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Really, the thread never had a ghost of a chance. Tombs out that goons and puns go together like ghouls and goblins
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Feb 21, 2020 23:51
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Anias posted:Are you feeling all wight? I already did that one. Even the puns themselves are refusing to stay dead!
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Feb 22, 2020 01:04
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Slaan posted:Really, the thread never had a ghost of a chance. Tombs out that goons and puns go together like ghouls and goblins I'd advise you to not find such humours in such a grave situation. Though I must admit, this wit is great brain food, which makes this a morally gray matter.
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Feb 22, 2020 01:11
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DGM_2 posted:Okay - I admit to my own share of guilt here, but for the love of God, Chokes, post a new update already so we can bury the undead puns and move on to new torments. if we dont move on to new torments soon, i'm gonna have to introduce my own: pictures of local yokels here in kansas wearing billowing cloths on their backs you heard me right- i'm threatening plains cape torment
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Feb 22, 2020 01:12
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Peanut Butler posted:if we dont move on to new torments soon, i'm gonna have to introduce my own: pictures of local yokels here in kansas wearing billowing cloths on their backs Bravo, sir or madam, bravo.
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Feb 22, 2020 01:34
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Peanut Butler posted:you heard me right- i'm threatening plains cape torment I'm pretty sure that torturing gags violates the Geneva Convention. What a ghastly bit of wordplay that was.
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Feb 22, 2020 01:45
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[prepares a giant canister of Wight Guard deodorant in case the puns continue] This brand’s straight from Dragon magazine, folks. Sorry, it ain’t something I thought up first.
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Feb 22, 2020 01:49
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Peanut Butler posted:you heard me right- i'm threatening plains cape torment The worst part is knowing that I'm the one who enabled you.
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Feb 22, 2020 02:47
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achtungnight posted:[prepares a giant canister of Wight Guard deodorant in case the puns continue] Maybe we should ask the mods to hit these puns with some wight-out instead.
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Feb 22, 2020 02:48
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Chokes McGee posted:I keep hitting the space where my cspam sixer button is on this post but it’s not working why isn’t it working I got you.
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Feb 22, 2020 08:07
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DGM_2 posted:Maybe we should ask the mods to hit these puns with some wight-out instead. Comedy is dead.
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Feb 22, 2020 08:08
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DGM_2 posted:The worst part is knowing that I'm the one who enabled you.  
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Feb 22, 2020 08:14
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jesus loving CHRIST, you guys. I'm enthralled by how bad these wight puns are. oh and here's an update
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Feb 23, 2020 06:32
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Pool of Radiance, Chapter 16: High Stakes Combat Welcome back to the Gold Box Adventures and the spine tingling conclusion of Valhingen Graveyard! If your spine is actually tingling, please see a doctor immediately. I know we like to joke around here, but nerve damage is no laughing matter. Anyway, you may or may not remember us clearing out three of four zones so far. If you don't, that's okay. Our party doesn't, either. Regardless, we have one zone left to clear, and then it's off to our first official big boss! Not the one with the eyepatch. I mean, presumably. You can't ever be sure with Kojima.    (No Girls or Priests Allowed!) Hmm.  Ugh. This is a long one. *writes*Journal Entry 43 posted:A loosely wrapped scroll.  So that's who's causin' all this ruckus. Nice of them to leave an instruction manual. Yes. It does make life quite a bit easier.    