Transcriber: anachilles#0191
0:00:01.0
Austin: Welcome to Live at the Table, an actual play livestream focused on critical world-building, smart characterization and fun interaction between good friends. I'm your host, Austin Walker. Joining me today, Janine Hawkins.
Janine: Hey, I'm Janine Hawkins. I'm at @bleatingheart on Twitter and on YouTube, where this month I have been playing Dragon's Dogma on my YouTube channel.
Austin: It's fun, it's good. Janine is a magic archer now —
Janine: Very fun.
Austin: So I'm excited about that.
Janine: Hell yeah.
Austin: Uh, also joining us, Sylvia Clare.
Sylvi: Hey, I'm Sylvi. You can find me on Twitter at @Sylvisurfer, and you can listen to my podcast Emojidrome wherever you get your podcasts.
Austin: And also, Keith J. Carberry.
Keith: Hi, my name's Keith Carberry. You can find me on Twitter at @keithjcarberry, and you can find the let'splays that I do at YouTube.com/runbutton.
Austin: There we go. Uh, so, last time, uh, we — I guess I should say at the top, we are continuing to play our game of Quest in the new campaign, The Grand Tableau. My goals, as derived loosely from a section on the DMing — uh, a bit of the DMing section in the book are to respect boundaries at the table, to listen and respond, to focus on the fantastic, and to play to find out what happens. Uh, this, uh, last time we played, we, we, what happened? Let's see. Uh, the players are a part of a group call the Conservatory, who are investigated weird occurrences, often tied to the arrival of a group call the Vivants, uh, who we, the listeners and players know, are a group of people playing an MMO in, uh, the real world. Uh, and who are, uh, are arriving into this fantastical world, in order to try to reclaim many of the, the sites of ancient, long-overthrown or otherwise dilapidated empire, and one such place seems to have been this ancient, uh, kind of bath site, this kind of big public bath facility built into the side of the mountains above a town called Passina.
0:02:01.6 Uh, and in the process, the players learn, the, the party learn, that these Vivants [chuckles] beat the shit out of a bunch of slimes, thereby, uh, destroying part of the local ecology, and flooding the nearby town, uh, and they seem to have done this at the behest of a local vicount who seems, uh, you know, just based on supposition, to be invested in, some, some, for some reason, the destruction of part of this town, or, or something else. When we last left y'all off, you had turned one of the Vivants to your side, uh, Kevynn Sevynn, spelled with a Y and two Ns in both cases, uh, uh, against his compatriots, uh, uh, by revealing that, that they had all been being played, uh, those compatriots seemed less moved by your, by your attempts to convince them that they were, uh, being bamboozled, uh, —
Keith: My, my impression also is that it was only sort of true.
Austin: What's that?
Keith: It was only sort of true that —
Austin: Oh, that they were being bamboozled?
Keith: That they were being played.
Austin: Yeah, I think, it's, it's clear that Kevynn was, it — there's degrees of being played, right? [chuckles]
Keith: Right.
Austin: Uh, uh, Kevynn clearly believed that they're the good guys? Right? Uh, uh, it seems that Kairitara is not particularly invested in the moral outcome of doing this quest, uh, and Alakastra, uh, Alakastra is, uh, or Alakasta?
Keith: Alakastra.
Austin: Alakastra is what I've been saying, right?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah. Uh, is, in fact, all the way to, uh, enjoying playing a sort of, uh, terrible, like, realpolitik version of being a fantasy necromancer. Uh, uh, who seems to have known from the jump that this was, uh, a, a, uh, some sort of ploy on behalf of the, the of the vicount, but doesn't seem to care much about that. They seem —
Keith: Right, because they still get the, they still get the bath.
Austin: Right. They still get the bath, which they've sort of communicated, or Kevynn has sort of explained to you, becomes a place of power for the Vivants, uh, potentially a place where, when they are beaten in combat, they can come back, uh, to the world, they can kind of revive. Uh, and so, losing the site would basically give them, you know, as far as you can tell, an ongoing place of power, a place to, to return from, from the dead, a return from being knocked out, or, or whatever the — we don't, we haven't developed the terminology for what happens when a Vivant, you know, loses a fight and then comes back, but, but, respawns, you know? [chuckles]
0:04:45.4 Uh, and so, yeah. When we last left off, what, what are some of the last things that happened? You kind of faced off against the Mana, Sylvi's character had duplicated the giant slime god, AKA the Translucent Eminence. Uh, Their Translucent Eminence. And, uh, uh, that had kind of broken, uh, or forced Alakastra to kind of break away and turn their attention to you. What else was happening? I think that's kind of, that's kind of where we were, right? Am I missing anything?
Janine: Does the duplicate Kevynn Sevynn still exist, that, that only they can see?
Austin: I —
Sylvi: Oh, uh...
Austin: Don't remember.
Sylvi: That last 10 minutes —
Janine: I remember there was.
Sylvi: Yeah, so it depends on if we want to say 10 minutes passed or not.
Austin: I imagine not 10 minutes have passed. I imagine that's still there. But that one was not, uh, read me that skill again, Sylvi.
Sylvi: So that one was, that one was phantom menace, which is the, uh, you read the mind of a nearby NPC and produce an illusion of a creature they find extremely irritating.
Austin: Right.
Sylvi: Only you and the target of the spell can see and hear the illusion. For the next 10 minutes, the illusion relentlessly mocks and taunts the target, provoking their full attention. You may control the illusion directly, and have it manipulate small objects. For example, you can have it steal an item from the target and lead them on a chase, or, you may let the illusion go wild, allowing the guide to narrate it's behavior.
Austin: Right.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Uh, so yeah, I think that's still happening, [chuckling] uh, which is an annoyance, currently, uh, but is not, uh, damaging additional, like, fighter in the fray, so to speak.
Sylvi: Yeah. The, uh, the fake, uh, slime god is able to fight, though.
Austin: Do you have to actively control that thing? Or is that like an also a passive —
Sylvi: Uh... I think...
Austin: What, what was the skill for that one again?
Sylvi: That one was illusory creature.
Austin: Right.
Sylvi: I feel it can behave independently —
Austin: Okay, cool.
Sylvi: But you can also, like, control it, too.
Austin: Okay.
Sylvi: You can like, uh... yeah. The illusion can behave independently and travel away from you. You can program the illusion's routine. So you can like, make it do things, basically —
Austin: You can make it do things, yeah, totally.
Sylvi: Like, rules for it, yeah.
Austin: Totally. I'm going to say that your, uh, you can say what you want it to have done, like out the gate, and then if you want to change what it's doing, you'll have to like, spend a round to do that, basically, as an action. Does that make sense?
Sylvi: Sounds good.
Austin: Uh, so, we are now going into, you know, it seems as if, it seems as if no one is trying to stop this fight from happening at this point. Uh, even Kevynn Sevynn has given up on helping, helping his buds, or stopping the fight from happening, is that fair to say, for everybody else here?
Janine: I think we had, we had our attempt at that, right?
Austin: Yeah, totally, 100 percent.
Janine: Like, we, we tried a lot of talking and it only escalated the situation.
Austin: It only escalated. So, uh, the way that combat works here in Quest, uh, or, or action scenes more broadly, uh, is similar to many other games that we've played before. Uh, there is turn-taking, in terms of who goes when. But there's no initiative roll. This is not a game where we all sit down and look at a score and say, “well, this person goes first.” Uh, we kind of let things flow cinematically, and figure out where the camera, so to speak, is, with one note, which is that, uh, it is very much a game in which you go as players, as a party, and then the NPC's characters go. There are times at which there will be interactions based on rolls, uh, but basically, there's like, the PCs go, then the NPCs go.
0:08:14.4 Uh, so, let's kick it off on your side. I feel like y'all have had the drop on this. And just to kind of paint the picture of the space, it's a big cavern. Uh, at the far end, the back end of the cavern, is the Translucent Eminence. Uh, in fact, let me just, let's just, let's just sketch it out, as like, cleanly as we can, if that makes sense. Uh, god, I didn't even use any of this, this is fun. Uh, so, uh... one second here. Let me... how do I — is this all here, right? Grab this, boom. Map layer. See this? This is stuff we didn't use last time, because I felt like we didn't need it. Uh, in any case, uh, draw shape. What color did I say these slimes were? Were they blue? They were green when they were undead, right?
Janine: I feel like they were — oh...
Keith: They were green when they were being controlled by Alacaster...
Austin: Ala, Alakastra, please. Thank you.
Janine: So are we in the boob, or are we in the...
Austin: You're not in the boob. The boob is the entry.
Sylvi: [laughing] Aw!
Janine: In the, the stomach.
Austin: You're in the guts. I'm sorry.
Janine: Okay.
Austin: Yeah, uh-huh.
Sylvi: Oh, okay.
Austin: Yeah, you're in the — [chuckles] — you're in the guts.
Keith: [laughing]
Sylvi: Oh yeah.
Austin: Uh, let me finish making these things that are big. Uh... make this bigger... I'm making this like a, a slightly different color, just so that this other, different slime is very clearly, uh, the mirror image one and not the main one. Uh... and then, let's just, let's just rely on good old-fashioned roll20 assets. How do I not have any... I can't believe that. All right, here we go. Now we're fucking talking. This is very —
Janine: Is there no slime or something?
Austin: No, I was searching for —
Janine: Oh, what the fuck is that? That's a Pokemon.
Austin: There we go. That's a, that's a Pokemon, that's Alakastra. Uh, then what do we, we got a monk, right? More or less? That's not really what I want. None of these are really what I want. Uh... I don't really have time to do a quick Photoshop combining Kyrie and Kitara, for Kairitara, unfortunately.
Sylvi: [chuckles]
Austin: Uh... let's see here. Uh... do I have anything, just, that pops out? Uh... what are, what are, what are other words for monks? Martial artist, I guess, could show up?
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, okay. Boom, martial artist. Done. Uh, who is standing in front. And then, and then, we gotta get a, a good warrior for, Kevynn.
Keith: I'm sure there's plenty for warrior.
Austin: Not as many as you would think, and none right here.
Keith: Really. Fighter?
Austin: Fighter, that's the word RPGs use sometimes, right?
Janine: Mmm, mm-hm.
Austin: Uh, these are, these are spaceships down here from the web? No, none, uh, no, not here either. That's not good. Uh...
Keith: Where are you looking?
Austin: Under our — you, you might not have this, this thing, because you're not in GM mode, basically.
Janine: Yeah, we don't have it right now. I looked.
Austin: Uh, it's fine. It's fine. Here we go. Soldier, knight... these are all really boring-looking, these aren't fun. I want a fun thing. I say, clicking on Pathfinder second edition character stuff.
Keith: [laughing]
Austin: These tokens are —
Keith: Why can't I find a fun thing here?
Austin: I'm looking for fun things, I'm not, I'm not here to, I can't diss Pathfinders, I just don't know it well enough to even, to even step to it like that.
Janine: So we've tried warrior, we've tried fighter.
Austin: Yeah, these are the fun ones.
Janine: Uh, barbarian's going to be too, like...
Austin: Yeah, right?
Janine: Loinclothy, generally.
Austin: And these are fine, I could, you know, we could do like, I could, I could toss up —
Janine: This berserker?
Austin: This, this, this could be [laughing] Kevynn. You know, blown up, I kind of like that as Kevynn. That's Kevynn now. Uh, and, and Kevynn's on your side, so let's put him over here. Uh, and then I'm not going to, I'm not going to force y'all to be these goofy characters, if you don't want to be, and also, god, let me rotate this thing. Please, let me rotate it. Oh my god.
Janine: There's a transparency of one the Yuri on Ice characters, that'd be a good stand-in for me.
Austin: Yeah, okay. [chuckles] Just any one of them?
Janine: If there just happens to be one of those in roll20.
Austin: Okay, let's search for, uh... skater.
Janine: You know, to go with the Yuri on Ice.
Austin: Let's see what comes up, all right, yeah, gotcha.
Janine: Uh, tabletop game.
Austin: Boom. I just searched for skater, this is probably as close as we can get. Is this right for you, Janine? [chuckles]
Janine: [laughing]
Austin: No? Is that not right? [chuckling] This halfling skater? No? Okay.
Janine: [laughing] Are we saying that's a halfling?
Austin: That's what the, that's what it's called.
Janine: Is that the stylized — oh, wow, so there's the specific halfling skater.
Sylvi: That was, uh...
Austin: Who was that? We've used that.
Janine: What?
Sylvi: Was that the chance — no, that wasn't the chancellor, no. It was the guy at the... when we were at the museum in Winter —
Austin: Yeah, uh-huh.
Janine: Oh my god.
Sylvi: I don't remember his name, though.
Austin: Oh, true, true. Uh... here's an illusionist. I don't know if that's really you, though, because no wings, Mana, unfortunately.
Sylvi: Nah... yeah.
Austin: Uh...
Sylvi: If they have any, uh, Misa from Death Note PNGs in there, that would work.
Austin: I gotcha, I gotcha. Listen, if y'all want to send me some PNGs, that's fine.
Sylvi: [laughs]
Austin: For now, I'm just going to quickly write, uh, some, some text for, for y'all, because that'll make it quicker, quicker and easier. Uh, boom. Boom. Boom. I don't think those are on the right... uh... layers. Oh, they are, good. Okay. So... uh, where are the three of you at in this room? So, for people listening, this is a long, sort of a long, uh, uh, kind of cave system, that, uh, that ends in a, a big, uh, kind of tall, oval-shaped cave, uh, where at the very north end is the Translucent Eminence, uh, and Alakastra up against the kind of back wall.
