The Rise of the Windigo King (OOC and Signup)

I have to say that I'm in agreement with Xand here. I realize that the crusader has a parry talent from what Tyger posted and that it says to negate the attack, but from the description, it makes no sense to deflect everything. You'd have to be Twilight Sparkle or somewhere near that level to deflect every single bullet going at multiple targets. It only makes sense for him to block what's coming directly at him, unless you're putting us up against an army of Twilights, in which case we're all dead anyway. And if we were up against an army of Twilights, I would think it would be in the stats Tyger posted.

Again, I do realize you're new to this, so I can't really condemn you too much for this, but the logistics of what you posted don't really add up.

I didn't intend to rob the fun out of anyone. When I initially developed the Parry skill for the Crusader what I had in mind was them using their sword to make the attack miss by pushing it away, and then slashing the target. very specifically I was imaging them being punched or slashed at by a single target. That spinning sword thing was the only way I could think of to deflect a minigun attack. And I honestly did feel bad about negating the dark horse's attack because even not GMing before I could tell Xand was really excited about getting that off, and reading that I feel worse. But if they can do something, and I have them just not do it, why am I sending an encounter at you at all?

The fact is I want all of you to win, I want you to find these crazy plot threads I made and come out on top and have an epic and fun story. I have no less than 4 separate plans in place in case my not knowing what I'm doing caused me to send an unbalanced encounter at you and cause a TPK to make sure you don't die on the first encounter of the session. I don't want to seem like I'm pulling punches because then what do those epic victories actually mean if you were going to win anyway because the monsters would go completely against reason and do something stupid if it looks like they stood any chance of winning.

I'm going to be posting things related to the monsters! Don't read if you don't want to know!

Thinking on it, as it is, Parry is confusing.

You know why?

It's an Immediate Interrupt, but it can't be one. You need to damage them by the description, but that only occurs AFTER an attack has resolved. There's only two ways to make this make sense:

1) It could be an Immediate Reaction, healing the damage dealt to it and returning it. This is basically what you're doing now, only more clearly worded. However, this means you can't parry every single bullet in a minigun, only a few of them that fly towards you. On the opposing side, it also means that every crusader could parry, returning huge amounts of damage if an area attack was attempted. This would basically make Parry a superpowered "Revenge Is Mine".

2) It could nullify a Target attack as an Interrupt and use the die. The ability would then read:
"Trigger: You are targeted with an attack
Effect: Ignore all damage that attack would deal, and deal to the attacking creature half the damage prevented this way"

This is more global as an effect, as you could prevent a Fireball from hitting 3 with just one parry, but a field-wipe would still be unblockable.

Both of these are closer to your intent of a sword parry than jedi mind skills. I had not read through the monster bios earlier or I would have mentioned how off that Parry ability seemed.

it's not intended to be a jedi mind skill. It was intended to be a result of their sword training. a sword version of a judo throw. They take the enemies attack and send the force of it back against them. They can't all parry a single attack because that would be ridiculous since one guy already stopped it. The reason its set as an interrupt is because what I intended was "if they're about to take damage from an attack, stop that attack and deal half that damage back to the attacker.

The only consideration I gave to AoE attacks was that the returned damage isn't. If they block fireswath and send it back, only the attacker gets the damage. it isn't sent back to everyone in the party.

Dr Blight wrote:it's not intended to be a jedi mind skill. It was intended to be a result of their sword training. a sword version of a judo throw. They take the enemies attack and send the force of it back against them. They can't all parry a single attack because that would be ridiculous since one guy already stopped it.

If I swing a rapier at a fencer, they'll smack it back and reposite. We all agree on that. If I explode a megaton bomb ten feet above his head, he can't exactly parry it without jedi mind skills. He might be able to, with enough awesomeness, blow some of the energy away around his own person, sending it back the way it came. If three hundred fencers were in the blasting zone, they might all be able to blow some energy away from their person, sending it back the way it came. (That's Ability 1, above) But one fencer cannot block a bomb meant to hit 300 of them without some preternatural ability.

You can easily have multiple people parrying a single attack like that, while "one guy already stopped it" is patently ridiculous. I frankly don't see the issue: Each person redirects the force coming their way, a sword version of a judo throw. You never took Judo, did you? Redirecting energy that is targeted towards you is the core idea (Ability 2, above), not redirecting energy targeted elsewhere, which is what is being done here.

I'm fine with Rule 0 - The DM is always right. I don't mind crusaders that are infused with divine energy of their deity, their god's blessing allowing them to perform unnatural feats of skill on a short-term basis in exchange for overtaxing their muscles and risking long-term injury later in life (shortform: "Jedi powers"). But don't try to imply that my observations are completely wrong and that four people blocking 4 bullets each is less realistic than one person blocking 16 fired in a wide arc.

Dr Blight wrote:it's not intended to be a jedi mind skill. It was intended to be a result of their sword training. a sword version of a judo throw. They take the enemies attack and send the force of it back against them. They can't all parry a single attack because that would be ridiculous since one guy already stopped it. The reason its set as an interrupt is because what I intended was "if they're about to take damage from an attack, stop that attack and deal half that damage back to the attacker.

The only consideration I gave to AoE attacks was that the returned damage isn't. If they block fireswath and send it back, only the attacker gets the damage. it isn't sent back to everyone in the party.

^I'll give you this DB, that's one mean counter. I really wish it didn't entirely block AoEs, but I'll accept it either way.