There. That should do the trick. You guys! I know this is going to sound crazy, but I think there's a vampire in the graveyard! That does sound crazy. That's crazy, Heather. You're crazy. But... CRAZY ...Welp, didn't take long to find our culprit. You'll note his hangout is in the shape of a cross which... raises more questions than answers, quite frankly. This whole section is kind of dodgy as far as undead lore goes. Some of that may be due to first edition D&D, whose sole motivation for undead monsters was "gently caress you and the horses you literally rode in on." One thing at a time, though. We have to clean out this last sector, and I've got good news and bad news.    BEEBEEBEEBEE What the heck is that? I dunno. Somebody have a radar or somethin'? We're stranded in a backwoods fantasy world that hasn't even invented the steam engine. Nobody's going to have that kind of tech just lying around. OMIGOD THE PKE METER IS OFF THE CHARTS Why do I bother? Beats me! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE GAME OVER MAN GAME OVER Uh... Heather? You know that's a crossbow without a drawstring. Right? BEEBEEBEEBEE Well, at least we know where the noise is coming from.The bad news is, our final zone is the Spectre Zone.  ...you two got more coming, or...? Hell yeah we do! Just wait until our friends from the monster factories show up! Who wants to break the news? Ooh! Me! Me!The good news is, we've killed a bunch of spectres already. The entire pool will be exhausted after we banish these two dorks from the Material Plane.  freaky ghost sword~ freaky ghost man~ freaky man baby~  lemme tell you somethin people ? BUSTIN' MAKES ME FEEL GOOD  What in the world is going on? Is this actually happening? Am I having a stroke? I'unno. Maybe? Now that that's over with, the graveyard should be clear. Assuming we're not stupid enough to plunk down in the middle of the graveyard and memorize spells which of course would get us attacked by 15 ghouls and is something insanely stupid that I would never do never YOU HEAR ME NEVER uh. where was I Oh, right. Now that we've cleaned out all the zones, we can wander with impunity. The graveyard won't be flagged as done until we finish our Van Helsing cosplay, but at least we can explore without looking over our shoulder.  For instance: check out this tower! It's a rare example of a non-boobytrapped building filled with good peeps.  Lay it on us.   Look at dat loot look at it Check out dat loot check it out GET A LOAD OF DAT LOOT GET A LOAD OF IT WOOO WOO HOO WOOO YEEEAHRez and Sternn are right: the loot here is top shelf. First, the Plate Mail is Plate Mail +2, i.e. the best armor available in PoR. It has the max movement of banded mail (9 squares) plus protection above and beyond regular plate. There's a lot of love about it. The long sword's a Long Sword +2, which is also a pretty big deal. In case you haven't figured it out, we're in the crypt of the vampire hunter dudes from a little while ago. The Long Sword +2 is called a vorpal sword in the Journal Entry, but that's a filthy goddamn lie. Vorpal swords are the atomic bomb of D&D handheld weapons because they'll just lop * thanks to ManxomeBromide for pointing out my ignorance on this  Heh. I'm going to own so many people with this thing.  BZZZZZZT  Huh. Didn't know you could put a joy buzzer in a sword hilt. owThis may not be a vorpal sword, but it is attuned to Lawful Good. If anyone tries to equip that it isn't Lawful Good, they'll immediately eat 15 points of damage and the weapon will unequip itself.  As the only Lawful Good fighter on the team, Justine gets it by default. All that time being the constantly ignored voice of sanity finally pays off. In this sword. Which I'm sure makes up for fifteen years of her blood pressure constantly spiking to 160/100.   If we're going to go vampire hunting, we better top off our spells. Is that a good idea? We just fnished clearing out the graveyard. It'll be fine! All the switches are off. Assuming someone didn't turn them back on accidentally! ... Which I didn't! ... No, seriously. I didn't. Sternn, if I see one more goddamn spectre when we get back... Hey, who's that?    Calm down. He's still alive. ... Foul curse, huh. Aye, the foulest! So, Renfield here is working for the vampire. Right? Totally. Get lost, pencilneck.  Well, you have to admire his chutzpah. You do? No.This mage is a vampiric thrall and the world's most obvious trap. If you follow his directions, he'll lead you to his boss' secret hideout, but he'll also join the fight afterwards. There is a large difference between a Level 6 magic user with his vampire boss and a dumbass attacking six people all by his lonesome. Since Chokes Has Played the Game Before™, I already know where the vampire is, so we don't need this guy at all.  Our reward for punching his lights out is a Ring of Protection +2. It's not the most exciting loot in the world, but we need all the resistance we can get. For instance, to block Charm Person. No reason I'm mentioning this. Just throwing it out there as an example.  A quick trip out and back, and we're at full strength and ready to rock. As noted earlier, we switched off all the available switches, which means we won't get any random att—  ...quote:
