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Offer to defect... then stab him in the back! Let's pull a Huang Gai or Zhao Fang on this poser! (I have been playing way too much Dynasty Warriors lately.)
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Apr 19, 2018 14:26
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let him know the agony of defect
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Apr 19, 2018 17:09
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Backstabbing is an art in the land of the Darklords! Let' pretend to Defect!
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Apr 19, 2018 20:54
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Guy Fawkes posted:Backstabbing is an art in the land of the Darklords! Let' pretend to Defect!
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Apr 19, 2018 21:33
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nelson posted:Offer to defect. Maybe he’ll give us a quest to kill Ghanesh. The Masters of Darkness posted:The Darklord laughs and the chamber vibrates to the sound of his ghastly glee.
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Apr 20, 2018 01:25
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Backstabbing is an art in the land of the Darklords!
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Apr 20, 2018 01:32
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Let’s wait and see what he has for us.
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Apr 20, 2018 01:32
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Wait for it, waiiiiiit for iiiiiiiiiiiiiiit....
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Apr 20, 2018 01:36
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Hahah he is so going to wreck us with some kind of superweapon. We wouldn't want to deny his chance, so wait
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Apr 20, 2018 01:57
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Dude, you never turn your back on a Kai Master. That's just stupid. Attack!
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Apr 20, 2018 02:06
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Surprise attack! Then take his stuff.
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Apr 20, 2018 02:17
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We're here to shank these motherfuckers and chew bubblegum. And we're all out of bubblegum. Shank this motherfucker.
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Apr 20, 2018 03:00
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Oh come on can’t you even be the slightest bit subtle, Dorklord?  Wait.
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Apr 20, 2018 04:55
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Think of all the fun we could have had making poo poo up about Darklord Ghardashian  Oh well. nelson posted:Surprise attack! Then take his stuff. He's a giant evil feather boa. We could wear him!
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Apr 20, 2018 08:09
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Shank him.
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Apr 20, 2018 08:23
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Wait and let him Monologue first.
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Apr 20, 2018 10:48
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Mister Perky posted:Shank this motherfucker. The Masters of Darkness posted:You know that if you are to destroy this powerful enemy, you must strike quickly and effectively, before he has a chance to retaliate. Helshezag and the Dagger of Vashna would also be options if we had them.
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Apr 20, 2018 13:43
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WHABAWTUI with black arrow. Quick, says a heroic quip!
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Apr 20, 2018 14:15
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Use our special arrow!
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Apr 20, 2018 14:18
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Comstar posted:WHABAWTUI with black arrow. Quick, says a heroic quip!
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Apr 20, 2018 14:18
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We have a bow and a magic arrow. We wish to use them.
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Apr 20, 2018 14:34
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nelson posted:We have a bow and a magic arrow. We wish to use them.
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Apr 20, 2018 14:49
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Dagger isn't magic enough and Sommerswerd is too magical, so shoot that poison arrow
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Apr 20, 2018 16:42
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nelson posted:We have a bow and a magic arrow. We wish to use them. This.
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Apr 20, 2018 19:20
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nelson posted:We have a bow and a magic arrow. We wish to use them.
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Apr 20, 2018 19:42
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Mister Perky posted:Dagger isn't magic enough and Sommerswerd is too magical Use the goldilocks arrow! It's just magical enough.