0:14:15.5 Uh, I guess the, the slime's the, the back wall, Alakastra's in front of it. Previously, they were casting some sort of spell on it. To Alakastra's east, to the right of the map, uh, is the mirror image slime god. In front of Alakastra, so to the south a little bit, is Kairitara, the monk, who is here to defend, uh, Alakastra and kind of be the front line. Uh, and, and, as of now, anyway. Uh, and then, and then, uh, I guess Kevynn [chuckles] is, is to the south of that, near the entrance, along with March, Odette, and Mana. Uh, and I'm trying, I'm going to see if I can give you control of these things, so these are not tokens, but we'll see if I can do it anyway. Or y'all can send me PNGs, but that's on you.
Sylvi: Looking.
Austin: Okay, good. Uh, so where are you at? Ping where y'all are at. We'll use that to kind of determine who goes first, if that makes sense, like who's taking the, who's taking the lead in this, in this fight sequence?
Janine: I'm probably hanging back a little bit.
Austin: That makes sense. Boom. Mana, March?
Sylvi: Yeah, I feel like I'm probably... like, not right up front. Uh...
Austin: Makes sense also.
Sylvi: I'm not, I'm not really a fighter.
Austin: No, uh-huh. Uh, March, are you, are you marching forward?
Keith: Let's call, let's say that I'm here with Kevynn.
Austin: Okay, the two of you. So let's start with you, March, as Kairitara kind of like twirls these two tonfa, uh, and takes kind of a, a defensive, you know, posture. Uh, how do you kick things off, uh, against, against her and Alakastra?
Keith: Well, I know they're Vivant, which is, which is, I think scary.
Austin: Yeah, definitely.
Keith: And not good to be in a fight with.
Austin: Mm-hm.
Keith: The, uh, superpowered immortals. So, I'm going to use a move, a combat move that I have, called thunderous word.
Austin: Mmm.
Keith: You speak the word of power, releasing a thunderous shockwave in the direction you're facing. The wave knocks up to three creatures backwards, and hits them each for two damage. Creatures affecting by the spell are briefly dazed and cannot use special weapons.
Austin: That's, that's fantastic. Wait, special weapons, or special abilities?
Keith: Sorry, special abilities during their next turn.
Austin: There we go. That's, that's very useful. All right.
Janine: Mm-hm.
Austin: Is that a roll thing, or is that a just do it thing?
Keith: Just do it.
Austin: Damn, all right.
Keith: Two.
Austin: Spend your two. Uh, what is the word you're using for this spell?
Keith: Amplify!
Austin: Love it. So, so you step forward, you say, “amplify!” [chuckles] Uh, and why, why is it amplify? What is the, what is the significance?
Keith: It stuns, it electric, amp-like.
Austin: Okay, it's amp-like.
Keith: Amplitude, like, electricity.
Austin: Yeah. Okay. Mm-hm. Love it. Amp-like, like electricity. Everyone in this world, big electricity people — I guess there's some electricity in this world. All right. Uh, so you, you knock back, so which three are you, you're just choosing Alakastra and, and, uh, Kairitara, presumably?
Keith: Yes, yeah.
Austin: You're not hitting any of these, these slimes by mistake? All right.
Keith: No, no accidental slime hits.
Austin: Good.
Keith: I mean, unless there's more possessed slimes around, but you didn't mention that.
Austin: No, no.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: No, just those ones. Uh, and, and what you've done is, you know, very good at just like, quickly stopping them from using certain abilities here, right?
Keith: Yeah, yeah.
Austin: Uh, all right. So, what does that, what does that look like as you cast that spell, or you use that ability?
Keith: Uh... part of my, part of, part of the other half of the amplify for me was also like, I think that it's like, like, uh, uh, using, like, static, and like turning up the, turning the knob on static from 1 to dangerous.
Austin: Sure.
Keith: Uh, so, I think that it's like, you see, like, sparks coming off of, uh, like, metal, trying to reach the ground, uh, and then it like, kind of gets — imagine sparks getting out of control?
Austin: Sure.
Keith: It looks like that.
Austin: Easy to imagine.
Keith: Uh, so it's not, it looks like, I guess it's not coming from me, it's like, uh, uh, like I send a shockwave, but then the electricity is like localized around the people that it's targeting.
Austin: Mm-hm. Thank you, Sylvi, for this Mana Mixup.
Sylvi: [laughing]
Austin: Uh...
Sylvi: It just popped up so huge on my screen!
Austin: Uh-huh. There you go. You have control of this great image.
Sylvi: Ugh, thank you. Thank you so much.
Austin: Uh-huh. Mm-hm. Boom. Uh, all right. So they both take 2 damage, and I think get knocked back a little bit. Uh, uh, in fact, I think Alakastra like, [chuckling] bounces into the wounded and, and still dazed slime god, uh, and like, comes forward a little bit, almost like bouncing off of the ropes in wrestling, and, and, uh, Kairitara does the thing of like, getting hit and then using that, that force to kind of like, you know, push her into a back flip, like a hands, back flip handstand, and then, and then kind of rolling through it. Definitely wounded, but not out of it yet. Uh, I think Kevynn is going to, I think Kevynn is going to follow up with just, like, a regular-ass attack. Uh, Kevynn has, has a lot of, not a lot, but has some tricks in his bag. But following up such a powerful attack like that, I, I think Kevynn still wants this to all just come to a peaceful resolution. And so Kevynn is going to roll 1D20 and see — oh, Kev.
Sylvi: Oh.
Austin: Kevynn rolled a 1.
Keith: God, we got another Mana Mixup over here.
Janine: Mmm...
Sylvi: [laughing] Hey!
Keith: Jesus Christ.
Austin: [chuckling] Uh, didn't, didn't you also roll a 1 at one point? Is not true? Oh god, I got a lot of —
Sylvi: I did.
Keith: Two. You rolled two, last game.
Austin: But Keith also rolled 1, once.
Keith: Uh...
Austin: You did, right after Sylvi rolled a —
Keith: We're all not remembering if that's true or not.
Austin: Uh-huh. Well. Uh... [chuckling] unfortunately for, for Kevynn, uh, god, I need to, I need to quickly remind myself uh, that when a D — when an NPC rolls to attack, is at the exact same, uh, uh, chart, I believe it is. Uh, that's no good.
Keith: Does this game have special rules for rolling a 1, specifically?
Austin: Yeah, definitely, 100 percent.
Keith: We've never played a game that does that.
Austin: No. This game has catastrophe — oh, no, you automatically fail, and may suffer a severe setback. Uh, so I, I think the thing that kind of, two things happen here. The first, uh, is, is that as Kevynn walks towards Kairitara, kind of like cautiously and, and a little afraid of raising steel against one of his allies, uh, or his former allies, uh, it's clear that Kairitara reads him like a fucking book, uh, and does, like, takes like a weaker stance, uh, in a way that makes it look like she's looking to block like a low attack, uh, so that he, innately, or, or you know, intuitively tries to do this huge overhand swing, and then she just like pulls her tonfa up and across, like arm block situation, uh, kind of strips the, the big greatsword away from him in a fluid motion, and then kicks him in the chest. Uh, so, that's no good. Uh, uh, doing... let's see, what's, what's her damage? Uh, da-da-da, 3 damage to him. No good. Uh, and he is disarmed now, which, you know, his, his sword goes clattering across the ground, uh, between Kairitara and Alakastra, so out of reach for him.
0:21:40.4 Uh, who is next? Odette or, or Mana?
Sylvi: I have a really quick question, just about the, uh, — which one of these is my slime again?
Austin: The one that is not glowy in the same way. So...
Sylvi: So the...
Austin: This one, the right one, the one to the east.
Sylvi: That one? Okay?
Austin: What did you you program it to do?
Sylvi: I wanted it to attack Alakastra.
Austin: Okay.
Sylvi: Uh, because that's who's trying to cast the spell on —
Austin: Totally.
Sylvi: The other one.
Austin: Totally, totally. Uh... one second, let just...
Sylvi: Let me... and it is has 6HP, just so you know.
Austin: I appreciate that, let me write that down, I appreciate that.
Sylvi: Yeah. Let me look up if there's any other stuff, I think it can like wield a weapon?
Austin: Yeah, does it — [chuckling] okay, good. Uh...
Sylvi: It can hold and use weapons to make basic attacks.
Austin: Oh, okay. Well, yeah, that makes sense. I don't know that it needs to do that, given the thing that it is, right?
Sylvi: Yeah. I can give it a knife if I need to. [chuckling]
Austin: Yeah, totally.
Janine: [chuckles]
Austin: Uh, uh, I guess, so, here's a thing. Technically, I did not need to just do that roll. I just double-checked this. You only need to roll the die for NPCs when they make attacks against players or use abilities that require die rolls. When your NPCs do things to each other or things in the world that don't affect party members directly, you can just narrate what they do and what happens. Of course, you're free to roll the die any time you want to, to leave things up to fate. If your NPC rolls a tough choice, it's up to you to create a setback for them. You can keep them simple. By default, you can have the NPC deal half damage on a tough choice, unless you can give them a more interesting setback.
0:23:03.6 So I'm happy to, I think, I'm, I'm good to let that Kevynn one, uh, stand, but I think for the slime — specifically, because Kevynn's — the outcome of Kevynn's attack is more interesting to me, uh, you know, narratively, than the outcome of the slime mirror god, uh, uh, -'s attack, who I think just slaps, just like — not slaps. But like, rolls?
Keith: Smacks?
Austin: Smacks? Smacks. Uh, into, uh, —
Keith: Slams.
Austin: Slams. Yeah, does like a jumping slam, uh, into Alakastra. Does it say how much damage these, your mirror image does by default? Probably not, right?
Sylvi: Oh, wait, sorry. Does it say how much this does by default?
Austin: Yeah, yeah.
Sylvi: No, it doesn't. Yeah.
Austin: Okay, it's probably just based on what weapon it's using, basically, right?
Sylvi: That's what I assumed as well, yeah.
Austin: Yeah, that's fine. Uh, uh, —
Sylvi: Big, big body weapon.
Austin: Yeah, well that's exactly it, right? And so it does, it does a bunch of damage here. It does 4 damage to Alakastra.
Sylvi: Damn.
Austin: That ain't bad.
Sylvi: That ain't bad at all.
Austin: Uh, who, who at this point, yeah, I think it does like a big body slam, Alakastra like rolls out of the way, uh, but, you know, gets, gets, kind of like, not rolls on the ground [chuckling], but like, uh, you know, like a football player roll, basically, right? Like a, like a ninja spy twist, around. Uh, but does get caught by, by some of the ooze, which clearly is having a bad effect on Alakastra's body. Uh, you know, these slimes are meant to dissolve things, uh, and you are seeing that happening here. Alakastra, I think, you know, yells something about how you're all fools, and are [slipping into Alakastra voice] getting in the way of progress. Uh, and now, uh, Odette or Mana, do you have something else to do?
Janine: I wanted to take advantage of, uh, Kairitara's distraction?
Austin: Yes.
Janine: Uh, to use a, a sneak attack. I would like to —
Austin: Ooh, love it.
Janine: To use my whip, specifically, to make a basic attack.
Austin: Okay. Read me sneak attack, just so that we all know how that works.
Janine: Uh, once per round, when a nearby foe attacks a creature other than you, you may exploit their focus. You may immediately move behind them to perform one of the following actions: you make a basic attack, incapacitate [mumbling] —
Austin: Mm-hm.
Janine: But the first one is. Although the way this, once per round... I'm, I'm wondering what differentiates this from a normal attack.
Austin: A round? You still get your normal attack. This is —
Janine: Ah, okay, so this is —
Austin: This is a reaction to this happening.
Janine: This is like an additional thing.
Austin: Correct.
Janine: All right, cool, sick.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally.
Janine: I would like to, to whip them, [chuckles] then.
Keith: [laughing]
Janine: With my cool whip.
Austin: Okay.
Janine: My cool ice dancer whip that I just [laughing] have.
Austin: You just have this ice dancer whip. Uh, —
Janine: I do
Austin: Give me your, give me a D20. [typing]
Janine: I'm going to change, I wish I didn't have to change my name every time.
Austin: What do you — what? Oh.
Janine: 16!
Austin: That's a... hit. That's a hit without any negatives. So, what is your damage?
Janine: Great question.
Austin: It should be tied to your —
Keith: I think... 2 or 3.
Austin: Weapon, right? I think it's probably 2. It's probably 2.
Keith: 2 is like, regular weapon.
Janine: Is it?
Austin: I believe so.
Janine: I, I didn't write damages down for weapons.
Austin: That's okay.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Keith: That's because they're all the same.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: I think most, most regular weapons are 2.
Keith: Every weapon does the same damage.
Austin: Uh, the, I think the only thing that's a 1 is if you don't have a weapon, basically, so yeah, so that's 2.
Janine: Ah, okay. Well, I'm using a whip, so [chuckles].
Austin: Well, it's still 2. That's, that's fine. Uh, so yeah. You, you, uh, how does this work? One second, I need to look something up. Uh, all right, yeah. So yeah. You hit, uh, you hit her with the whip. Uh, I think a thing that happens that kind of signals that she is, uh, has certain abilities at hand that she hasn't deployed yet, is, as your whip pulls away, a part of her, where, where you might have expected a scar, instead you see, like, water. Like, her body begins to form, like, water, uh, from that whip mark. Uh, you don't know what that means long-term, but, but, it's clear that she has some mastery over water that could come up in play. Uh... we still have your actual attack.
