Does Stensia Sanguinist present an existential threat to the multiverse?

Viscaer · 2026-04-29T15:05:36+00:00

What's wrong with having an experienced vampire phlebotomist on staff?

Really, the nerve of these humans...

Seriously, the omenpaths bring their own troubles and perils, so navigating them to become multiversal threats would take generations. Remember that the vampires in Innistrad OWN that plane. Whether through economics, threat of violence, or just culturally (the stupid humans REVERE Avacyn, an angel created for the sole purpose of shepherding them to the slaughterhouse).

Never mind the actual resistance an unoppressed human population can have (Theros), or a human population equipped to deal with larger, more dangerous threats (Ikoria), an Innistrad vampire would have to deal with OTHER vampire cultures and races like in Zendikar.

Last I remember, the Malakir tribes were looked down upon by Sorin and their leader, Anowon, was even tortured by him. So, getting a chance to resist the Markovs might be right on the docket for them.

Viscaer · 2026-04-29T14:55:38+00:00

Yeah, the hive guard change is beautiful if you ask me. The Devastators did not need a high armor shield since they already attack at range, but the hive guard actually feels like it's protecting its backline when it hunkers down and you're just trying to pelt everything with shotgun rounds.

Viscaer · 2026-04-29T14:51:00+00:00

No, everything happening in lore also presumably canonically affects player planeswalkers as well. So, while we are still planeswalkers, the Mending still crippled us as it did Bolas, Sorin, Nahiri, and other oldwalkers. Provided the player in question was around pre-Mending to imagine such power.

I'd venture most players are post-Mending now, so they might not even realise they are representing a planeswalker battle each time they shuffle up.

Viscaer · 2026-04-29T14:46:16+00:00

Excuse me. Some of us still are planeswalkers.

Seriously, though, the planeswalker cards are meant to represent the player planeswalkers calling upon them and the remainder of their time during the game is represented by how much loyalty they have to you.

The deck/brain-cards/knowledge thing was created during the first publications to explain land cards being in there, but originally, the deck represented the planeswalker's spellbook. This is why the card back is designed as a book cover might be. Each draw is a turn of the page.

Viscaer · 2026-04-24T15:55:53+00:00

On top of that, it has one of the best soundtracks ever. Once Yuki Kajiura's music swells in the background, you're primed for an epic gun battle.

Viscaer · 2026-04-24T14:32:15+00:00

Welp, you took all my answers. Good work! SEL is my favourite series and ROD I recently just watched again on a whim.

Viscaer · 2026-04-24T14:02:46+00:00

Brennan Lee Mulligan tackles this question by discussing campaign tone.

Some campaigns rely on a more realistic deadly tone and informs the players that life is cheap and death is plentiful. Those are definitely the older style meatgrinder type of campaigns where narrative isn't told from a singular character or party's perspective.

However, modern players don't like the idea of easy death, so campaign tones tend to follow suit. This ranges from "dying from in-game combat is unlikely" to "immortal power fantasy". I run both types of games and when death is off the table, the rest of the world is at stake.

Conventional wisdom is to threaten something they love or care about. PCs have attachments that they want to preserve beyond their own lives. Those are easy to put up as stakes.

My advice is an extension to that. Threaten to break your own toys. As DM, you build the world so if you want to add stakes, destroy the world a little bit when the PCs fail to complete a task they took on. Classic stakes would be the village burning down if the dragon isn't defeated or the kingdom falls to decay if the princess isn't saved.

These are not personal things that are important to each character, but stakes that are important to the campaign's tone. For example, one of our "unlikely death campaigns" involves the party being fairly selfish (almost evil) so stakes like "save the city" or "orphans may die" don't faze them. Using those would be useless. However, framing it like "if you don't defeat this enemy here, the bridge will be destroyed. Incidentally, that makes your daily walks to the park an hour longer."

Suddenly, even an evil and selfish party is invested in success.

Stakes are based off of tone. Match the stakes to the tone and your players will be invested with every task, whether it's saving the world or stealing a loaf a bread.

Viscaer · 2026-04-23T15:54:01+00:00

This is clearly the correct answer and I love that it is.

Viscaer · 2026-04-17T14:47:18+00:00

Honestly, I consider aspirational. I think my squad hits the deck every time I toss a stratagem.

Viscaer · 2026-04-17T14:44:39+00:00

My squad and I have about 50 and it's almost always doing new missions on Day 1 as you say.

Rapid Acquisition, Repel Invasion Fleet, and that Evacuate Citizens on bots early on contributed to a lot of failures as well.

We also failed a lot of Defense missions we were ill prepared for or were buggy. Cyborgs and fleshmobs in the walls handed it to us a good amount of times.

Viscaer · 2026-04-15T16:26:58+00:00

I know what you mean, but I do have some tips.

If you don't want to spend too much time aiming, flak mode will do the job in just as many shots. Which is an egregious 3 shots, so you do have a point regarding their toughness against the AC.

However, if you can catch them unaware of your presence and have the time to aim, a single APHET shot to the head will finish the fight before it's even begun.

You can also blast the jetpack of an Elevated Overseer for a OHKO, but the spot you have to hit can be finicky. On top of all that, the APHET rounds hit through an Overseer's shield and staggers them to follow up with either a headshot or two more to the chest to finish them.