 GODDAMMIT STERNN Okay, other than these guys, we won't get any random attacks. This is actually a scripted fight that I missed, and since the associated zones have been cleaned out, it's laughable—once we kill the wight, which we do immediately. It does require another camping trip afterwards. Let's try this one more time...   Well, this is the only place left to check... Um, that's a wall? We can't go through it? RRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHH *smash* How did you not see that coming? Heather's pattern recognition is, how shall we say, "not so good." Hey, guys! Someone broke down a wall while we weren't looking. How convenient is that? ... We've got some real dum-dums in this party, huh. Your fault. Not ours. Harsh, but fair.  velcooooome to your d— ACK ARGH TURN OUT THE LIGHT Ha! Do you think we'd fall for that? My bad, let me get that. WAIT NO Hey! Thanks, bro! Glad to be of service!  I mean, I still have to kill you. But I do appreciate it!So, D&D vampires. They're only one or two steps away from the top of the "undead you don't want to gently caress with" scale. First up, they come with all the usual fixins': blood drain, mist form, bat form, control over creepy crawlies and wolves, etc. Combat wise, they're threshing machines and a massive headache.  Next, they drain levels, because of course they do. Two per hit, just like a spectre or wraith. To recap: our guys can be hit about 3 times max before they're reduced to a jar of ashes. We would rather that not happen, so Prayer and Bless are a necessity. We toss out our healing spells in favor of Protection from Evil, too. The resistance and AC bonuses against our new friend here are a necessity. You do not want this fight lasting long, because this will happen: PREPARE FOR SECOND DEATH, COWARD Has anyone ever told you your eyes are really pretty when you're in a bezerker rage?  Aw, thanks! It's the mascara. Mine needs updating. You gotta share your secrets with me. Hey, can you kill your friends while we're at it? No problem!  ... Honestly. Have you no shame? Nope. You? ...Once per round, a vampire will use a gaze attack in addition to his normal action. Blow your savings throw, and the computer gets a brand new character to club you over the head with. Your guys are probably armed to the teeth at this point, so this is not a good thing to have happen. Unlike other RPGs, punching someone once won't bring them back to their senses. Your options are to knock your friend out the hard way, Charm them back (lol), or cast Dispel Magic. DM is already essential as a Hold Person counter, but it also gets rid of Charm, which is one more reason to keep as many memorized as you can. As the series progresses, we'll see even more things it will counter. In fact, I think the  DREADED MUMMY DISEASE can be fixed with Dispel Magic. It's just a great Tier 3 spell all around.Offensively, we're in a tight space, which is causing some problems. Fortunately, I came prepared. Eat zap, jerko! *bzzt* Ow! "Ow?" He's trying to turn Heather into his own personal ninja assassin, and the best you can get out of him is ow? Look, if I cast a fireball in here, I'm going to blow everyone up. Us included. ... That... wasn't really meant to be a choice. Give me a sec. I'm thinking.Lightning Bolt is a strange spell. Once you pick a spot, it travels in a straight line away from the caster and blasts everything it runs into. The real benefit is that you can reflect it off of walls to get a second hit on multiple targets. In addition, the damage for a single hit gets ludicrous at later levels. It's very much a boss-killer spell. However—and as stated in a previous update—my aim with Lightning Bolt sucks poo poo. Furthermore, there's not a lot of fights in PoR that will require one-on-one close quarters combat like this. Most of the time, we're better off throwing a couple of fireballs into a crowd and then cleaning up with paralytics. Lightning Bolt can be devastating, but it also kills four, maybe five people tops if they're all mages and line up black ninja style. (And yes, this will absolutely happen. Repeatedly.) I'm a much bigger proponent of area effect over linear attacks. They're way This fight actually takes three tries to finish, by the way. The first ended with literally everyone in the party dead (as in, DEAD dead) except Rezen. As funny as that is, it makes life infinitely more irritating for me to undo, so I reloaded. On try #2, Hanover and Heather get Charmed and slaughter the rest of us. Try #3, and Shanna is able to break a couple of Charms with Dispel Magic before any damage is done. We apply Magic Missles and some elbow grease...  ...and the rest is inevitable.  Victory! More importantly, loot! We get a Wand of Magic Missles, three healing potions, a Shield +1 that we don't even bother picking up, and more goddamn Restoration scrolls. I seriously think we picked up 25 of these things and used like 7 of them. At least it's funny!   PEACE MOTHERFUCKERS, VLAD OUT ...anybody else know he could do that? I mean, now that I've seen it, it makes sense. You guys. I know this is going to sound totally crazy, but— CRAZY Hush. What if, the vampire, goes back to his coffin? My God. She's onto something!  The vampire, of course, isn't defeated. If we went back to Sasha, she wouldn't even acknowledge the work we've done. (I mean, more so than usual.) As Heather figured out, we need to chase him back to his dorm room and finish him.  Oh, what the—who trashed my apartment?! Us again! And it ain't the only thing we're gonna trash. ...I should've stayed in bed tonight.  If you sanctified the coffin, the vampire has a third of his hit poins and no backup. That's a way easier fight then... well, repeating the one you just finished. So, you'll want to do that. (  SPOILERS: There's another mission you can do which makes life easier during the vampire fight. We did not do that mission yet, so don't talk about it. Thank you.) You ruined everything! My entire city's gone! The graveyard's empty again! I'm going to get evicted from my apartment! "Your" apartment? Don't make me laugh. This is the church's holy ground. I HAVE A LEASE FROM THE CHURCH, IT'S NOTARIZED AND EVERYTHING ...oh... You even tore up my girlfriend's picture! Who does that? That's your girlfriend?  Pfft, as if. She is so out of his league. SHE'S CANADIAN OK I VISIT HER REGULARLY lol okay buddy. nice cape btw, is that vinyl IT'S LEATH—you know what? I don't have to deal with this, I'm a contractor. Deal's off. Put me back in the book. I'd rather deal with the Archon than these assholes. Um. Who are you— *bamf* ... ...are we the bad guys, Shanna? Do you really want me to answer that? ...no.And with that, Valhigan is finally clensed of its nonliving plague of filth! I'm sure that makes us heroes and not morally dubious thugs. *checks party's history* Yes, that seems right. Should be fine. Back to town!  Omigod. Sasha's gonna be so totally happy when she finds out about this.  Heeeeey, Sasha. We killed a vampire.  I'm so totally happy about that. Good job, I guess. Well, some kobolds need killing. Have fun. THAT'S IT?! No.   Your expression was pretty funny, though. Ha. Was that a laugh? Do you actually laugh? Oh, I laugh all the time. It's just when you aren't around. And at you. Speaking of which... The councilman is interested in finding out how you've gotten this far. Also, some kobolds really are doing something somewhere. You should probably do something about that, or something. You have our nonbinding agreement that we may or may not. I appreciate that we can be honest with each other. No you don't. No. I don't. So. The senior councilman of Phlan has an extremely delicate diplomatic mission. Yup. And he wants us for it. Seems legit. Hmm. I dunno, it sounds pretty urgent. We can probably wring some good stuff out of him. All of which means, of course, that we're going after the kob— Exactly. The orc cleric! ... What?Next Time: Does What It Says On the Tin Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Mar 4, 2020 |
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Feb 23, 2020 06:32
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*spin whirl clunk*
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The boss fight didn't seem that Vlad. I'm sure it sucked in the moment, but that's nothing to fang your head about
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Feb 23, 2020 06:55
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Chokes McGee posted:Vorpal swords are the atomic bomb of D&D handheld weapons because they'll just lop limbs off sometimes, like oops hit a natural 20 your arm's gone! Sorry not sorry! That is the Sword of Sharpness, not the Vorpal Sword. The Vorpal Sword follows its source—when it goes snicker-snack, that's its head and assuming it has one and only has one, that's a one-shot kill.