Janine: Or, slime [unintelligible]
Austin: Right, or is a slime monster. Right. Totally. [chuckles]
Janine: A slime monk.
Austin: Oh, a slime monk.
0:27:17.2 Yeah, that's a, that's a particular, that's a prestige class of slime.
Janine: [chuckling] Yeah, yeah.
Austin: Uh... all right. Mana. Or, Odette again, because Odette didn't actually take, uh, their main attack yet.
Janine: Where's, where's Kevynn's sword?
Austin: Uh, now between — oh, let me roll a die. [laughing] Let's just roll a die and find out.
Janine: Yeah, all right.
Austin: Uh, that's mixed. It's, uh, it's, the hilt is underneath the, or is, is between you and Alakastra. The blade is underneath the slime mirror, the mirror slime. Uh, so you'd have to like, spend an action to grab it. Uh, if you wanted to grab it and —
Janine: Oh, so I, I'm like way closer than I thought I was going to be.
Austin: Oh yeah. You — well, you had to get behind her to do that sneak attack, right?
Janine: No.
Austin: Absolutely.
Janine: Since when?
Austin: Read the move.
Janine: Uh-uh.
Austin: Read the move.
Janine: Oh, right. You may immediately move behind them. [laughing]
Keith: I have some —
Austin: You may immediately move behind them.
Keith: I have something.
Janine: Right.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Keith: I have something. I know that it's not, it's not what he's used to, but if, if Janine, if you want to just take a regular attack or do another move or something, I've got 3 totally good swords...
Janine: [laughing] Oh, that's true.
Keith: Oh, I could actually just give Kev a sword.
Austin: That's true. You could, next action, just give Kev a sword.
Sylvi: [laughing]
Janine: Oh, that's true, you could just, you could just toss him a Bic pen.
Austin: Mm-hm.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Uh, doing that would be your action for the turn next turn, just so you know.
Keith: Really, just giving a sword over?
Austin: Yeah, mm-hm. Absolutely, yes.
Sylvi: I could try and like, do a sword handoff, if that's possible.
Austin: You want to do, you want to like, grab the sword from March, and hand it to Kevynn as your action next turn?
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: I love this. All right.
Sylvi: I can do that.
Austin: Perfect.
Sylvi: I already like, got a hit in with my big slime.
Austin: Your slime did the, did the work.
Janine: Actually, can I real quick do my other attack?
Austin: Yes.
Janine: Just because I have a, I have a, a vision in my head of, of using the whip, and — with one hand, and then with the other hand, doing — like, going under with the butterfly knife.
Austin: Sure, I love this.
Janine: Like, for the ribs. Because I'm there anyway.
Austin: [chuckling] Uh-huh. Go for it.
Janine: Dual wield. [chuckles]
Austin: Uh-huh.
Janine: Uh... [dice boop] 19!
Austin: 19 is another hit. So yeah, the, the blade, uh, dips in, and again, we pull out, instead of there being any sort of blood or guts, it, there's like an explosion, like, almost like a geyser of water, uh, that shows up. Uh, and then yes, Mana, you roll in, you do the sword handoff, Kevynn says, “that's a little small, isn't it?” Uh, and then takes a fighting stance. Kevynn's used to very big swords, all right? Kevynn has, has the, the eyes of a, of a child —
Sylvi: Okay.
Janine: Kevynn — [chuckling]
Austin: When it comes to sword —
Janine: Kevynn hasn't used one of those swords since he was level 5.
Austin: Exactly, 100 percent.
Sylvi: Size queen Kevynn over here.
Austin: [laughing] God. All right. Uh... the, the uh, that is the end of y'all's turn as a group. Uh, this is an interesting thing, because now their side goes, and I totally knew what Alakastra was going to do right away. Except Alakastra was going to do right away, except Alakastra can't fucking do it anymore, because of the cool ability that Keith used.
0:30:21.8 Uh, what was that called again, thunder whatever?
Keith: Thunderous word.
Austin: Thunderous word, right. Uh... however, you know who can move, and who, who — does not necessarily rely on quote/unquote special abilities to do damage to y'all is Kairitara, uh, and so Kairitara is going to, is going to make some, some quick use of, of some of the things that she has that are not technically special abilities. The first is, uh, with, uh, one of the, one of the tonfa, like, she like takes this stance, and she's kind of eyeing both Odette, uh, and Kevynn, uh, and tries to figure out like what the attack pattern she wants to use is. Uh, and so she quickly, I think, with her left tonfa, reaches out and as she does, it like, the, the outside of it, uh, almost like a sharp wave that is colored, uh, blue, uh, kind of emerges from it, as if there's like, again, like a, like a sword blade on the inside of it. And she strikes that against Kevynn. And Keynn, who has [chuckles] now just taken this nice stance, uh, unfortunately now begins to drift to sleep, just like, the sword clatters to the ground as he gets hit with this sleep poison.
0:31:41.3 Then, using her second attack which she has, because she's a monk, uh, she then like completes that spin, and then pulls back that first tonfa, and pulls out the second one which has a different type of poison attached, swinging it at you, Odette. Roll for that. That is another 1. What is happening?
Janine: Ha-ha!
Austin: Unbelievable. Uh... uh, this, this poison, I think, Odette, is it fair to say you could reverse this attack on her, or back onto her somehow?
Janine: I really love the idea of Odette doing some sort of beautiful, beautiful motion that, that like, dodges and deflects this.
Austin: Totally.
Janine: Uh, maybe it's a thing of like, catching the forearm and kind of spinning it under or something, but, I imagine, I imagine there's like a dodge, and it's just very, it's lovely.
Austin: Yeah, and — go ahead.
Sylvi: Can I use my magic tricks ability to have a crowd applaud after they catch them?
Austin: Oh, absolutely, please. Absolutely, 100 percent.
Janine: [laughs]
Sylvi: Okay, cool.
Austin: Uh, and I think this actually scares her quite a bit, because now, she has been hit with this terrible white pain poison, which begins to course through her own veins, causing damage after every round against herself.
Janine: Ooh!
Austin: Uh, and I think she says, like, “Alakastra, this is going bad!” Uh, and Alakastra now — I need to, I need to confirm something really quick. Uh... so, ba ba ba... yeah. So, Alakastra, I think, is a little shook, uh, but produces... hmm.
Keith: Still can't use a special ability.
Austin: No, I know. He has a few of them, and he can't use any of them. Uh, uh, but what he can use is items that he has, uh, and so, he, uh, [chuckles] upset that he has to give up his position, uh, he, uh, produces from his, uh, his waist, the, this like giant, uh, uh, his like, his belt, rather, this giant mace that he has. Uh, and begins to, uh, ready a kind of like charging attack against you all. Uh, and as he does, the, uh, the, the mace begins to kind of take a glow to it. Uh, and he begins, he tries to swing on — god, I guess he has to try to get through Odette again, in order to — oh, wait. God, you know what the thing he does is? That's a mistake, he doesn't have to go to that. He simply turns and slams it into the slime god.
0:34:43.0 Uh, at this point, he's at the, “if I can't control this thing, I'll just kill it,” mode, and deals his full damage to it, uh, as this glowing mace strikes the, the body of the slime, uh, and, and kind of cuts deep into it. As a reminder, his plan seemed to be originally that he wanted the slime god's power for his own, and like, to convert it, the way he did the other slimes, but now seems to just be content to hurt it, which is bad, because we know it was already hurt.
Sylvi: Uh...
Keith: And he picked the real one, not the —
Austin: Not the double, no. You don't win the quest if you kill the double, you win the quest if you beat the boss.
Sylvi: I have a question about something, because I have an idea to, uh, trick him again.
Austin: Sure, uh-huh.
Sylvi: So, the magic trick spell also says that I can, like, snuff out small light sources. I'm assuming the glow of the mace is too much for me to make it look like it stopped working?
Austin: Sorry, really quick — Alakastra uses they/them, I think I may have made a mistake there, too.
Sylvi: Oh, my bad.
Austin: Alakastra, I don't think it would trick them. I think that they would... uh, you know, I would let you roll it. I would let you roll it. And in fact —
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: That would be your action for the turn, but, but to distract them from this would not be a bad action.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Do we want to roll back — we can roll right back over to that if you want, too. Because everyone on their side did their actions this turn already. Uh...
Sylvi: Yeah, if everyone's cool with it, I'd be...
Austin: And, here's the thing. Uh, do — wait, is that a skill that you have, specifically?
Sylvi: So that's specifically part of magic tricks, which is that zero AP cost spell.
Austin: Right.
Sylvi: Uh, it's the same thing I used to make the applause.
Austin: So something — totally. Uh, do you know what, uh, skillset that's in? Is that in misdirection?
Sylvi: Uh, I think so? Let me pull it up, I don't have the PDF up.
Austin: I got it, I got it. No worries.
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: I'm pretty sure it is. But, yes, it's the first one in misdirection.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: So, as you begin to cast this spell, as you begin to kind of snuff out the light, the magical light on this mace, you find yourself reaching deep into, into a pool of, into a pool of, of like, what's the word I want to say? Almost like a, a, a degree of just like, verve that you didn't have before. Uh, or that you didn't feel like you... it feels like before, your actions were not choreographed, necessarily, but that you were stepping in time with the world. And here, as you, uh, confront something from outside of the world directly, uh, it's as if you've pulled, drawn on a different pool of power, almost, or a different pool of talent. And so, when you make this roll, and I'll explain why this is in a second, I want you do 1D20 plus 2.
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: A 1.
Sylvi: That's a 14.
Austin: Will still be a failure. All right. A 14 is a mixed success still, uh, again, I believe, I need to just double, triple check. But, yes, yeah. Uh, uh, oh, that's a full success. Anything over an 11 is a, is a full success. So yeah, I think — is, Alakastra is like taking these hard swings at the Translucent Eminence, and then sees the light go out, and isn't sure if it is because of the, item broke, if it's because the Translucent Eminence broke it or something. Uh, and, you know, tosses, literally tosses the mace on the ground out of frustration, and begins to chant some words instead. Who is next on your side? March, uh, or Odette? Or I guess the other slime, the big slime.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: I guess the big slime can totally go again. Uh, and —
Keith: I had a question from, from last session that we didn't resolve —
Austin: Mm-hm.
Keith: And I don't know if you had thought any more about this, but I had asked, uh, if there was any way to cast shield on someone else. I actually don't know if that's what I want to do right now, but I do want to have that, as like a...
Austin: Yeah, uh, I would let you defend someone else, but I think shield explicitly written to be for you, because it's in the Ward skill, right? Let me see. Uh... ba ba ba ba. Summon a magical shield that appears as an aura of soft light around your body. Yeah, I think that's, I think that that is too focused on yourself, uh, in the writing, to, to broaden that out. I think what we ended up saying, actually, was, if you wanted to spend a second AP, I might let it work, right?
Keith: Yeah, that's what, that's what I, that's what you had brought up and I wasn't sure if you had decided on that.
Austin: Yeah, let's do that. I don't mind that. I'm like, a little like back and forth on it. But if you spend a second AP, I think I'm good with that.
Keith: Well, it's fine, because I think that instead, I want to do, I want to, uh, let me look at the positioning here. I'm... I'm now sort of behind Kevynn.
Austin: Correct, yes.
Keith: Uh...
Austin: Kevynn who is now slumped onto the ground, though, as a reminder.
Keith: Right.
Austin: Asleep. From poison. Sleep poison.
Keith: Uh... sleep poison, huh.
Austin: Yeah. Mm-hm.
Keith: I don't have anything for sleep poison. Do I? No, I don't. Well, then I'm going to... I think I'm going to regular attack.
Austin: Okay.
Keith: I'm going to regular attack Odette — not Odette, uh...
Janine: [laughing] Wow.
Austin: Kairitara? Yeah.
Keith: Kairitara.
Austin: Totally. Uh... tell me what that looks like, give me a D20.
Keith: Uh... well I take out my normal sword.
Austin: Mm-hm.
Keith: My normal sword.
Austin: Your regular sword.
Keith: My regular sword.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Keith: Uh, and I have lost the ability to, to have the chat box. Where did it go?
Austin: [chuckles] Did you hit the little hamburger icon in the top right?
Keith: Uh, no, no. It's there, but when I click on it, it doesn't go. Like, if I click on jukebox and settings, those won't come up. But when I click on chat, it won't come up. Let me refresh.
Austin: Mmm. Yeah, just refresh.
Keith: Roll20. That's weird. Uh... I think it's like, you know, uh, I know how to use a sword, but it's not my main thing.
Austin: Totally.
Keith: So I'm swinging a sword like someone who can competently, but not expertly, swing a sword.
Austin: One of your many swords. Uh...
Keith: Right.
Austin: When you roll this 1D20, I want you to do the same thing that Mana just did, which is add 2, you're going to add 2 to this roll. It is a coincidence that this is also a 2. Sort of a coincidence. I mean, the rule guide — uh, the rule about it is the same, it's just a coincidence that you also happen to have 2.
Janine: Sword of a coincidence.
Austin: Uh-huh.. [dice boop]
Sylvi: 19, ugh.
