the challenge. That's the rough part in the last round when you need success and people are pulling at straws.

I don't think me using SIR is useable for a Skill Challenge (rounds of the challenege are abstract montage time turns vs second by second based turns) plus if I use divine magic Nekurr or anyone else can't.
Apr 1, 2021 12:48 pm
I have rolled for Hildar's first attempt to keep things moving. If anything would affect his roll like SIR then I can throw anything else on top and can tweak the result of that after if needed
Apr 1, 2021 1:27 pm
I'm willing to roll with SIR, Remnant. You've spent a lot of XP to get to it, so this seems like a perfect time to capitalize on that.

And Nekurr can't cast Divine, as he's in were-form. So no worries there. (Plus the augments don't count against your allowed rolls.)
Apr 1, 2021 1:53 pm
Just a heads up SIR would possibly give everyone 1 boost for the 2 rounds and it'll burn my usage of Leadership for the challenge. Would the success still count since I'd need those to give people boost die? Since Mcneils5 didn't get any successes I can use it to get everyone boost but I'd like to ask if people think we can get at least 20 successes in 10 turns then? Also SavageBob are you limiting us to 5 boost die as a cap? Next roller is at 3 boost die already.
Apr 1, 2021 2:37 pm
I think it's do-able, especially if people push any Advantages for more boosts down the line.
Apr 1, 2021 3:14 pm
Yeah, SIR will burn Leadership for you, but it's probably worth it to dole out the blues. Beyond that, advantages being used to pass more blues makes sense, as long as people are willing to narrate how their action has helped in such a way.
Apr 1, 2021 4:09 pm
Remnant says:
OOC:
Hildar pass 3 boost die btw
This right, Bob? Does Bruh have 2 more Boosts?

I thought one could pass 1 Boost to the next Ally for 1 Advantage. But any subsequent passed Boosts cost 2 per, as they had to go by the "any Ally" rate.

Also, I will throw it out there that Boost die have a 1 in 3 chance of getting a success.

So in this challenge, trading successes that you already have, for 2, 33% chances for someone to later get a Boost may not be a great deal.
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