I understand the need to keep things challenging and to not go easy on the players, but here's something else to possibly consider. What I usually do with my games is keep the monster stats hidden from the players for that very reason. I know that's not a possibility here since you were getting critiqued, but if you're afraid of going easy on us because it's too obvious that your monsters are holding back, then maybe you could keep the monsters HP and PiP totals hidden? That way you have room to fudge rolls one way or the other without us being the wiser? You could just be sure to give a bit of extra detail when a monster gets bloodied or something?

Of course, if you're straight off against fudging rolls (which I can also understand), then my suggestion's a mute point.

It's also a moot point. Mute points tend to be, what with being very quiet and all.

My suggestions don't need to be on-the-fly things, just a "for future monster" things, this one was blessed by his god, that's all there is to it, later ones might be stronger or weaker.

I will say that, as enemies, they present a very annoying threat for level 1's, which is that in groups of them, past turn three they need to be cherry-tap killed or otherwise two dedicated healers present. With the 60hp dude who could eat them being present, their presence (implied in his ability) would force the players to 100% ignore the minions. No AoE, no field control, just as-strong-as-possible singular attacks aimed at the leader without a thought for strategy or whatnot. If that is what you're going for, cool. If it isn't, you may need to rethink their ability-sets.

If you threw a bomb at them, the way parry is intended to work isn't "I attack the explosion with mystical powers and send it back" it's "I swat away the bomb and hit you" in this particular case it was "I swat away the bullets and hit you" but if you like, thinking about it more now, I could also have him go "I run up, swat away the minigun and hit you." I could have all the crusaders go chase that bomb and keep swatting it away, but that would be ridiculous if it was already swatted away from hurting them.

And I never said your observations were wrong, I said my intention for them was never to have them be jedi. If I wanted jedi, I'd make a monster that was built to be jedi and call them elite crusaders or straight up jedi knight or something. Crusaders are meant to be closer to storm troopers than jedi.

If it's really that big of a deal, I'll strike Parry from their roster completely, or hell, just use the Ambusher's build for the order's mooks instead from now on.

And they do? From what I've seen, they go down on the second turn if the party uses any AoE at all. As for the Blood Knight, I really don't wanna give away story things so I'm going to put this in spoilers. you've been warned.

Spoiler:

@Xand
I only gave the monsters HP at the bottom because I was worried I'd be accused of cheating if I didn't.

Speaking as a neutral outsider, I think that that particular knight should actually have been some special trooper, like an ARC to consider your analogy. He should also escape and become recurring, but the other knights should lose or nerf Parry.

I don't mind making the knight be some special recurring character, he's done surprisingly well all things considered. I'll be striking Parry from this point out until I give the crusaders another look through though, so they'll just be using Slash.

Might be smart to have it be like a X/battle type move.

Since I'll be striking parry from their roster, we'll say this one IS a jedi after all and got help from his god since none of them will be able to do that anymore.

Right, checked to make sure on this. Since Dr. D got HP back from emerald boon, his HP is now at 3 so he's back on his feet.

Dr Blight wrote:Since I'll be striking parry from their roster, we'll say this one IS a jedi after all and got help from his god since none of them will be able to do that anymore.

Right, checked to make sure on this. Since Dr. D got HP back from emerald boon, his HP is now at 3 so he's back on his feet.

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been able to post, and... woah, I missed a lot! Um, does this mean it's my turn?
[Edit]: Also, So I can use Healing Salve on him? He's awake?

not yet, I still have to post for the crusader after Halynn and the one that starts the new initiative order since I think he's unstunned now.

But yes, you can use healing salve on him.

Dr Blight wrote:not yet, I still have to post for the crusader after Halynn and the one that starts the new initiative order since I think he's unstunned now.

But yes, you can use healing salve on him.

Great! On another note, I didn't think the first encounter would be this hard!

I didn't either to be honest. I make my bosses too weak and my mooks too strong apparently.

Dr Blight wrote:I didn't either to be honest. I make my bosses too weak and my mooks too strong apparently.

THOSE WERE MOOKS?! Dear Celestia, we are so gonna die.
[Edit]: Also, WoMF, nice one. I almost forgot you had that ability.

Don't worry it is most likely Hard Levels, Easy Bosses

tygerburningbright wrote:Don't worry it is most likely Hard Levels, Easy Bosses

I hope not Nintendo Hard, although sometimes Nintendo Hard is fun!

Subjectz wrote:

Dr Blight wrote:I didn't either to be honest. I make my bosses too weak and my mooks too strong apparently.

THOSE WERE MOOKS?! Dear Celestia, we are so gonna die.
[Edit]: Also, WoMF, nice one. I almost forgot you had that ability.

I'm just glad I remembered it. ^.^ I imagine Xand's fairly glad of it as well.

The Warrior of Many Faces wrote:

Subjectz wrote:

Dr Blight wrote:I didn't either to be honest. I make my bosses too weak and my mooks too strong apparently.

THOSE WERE MOOKS?! Dear Celestia, we are so gonna die.
[Edit]: Also, WoMF, nice one. I almost forgot you had that ability.

I'm just glad I remembered it. ^.^ I imagine Xand's fairly glad of it as well.

He will be once he gets on!

Just tell unca Lobber if you're having troubles over there. Combat reset, so he's got full pips again.

The Warrior of Many Faces wrote:I'm just glad I remembered it. ^.^ I imagine Xand's fairly glad of it as well.

^That I am (;

And I like hard fights. We should definitely have some life-threatening battles. I don't have a problem with that. I'd like the bosses to be challenging too - just as long as we have a chance against them. That Parry was pretty OP though. Maybe more of a boss power in itself?

And I wouldn't mind Lobber getting into the fight at all, for what it's worth...

Could use one more DPS, eh? Well, I'll need to think of a reason, then, to get him involved.

So I can go?
[Edit]: Also, Ice stuff? Uh-oh!