Austin: That's a 19, not quite a 20.
Keith: Not quite a 20.
Austin: Uh, uh, I think I'm going to make, with, with this thing that's happening, 1s and 20s remain unique in their effects. Uh, which is to say that you have to, you have to roll them naturally for, for their, uh, for them to hit the way they normally do.
Keith: Right.
Austin: And that 1 —
Keith: D&D rules.
Austin: D&D rules, I guess. D&D rules are actually more complicated than that historically, because it's not just the 20 and the 1, I think is different. Anyway, we can't go down this road. You still do this hit, so what is your, what is your damage again? 2 with the sword, correct?
Keith: 2 with the sword, yep.
Austin: And this was on Kairitara?
Keith: Yes.
Austin: Okay. Uh, doubles back again, uh, as this sword kind of pushes her back, making another splash of water, uh, and now is like kind of really — actually, I think probably ends up moving back to like, behind the big slime, uh, to, to try to get some space. But that completely separates her from Alakastra, uh, who now has no defense from Odette or anyone else in this moment. Uh, speaking of that, I think the slime double is going to again, uh, try to like wiggle-push in, and just kind of like, slam its dissolvent-filled body up against Alakastra for another 2 damage.
0:43:11.3 Uh... all right. Odette, do you have something in mind this turn?
Janine: Yeah, the thing I have in mind is... to use my whip again.
Austin: [chuckles] Uh-huh. Who are you using it on?
Janine: Alakastra.
Austin: Okay. Give me your D20, except in this case, give me a D20 plus 1.
Janine: That's an 11.
Austin: Listen, that 11 is —
Janine: [chuckling] It's a success.
Austin: That's a, that moves it into a success. That plus-1, you feel this, right? Is that like, you do that thing that happens in, in Anime or martial arts movies, where you feel that you're going one direction, and like, “wait, no, I have to turn just a little bit, and get that hit in just right.” Because that plus-1 brings it out of the, the kind of mixed-success category, the tough choice category, it does a full success. So you deal the normal amount of damage, you don't take any damage back. Nothing, you don't get, get a tough choice to choose between. Uh, and, and you manage to hit Alakastra right in the — where do you hit Alakastra? Is it the face, is it the side?
Janine: Uh... I think maybe, I'm probably, I feel like I'm aiming for arms.
Austin: Sure, that makes sense.
Janine: Like, weapon, you know.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, totally.
Janine: Because disarming would always be a bonus.
Austin: Yeah, uh-huh. In this case, their, their weapon has already been tossed to the ground.
Janine: Right.
Austin: But, but they definitely take a step back as you hit them, and are, you know, stare at their hand in that way that villains often do, to be like, “ah, you hit my hand, that's not fun, I don't like that very much.”
Janine: [laughing] Clench.
Austin: Uh, Clench. Well, and then, they do clench. And when they clench, they now, the next round, having, having come, are able to use their special ability. And, from behind you, uh, you hear the sound of bones rattling, as three, uh, skeletons begin to shamble towards you. And they are all wearing this old kind of oxidized iron armor, uh, presumably from, uh, the chimeric era, as these are like old, you know, ancient, uh, skeletons, brought back to life by Alakastra. I will add them to the table now, by searching skeleton. [chuckles] Let's see what shows up.
0:45:37.8
Janine: Always fruitful.
Austin: How — oh, I misspelled it. I was like, how is there nothing called skeleton? That's bullshit. Well, these aren't... this isn't, this isn't what you want to see. I feel like I've been betrayed by this asset collection that I'm supposed to have access to.
Janine: It feels like we have a different asset collection than we used to. I feel like we never got let down like this before.
Austin: I agree. I feel — or, or am I just like, fucking it up? I don't know. Uh... I could just get this other bad skeleton that I happen to have here. [dice boop] This is actually, this is the torch bearer skeleton, is what that is. How the fuck is there not just, how in this whole thing, let's see here, how is there not a thing that just says, undead people? Uh, let's close this. Check free assets. Uh... character... basic undead. Skeleton. Oh, did I search skeletons before? Maybe the search is just bad right now. Because there is a thing called skeleton, it's just not showing up. Wow, it's just not showing up, okay. That's, that's good to know.
Janine: What about bone?
Austin: Bone, I don't think also would have worked. Anyway, it's fine, because I got skeletons now.
Keith: [laughing]
Janine: [laughing]
Keith: I, I feel like we've never had trouble like this.
Austin: Yeah, no, I 100 percent believe that this is, this is a, a search field problem. Because I immediately found these three skeletons. Uh, I like this one.
Keith: When you, when you were scrolling, it sort of looked like the skeleton, like, crawling up the...
Austin: Uh-huh.
Keith: Like from the floating lich to the skeleton warrior, to the skeleton lich to the zombie.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Keith: Like when you slowly went up, it looked like that thing was animating.
Austin: Yeah, it's good.
Janine: They, they look like they're crawling.
Austin: They do. This one especially.
Janine: They, they don't look like they're walking, they look like they're crawling.
Austin: Looks like a crawler, yeah, I love it.
Janine: One of them is standing, and the other ones are like — scrambling up the —
Austin: [growling] Yeah, like, scrambling, yeah, I love that. Yeah, they're scrambling up the sides of the walls at you. Love that. That's fantastic.
Janine: What? [chuckling] Wait.
Austin: Uh, like, they, they are, they're like, it's like they're evil Spidermans scrambling across the sides of the walls.
Janine: Great, cool.
Austin: Thanks for that detail.
Janine: Evil Spidermans?
Austin: Evil Spidermens. Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh, and the three of them are now moving towards y'all, and in fact, I think this first one is taking a swing at you, Mana, because you are extremely close to, uh, to the middle one. Let's call that skeleton A, B, and C from left to right. So skeleton B is taking a swing at you.
Sylvi: Ugh.
Austin: And missing, with a 3.
Sylvi: Get fucked, skeleton B.
Austin: Hard miss. Keith, what is this a link to? Is this a — oh, good.
Keith: It's blaseball.
Austin: Good, it's blaseball. Uh-huh, thank you.
Janine: Great news, about skeleton B?
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Skeleton B is dead.
Austin: That's — skeleton — wait, why is skeleton B — oh.
Janine: I'm killing skeleton B instantly.
Austin: How are you doing this, Janine?
Janine: [chuckling] I am apparently getting behind them on the wall. [chuckles] No, I'm —
Austin: This ones on the ground, so you're good.
Janine: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, so I'm, I'm getting behind them. I think the thing that happens, I think this is costing me 3 points — [dice boop] uh...
Austin: Oh.
Janine: The thing that happens is, Odette uses the whip, uses it on the neck vertebra, pops that head right off.
Austin: Ah, okay.
Janine: There is no helmet around your neck if you are a skeleton, you are toast.
Austin: You are toast. Boom, dead.
Sylvi: That's so cool.
Austin: Boom, dead. Uh...
Janine: Ya [dead].
Austin: Well, now you've got the attention of skeleton C, Odette, uh, who, who turns and leaps at you. I can't turn because of the way roll20 is being right now. There we go, turns and leaps at you, taking another swing. Hey, that's a hit.
Janine: Eugh.
Austin: That's not what you want to see, but it is what I want to see.
Janine: No.
Austin: Uh, uh, giving you 2 damage, as it, uh, drives a knife, uh, you know, down at you into the — are you wearing armor of any kind, Odette? What's your look?
Janine: Uh, I got a puffy shirt.
Austin: Into your puffy shirt. Into the shoulder of your puffy shirt.
Janine: No!
Austin: [chuckles] Uh-huh. Uh... and then this third one, I think, is going to jump off the wall and, and try to hit you, March. Uh, again, rolling 1D20. And an 18 again hits you. You also take 2 damage it from the skeleton, who I think is just on your back now, and is just like hitting you with its, maybe scrape, scraping at you with its, its sharp fingers, it's sharp skeletal claws. That's no good, you don't like to see that.
0:50:06.3 Uh, and what's Kairitara going to do in this moment? Oh, I know what Kairitara's going to do. Let's see here... Kairitara uses, uh, one of her special abilities to turn into water, like, like, uh, she's a squid, she's a kid now. And, go over to the side of Alakastra, uh, to go over there. And then, and then rests a hand on Alakastra, performing some sort of magical ritual, uh, that seems to knit closed some of their own wounds, uh, the same way that, that her wounds were just water instead of blood, Alakastra has become the same. Uh... and that is their whole turn. Uh... who is ticking things off on the, the conservatory's turn? I'm going to slide Kevynn a little bit out of the way, so that we don't, so that we can still see March.
Sylvi: [chuckling]
Austin: Kevynn just rolls over in his sleep a little.
Janine: Goddamnit, Kevynn.
Austin: So what are you doing? Who's up?
Keith: Who's, who has not gone this round?
Janine: This is a new —
Austin: This is a new, we're starting fresh here.
Sylvi: This is a new round for all three of us.
Keith: New round, okay.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Yep, all three of y'all, absolutely.
Keith: Uh, I have a quick one, I have a very quick one.
Austin: Yeah, what's up?
Keith: Uh, actually, I don't, I don't know if I can do more than just this one thing. I, I, I haven't used this before, obviously. But I have, uh, I have a move, another offensive move, called fiery avenger.
Austin: Ooh.
Keith: Uh, choose a phrase to use for the spell. You speak the phrase of power, igniting your weapon in a magical flame of any color.
Austin: Okay.
Janine: Ooh.
Keith: While the weapon is on fire, it acts as a torch that casts light nearby. The flaming increases the weapon's damage by one. The flame persists until you roll a failure or worse on an attack with the weapon. You may dismiss the flame at any time. And I don't know if this is a thing where I can do this and then attack with it, or no? But... I'm going to do it either way.
Austin: You should do it and then, I think it's... hmm. I'm going to say you can do it and attack in the same round.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Only because I feel like thunderous word, it would make thunderous word so much better. It would make everything else in this tree so much better if you had to spend two turns to take advantage of fiery avenger, do you know what I mean? Uh, and like yes, they're all higher level things than fiery avenger, but you should let fiery avenger, I'd rather you be able to use it than not, you know?
Keith: Okay. Use it, use it —
Austin: What is the word?
Keith: And then attack, you mean?
Austin: And then attack with it, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: What is the phrase that you're using for this spell?
Keith: Uh, my phrase — well, a little background.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: While we were setting up, while we were like, beginning the session today, uh, I was Googling, I was like, I need power words and power phrases.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: And so I Googled, I was like, hmm. Thunderous word, let me Google electricity words. And one of the first things that came up was an article called power words.
Austin: Ah, okay.
Keith: From a website called thesmartblogger, 801 power words that pack a punch and convert like crazy.
Austin: Ah, I see.
Keith: And it's like a bonkers, off-the-wall marketing thing.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Keith: Amplify, amplify came from that. The list of words on here are unbelievable, starting with fear power words.
Austin: Uh-huh. I see this.
Keith: So it's fear power words, encouragement power words, lust power words, anger, greed, safety, and forbidden. So that's the list —
Sylvi: What are the forbidden power words?
Austin: Don't say them. They're too powerful! [chuckling]
Keith: Don't say them. Actually, the forbidden ones, uh, are way less forbidden than some of the...
Austin: [laughing] Oh, I bet.
Keith: Some of the other ones.
Austin: Yeah, sure.
Keith: Uh, the, the worst, the fear power words are way worse than the forbidden power words.
Austin: Okay, sure.
Janine: The thing with the forbidden words is you have to put 5 of them together to really actually get it, get the effect.
Austin: [laughing] Of course.
Keith: Right. Uh, so, uh, so that's, this is where amplify came from, and this is where my new fire, or, my fiery avenger power phrase came from, which is, “miraculous fire, unleashed!”
Austin: I love this. Keith, we had a whole idea about who your gods were, and we had this whole thing about like, stock characters in the world, sort of like the, the ones in like, you know, medieval plays, and the thing, you know — what if your god is actually just the god of SEO blogging?
Keith: [laughing] The SEO god.
Austin: That's much worse. That's much worse.
Keith: Well, that would make me hate my character.
Austin: Yeah, that's the problem. All right.
Keith: Having, having a group of like, social aspects that you, you know, are choosing or not choosing to —
Austin: Uh-huh, to bring to bear here. So go ahead and give me your attack roll. Who are you attacking? Are you attacking the skeleton that's literally on your back? Or are you moving past, are you trying to get past it? What are you doing?
Keith: Yeah, this is a skeleton, this is a skeleton on my back sitch, I think.
Austin: God, you ever just feel like you got a skeleton on your back? I do.
Keith: Every day of my life.
Austin: [chuckling]
Keith: Sometimes it feels like I have a skeleton as my back.
Austin: Ooh. Yeah, ooh, I feel that sometimes, too. Wake up and it's just like, oh, wow, gotta get the skeleton out of there.
Keith: Oh, pretty sure there's a skeleton in there today.
Austin: Gimme a D, a D20 plus 2, as before.
Keith: All right. [dice boop]
Austin: Hey, that's a 19, that's another clean —
Keith: That's the same roll.
Austin: Hit. And now, that one had extra damage, didn't it?
Keith: Yeah, that's a 3.
Austin: Because of the fire, presumably, the magical fire.
Keith: Yeah, yeah.
