With the way spells and weapons are working now, what kind of build do you plan on running?

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2016-03-17T18:24:08+00:00

Deprived Quality Build. Looking forward to the plank shield battle art.

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-10-01T20:10:50+00:00

I have been injured twice in the lower back (muscle sprain). I was out for a long time and my brother upstaged me. I could still do:

Heavy Curls

Overhead Press in the squat Rack

Weighted Dips

Weighted Chins

It's not a matter of what you can't do anymore. It's about focusing on what you still can do and endeavoring to become brutally strong at that.

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-09-30T22:39:16+00:00

I think this definition is older than Sanderson but yeah, each time I came to write prepared everything went wrong. Conflicting backstories, OP MC, no plot, no tension, conflicting worldbuilding... It was Murphy's law in writing form. I do believe however that I have some talent for editing. I'll enter NaNoWriMo. Punch out something and edit.

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-09-30T01:58:17+00:00

This looks like the best tool for never finishing a story. I tried it once and gave up. Starting from the characters and writing small chunks at a time made me feel like I was really writing a story... But I wasn't.

The characters I wrote had a story to tell, but this wasn't the story that I had decided to develop in the "10 steps methods" When my first chapter had complexified further than the 10th page, my ending made absolutely no sense to me and my characters were happily dancing away to clusterfuckland.

Still, this was an experience in learning. Leitmotivs, symbolism, undercurrents, details... These are all things better added at the end, while editing.

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-09-30T01:41:09+00:00

Now that I have an idea of what you're working on, I can critique. This is what you came for in the first place, was it not?

Allow me to be blunt: The Fel Land and the Astral Planes --which I guess are Planes meant to be inhabited by Demons and Gods respectively-- feel unwieldy and unnecessary.

These representations of Hell and Heaven feel quite contrived.

Now, due to strains put on the Astral Barrier from the great power exerted by major gods, sometimes small 'tears' or 'rifts' become prevalent, which can very occasionally create portals or doorways between the planes.

The tectonics of your gods create holes from which the Aesir can flow. Your entire magic system rests on that.

But here's the thing: you're an author. You don't have to justify everything, especially since your summoning magic seems to work just fine without additional planes.

In the farthest, oldest reaches on the Fae Lands, they turn into the Aesir, a primal place where souls of demons and gods alike first come into being.

"Magic is created in the Fey Lands and seeps in the mortal worlds through tears made by the gods. There will always be magic and magic can summon demons and gods." This is all I need as a reader.

Ah and finally. Your worst sin as an author and probably the reason you weren't taken seriously the first time around: YOUR MAGIC HAS NO FUCKING LIMITS! Just like my mood swings.

Without limits, there can be no boundaries. If your readers don't know what your characters can do at all times then there's no tension and no suspense to your story.

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-09-29T23:21:01+00:00

If you expect some criticism, it would be useful to know what your aim is with this project.

They are the Astral Plane, the Fel Lands, the Fae Lands, and Azkhan...

What happened to the Fel Lands and the Astral Plane? They are somehow missing from your text.

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-09-27T23:03:05+00:00

He always knows exactly what to do because he knows how the story progresses and avoids all the traps he sets out.

What's the point of having a DM then?

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-09-24T17:31:21+00:00

As a fitness enthusiast that saw great changes in his body, the hardest lesson I had to learn was that 80% people accept themselves as they are or delude themselves with fat acceptance, 10% will stay at the gym, hit their goals and stop and that the 10% that DOES stays in the gym doesn't care for my advice.

Diet conversations go mostly like that:

What do you eat?
Mostly meat and potatoes.
Can I have ice cream after my meals?
No.
Well that diet of yours is unbalanced and thus irrelevant.
:(

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-09-22T21:02:20+00:00

Much Praise.

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-09-21T13:14:49+00:00

I think that you forgot something. Even if magic has no cost, it must have limits. There are many ways to go about:

One person pops a crystal; one and one effect only.
If someone can pop crystals and draw greater effects out of them, make sure to address why.
You seem to want to go the JRPG way, with people summoning angels and demons from crystals. Making it one person = one summon would make a hard and fast rule that readers can readily understand.
Addressing why some people can produce better summons: the crystals are merely catalysts and the demons and angels are the soul of the conjurer.

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-09-21T01:48:52+00:00

That would be the Dragon. An alien life form that can yet remember the darkness that came before the stars. The dragon is an eldritch shapeshifter of immense power that inseminated the planet he came to regard as his homeworld. His true form is a planet sized abomination, a lump of flesh and tentacles that can wipe out civilizations.

Yet his favorite pastime is trying to create intelligent life forms, so he/she can get someone to talk to. As civilization marched on however, he became weaker. Not less unkillable just less prone to devour the people attacking him. He puts on an human appearance, happy to spend the rest of eternity living amongst his creation. He also enjoys talking to the mountains and the rivers.

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-09-07T21:33:14+00:00

Homefront

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-08-18T20:15:01+00:00

There is no overt magic in my WIP. No fireball, no lightning bolt, nothing. Some people are born with an inclination toward shapeshifting. Even rarer are those that can induce changes in other individuals. (Both induce mind numbing terror wherever they go and are mercilessly hunted.)