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Feb 23, 2020 06:58
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Dark Queen of Krynn has a Vorpal Sword. That’s the only Gold Box game that does, I think. The first time I played this, I thought the paladin and priestess mentioned in the journal entry already killed the vampire so I didn’t have to kill him again. It was quite irritating to find out I was wrong.
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Feb 23, 2020 07:21
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Slaan posted:The boss fight didn't seem that Vlad. I'm sure it sucked in the moment, but that's nothing to fang your head about I think we're done here. no seriously it was fun but that seems like the right pun to leave off on, leave all graveyard puns behind from now on please and thank you~
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Feb 23, 2020 07:28
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ManxomeBromide posted:That is the Sword of Sharpness, not the Vorpal Sword. The Vorpal Sword follows its source—when it goes snicker-snack, that's its head and assuming it has one and only has one, that's a one-shot kill. Duly noted and updated with sources. A shameful D&D moment for me, choked again 
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Feb 23, 2020 07:33
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Don't let yourselves be held down by gravity.
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Feb 23, 2020 07:41
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Chokes McGee posted:Welp, didn't take long to find our culprit. You'll note his hangout is in the shape of a cross which... raises more questions than answers, quite frankly. This whole section is kind of dodgy as far as undead lore goes. Some of that may be due to first edition D&D, whose sole motivation for undead monsters was "gently caress you and the horses you literally rode in on." Scattering holy bits in the vampires coffin to negate it is pretty standard vampire lore (by which I mean Bram Stoker probably made it up), but I don't know what the game devs were on when they decided to put the coffin inside a giant stone cross. That's unique to the game, it was just a square black marble crypt in the module. Speaking of, the module makes it more clear (to the DM, the players are expected to figure it out themselves) that the scroll and the broken crosses and holy water vials were all put there by the vampire himself to trick you into thinking that somebody beat you to the punch. achtungnight posted:The first time I played this, I thought the paladin and priestess mentioned in the journal entry already killed the vampire so I didn't have to kill him again. It was quite irritating to find out I was wrong. Yeah, like that. Choke's joke about he vampire being irritated by the light is kinda funny because in the module he turns on the lights himself when you enter his chamber. Then he welcomes you to his home, and then immediately lays into a random party member with his charm glare. If the wizard is with you, he nails as many targets as he can with Hold Person, after having activated several traps on the way to the vampire's lair, and then the fight starts. After you beat him, you have the choice to either loot the room or immediately chase after him, if you take the time to loot you get some decent treasure, but he has enough time to raise new spectres to replace the ones you killed, and they go back to raising skeletons, zombies, and wights. The ghost that gives you treasure is actually cool and unique because he's a repeatable encounter. He's the ghost of a long dead knight who used to protect the city, and he gives out specific rewards depending on your class type, and any time you bring a new character to him, they get that reward as well, presumably as a means to help you re-equip new characters after your previous guy got his head ripped off. The downside is that you have to fight spectres every time you want to see him, with the size of the spectre mob increasing by 3 every visit.
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Feb 23, 2020 07:45
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Zushio posted:Don't let yourselves be held down by gravity. *eyes narrow; cursor hovers over probation button*
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Feb 23, 2020 07:55
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I was trying to support the no more graveyard jokes. It originally said souls. Then I realized that wasn't helping. Edit: It was meant as a free yourselves from your obsessions kinda thing. Zushio fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Feb 23, 2020 |
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Feb 23, 2020 08:44
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I tease, I tease! I just love joke probations.
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Feb 23, 2020 09:08
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Dash Rendar posted:I tease, I tease! I just love joke probations. If giving comedy sixers were a crime I'd already be convicted by the Hague
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Feb 23, 2020 09:52
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Level-draining monsters are a war crime. Even with easy access to restoration, in pen and paper all the loving associated book-keeping with rolling levels back and forth is just something I'd never countenance. Even though I regularly run 2E AD&D games my house rule is that level drainers are instead (temporary) stat drainers. Because I'm not a sociopath.