Austin: Uh, that absolutely beats, uh, actually wait, no, it does not fully beat one of these things. Uh, but you do, you do, you slam it, uh, down on the ground, and then, and then stab down with the fiery magic. Uh, I think we get a good, uh, a good shot here, where the fire magic [chuckling] absolutely, uh, begins to burn this, this undead warrior who you're fighting. However, the blade has snuck between to the ribcage, and it's just like, stabbed into the ground. It did not hit any of the bones. Because, like you said, you're not a, you're not a sword guy.
0:56:10.6 Like, you, you're primarily, you know how to use a sword, but you know —
Keith: Right.
Austin: Skeletons, they got all that neutral, that, uh, empty space in there, you know. And, you missed any, any serious bones, but the fire has done a lot of damage. It's definitely on its last legs. Uh, I'm not just saying that because it's a skeleton whose legs you can see, I guess. I don't know where that joke was going. Mana or Odette —
Janine: Yeah, I'm like — skeleton — yeah, we have 4 legs, and then we die, we only have 2.
Austin: We only have 2 left, yeah, exactly, your last legs. Uh-huh.
Janine: [chuckling] Your last legs.
Sylvi: Uh, really quick, so it looks like Kairitara was healing Alakastra?
Austin: Correct, that in fact happened.
Sylvi: Okay, cool. I want to get the slime to focus on Kairitara.
Austin: There we go. So what's that look like? How do you, how do you command the slime?
Sylvi: So, the thing with, this, uh, illusory creature move is, it says I just have a telepathic bond with it.
Austin: Mmm, mm-hm.
Sylvi: So I think it's just, like, it's just so much like, think just about thinking, I want the slime to attack Kairitara instead.
Austin: Yeah. What does, what is Mana's facial impression, uh, as she, as she thinks this?
Sylvi: Uh...
Austin: Is this a, is this a mischievous smirk? Is this anger? What is this?
Sylvi: It's a, like a — no, it's, like, sort of, uh, —
Austin: Focus?
Sylvi: Indig, indignant and annoyed?
Austin: Ooh, okay. Yeah.
Sylvi: At, like, the fact that [chuckling] uh, she did so much work beating up that, them, and then like —
Austin: And then had that undone? Yeah.
Sylvi: Completely undone! Come on!
Austin: Yeah, uh-huh. So, the — if you look at the slime, the slime is running from left to right, right? Almost imagine it like, a, uh, here's what I'm going to say. Imagine the slime like a slinky, where you take the right side of the slinky, and then you flip it up over the left side, and over to the left —
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: You know what I mean? That sort of, or like, flipping a pancake, sort of, or something like that, right?
Janine: That never worked for me, I could never get it to do that.
Austin: Really? Okay, well —
Janine: Yeah, I could never get a slinky to slink.
Keith: You could never get a slinky to slink? It's the only thing it does.
Austin: It seems, I feel like, did you have real slinkies? Was this like off-brand slinkies?
Janine: I, I just like, I think it was probably an off-brand one, it was just like a big metal —
Keith: Was it plastic or metal?
Janine: It was metal.
Austin: Damn, couldn't get it to slink. Anyway...
Keith: Wow.
Austin: This one, uh, slinks Kairitara off into the respawn pool [laughing] as it completely —
Keith: [laughing]
Austin: Lands on top of her, causing a splash, as her body reverts to water, or turns into water, uh, and I haven't decided what it looks like when a character, when a, when a Vivant is defeated. Uh, probably a glow, probably some sort of like, uh, maybe it depends on what their elemental affinity is, or what their connection to the world is. In this case, I think it's a splash of water. Uh, and then like, a mist in the air. As, as, uh, she's knocked off the map, uh, far away from her companions. Uh, Alakastra is not pleased with this one bit. Uh... is that, is that everybody? I think that's everybody on your side in this moment, right?
Janine: I, I haven't, right? I don't think I have.
Austin: Oh yeah, you have not, you have not.
Sylvi: Yeah, no, Odette hasn't.
0:59:15.8
Janine: Uh... I think the thing that I'm going to do... is... uh... swap my knife for my crossbow, and do a crossbow shot.
Austin: Okay, at...? Alakastra?
Janine: At, uh, Alakastra.
Austin: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, that means you're ignoring this skeleton that's in your grill, right?
Janine: That's a — ugh, that's a good point. Uh...
Austin: In fact, I'm, I'm going to say that that, that is not possible unless you make some distance with this thing first.
Janine: Yeah, okay, that's fair, that's fair. I, yeah.
Austin: I will let you try to... do that? But it means you'll have to roll to do it, and that could break bad.
Janine: No, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'll do the skeleton.
Austin: Okay, deal with the skeleton first, okay.
Janine: Yeah, I'm going to... I'm going to say, maybe knife? I'm going to try and knife the skeleton?
Austin: Sounds good, give me that D20 plus one. [dice boop]
Janine: That's a 6, that's not a good one.
Austin: Ooh, that is a 6.
Janine: That's not good.
Austin: Though again, that rate, that, that jump from 5 to 6 is not nothing. I know it feels bad because that number is bad —
Janine: [chuckles]
Austin: But 5 is a failure. 6 is a tough choice.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: A tough choice says when you succeed in your action but there is a cost the guide will give you a choice between two setbacks. Those setbacks are, that your knife gets lost in the, in the cage here, removing one of the weapons that you have at your disposal.
Janine: Permanently?
Austin: Or — uh, just for this scene, you know?
Janine: Okay.
Austin: Or, uh, uh, you, you... uh, are, are hit back in this exchange, and take, uh, take two damage.
Janine: I'll ditch the knife.
Austin: All right, the knife gets lost in —
Janine: I got weapons.
Austin: Side of this thing. Uh, uh, —
Janine: I imagine, I imagine Odette was like stabbing at the skull of the eye socket or something, and so the idea —
Austin: Yeah, great.
Janine: And so the idea of something, of it like, maybe, maybe the hilt gets stuck in the socket, it's like, well, fuck, I can't —
Austin: I can't deal, I can't —
Janine: It's a butterfly knife, it doesn't have a hilt, but —
Austin: Yeah, but I know what you mean.
Janine: It does have a whatever.
Austin: I know what you, the blade gets stuck in the —
Janine: Yeah, you know what I mean. [chuckles]
Austin: Socket, I guess, it's fine. Uh, uh, and this thing is still up on its feet, and still kind of scrambling around you. Kind of, it almost looks like it's like, not barking at you, but it has a very doglike posture and stance, the way it's been reanimated, you know? Uh...
Janine: Hm...
Austin: There's a degree with which it's, it's very, you know, kind of like bestial in its, in its positioning. Is that everyone's action on this side? I believe so, because, Mana, you used yours to recommand the —
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: The slime, right? Okay.
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Austin: So, let's just keep going with this skeleton that's in Odette's face, and it now kind of like, I think it does a classic skeleton attack, which is, rolls up into a little ball and tries to slam into you, Odette.
Janine: Mmm!
Austin: Like a, like a Sonic character, you know.
Janine: Great. That's a classic skeleton attack if I've ever heard of one.
Austin: Eh, in video games sometimes, you know?
Janine: I guess.
Austin: You've got a weird rolly skeleton of things, you know. Play some Castlevania games. They're, they're rolling sometimes.
Janine: [chuckles] Okay.
Austin: Anyway, uh, I think that this thing slams into you, but you're going to be able to do your damage back to it. What is, uh, so take 2 damage, uh, but what is your damage, your damage back 2, I believe?
Janine: Yeah?
Austin: That's, that's how that all works. Uh, tell me what the, uh, tell me what you're, what it looks like as, as this thing slams into you, but you're able to, to get a hit back in on it.
Janine: Uh, I think the thing that happens is... it like, slams into Odette's legs —
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: And kind of gets her legs out from under her.
Austin: Mm-hm.
Janine: But she sort of converts that motion, like, uses her hand, kind of converts it into a, into a cartwheel thing, so that she's got maybe her hand on its back or something, flips up. And then, sort of springs off, and then whips it in the back, or neck, or the something.
Austin: Sure, sure. Yep. Uh, and then, this pile of bones returns to being a pile of bones, uh, with that hit, and then just kind of crumples to the ground. Uh, March, the one that is still on your, uh, on the ground, uh, is just like, clawing up at you, uh, with its hands, just kind of, just like —
Keith: The one that I hit with the, with the —
Austin: With the fire, you kind of pinned it do the ground. Uh, I think it's like, actually, I think it's trying to like, pull itself up on the hilt of your sword, so it can kind of strike at you. Roll D20. That is a 16, which is a full-ass hit on you. Uh, take 2 damage, as it, as it begins to claw against your armor, and hit you in the body.
Keith: Ah, not my body!
Janine: Hey, uh, —
Sylvi: [chuckles]
Janine: I would like to incapacitate that skeleton.
Austin: How — using sneak attack?
Janine: Using sneak attack.
Keith: I think it's only got 1HP left.
Austin: Uh, it does, it does only have 1, 1HP left. Keith has done the math.
Janine: Mmm.
Keith: Yeah. Well, you said it's dead, and then you're like, “oh, no, it's not.”
Sylvi: [laughs]
Keith: And I was like, that means 1.
Austin: Yeah, that's math, yeah. Are you debating whether or not to use, how to use your sneak attack, Janine?
Janine: It's still, it's still... so, I mean, I'm not going to kill it.
Austin: Ah, I see what you're saying.
Janine: I was just going to incapacitate it, which is one point.
Austin: Right.
Janine: And that's basically a turn that we get to focus on Alakastra.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
Janine: So I think I'm still going to do that.
Austin: Yep, okay. So [chuckles] — what, god, what's that even look like? What's the incapacitation look like here?
Janine: I think this is a thing of like, I think it's, I think it's the whip to the, —
Austin: Sure.
Janine: Is it the cervical vertebrae, again?
Austin: I believe you. You're, you're the spy.
Janine: [chuckles] I know all about vertebrae.
Austin: Uh-huh. Yeah, okay. So it, it, this time, again, just kind of falls and begins to just kind of like, try to recover itself, but is knocked out for the, for the remainder of this sequence, for sure. Uh... Mana, did you have something? Were you about to say something?
Sylvi: Oh, no, I'm —
Austin: Okay.
Sylvi: You know, trying to figure out what I can do.
Austin: Yeah, that's fair. Uh, I think Alakastra now, it feels like they are pinned to the ground a little bit, uh, and, uh, I think, is looking for, is clearly looking for a way out. Uh, and they say, uh, —
Austin (as Alakastra): All right, all right, all right. All right. All right. Everyone calm down. Uh, this is all about the vicount really, isn't it? I can tell you where the vicount plans to go. And all —
Sylvi (as Mana): And you're going to, you're going to leave the slime god alone, too?
Austin (as Alakastra): Well, in exchange for the slime god's life. You can get the real villain of the situation, and all you lose is nothing.
Sylvi (as Mana): Mmm. Mmm... I don't know.
Janine (as Odette): Did you miss some part of the explanation that we gave you about how you keep flooding the town and shit?
1:06:09.9
Austin (as Alakastra): The floods will stop as soon as the slime god is dead.
Sylvi (as Mana): Because, that — wait, because there'll be another flood that happens, and — I don't know if you really grasped it.
Austin (as Alakastra): And then it won't flood again, and everyone can build up again. We all, life is a cycle of, of destruction and rebirth. I'm a necromancer, I know these things.
Janine (as Odette): That's a really nice thing to say from the top of a mountain.
Austin (as Alakastra): We are on the top of a mountain, aren't we?
Janine (as Odette): I'm just saying, I don't think you'd be saying the same shit if you were standing in the, the flood plains, getting ready to flood them.
Austin (as Alakastra): My people were standing on the, in the flood plains for the last thousand years. I know very well, what it means to have something taken from you. If I had lived a thousand years ago, I would have been visiting this bath as a, a king, or a vicount of my own.
Janine (as Odette): Yeah, everyone thinks they would have been a king a thousand years ago.
Austin (as Alakastra): My people were kings. The cat kings of the west.
Janine (as Odette): Every single person was a king?
Austin (as Alakastra): Every member of the Chimeric Crown, a king unto themselves.
Sylvi (as Mana): Okay.
Janine (as Odette): [laughing] Okay.
Sylvi: [laughing]
Austin (as Alakastra): Read the literature!
Janine (as Odette): That sounds like a very functional society.
Austin: Uh, and —
Keith: That just sounds like a lie.
Sylvi: A bunch of sovereign citizens.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: [laughing] Uh-huh. God.
Keith: Me and my crown aren't paying this traffic ticket!
Austin: [laughing] Uh... I think that they say, uh, uh, —
Austin (as Alakastra): I'll make this last offer to you, or else... or else... you'll hear from me again. You won't like that.
Sylvi (as Mana): [laughing] I mean, you're right. We won't like that.
Austin (as Alakastra): You won't. I'm not joking.
Sylvi: I'm not — so, out of — I guess kind of in-character, I'm not taking this very seriously, uh, —
Keith: [laughing]
Sylvi: Considering we've been like, wailing on them and their gang for a while. And like —
Janine: We also, just like, last session, I think, I think... [sighs] yeah, to me, I think I said this last session, was that to me, the thing, the thing, the important information that we have here, we already have, which is that people are collaborating with the Vivants.
Austin: Yes.
Janine: To, to various ends and stuff. And like, it would be nice to get the vicount, the vicount sucks. Uh, but also, it feels like letting, letting another flood happen is a fundamental failure in, in a way that letting the vicount escape isn't necessarily a fundamental failure.
