[D&D] Philosopher's Stone War II - Game Over! ICB Wins!

vonFiedler

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imperfectluck's Epilogue said:
In a neighboring town to Amesbury, an old man entered a private residence. Inside was a very ill little girl, but after a few minutes of Tao magic she was better again. The old man took room and board for his work, then was on the road again the next day.

As both an Arcane and Divine practitioner of magic, Yu Ji had already found ways to live longer than any other contestant. No one was quite sure how long lived he was, though his familiarity with another ancient Chinese figure in the last war had been disconcerting.

Nevertheless he had seen many dark things in his time, but instead of growing cynical he just became a little crazy. Maybe that is why Don Quixote of the Knight Class was such a perfect match for him. Even though Yu Ji failed to win the war once again, he would try again in the future to gain the stone for its healing purposes.
From the Diary of F.D.M. Nash, June 18th 2021

Today there was some sort of incident at the occult market next MacTaggart's. When I arrived the ground was covered in some black goo that people were trying to clean up. In spite of openly selling 'curio' items such as nightshade extract and holding a fortune teller, they still give me nothing but bullshit. If they are going to treat me with such rude discretion, then I will not have to deal with them.

Just tying up loose ends today. Two kids were found dead, maybe the same two as before? There is talk of something winged being seen over the suspension bridge, but after talking to witnesses I was sure that none knew exactly what they saw. I just hope these strange events pick up in pace again soon, I am growing weary of this life.

It is now Day 6. Deadline is in 48 hours.
 
Good game, everyone! I'll save the spiel for postgame, but it was fun to play with you all (goes for von too!).

PS: AG, I've got my logs! I hope you have yours still~
 
Sorry about the epilogue delay, I'm waiting for Raikage to either come home from his tournament or come on tomorrow to discuss something...

ETA: I delivered it lalala
 

vonFiedler

I Like Chopin
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
'You have seven minutes remaining to deliver Tony Marvel to me, or else I will erase everyone in my way and kill him myself!' Clara screamed, hovering aloft the suspension bridge and staring down fiercely at the people several hundreds of feet below her. Onlookers and police were gathered in the path, some unwillingly transfixed by her, others fleeing in terror. A swarm of helicopters moved in towards the bridge, but she looked at them contemptuously and cried 'Bullet Shield!'; the bullets fired towards her simply scattered in the air, never making contact. 'You can't kill me with bullets! I wonder, though, if you think that man's life is worth more than an entire town? Seven minutes until I choose for you!'

She pointed at the helicopters, trembling slightly, and added, 'These helicopters once hunted down my enemies, but I'm going to destroy everyone inside them now. There won't be any mercy for them, or anyone else who attempts to protect him!'

“The hero - no, wait, I tell a lie - the defeated Hero arrives!”

A figure slowly ascended towards Clara, stopping her from saying anything else.

“You’ve gotten worse since I last saw you, Clara...” Evan said, his hands in his pockets.

Even more agitated by Evan's approach, Clara turned from the helicopters and fixed her wide-eyed stare on him. Recovering from her shock, she said, 'Wallow in your misery somewhere else! You might be defeated, but I'm not finished here yet! Hold Person!'

Evan merely shook his head as though trying to bat away a fly.

“Counterspell.”

“Tch. Tyrfing’s curse was much stronger than I thought. Summoning Hervor only did more harm than good to her,” Evan thought to himself, shaking his head silently.

“Don’t worry, Clara, I’ll save you - whether you like it or not,” Evan said. He was never a very considerate person, despite his noble motivations.

The anti-mage raised his hand up high, then let it drop slowly through the air.

“Calm Emotions,” he commanded, narrowing his eyes.

Suddenly, Clara twitched, shuddered, and stayed still, breathing deeply and slowly. All the fever in her seemed to dissipate, leaving only exhaustion. 'Why are you even here...? You already admitted your defeat. Why linger in a place like this?' she asked tonelessly, gesturing towards Amesbury. The helicopters, rendered useless by her spell, waited warily from afar, but she made no effort to live up to her threats.

“I have two reasons,” Evan answered, raising up his left hand in a peace sign.

“First, I need help. I couldn’t succeed even with all the allies I had during this war. If I want to have any chance of fulfilling the request my dear friend asked of me...I will certainly require assistance,” he explained, smiling slightly.

“However! I do not presume to ask you to help me without offering something in exchange,” Evan continued, and now his face lost its cheerful expression. “Tyrfing’s curse is still affecting you, right?

If that spell earlier had not worked...I might have had to remove you to protect this world.”

“But! Since it did, I can happily offer you this deal: I will make sure you never harm others, and I’m sure that I’ll eventually find a way to remove the curse forever. In exchange, you help me in my mission. Pretty good deal, even if I do say so myself,” he said, once more grinning happily.