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Apr 20, 2018 22:09
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The Masters of Darkness posted:Swiftly you unshoulder your Bow and draw the magical arrow to your lips. Its glowing shaft betrays the power that is locked within it, a power that can kill those who created and harnessed it to murder others. Taktaal senses that his doom is near and tries to give vent to a cry of alarm, but the cry dies in his throat as you send the Zejar-dulaga burrowing deep into his evil heart. With a surge of incredible strength, Taktaal drags the arrow from his body and collapses at the edge of the dais. A foul black gas hisses from the gaping wound and his body dissolves rapidly and fades until all that is left is a dull grey stain on the shiny black steel floor. Lone Wolf: COMBAT SKILL 41 ENDURANCE 38 Mind Reaper: COMBAT SKILL 30 ENDURANCE 36 Combat Ratio: 11+ We roll: 4 Lone Wolf: COMBAT SKILL 41 ENDURANCE 36 Mind Reaper: COMBAT SKILL 30 ENDURANCE 24 We roll: 10 Lone Wolf: COMBAT SKILL 41 ENDURANCE 36 Mind Reaper: COMBAT SKILL 30 ENDURANCE 0 The Masters of Darkness posted:As you strike the blow that seals the creature’s doom, it disappears, leaving no trace whatsoever. Gnaag roars his anger and lopes awkwardly towards the Transfusor, desperate to recall his fellow Darklords to the Black City. You block his path and feel an eerie force—a tingling electric coldness—pass between you. With an unholy scream, Darklord Gnaag unsheathes his sword, Nadazgada, and prepares to engage you in a battle that will determine the destiny of Magnamund. And I have to leave the house in about ten minutes so I'll post up my end of book thoughts, final action chart, and the voting choices for the next book either tonight when I get home or tomorrow.
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Apr 21, 2018 02:49
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That felt... rather abrupt.
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Apr 21, 2018 03:07
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Yeah, the Sommerswerd is an instant win against Gnaag if you remember not to use it previously. And he's a pretty tough fight with the Dagger of Vashna or Helshezag- I'll let Tiggum post the Stats. This book has great atmosphere and is very climactic up until the end.
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Apr 21, 2018 03:16
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moosecow333 posted:That felt... rather abrupt. The magic arrow was just that powerful. That reminds me - I looked back and if we would have successfully hidden from that guy in grey awhile back we would have been walking dead. To kill Taktaal we needed a magic weapon but drawing the Sommersword would have killed us. Hiding means not shanking the guy in grey. Not shanking the guy in grey means no black key. No black key means no magic arrow. No magic arrow means we were going to die because we ditched our other magic weapon options. nelson fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Apr 21, 2018 |
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Apr 21, 2018 03:22
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nelson posted:The magic arrow was just that powerful. I thought at one point there was text (maybe behind a skill check) that explained that the magic arrow (zejar-dulaga is literally poison arrow in Giak iirc) was designed for use in the petty internal rivalries among the Darklords hinted at in this book via your cover story. So there is that hint that the capo tier Darklords possess and/or are working on ways to take each other out/move up the ladder and that the arrow is one of them. [Their own weapons, such as Helshezag and the Dagger of Vashna, are others.] Gnaag himself is the victor of the struggle to fill the power vacuum left after we killed Haakon at the end of book 5. Among other major ways in which Lone Wolf has changed the destiny of Magnamund, he has taught the basically immortal Darklords that they are quite killable and it's worth their while to jockey for position and have power struggles amongst each other. Gnaag marks the fourth time the Archlord of the Darklord changes/dies (they've been around for several thousand years) and Lone Wolf is responsible for three of those four. [Book 2, Book 5, Book 12.] So the Sommerswerd was less "the only weapon that can kill a Darklord" as we were told back at the start, and more "the only weapon that has killed a Darklord [Vashna]". Not that any of this matters anymore because successfully completing this book means we have killed them all  In other fancy item news, I forget when and how we could have picked it up but we did miss out on the sweet Kagonite Chainmail (+3 CS, +1 EP), another useful combat bonus we can pick up one book too late. Mister Perky fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Apr 21, 2018 |
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Apr 21, 2018 05:15
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So what was heroic quip we said when we let loose the bow? Death to the Darklords! Yippie Kai Yay motherf***! I also cook (using Huntsmastery) Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the Somersword. Smoke me a Xargath , I'll be back for breakfast. I'm too old for this poo poo. I have had it with these motherf***ing darklords on this motherf***ing planet! I have come here to drink Laumspur and kick rear end… and I’m all out of Laumspur. The name is Wolf. Lone Wolf. "Hello. My name is Silent Wolf. You killed my monastery. Prepare to die.
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Apr 21, 2018 07:49
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I'm here to kill Darklords and chew bubblegum and - what the gently caress is bubblegum?