Austin: Right, right.
Keith: Oh, yeah, I, I mean, I definitely think that this jerk is the, is the villain.
Janine: Jerk, chief jerk.
Austin: Chief jerk.
Keith: Yeah, chief jerk over here.
Sylvi: [chuckles]
Austin: All right. Well, sounds like you're rejecting this plea. That was their turn. What do you do?
Janine: Bad use of a turn.
Sylvi: I'm — I'm going to bonk them with my staff, because that's, I'm almost out of AP. I want to have options here.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Sylvi: It's just, it's thwack time.
Austin: It's thwack time. Give me a D20. Oh, in fact, do you have... let me see your skillset really quick.
Sylvi: I don't think I have anything that would help with this.
Austin: Spoilers. Uh, actually, I think you're — no, I think you're totally right. You don't. No. All right. Give me a D20. [dice boop] That's a 13.
Sylvi: That's a 13.
Austin: Uh, which, again, is a success. What is your damage?
Sylvi: Uh, 2 damage.
Austin: 2 damage.
Sylvi: And, uh, she basically is like swinging her, uh, her staff like a baseball bat.
Austin: Oh, I love that.
Sylvi: And once again, using magic tricks to give it like, cool sound effects and maybe sparkles come off of it, too.
Austin: Uh-huh. Uh...
Sylvi: Uh, yeah.
Austin: As you slam it into, into, uh, Alakastra, uh, the, their body, uh, begins to turn to, to a sort of green smoke. This is not a kill. This is not, you have not beaten them here. They have not respawned, uh, back at a different Vivant scionic pool, or whatever we called it. Uh, uh, instead, uh, this is them activating a power that is allowing them to kind of, uh, try to escape. And you can just see this, this green fog.
Janine: It isn't a fucking rift stone, or whatever. [chuckling].
Austin: Basically, I mean, that is hoping what they're not to do, is basically it, right, they don't want to have to go all the way back to, to the starting point. Uh, but they are still in front of you as a group, as this kind of dispersed green, like death fog — it's not a death fog, not going to, you're not going to breathe it in and take damage, it's just hard to hit with physical weapons at this point.
Sylvi: Wait, can, can we breathe them in, though?
Austin: There's too much of them to breathe in.
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: You could breathe in bits of them, but I'm not, we're not going down this route, it's gross.
Janine: Yeah...
Sylvi: Okay. Uh... now, this might be a long shot.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Sylvi: But, March has that spirit bottle. Uh, I don't know if that could, put stuff in there, but like...
Austin: You'd have to let Janno out.
Sylvi: That's true.
Keith: Janno would have to get let out.
Austin: Yeah, you'd have to lose Janno for this —
Janine: Hm.
Austin: Jerk. Not as good.
Sylvi: Yeah, that, I don't want to do that, too.
Austin: I'd like to roll for it, but I don't know, I feel like that's... that's tricky.
Keith: No, Janno's my friend, I'm, I can't just, I can't deprive, I cannot deprive him of his vessel.
Austin: [chuckles] Fair, fair. Uh...
Sylvi: Yeah, okay.
Austin: March, March or Odette, what are you doing, then?.
Janine: You said like, difficult to hit with physical weapons?
Austin: You cannot, you cannot directly hit.
Janine: Okay.
Austin: Uh, uh, hit them with physical weapons, at this point. Non-magic physical weapons. If you had some sort of incantation, you know. Uh... if a mage in your party had, had enchanted your weapon, you know, that'd be fine.
Janine: Mmm, yeah.
Austin: Or if you had a magic weapon.
Janine: Hm... I have magic items, but they're not [chuckling] super useful here.
Austin: Yeah, uh-huh. Mm-hm. Uh, how about you, March?
Keith: Uh...
Austin: Swing at this, this fog?
Keith: Well, I do have something that I think would be a little bit effective.
Austin: Mm-hm? I mean you still have a magic sword.
Keith: I have [unintelligible] that I don't have to roll that just targets something.
Austin: Ah, what's that?
Keith: It's, it's thunderous word.
Austin: Oh, that's true. That's true, you wouldn't even need to roll with that.
Keith: I don't, I don't need to really. It, I mean, and is — is this fog counting as multiple instances of —
Austin: This is a good question. We need to decide whether or not being in a special ability is already — so, it isn't technically a special ability, it is technically a combination of other, like... this is, this is phase shifter, which per the book is not special ability, which I know is a weird way of talking about moves, but that's RPGs, baby. Special ability is technically like, the sort of abilities you have, whereas what this is, is a different, it's like a — what do they call it? These are called NPC features. So, this would, that would not stop them from doing this.
Keith: Oh, no, that's, that is... good to know, but not exactly what I meant.
Austin: Oh, sorry.
Keith: What I meant was, because this is now one body phase-shifted into a fog —
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Does that count as more than one target?
Austin: No, it does not. It does not.
Keith: Okay, so this is still one target —
Austin: It is a, it is one thing in a gaseous form, correct.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Well, that's fine. I will use thunderous word — ampify!
Austin: Uh, and again, you're, you do a bunch of damage to this thing, knocking it back. Uh, or this person.
1:14:22.3 And they, this fog. And they are now like, caught between the two slimes? Uh, which is no good for them, I would say. Uh, how much damage does that thunderous sword do?
Sylvi: That slime might be big enough to vape them.
Austin: Uh, slime could vape 'em probably, huh? Oh, it's — lower this damage, so that's two more. Okay. Yeah. I think... I think between the two slimes [chuckling] I guess, Mana, you already acted this turn. So the slime double —
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Can't, the slime double is currently programmed to fight Kairitara, so is just like, in an idle, unfortunately, right?
Sylvi: Yeah, they're just hanging out.
Austin: Yeah, I think the — but the fog is in a real rough position at this point. They were just going to get out of here, but... Odette, what are you doing? Are you just going to let — I don't think you have anything, right?
Janine: Can I do — I still can't, I don't have anything that's non-physical, other than my weird copying stuff.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Although, could I like... stab it with a pen? It's technically a magic item.
Austin: It is technically a magic item. Uh, you could. You could — it would do 1 damage, right? Because, uh, any sort of improvised weapon does 1 damage, 100 percent. You totally could.
Janine: It's magic.
Austin: It's magic. Gimme a D, a D20 —
Janine: I never described this pen, but I've been imagining it as one of those really thick, really heavy, beautiful, like, 200-dollar fountain pens. Probably gold and like a kind of jade, like a green stone, kind of thing.
Austin: Can I, can I — okay, here's a fun — so let me explain this talent system, the skill path system that we've been using for the last little bit of this fight. Uh, the thing that's happened is, in being exposed to Vivants, you have been, uh, I mean you don't know the magical reason for this, basically, but you're able to draw on a bit of your power in defense of this world, because of the kind of force that you're up against.
1:16:15.9 It's as if the chains of fate have been broken in some ways, and you're kind of able to tilt chance in your favor. And the reason you're able to get those various changes in your rolls is based on the skill paths that you have. This is a hack that we came up with in between sessions. When March does an attack and gets to roll plus-2, it's because he has 2 in the skill path, “wrath.” When Mana earlier got a plus-2 to try to do the thing with the light, it's because she has misdirection at level 2. Odette, when you've been getting plus-1 to rolls, that's because you have termination at level 1. Rather, you have one skill in termination. Here's my question for you — do you think [laughing] someone with a pen is termination or stenography?
Keith: [laughing]
Janine: [laughing]
Austin: Do you think there's a, is it fun enough to give that magic pen the trait, “uses stenography,” when used as a weapon?
Janine: Here's the the distinction I would make, is that I think, if I was using it as a physical attack —
Austin: Uh-huh. Yeah, it would be terminate.
Janine: I would say it's termination. But because I'm specifically deploying my magical stenographer tool set —
Austin: Pen — against, yeah.
Janine: Then I think it's stenographer.
Austin: Are you like, writing a cool symbol or rune or something with the ink, with the magic ink, into the cloud? Are you writing like, one of the magic words you learned above? What's, what's a good word from the spa language, the Chimeric spa dictionary to hurt a fog, a fog being, a mist being?
Janine: I think, I think that would imply a different power, is my concern with that.
Austin: Okay, that's fair, that's fair.
Janine: Like I think, I think writing a power word would become like a thing that, if I could never do it again —
Austin: Right.
Janine: In a different context, would be weird.
Austin: Mm-hm. That's fair. Yeah. All right, well then you're just swiping this magic pen through the fog.
Janine: Yeah, I think it's, I think it's very much just that like, I understand that a, that a physical attack isn't going to hurt this thing. And the only thing I have at my disposal are, I have a magic dossier I could smack 'em with, I got a pen I could stab them with, and I got a small gem that I could do nothing to them with. [chuckling]
Austin: Uh-huh. You can put it in a slingshot, maybe. Give me a D20, then, give me a D20 plus 3 for stenography.
Janine: Yeah. [dice boop]
Austin: Ugh...
Keith: Is this [unintelligible] doing —
Janine: That's a — [laughing]
Austin: Brutal. Brutal. That's a 6.
Keith: Oof.
Janine: It's still a pen. It's still, I'm still stabbing a —
Austin: It's still a pen. It's still...
Janine: Ghost with a fountain pen. [laughing]
Austin: That is true, that is what you're doing. Your hard choice here is either to, I was going to say half damage, but you're already only going to do 1, so that's no good. Uh, I think it's, I think that the thing that happens here is, uh, I think that they're going to, you're going to do this damage, but they're going to get past you, that's my offer, is either do no — I can't do no damage, because you rolled a success. God, let me look at your inventory really quick, see if, if it can... hurt you that way.
1:19:16.4 Uh... you don't really have that much on you, huh? Oh.
Janine: The ghost could steal my two bars of iron.
Austin: It could, it could, uh, it could like, yes, it could steal the two bars of iron by turning them into, like, liquid, right? It, it, they, they, like — you know, dissolve them, to, to repair some of the damage done to their body, basically. To like get more raw material.
Janine: Oh, would that heal them?
Austin: That would heal them, or they could get past you and towards the exit.
Janine: I'll say they get past me.
Austin: Okay. So they are now past you, uh, uh, and I'm going to say like, right next to — I guess Odette, you, you went all the way up there, huh? Yeah, to stab.
Janine: Yeah, you can't, you don't get a lot of reach when you're stabbing someone with a pen, let me tell you.
Austin: Yeah. And so now they are like, next to March. Uh, was that everyone on your turn? That was. So, yeah, now they are going to go their next turn, and I think that they're down into the hallway, uh, as they begin to, begin to try to escape. I think this is going to be your last —
Keith: Still running away?
Austin: Yeah, they're leaving. That's what their whole goal is here, is to leave without fully leaving the area, so that they can, so that they can try to come back at a later date, or continue —
Janine: I think the MMO term you want is flee.
1:20:29.6
Austin: They are fleeing, yeah, they are trying —
Janine: Fleeing the encounter. [chuckling]
Austin: They are, they are hoping that you will, that you will leash back —
Janine: Disengage aggro, yeah.
Austin: Yeah, exactly, 100 percent. Uh, like, fuck, I can't believe this, I don't — and they like, don't want to have to pay whatever fee comes from death.
Janine: They don't want a wipe. You don't want a wipe.
Austin: You don't want a wipe. You don't. Uh... so, yeah, they're, they're trying to flee —
Janine: Start the whole thing from the freaking... the front door again.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: I have something that I can do.
Austin: Sure.
Keith: For zero AP, I could use declare.
Austin: Which says?
Keith: Once per scene you may declare a, a reason for intervening in a matter, uh, like this, uh, —
Austin: Like this.
Keith: Like Alakastra running away.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Uh, the reason should be based on your ideal and the scene's context. For example, if you believe in order, blah-blah-blah.
Austin: Yeah, yep.
Keith: Uh, choose one result, including the one I'm going to use, which is, you immediately make a successful basic attack on a nearby foe —
Austin: Okay.
Keith: Which would be 3, instead of two, because I've got —
Austin: Yeah, you make it. You do that 3 damage. And that puts you right at their heels. What do you — I still need you to make the declaration, though.
Keith: Uh, yes.
Austin: Declare your reason for intervening this this matter.
Keith: So, uh, let's see. What's my exact angle here? I think that, I don't think this is a hard one to try and fit into my character.
Austin: Oh, no.
Keith: But, uh, uh, let's see... uh... I'm, I'm making a plea, uh, or, or I'm making, I'm declaring, uh, my, uh, my duty to our slime brethren.
Austin: Uh-huh. [chuckling]
Keith: And that, and that to, to, to save, uh, uh, for, for Alacaster's [sic] own good, for the, the sake of their immortal soul —
Austin: Mmm. [chuckles]
Keith: Uh, uh, they, they should not be allowed to flee, and should, indeed, lose the fight.
Austin: And that is what happens, as your swipe of fiery steel sweeps through them, disperses the, their already-dissolved form even further, turning from this regular, uh, kind of green mist into glowy, uh, kind of like glowing smoke, so in some ways the mist coheres more until it's almost like a more, uh, like a, like a denser, a denser, smoke-like gas, instead of this kind of more dispersed mist, and then kind of lights up the entire hallway.