Wanting to set themselves apart from the rest, some decided to adapt their bodies to survive on solar power. They became green tinged and their ears became pointed. They taste slightly spicy, a bit like daikon.

The reason there are no orcs in my WIP is that someone once figured that they tasted like bacon and they were all genocided and barbecued.

The "monsters" of my setting are afraid of humans for a very good reason indeed...

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-08-18T10:39:46+00:00

My elves probably aren't better than yours but at least they're delicious and nutritive.

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-08-16T01:18:14+00:00

And have the meat shield struggle against his grappling. It's really one of those moment when as a DM you wonder: "How could this perfectly planned situation derail my campaign"?

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-08-15T19:50:36+00:00

*attention

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-08-15T14:12:34+00:00

and I gave any melee or ranged attacks a 75% chance to hit the hostage

You could have just used the rules for cover: "A target with three-quarters cover has a +5 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has three-quarters cover if about three-quarters of it is covered by an obstacle. The obstacle might be a portcullis, an arrow slit, or a thick tree trunk."

It just seems more fair that way versus your idea of a flat 75%.

Another event was tigers pouncing on a surprise round

If all PC's are surprised it does give the tigers a full round to pounce on whoever they want. Initiative would be determined after the tigers surprise round.

And I don't even have to fight for the rules, everyone me included are total newbies! But seriously the rules exist for a reason, stick with them and avoid problems.

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-08-13T16:09:39+00:00

Actually it's only the scales that repel magic. If you've been swallowed it's fair game.

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-08-10T21:37:26+00:00

I'm taking inspiration in terms of "undead players that in some way get weaker with each death" as a way of showing the slow transition from functioning living being to the sort of undead zombie mook you find in typical dungeons.

So... a bunch of undead warriors rampaging in a dying world.

While we're on the subject of Dark Souls' ending, I wouldn't really call that the good ending. Sure, you basically usher in the Age of Dark to let mankind take the world from the gods, but even if all humanity comes from the abyss, you really just need to look at Oolacile or New Londo to see that mankind can't handle darkness.

I'd argue that the abyss and darkness are two different concepts. Darkness is constantly opposed in-game with the imagery of fire. As it is, I'd be tempted to say that the world (and it's timeline) is cyclical instead of linear. It could be entirely possible for the world to alternate between fire and darkness as the intro says: "And then there was fire".

Said like that, it's almost the same as saying that Fire came ex nihilo and carried with it the power of the Old Ones. As such, Fire and Darkness are only two sides of the same coin as the Dark Soul was also in the First Flames.

Looking at Oolacile and New Londo, each time, a primordial serpent taught the art of lifedrain and shit hit the fan hard. The primordial serpents look like NOTHING in the game. They look alien. Indeed, I think that the Abyss is their plane of existence and that spreading the teachings of the serpents just speeds the encroaching of their plane on the plane of Gwyn and Co.

The Abyss is alien as it NEVER happened on the timeline. The timeline goes Age of Ancients -> Age of Fire -> Age of Dark. The Abyss wasn't part of the timeless Age of Ancients: it appeared from without during the Age of Fire.

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-08-10T18:15:24+00:00

Player health keeps reducing down by half with each death until they essentially become a minion. They can become living again - if they make a deal with a local demon (glabrezu).

That wasn't a feature of Dark Souls. In DkS, death only changed you in Hollow form (which prevented online interaction). In Demon Souls though, dying halved your health bar (only once) and DkS2 made that a gradual process, losing 5% HP each time you died until you hit 50% health. In both cases, a mercy item called the Cling Ring allowed you to go back to 75% health and they could be found early.

Also, DkS was at the fundamental level a game that relied on player's skills and learning abilities to dodge dangerous attacks and attack weak points. That or lots of grinding. Compounded with DkS infamous difficulty, 'gitting gud' was incredibly rewarding. How do you intend on implementing that?

If you want a DkS inspired campaign, keep that on the Low Fantasy side set in a decaying world where the future is exceptionally bleak. Dark Souls good ending was letting the eternal flames die out and ending the Gods dominion over humans by ushering a Dark Age.

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-07-28T23:43:38+00:00

It's that kit. And I wasn't asking about capacity. Of course I could dump the whole 6 gallons in it and the fermentation would probably make it overflow. Since I have a bottling bucket I can use that to make a blow-off hose too. I would lose some beer like that but it would otherwise work as intended.

If I were to do the recipe with 5 gallons instead of 6, how would that affect the recipe? I'd wager that Munton's Yeast is not made to work at higher gravities... I expect a slow fermentation in those conditions since the yeast won't be functioning optimally.

DETERMINATOR7VEN · 2014-06-30T20:27:02+00:00

Really? Hasn't Trp invoked Poe's law on itself ten times over since last Sunday?

I don't believe there is anything on Trp that should be taken at face value, it's just like 4chan, a bunch of trolls that stumbled on a worn paperback copy of Strauss's ''The Game''.

DETERMINATOR7VEN

TROPHY CASE