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Feb 23, 2020 10:53
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How dare you do only a short little Bustin interlude. I had to finish it myself to feel good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tdyU_gW6WE
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Feb 23, 2020 12:51
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Chokes McGee posted:no seriously it was fun but that seems like the right pun to leave off on, leave all graveyard puns behind from now on please and thank you~ Duly noted and filed, with the explicit exception that when you run into a Lich (and I'm sure you will at some point just because of how iconic they are for D&D), you can probably expect some bad lich jokes. Not necessarily from me, just that lich is really easy to make puns with. And hopefully it'll be far enough into the future that everyone will have forgotten this warning.
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Feb 23, 2020 12:55
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PurpleXVI posted:Level-draining monsters are a war crime. That second bit is the part that never gets discussed. Leveling in D&D games is enough of a hassle without having to occasionally undo it!
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Feb 23, 2020 14:47
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Oh and I hope the unused secret method of debuffing the Vlad is puppet related.
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Feb 23, 2020 14:49
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Night10194 posted:That second bit is the part that never gets discussed. Leveling in D&D games is enough of a hassle without having to occasionally undo it!
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Feb 23, 2020 15:15
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Can you charm someone who is already under the effects of a charm spell?
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Feb 23, 2020 15:16
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Chokes McGee posted:jesus loving CHRIST, you guys. I'm enthralled by how bad these wight puns are. Well, we had to motivate you to update and finish off the graveyard somehow. What do you expect when you leave kids unsupervised for too long? 
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Feb 23, 2020 15:18
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Truthkeeper posted:Speaking of, the module makes it more clear (to the DM, the players are expected to figure it out themselves) that the scroll and the broken crosses and holy water vials were all put there by the vampire himself to trick you into thinking that somebody beat you to the punch.  But then he includes a demonstration of why you need to take out his coffin and accurate instructions on how to do so? EDIT: I guess we can put it down to Vlad not being the brains of the Paper Sorcerer party. Thank goodness we weren't up against Frank or Willow. DGM_2 fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Feb 23, 2020 |
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Feb 23, 2020 15:20
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Randalor posted:Can you charm someone who is already under the effects of a charm spell? Yes. I think it works fine in this game, but sometimes stacked charm effects can end up setting a PC to hostile on a permanent basis.
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Feb 23, 2020 15:42
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DGM_2 posted:Well, we had to motivate you to update and finish off the graveyard somehow. What do you expect when you leave kids unsupervised for too long? That was a pun, it was meant to be a stealth pun 
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Feb 23, 2020 18:44
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DGM_2 posted:
I'm not sure ANYONE was the brains of that party. I mean, Frank's good with numbers, but I've always seen him as Moltar incompetent---seems on top of things, but only because he gives the least amount of fucks compared to the people around him.
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Feb 23, 2020 18:47
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Chokes McGee posted:That was a pun, it was meant to be a stealth pun The "enthralled" bit? I did notice that, but when you declared a moratorium on undeath puns soon after I figured that you were genuinely sick of it and had chosen the word accidentally.
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Feb 23, 2020 18:50
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Chokes McGee posted:I'm not sure ANYONE was the brains of that party. I'm not saying that Frank and Willow are geniuses or anything. They just seem less likely to actively screw themselves over the way Vlad did there. For Llewyn and company, that's kinda like being the brains.
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Feb 23, 2020 19:01
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| # ? May 20, 2024 02:50 |
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Chokes McGee posted:I'm not sure ANYONE was the brains of that party. I mean, Frank's good with numbers, but I've always seen him as Moltar incompetent---seems on top of things, but only because he gives the least amount of fucks compared to the people around him.   Wow, what's it do? Its symbolic Frank, Things don't always have to do things. Now, help me plug it into the wall.
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Feb 23, 2020 19:26
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