1:22:59.4 And in fact, as the light spreads down this tunnel, you can see the other skeletons that Alakastra had made, that had been previously patrolling this tunnel, all light up along with their, along with their kind of green glow, and then they shudder, and then they all fall to the ground, also having been defeated, by extension. Uh, and, and they are sent back to whatever the rally point is that the Vivants return to after being defeated. Well done. Uh, Kevynn is still knocked out. The skeletons are all gone, and I'll say, this is probably when your — actually, wait, how long does your, does your second slime last for?
Sylvi: Oh, until, like...
Austin: It's a while, right?
Sylvi: I think one full day.
Keith: Like a day, and then they go into the woods —
Sylvi: Or until I want to get rid of it.
Keith: When no one notices, and die.
Sylvi: After one day, yeah, after one day the illusion will automatically travel out of sight of other creatures and then vanish.
Austin: [laughs] Incredible. Perfect. Good. All right. Uh... y'all, y'all have done, y'all are done. And in fact, in this moment, you are able to, especially with them actually defeated, there are some things on the ground here, that I don't know if you want to attend to before you wake Kevynn up.
Keith: You're talking about Kevynn?
Austin: No. [laughing] No, poor Kevynn. Uh...
Keith: I... are we, can we take Kevynn back with us to, uh...
Austin: Sure.
Keith: To the, to the headquarters?
Austin: Totally, absolutely.
Keith: I'm sure they would like to talk to a Vivant.
Austin: Yeah, so, but let me give you treasure first, please.
Keith: Thank you.
Janine: Kevynn's going to be so excited that he unlocked a super secret cool quest.
Austin: Oh, yeah, 100 percent, yeah. Uh... uh, god, he's going to be so fucking hyped.
Janine: They're going to be messaging — they're going to be, they're going to be messaging him like, “hey, do you want to group up?” And he's like, “can't, sorry.”
Austin: Sorry.
Janine: Winky face.
Austin: I'm — yeah, uh-huh. [laughing]
Keith: [laughing]
Janine: I'm on a different quest line now.
Austin: Yeah, exactly.
Keith: Yeah, he still, he still thinks that —
Janine: I don't want to spoil it for you.
Austin: Yes.
Keith: He still thinks that we're like, GMs [unintelligible]
Austin: That's 100 percent what is going on in his head. He thinks that he is having the fucking — he is going to tell all his friends at school tomorrow about this. None of them are going to believe him. [chuckling]
Janine: I looked it up on the Wiki, it's not even on the Wiki, you guys. It's real, though.
Austin: It's not even on the Wiki yet.
Sylvi: Can I [chuckling] can I give him my autograph, so he has a —
Austin: Oh, 100 percent.
Sylvi: A unique item from the —
Austin: 100 percent. And that's just you giving —
Sylvi: Perfect.
Austin: Yeah, uh-huh, totally.
Sylvi: No, that's literally just her like signing a piece of paper, like —
Austin: Yeah, absolutely — wait, is it —
Sylvi: Don't forget your favorite illusionist.
Austin: It's not like a, it's not like a headshot? It's not like a —
Sylvi: I mean, if we are fine it with allowing it to be a headshot, then it's a headshot.
Austin: Use one item — I think you [chuckling] can use one item slot to have, “pile of headshots,” if you'd like to.
Sylvi: Okay, cool.
Janine: [laughing]
Sylvi: Sure, I'm doing that. Yeah.
Austin: I think that's funny enough, that's in-concept enough. So, you find a couple of things here.
1:25:45.7 On, you know, kind of below the, the vapor, where you defeated Alakastra is a pendant. And it's like a, it's a very gaudy, golden thing, that has the shapes of all 5 of the Chimeric Crown animals, which, again, are dog, cat, fish, uh, mouse, and bird. Uh, and then a sort of like, blue, a glowing blue jewel. And the jewel, uh, has words inside of it, has letters, and like — actually, has pictographs inside of it, corresponding to the old Chimeric Crown language. Or maybe, actually, I think after looking at it, you're like — I think this is derived from that language, but it's a different language. It's not something you can just read. Uh, but, it seems like it has information. It seems like it would be something that, uh, that, uh, the Vivants have access to, to give them information about something. Uh, uh, it's like, I can't even think — I guess it would remind you of, like, uh, you know, a banner, that, like a banner that you would find at like a festival, where it would say like, “happy whatever day,” you know what I mean?
1:27:01.5 Uh, that's the sort of closest thing that would, that would make sense to you, in terms of the amount of language that's scrolling, basically scrolling across this thing. For us in the audience, this is like a device that communicates stuff to the Vivants. Your characters will have to decipher that, offscreen presumably, back at base. But you have access to, I'm calling this a scionic pendant, scionic, SCIONIC, much like the scionic pools that they return to. Someone should take this. I don't know who wants it, but one of you can get it.
Janine: Uh, I'm tempted to take the pendant, just because it would also maybe be useful as a disguise in the future, or part of a disguise enough.
Austin: Totally. That makes sense, sense.
Keith: I mean, it's got like words and stuff.
Austin: Yeah, that's a thing for you, for sure, right?
Keith: That sounds like you.
Janine: Yeah, I'm also wondering if it — my gut says it doesn't make sense to copy this, but I don't know, we can —
Austin: We'll talk about that in the future. Yeah, totally.
1:27:57.8 The second thing that you find here, uh, is — from where you defeated Kairitara, and that is just a small sprig of kind of a white birch tree, uh, that has a series of Chimeric Runes carved into it. And you know enough of those runes from upstairs to recognize the words, “stone,” and, “sea,” but you don't know the rest of it. Uh, and so you don't know what this does yet. But I believe, I would say that, because of the invoker and magician in the party, you can tell that this thing is coursing with magic power. You suspect it has something to do with water magic, but you don't know what it does beyond that. You could try to roll to figure it out, or kind of investigate it the next time we play, or talk about it off-mic and figure out if we figure it out by then, or what.
Keith: I'll roll right now.
Austin: This is what I love. This is [chuckling] I love this. Uh...
Janine: We all eat the stick.
Austin: [chuckles] That's right, yeah.
Keith: [laughs]
Janine: Break it into 3 and eat it.
Austin: Uh, I think this is — delicious.
Keith: We'll take a bite —
Austin: Uh...
Keith: Take a bite on the count of 3. 1, 2, 3.
Austin: Give me a D20 plus 1 —
Janine: [laughing]
Austin: For your inquiries skill path. You get a bonus from that. Hey, that's a 15, which is a success.
Keith: 15.
Austin: Uh... the, uh, I think, looking at that plus notes from the other Chimeric stuff, you are able to, uh, I think what you're able to see is that there's actually something interesting in the, in the pictographic language, in which there's like a recursion of core concepts. So like, you're able to see, like, it's blank-as-stone, blank-as-sea. And you're like, well, this basically, it's almost like it says, stone-as-stone, sea-as-sea.
1:29:42.9 But then you realize, like, okay, well they're like a little bit modified. So is it like, and you say, “solid as stone, swift as sea.” And as you say that, uh, there is a, like, in front of you, hovering in front of you, the kind of condensation in the room all kind of comes together and forms a long, uh, like sword made out of water. Uh, and you imagine, this is the thing that she was, that Kairitara was using to bless her tonfa, or was just something else she had on her, maybe she didn't even break this out. This is, it's called an anabranch blade. It does, it, as long as this thing remains within 30 feet of you and you say, “solid as stone, swift as sea,” you can summon this water sword, this sword of like, constantly rushing water, in your hand, as long as this twig, basically, is within 30 feet of you.
1:30:39.5 And it does 3 damage, by default. So, better than regular weapons.
Sylvi: Can... Keith's character use their thing to set their sword on fire, on this?
Austin: Absolutely, 100 percent. 100 percent.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: Okay, hell yeah. [chuckling]
Janine: [laughing]
Austin: Uh-huh. Uh....
Keith: Then it, it makes steam.
Austin: Correct. And then there is a third thing. Uh, which, I don't actually think is tied to any of these Vivants, I'm actually just going to, I'm going to paste this into Keith's, uh, character sheet really quick, the blade. Boom.
Keith: Thank you.
Austin: Uh...
Keith: Do I need to drop one of my bics?
Austin: No you still have a bunch of slots, still.
Keith: Right.
Austin: So you should —
Keith: Oh, you — you — it's not that you can only have 3 weapons, it's they give you 3 weapons to start.
Austin: You start with 3. Also, wait. The thing here I'll note, Keith, is you do need to say, they do need to take up 3 slots. You can't just have one slot that says, 3x swords, unfortunately. [chuckles] So now I've written, “sword, sword, sword.” Uh... anyway.
1:31:39.2 Uh, I think towards the... towards the, uh, on your way out, you, you find this. Uh, Mana, this was in one of the rooms you'd already been going through. There's a collection of, uh, kind of like, not like lost and found, but stuff that has just been left here for a long, long time. So I think it's like, in one of the old lockers. In fact, you know what I think happens? Is I think one of the cleansed slimes from above, now, now free from Alakastra's control, uh, kind of like, wobble over to you, and lift this up to you. Uh, it's a broom.
1:32:18.8
Sylvi: Oh my god. Wait a minute.
Austin: It's a broom. You can tell me what this broom looks like. Uh...
Sylvi: Mm-hm.
Austin: Uh, and they just give it to you.
Sylvi: What — what's it do? Is it just a broom?
Austin: It —
Sylvi: I'm not cleaning this place up —
Keith: Clean up this mess.
Austin: Yeah, like, please clean this place up. Uh... it kind of like, uh, tries to like, uh... how does a broom sniff at someone? How does a broom try to like, take appraisal of someone?
Sylvi: Ugh...
Austin: Uh, as you take it, it sort of like, scoots away from you. Uh, uh, almost in the like, Mickey Mouse, uh, Wizard's Apprentice way.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: And then kind of like, you know, I think, fully like the Wizard's Apprentice style broom, gives you like a once-over, like the sort of, like it bends the way a person would, to like, “hm, what's your deal?”
Sylvi: [chuckling] I am mirroring it, by the way.
Austin: Perfect.
Sylvi: I'm appraising it, doing the exact same poses.
Austin: I love it. Great, great, great. Give me, you give me, here, if you would like to investigate this thing, give me a D20 plus, god, I guess, either — a D20 plus 3, because you have the mannequins skill, and [chuckling] I think that that works here, given the skillset of what [dice boop] mannequins is.
1:33:37.5
Austin: And that's an 18. All right.
Sylvi: That's an 18.
Austin: So, I will tell you what this is, and tell you how it works. This is an untamed magic broom. When you climb onto this broom, you may ask it to let you fly. If you roll a 20, the broom accepts you, becoming a tamed magic broom. You can now safely activate it for 2AP whenever you want, allowing you to fly with it for one hour. On an 11 to 19, like you just rolled, the broom decides it is in the mood to fly, and lets you ride and direct it for the next 10 minutes. On a 6 to 10, the broom thinks you want it to clean something, and begins floating around, swapping up any loose bits into piles.
Sylvi: Oh my god.
Austin: On a 2 to 5, the broom decides it's in the mood to fly, but not with you! It shoots up into the air, ejecting you forcefully, and pursues its own agenda for the next hour, before returning to you. And at 1, the broom tires of you and your games. It flies off into the distance. You don't know when it will return to you.
Sylvi: I love this.
Austin: Add this to your inventory also.
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: I'll give you some time to come up with a name for this broom. I think the vibe you get is, someone, someone at the height of the Chimeric Crown had this broom, and it got lost in the crevices somewhere, long after their empire fell. And it has been generations and generations since anyone, like, you know, this broom belonged to anybody. And like a pet, you know, kind of keen to have a master again, there is an interest here. Like, “all right, yeah.” You're going to like, make sure that the, the fucking, you know, you keep me well — I know it's not well-fed, I don't know how you feed a broom.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: But whatever the magic broom equivalent of well-fed, well-maintained, you know.
Janine: Oiled? Is it wood?
Austin: Well-oiled? I guess, I guess, I guess it's wood. It's some sort of magic wood, for sure. Yeah.
Keith: Clean the, clean the bristles.
Austin: Clean the bristles, make sure — yeah.
Sylvi: Speaking of, I do have a name, and it is Bristle, the magic broom.
Austin: Oh, I love this. Bristle the magic broom.
Janine: [laughing]
Austin: Who at this point is like, “hop on, let's go!” [chuckling] Uh...
Keith: New, new favorite character.
Sylvi: Hell yeah.
Austin: [laughing] Are you just like, hovering around the room with everyone?
Sylvi: Absolutely! I'm like doing doughnuts right now.
Austin: [laughing] Perfect. Uh... Kevynn, unfortunately, does not get any cool rewards, but is hyped to have been — I think Kevynn is like —
Keith: Kevynn didn't help even one little bit, so that's fine.
Austin: [chuckling] Kevynn tried!
Janine: You know what? You know what?
Austin: What?
Janine: I give Kevynn two bars of iron.
Keith: [laughing]
Austin: Oh, wow, I love this.
Janine: It's, it's the two bars of iron I stole from him.
Austin: You stole from Kevynn!
Janine: He does not know that.
Austin: He does not know!
Janine: He does not know that. Two bars of iron.
Austin: He doesn't —
Janine: Two bars of iron, as the reward for a job well done. Come hang out with us, you'll get more — we'll give you more goodies, like, you know?
Austin: Yeah, you basically say, hey, come to town, this is where we're going to — yeah.
Janine: And like, any quest —
Keith: This is a great gift —
Janine: Like, any quest thread, the first reward is pretty weak, but you build up. [chuckles]
Austin: Uh-huh. You build up, bit by bit. Uh...