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Apr 21, 2018 08:22
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Runcible Cat posted:I'm here to kill Darklords and chew bubblegum and - what the gently caress is bubblegum? I like this. Let's go with this.
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Apr 21, 2018 10:08
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I’m here to vaporize Hellspawn and chew gnardum sap. And I’m all out o gnardum sap.
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Apr 21, 2018 12:35
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I... actually quite like the fact that the final battle was "And then the Sommerswerd vaporised him." They spend all this time talking about how powerful it is, how great it is at killing darklords, and it's really nice to have that actually borne out in gameplay, rather than just "Oh, here's a CS bonus!"
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Apr 21, 2018 13:26
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Final stats for The Masters of Darkness:
Combat Skill: 38 (16) Endurance Points: 38/38 (34) Kai/Magnakai Disciplines
* I just now realised that we shouldn't have died in that fight with Kraagenskûl. I'd completely forgotten about our special once-per-book Curing ability that should have kicked in and brought us back up to 22 Endurance before the final round. We'd have ended the fight on 18 EP, not 2. Tiggum fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Apr 21, 2018 |
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Apr 21, 2018 17:59
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We don't have the Crystal Explosive any more; we blew up the Transfusor with it.
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Apr 21, 2018 18:19
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I mostly like this book. I do agree with those who say that the ending is anticlimactic though. If it were me, I'd have had the Sommerswerd obliterate Kraagenskûl, the magic arrow take out Taktaal, and then let Gnaag actually put up a fight. Because the way it actually plays out makes Kraagenskûl the toughest of the three despite being the earliest you encounter and (judging by the fact that he's not based in the capital city) the lowest in rank. Other than that I like this book. It's not stupidly hard like the last couple, it's got some really cool monsters and bad guys and nice loot, and you get to finally defeat the enemy that's been threatening you since book eight.achtungnight posted:Yeah, the Sommerswerd is an instant win against Gnaag if you remember not to use it previously. And he's a pretty tough fight with the Dagger of Vashna or Helshezag- I'll let Tiggum post the Stats. Darklord Gnaag: COMBAT SKILL 50 ENDURANCE 70 You get +12 to your CS for this fight but you're probably still hosed. So yeah, that thing I said about this book not being stupidly hard? That doesn't apply if you skipped book two or lost the Sommerswerd. The fight against Taktaal with the Dagger of Vashna is also potentially really hard, depending on whether you play it as written or not. As written you get no CS bonus against him, but if you look at the reasoning given for the +12 against Gnaag then it seems like that should also apply to any fight against a Darklord within Helgedad. And if you get the +12 then you're probably going to be OK. nelson posted:That reminds me - I looked back and if we would have successfully hidden from that guy in grey awhile back we would have been walking dead. To kill Taktaal we needed a magic weapon but drawing the Sommersword would have killed us. Hiding means not shanking the guy in grey. Not shanking the guy in grey means no black key. No black key means no magic arrow. No magic arrow means we were going to die because we ditched our other magic weapon options. Mister Perky posted:In other fancy item news, I forget when and how we could have picked it up but we did miss out on the sweet Kagonite Chainmail (+3 CS, +1 EP), another useful combat bonus we can pick up one book too late. There are a couple of reasons it would have been really great to have. The first is that it's one of the items we're allowed to keep for the Grand Master series (whereas the bronin vest is not), and the second is that you can wear it at the same time as both the bronin vest and a regular padded waistcoat, which would have brought our stats up to 41 CS, 39 EP for this book. Runcible Cat posted:We don't have the Crystal Explosive any more; we blew up the Transfusor with it.