Clara looked away, analyzing his words in surprised silence. After a pause, she said, 'You seem to be under the assumption I actually need you. I never needed anyone. Your mission is meaningless to me.' Then she smiled ambiguously at him. 'But I was looking forward to seeing your attempts to... "remove me from this world". I think it might have even been fun...'

Evan rolled his eyes in response. “Teenage girls are so hard to handle...” he thought. “Well, this plot hook always works in the stories I read...”

“Very well. But there is another reason for you to come with me. Don’t you want to know who you really are?”

Evan glanced at the female. He couldn’t really tell if she was interested, but he had no choice but to press on with his half-lie.

“Isn’t it strange that a mere apprentice wizard such as yourself, with almost no experience, can match masters such as myself and Yu Ji?” This was not a lie.

“You might be able to learn more about yourself...But only if you come with me,” Evan said. Technically, this was not a lie either. She might really learn more about herself, he wouldn’t know, right?

The anti-mage eyed Clara warily.

Clara hesitated; she was visibly intrigued, her curiosity engaged. Evan's offer, phrased in such a way as to appeal to her interests, was now a legitimate solution to the disquiet inside her. The preceding days had unravelled the convictions that drove her almost entirely, despite her stubborn, desperate attempts to cling to them and win; in this state of composure, with all her fervour washed away, she was little more than a stranger to herself. The thought that she might be able to resolve that dissonance was all she needed to know her next move. 'I suppose that your offer is acceptable,' she conceded thoughtfully, her eyes somewhat brighter.

Evan heaved a mental sigh of relief, and extended his hand to Clara. Clara shook it, not meeting his eyes.

“Alright. Let’s get out of here.”

“Teleport.”


Raikage's Epilogue said:
And so, the counterspeller, Evan Black alias Kamijou Touma, left Amesbury together with Clara Lysander. Evan had summoned a healer class champion during the war due to his motivation to protect the world, and losing his close comrade had only hardened his resolve to stay true to his ideals despite his failure to obtain the Philosopher’s Stone. He headed towards Ireland, the homeland of the druid, Mogh Ruith, and resolved to fulfill his friend’s request to help his countrymen. Of course, he also fully intended to cure his new companion of her madness, as his first step in helping others and once more becoming a hero.


Jumpluff's Epilogue said:

Shell-shocked and subdued, Clara Lysander escaped Amesbury with a man she had attempted to kill several minutes beforehand. The insatiable will of Tyrfing -- the demonic sword of the barbarian shieldmaiden Hervor -- had driven her to the point of insanity. Tyrfing’s curse continued to linger for many months afterwards; her slow recovery was punctuated by mental instability, panic attacks, and destructive outbursts. As she began to interact with more people, though, she appreciated lives as more than fleeting moments in history, and while she was never under any delusions of redemption, she decided that her injust freedom would be better used to contribute her talents to the world than destroying it. She often thought about her champion, whose bond with her had been ultimately harmful but shown her the inevitable conclusion of the hunger for power that had made them so fundamentally similar. She also contemplated the talented apostate mage whose life and potential she had wasted as nothing more than means to an end, and these thoughts encouraged her to make something of herself enough for both of them, even without the Philosopher's Stone.
From the Diary of F. D. M. Nash, Final Entry

Only one incident today, some crazed lunatic on a bridge shouting stuff. Anyone who heard what she said isn't talking anymore.

My life is a sham. I have uncovered the unfortunate truth. The criminal Dionysios had plans to poison the city's water supply, and if they have succeeded then everything would be explained. There is no such thing as magic, and I have made an ass of myself spending my life insisting otherwise.

I have nothing left to live for, and I only hope others do not follow in my path. Farewell.

Lightwolf's Prologue said:
In a much different war, one filled with true masters instead of this rabble of apprentices and runaways, there was an eccentric named Gelu. Having won the Philosopher's Stone, he used its power to save dogs everywhere.

Canis was one such dog, given a human form. Loyal and capable, he only wished to live up to the man he considered a father. Summoning the aspect of Shiva Tripurantaka, an Archer class champion, he took his invitation and went off to war.
After sharing a final drink together, Tony Marvel's champion vanished. He walked out of the pub and towards Stonehenge, where before he came upon a small house tucked into the woods. It was recently burned down.

"Anthony Marvel!" a man called, stepping out of the cinders. "You have come for the stone."

"Uh," Tony muttered, "What is all this?"

Flamel looked back at the house, "Just a loose end to tie up before adopting a new life."

"I guess you could say I'm more into the money myself," Tony said.

Flamel chuckled, "I was a stage magician myself at one time. You have to be careful, the feds will want the stone. They trumped up some sexual assault charges to search for it."

"Well," Tony pried, "Did you do it?"