Keith: Yeah, this is a great reward, because I lost two bars of iron earlier.
Austin: [laughing]
Janine: Exactly.
Keith: They just disappeared, so...
Austin: Wow, holy shit, I love this.
Janine: You're supposed to lose the two bars of iron on the quest, so then they give it back to you —
Austin: Right, you get it back.
Janine: So you don't feel bad about it. [laughing]
Austin: You don't feel bad, exactly, yeah. Uh-huh. You have to spend 30,000, and you get 40,000 right after.
1:36:39.9
Janine: Exactly. [laughing]
Austin: Yeah, totally. Totally. And, yeah. I, you know, as we kind of set up, by the time that you get back to town, the vicount, having spied you going up to investigate and, and seemingly, you know, potentially having been communicated to by the Vivants up here, has fucking cut and run, uh, uh... the people inside of his, uh, mansion, his manor, have like closed the gates and taken up a defensive perimeter. It's not — they insist that he has, that he is not in there, and preliminary scans of the place by the locals, uh, you know, don't seem to find him.
1:37:16.3 Uh, a deeper dive maybe could, could find a secret passage or something that he's there, or maybe he actually did just leave, for now. It's not clear.
Keith: And the locals are like, “yeah, we buy that this is true?”
Austin: I think so. Kevynn is, Kevynn is able to provide this for you. This was going to be, this was going to be part of it, right?
Keith: Right.
Austin: I definitely when I first imagined this, imagined a bit of like a Seven Samurai ending, where like, the locals don't believe you, and don't necessarily trust you, either. But having — turning Kevynn on them and being like, “yeah, here's what happened,” I think helps, you know, vouch for you in a real way. Kevynn can provide, even provide the, the uh, the invitation. Or I guess, you [laughing] can provide the invitation, because you took it from Kevynn's bag.
Keith: Right. [laughing]
Austin: But, yeah, it's, it's, it lines up pretty cleanly. The people are glad to be rid of the vicount for now, at least. But, who knows. He may come back at some point. It, he is still —
1:38:08.7
Keith: We should take the wood off the house to rebuild their town.
Austin: That's a good idea. Yeah, 100 percent. Uh, uh, and everyone's pretty grateful. I think the prioress, uh, apologizes for being so cold to you all, and says outright that, that, uh, she, you know, if she seemed suspicious of you all, it's only because her encounter with the, uh, the... uh, Vivants had made her generally skeptical of all outsiders. But this has reaffirmed her desire to try to like, make bonds with the communities, uh, around, around Tableau that, you know, have been here for a while. And thanks you greatly for, for saving the Translucent Eminence, an important local, you know... a local part of the ecology, slash god, that this group of people worships, and will go back to worshiping.
Janine: Can — can we maybe encourage them to, to use this time to like, build some...
Austin: Beef up some security?
Janine: Flood stop situation?
Austin: Oh, some flood stop stuff, yeah.
Janine: Because it seems like someone's going to come back and try and do that shit again, maybe.
Austin: Yeah. Well like, and it's true that they just didn't know that that would happen, right? Like, they —
Janine: Yeah, or could happen in that way.
Austin: This came out of nowhere, they couldn't prepare for it, and they didn't know that if the slime was hurt in that way, that it would flood the, the valley, you know?
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: So, yes, you can encourage that, uh, you know, maybe that's a problem that we'll have to come back to at some point, but for now, at least —
Janine: Maybe like, dig some drainage ditches — something.
Austin: Some trenches into the river. Yeah, totally.
Janine: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Redirect that.
Austin: Totally. But, yeah. That seems like a successful, uh, a successful encounter today.
1:39:50.7 Uh, I think we should probably wrap things up there. Uh, uh, unless there is some, some final stuff that you want to get to here. I think, I think everyone here —
Janine: How does XP work?
Austin: You, at the end of, uh, each session, or each arc, you're just going to get a new move. So you can just take a new move, uh, in between arcs.
Janine: Ooh.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Fun.
Austin: I think it's technically between sessions, but I think I want to do it between arcs, because otherwise the power curve is just wild.
Janine: Oh yeah, yeah. And it'll really skew towards people who have schedule availability, which is not that fun.
Austin: That's exactly it. And like long, and it will hurt people who happen to be in games —
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Where we do one long session instead of two short ones.
Janine: And make it harder to balance, to balance stuff as we get further on.
Austin: Exactly, exactly.
Janine: Yeah, that makes sense.
Austin: But I'll probably give some extra AP off-mic, uh, uh, though, here's one. You can reward each player an additional one AP for sharing their thoughts about the session you just played. They can give you their thoughts at the table, or send them to you in private afterwards. So if you do that, everyone gets [chuckling] a bonus AP, this is like giving an extra credit assignment at school, but I'm doing it anyway. Uh... yeah, we can do a lot of this stuff off-mic, but —
Janine: We should do that.
Austin: But, but yeah, absolutely, please. Uh, if you, if you have thoughts on this.
Janine: I mean, I could do that right now. I have a really quick one.
Austin: Go ahead and do it, go ahead.
Janine: Uh, I think that penalizing communication in a game where we're primarily roleplayers and not fighters is difficult. I think if —
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: If, I think if we were the group who just rolls around fighting everyone —
Austin: Not as big a deal, yeah.
Janine: Then, then that thing would be totally fine.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: But, but for a thing where primarily what we do as players, and as characters, but mostly as players, is, is roleplay and engage with the world in that way —
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: That seems, it was not, it, it really felt like I could do nothing. [laughs] It was, it was really frustrating.
Austin: Well, and it's really tough, it's really tough because it's, so it's a 1 in 20 chance, right? It's a 5 percent on that roll to hit that one thing.
Janine: Mm-hm.
Austin: Uh, I guess for, for like a behind-the-scenes thing, what you, what you did was eat a magic apple that I just said, “oh, this a magic potion,” right? And if you find a random magic potion, you get a 1D20 when you drink it, and depending on what you get, you get different effects. 6 is, you forget languages for one day. 7 is, you speak your thoughts out loud uncontrollably for the next hour. So, both of those back to back are playing with weird communication stuff. But 7 is at least, is about performing actions, whereas 6 is just shutting them down.
1:42:10.8 And it's, it's written in such a way that like, totally does, like we couldn't even do, “you write your word down on a piece of paper,” or something, right?
Janine: Yeah. Yeah.
Austin: So very limited, in a real way.
Janine: That's a tough one.
Austin: It is. And it is what it is, right? There is, there is — the rest of these things are all really interesting, and none of the other ones, like, not even a 1, says, “don't roleplay,” you know? Only 6 does, really. And that's, that's a bummer. Uh... anyone else, to get a bonus AP, have thoughts about the sessions that we did? If not, don't worry, you can hit me up off-mic and we can wrap back around, for sure.
1:42:47.9
Janine: Also, how many AP do we get back after a, after a thing?
Austin: 5. 5. So you —
Janine: Okay.
Austin: So take 6 here.
Keith: Uh...
Austin: And again, that's something that I'll have to sleep on, is like, how much AP between sessions, if we break things up, versus da-da-da. You know?
Keith: It's, it's tough for me to see how scalable combat becomes, when, when like, a lot of my main moves don't require any rolling. And I just say that I do it.
Austin: Yeah. I think the thing there is, my solution would be about giving you minions to waste AP on, right?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Or to worry, do I want to spend this AP on these minions when you might have to fight a big monster at the end of this. Uh... because, once you blow through that AP, you're not going to get it — you don't have the ability to quickly get it back, you know?
Keith: Right, yeah.
Austin: But you're right, I do think that that's, that's definitely a concern. Uh, and, and was something I kind of thought about. But, y'all just didn't have to fight until the final fight of this sequence, you know?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Imagine if that slime fight just happens, imagine if you have to fight the skeletons in the tunnels.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Imagine if you have to fight Kevynn, who has moves that no one got to see, because... because [laughing] because he was asleep.
Janine: He was asleep.
Keith: [laughing] Absolutely.
Austin: Basically, both sessions, all the way through. [chuckling] Yeah.
Janine: Yeah...
Keith: Uh, the other thing that I was thinking is like, the... one of the prob — like, one of the problems... I mean, I guess it's just like, a 20 is like a crit, I guess.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: But it's just, it's very weird to have like, I have stuff where I have like, moves where I only have a 1 in 20 chance of hitting the best thing that it can do.
Austin: Yeah, yeah.
Keith: Uh, but then like, success is huge. It's 10 to 19.
Austin: Success is huge! It's not, it's 6, it's 6 to 19 is a success. Or success is, you're right that 11 to 19 is success.
Keith: Right.
Austin: But 6 and up, you get the thing you want. It's, you succeed in your action but there's a cost. That's huge.
Janine: Mm-hm.
Keith: Yeah, it really, it really feels like, maybe like, 18 to 17, or, sorry — 18 to 20, and then like maybe —
Austin: 10 to 16 —
Keith: I don't know —
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tinkering therein.
Keith: Slightly widen full success, and slightly narrow partial success, feels more natural to me as playing any other game I've ever played.
Austin: Or you mean, slightly widen, like, critical success —
Keith: Right.
Austin: Slightly widen tough choice, reduce just regular success. What, what abilities do you have —
Keith: Right, yeah.
Austin: That require a 20?
Keith: Uh, uh... of the ones that I have taken already —
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Is just soul gaze.
Austin: Oh, but that's the one where it's like, right, that's the, you learn the worst and best thing it's ever done, right?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, I think that they, a lot of those are moves are meant to —
1:45:29.6
Keith: There are other, there are other ones in my [unintelligible]
Austin: Totally. I think a lot of the moves have like, a super-cool thing at 20, with the expectation that you shouldn't get it all the time —
Keith: Really, it's rare.
Austin: Because it's too good.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Uh, which I, what I'll have to do is look at the moves and see how... is it okay if this happens 20 percent of the time, or 15 percent of the time, versus 5 percent of the time, do you know what I mean?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Uh, uh, or, is it one of those things where, again, we can say, “hey, it only counts if you naturally roll between 18 and 20,” versus if you get a plus or whatever, you know?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Uh, but yeah.
Keith: I don't know if this is something that needs to change, but just having like, such a narrow thing at the top, but then having such a wide full success — like, normal success, it's very weird.
1:46:13.8
Austin: It's, it's — yeah, it's a different, it's a different thing that I — [sighs] we just haven't played something with this wide of a scale. I mean, this is the D20. This is the —
Keith: But even like Dungeons and Dragons I played at lunch when I was like —
Austin: Totally.
Keith: In my teens, is not like that at all.
Austin: 11 is not a success [chuckling] often in D&D, 100 percent.
Keith: Right. Yeah, yeah.
Austin: It's very clearly skewed towards progress, here —
Keith: Right.
Austin: In a way that most games are not.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Or, or not just progress, but success, right? Like I think most games that we would play —
Keith: Right.
Austin: And I would have to look at the map on this, but would have a much, that 6 to 10 would be much more like 6 to 14 or something, you know?
Keith: Right, yeah.
Austin: Uh, anyway.
Keith: If feels almost like, instead of fail forward, it's just like, “well, let's just make the fail really small.”
Austin: Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh... Sylvi
Keith: Like they took the lesson of not a lot of, not a lot of like, game-stopping failures, but —
Austin: Right, right.
Keith: Implemented in a different kind of way.
Austin: A different way, yeah. Sylvi, do you have any thoughts you want to share before we hop off?
Sylvi: Nothing like, on stuff to like improve on. But I did really like the sort of like... weird ways we were able to get around stuff.
Austin: Me too.
Sylvi: Like when we had to get around the two slimes, and like, just like, slowing down their play —
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvi: Like, this is, just like, the, the... flexibility of the skills in this game let you use them in really interesting ways, and like, I feel like we were able to sort of come up with really good ones together for that.
Austin: Totally. Totally.
1:47:44.6
Sylvi: Uh, especially, like, the spirit bottle thing, like... that's, like, just taking advantage of a weird, vague, like language in the book, that I think is really good, for example.
Austin: Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Yeah. Potatonaut says, “so is Austin going to leave that one in or change it? It is what it is sounds like, “too bad, so sad,” to me. Uh, what I, what I said was, I'll have to review the rest of the abilities to see if that would skew it too badly, which I think is the actual only responsible thing, because what you don't want to do is say yes to someone at the table, that then immediately breaks the game as a different player takes a move where being able to consistently get that top level 20 thing makes the game not fun for other players, because that player has an ability that makes them so much better than everyone else. Uh... which only comes —
1:48:31.5
Keith: I think that was with the apple.
Austin: No, you don't —
Keith: No? Okay.
Austin: No, I — because what we said about the apple was definitely, we're just not going to, that it's too hard. Yeah, definitely.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Uh, yeah. Uh... anyway. I think that that's going to do it for us tonight. I hope that everyone has a good remainder of the weekend. As always, you can support us by going to friendsatthetable.cash. You can follow us on Twitter at @friends_table. Uh, and I hope everyone is able to, to chill out and have a good, you know, weekend. It's not like a special weekend this weekend.
1:49:01.7
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: I was going to be like — it's not Halloween yet, but —
Janine: It's just a weekend.
Austin: Have a good weekend. [chuckles]
Janine: Weekend's as special as you make it.
Austin: Wow. That's true.
Janine: Make the weekend special.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: That's true. All right. All right, everybody, have a good night.
Janine: Bye!