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Apr 21, 2018 18:25
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The Plague Lords of Ruel The Plague Lords of Ruel posted:The Story So Far … OK, a lot of changes ocurring here in the Grand Master series. First up is the matter of special items. There's a list of ten we're allowed to keep and the rest are gone. Here's what's left:
You may notice that we're missing a few items that were affecting our Combat Skill and Endurance scores so those have changed as well. Our Combat Skill is now 37 (with a base score of 19) and our Endurance is 38 (with a base score of 37). The base scores are what we'd have if we didn't count our equipment and disciplines, so at any time we could have an effective score anywhere between those two numbers. But if you start with the Grand Master series then you get much higher base scores than we started with back in the Kai series. Up to now new players got a CS between 10 and 19 and EP between 20 and 29. New Grand Masters get a CS between 25 and 34 and EP between 30 and 39. So our unmodified Endurance is pretty decent by that standard, but our unmodified Combat Skill is garbage and even with all our bonuses it's not much better than a brand new player, and even that advantage starts to disappear once they acquire certain Grand Master Disciplines - for example, a fresh player gets +5 CS for choosing Grand Weaponmastery but as we already have Weaponmastery we only get an additional +1 on top of the bonus we were already getting. For that reason some people like to give themself +15 to CS and +10 to EP at the start of the Grand Master series. I think that keeping our current stats is the way to go, but if anyone feels strongly about it I'm open to being convinced. Some other options to consider would be rerolling (keeping our equipment and bonuses but generating new base CS and EP scores), rebooting (rerolling our stats and dumping all our equipment but keeping the abilities and bonuses from our Magnakai Disciplines or the other way around - keeping our equipment but dumping the Magnakai Disciplines) or starting fresh (ie. essentially playing as someone who just picked up book 13 as their first Lone Wolf book - new stats, none of our old equipment, no Magnakai Disciplines). But regardless of any of that, we need to pick some Grand Master Disciplines. Most of them are just incremental upgrades on the Magnakai versions, but there are some new ones too. And we get to pick four. Grand Weaponmastery would give us an additional +1 CS on top of our Weaponmastery bonus (+5 total) with two weapons of our choice. Worth noting that our Weaponmastery bonus to bows and ranged weapons means that we'd currently gain no benefit from picking bows as one of our two weapons for this skill. Animal Mastery is Animal Control is Animal Kinship. Deliverance is Curing is Healing - except that it doesn't heal 1 EP per section. You need Healing or Curing for that. It does upgrade the "restore 20 EP" ability from Curing though by reducing the cooldown to 20 days and the threshold to use it to 8 EP. Or, depending on your reading of the rules, maybe you can use the health burst from Curing as well and therefore basically use that trick twice as often.  Assimilance is Invisibility is Camouflage. Grand Huntmastery means no need for food anywhere, ever. Grand Pathsmanship is basically just Pathsmanship. Kai-surge is essentially an upgrade to Psi-surge: +8 CS instead of +6 (Psi-surge) or +4 (Mindblast). Like Psi-surge it costs 1 EP per round (just ordinary damage, not a permanent reduction like Helshezag). Kai-screen is Psi-screen is Mindshield. Grand Nexus. Resistance to temperature and harmful environments. Telekinesis. Telegnosis is Divination is Sixth Sense but with more of a focus on that spirit walking upgrade we got for Divination. Magi-magic is the first of the two new disciplines and it's Vakeros battle magic. More spells become available as we level up, but none of them are usable at-will, only as specified in the text. At this level we get to maybe use the spells Shield, Power Word and Invisible Fist. Kai-alchemy is Brotherhood magic like Banedon uses. Just like Magi-magic it's usable only as specified in the text and not at will, and more spells become available as you level up. Right now we'd get Lightning Hand, Levitation and Mind Charm. You might be wondering why you'd ever not use Lightning Hand to solve all your problems and I have no good answer to that question, you just can't because the book says so. Unlike the Magnakai series there are no Lore Circles, you just get +1 CS and +2 EP for every book you finish. Then we're on to equipment! We get a new map, of course, and some cash - 29 Gold Crowns to be exact. And as usual, our pick of any five of the following:
Weapons: Rules currently in effect: ShadowWraith posted:Automatically use a Potion of Alether for any fight with a Combat Ratio -7 or worse. Tiggum posted:Use Psi-surge never. So we need votes for:
Plus any thoughts or opinions you have about the CS/EP issue. Tiggum fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Apr 21, 2018 |
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Apr 21, 2018 19:50
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