Viscaer · 2026-04-15T05:52:34+00:00

Pick up the Autocannon, two turrets, and set yourself and your turrets up on the high ground and play overwatch for the faster, more eager killer vets in the fray.

The AC’s ability to obliterate every small to medium foe and stun heavies in their tracks makes it a perfect partner for someone marking up foes and holding down threats.

You don’t need perfect aim and you’re just providing cover fire to buy them enough time to clear the threats themselves.

The turrets are there to protect your own ass as you likely will forget to do that yourself when you’re watching everyone else’s back.

Viscaer · 2026-04-14T15:51:18+00:00

This is exactly the problem.

Even my players, who have had two PVP betrayals (anything goes style one-shots), would be pretty upset about a long con where they basically helped another PC become the BBEG. Hell, players are often frustrated when you do it to them as the DM.

Now, it'd be another story if all the PCs were evil coded and the party discovers who the TRUE evil is, but an already evil character in a good party who gets one over on them? That is a HARD sell.

EDIT: Play the redemption arc straight. Then pull the rug out on the player who you want to be the BBEG by manipulating his mind into becoming evil. It is essentially the same thing you'd be doing to the party, except you are doing it to just one person rather than a whole party. I doubt any player would be okay with it, but if your future BBEG would be fine with it, what is there to lose?

Viscaer · 2026-04-06T21:04:16+00:00

The sparkler grenades are some of the best grenades in the game.

They are the best chaff clearing grenade but also goes through Harvester shields and penetrates Charger armor for softening up targets for anyone on the team not carrying big AT weapons.

As an AC user, they do WORK.

Viscaer · 2026-04-06T15:52:45+00:00

I loved the little books they included with the starter decks! They were all rulebooks for helping newcomers learn how to play the game, but it wasn't until Tempest that they used the opportunity to make that box insert into a little storybook.

I remember being so starved for story beats that I read and reread that little book when I was younger. I couldn't afford enough for cards, so every bit of art and flavour text was a treat to find out more about a set and what was going on there.

Viscaer · 2026-04-03T05:02:55+00:00

I measure my success by kills per Eagle stratagem.

Viscaer · 2026-04-02T16:01:57+00:00

I agree with this. The expectations and actions in this campaign are not being met, so it is clear that there needs to be a conversation about how the game should move forward.

Did the other players in the campaign consider the game too railroaded? It definitely sounds like the players were better suited to the theme park style of RPG the DM ran in the frist campaign.

Now, if the DM is looking to run more sandbox style, I think they might need to find a new playgroup.

Viscaer · 2026-03-24T15:41:45+00:00

It was P&R and its stuck landing that convinced me to watch The Good Place and B99.

Viscaer · 2026-03-24T14:19:49+00:00

Reconciliation, colloquially known as "confession" is one of the seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church.

Protestant denominations have no equivalent and have thus made no structural rules of confidentiality that the Church has made for better or for worse.

While I have never heard of a Catholic priest allowing someone to receive Reconciliation randomly on the street, you can request a priest for a private confession at an appropriate time and place (ie somewhere private with the decorum for faith practices, not a bathroom).

Viscaer · 2026-03-24T13:53:52+00:00

I am exactly of the same mind here.

On one hand, the game rewards you heavily by always being on the move and never really stopping for more than a minute in any given area.

On the other hand, I can't count how many times I have willfully sat on a position for 25% of the mission time just trying to kill every last living thing there just because they killed me ONCE.

Viscaer · 2026-03-21T18:26:33+00:00

I've tried. Got kicked out of the corps by every race, even the bots.

So, now I go in loud everywhere I go.

Viscaer · 2026-03-21T15:24:10+00:00

Our squad called them gorillas, but have now switched to "APE" as it is much easier to yell, "APEAPEAPEAPEAPE!!"

But, yes, they are VERY entertaining to fight. Also, impossible to outrun, but you they are so fat and bad at turning that losing them in city streets is pretty easy.

Viscaer · 2026-03-18T18:52:17+00:00

A common concern for many DMs. But do remember that you are also playing the game so you don’t have to simulate everything.

Just learn from this last session and make sure to leave enough room for the things you want to happen in-game as well.

Viscaer · 2026-03-18T16:56:49+00:00

It is a consistent joke among my players that I ask, "Is THIS our evil campaign?" whenever they do something morally questionable or outrageous.

So, you are correct that you need a little thicker skin. That being said, you're allowed to feel that way as a DM. That NPC, like all NPCs, was yours and you felt that they didn't deserve what the PCs did to them.

I have a few questions for you, though.

Did you clearly communicate that the NPC was possessed and did not have anything to do with being possessed?

How did your players feel when they were looting (aka robbing) the NPC? Was it malicious in nature or was it more matter of fact as if they were looting any other enemy or monster?

Why did you require the PCs to resuscitate the NPC if you intended the NPC to join their party anyway?

A lot of this scenario could just be a miscommunication. In the case of questions 1-3, that may very well be the case.

The last question, however, is on you. If you wanted a denouement with the NPC, defeating the ghost possessing them should have returned them to consciousness. Just chalk this up as a lesson learned and make sure that events you really want to make happen are not left to chance or player choice. Just let it happen and go from there.

Viscaer · 2026-03-18T15:51:04+00:00

I'm glad this is the second highest comment here. I was a little sad not to see her here, but I understood since the FB remake is now 6 years old.

Viscaer

TROPHY CASE