"What?"

"D-did you rape someone?" Tony grinned.

Flamel flung half the stone at the grinning fool. "Good day Mr. Marvel."

Icecoolblue's Epilogue said:
Tony Marvel had never intended to ply his trade in secret. So he practiced magic in the only place you could without being hunted down; Las Vegas!

Yes Marvel was a wizard of both the arcane and misdirection variety. He had earned fame and fortune over his lifetime, but was viewed with disrespect by his true peers.

Just as Tony Marvel wish to gain the respect of the magic association, his champion Bellerophon, of the Cavalier class, had also attempted to fly to Mount Olympus to be a god.

Tony Marvel returned home to announce to the world that he would pull of the greatest magic trick ever. Every television station tuned in at prime to see it;

Tony Marvel made the sun disappear for 10 seconds.

"It was all just a camera trick. I mean, I wasn't outside when it happened," some skeptics said.
Congratulations icecoolblue for winning the Philosopher's Stone War II!
 

vonFiedler

I Like Chopin
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
Postgame

There isn't a whole lot to say in general because of Raikage's thread. Much that I had planned to talk about is covered over there. What I can say is that while it didn't ruin PSW2, what made it markedly worse was the overcompetive nature of just about every player. Almost every player at some point whined about how underpowered their character was, sometimes I would have two opposing players doing that in query while I was just trying to run numbers for the encounter.

While I don't think anyone's feelings were hurt players the rivalries that happened were all very manufactured over personal reasons, it really came down to "I want to attack you because that is the game" but players tried to place blame over who started these fights when from the DM's perspective everyone was always equally guilty. The game started with a lot of in character development but metagaming got out of hand, I hope Raikage does more to keep that in check than I did.


The Monk - Agape

Agape (Jira Caecus)
Human Wizard 10
Init -1; Perception -2
---Defense---
AC 14, Touch 14, Flat-Footed 14
108 HP
Fort +10, Ref +4, Will +7
CMB +3; CMD 12
Energy Resistance 5
---Offense---
Speed 30 ft.
Universalist School
Spells Prepared
4 6 5 4 4 3
---Statistics---
Str 7, Dex 9, Con 20, Int 20, Wis 7, Cha 8
Feats Arcane Blast, Arcane Shield, Bouncing Spell, Combat Casting, Empowered Spell, Great Fortitude, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Quicken Spell, Toughness
Skills Acrobatics +2, Appraise +6, Bluff +9, Heal +8, Craft (Armor) +13, Craft (Traps) +11, Fly +0, Knowledge (Arcana) +10, Knowledge (History) +14, Knowledge (Local) +18, Knowledge (Nobility) +13, Knowledge (Religion) +10, Linguistics +9, Spellcraft +18, Sense Motive +4, Swim +2

Thomas Aquinas
Heroic Monk 20
Init +2; Perception +22
---Defense---
AC 26, Touch 26, Flat-Footed 24
HP 288
Fort +19, Ref +13, Will +16
CMB +24; CMD 40
Energy Resistance 10
---Offense---
Speed 30 ft.
Melee +4 Fists +23/+18/+13 (2d6+8)

Special Abilities

Levitation of the Blessed Virgin
As a swift action, Thomas Aquinas ascends into the air where he can walk on air. This effect ends after a Charge attack or after two rounds.

Combining Reason and Faith, Summa Theologica
Once per day, Thomas Aquinas may pray to god for one boon.

Patron Saint Against Storms
Thomas Aquinas and his summoner gain 10 and 5 energy resistance respectively. When he takes energy damage, he gains +5 damage to his next attack.

AC Bonus
Improved Unarmed Strike

Counterattack
Once per round, when the opponent misses an attack against the Monk she may make one attack against the opponent.

Combo
If the Monk successfully hit an opponent on her last round, her attacks do 2d10 damage until she goes a round without landing a hit. On her third round of attacking successfully, she may add any combat maneuver to her attack as a free action.

Monk's Vision
As a swift action, the Monk gains Arcane Sight for 10 minutes. After using this ability, she must recharge it by meditating for one minute.

---Statistics---
Str 18, Dex 14, Con 24, Int 7, Wis 8, Cha 7
Feats Combat Expertise, Critical Focus, Death from Above, Defensive Combat Training, Deflect Arrows, Improved Critical (Fists), Lightning Reflexes, Toughness, Vital Strike, Weapon Focus (Fists)
Skills Acrobatics +8, Diplomacy +18, Escape Artist +19, Fly +3, Heal +0, Knowledge (Religion) +2, Perception +22, Stealth +25

Agape was hard to work with time wise, but I think in a very metagaming heavy PSW he was also the biggest perp. He even started the game with a list of what he wanted his champ abilities to be, and some of them were multi-part. Everything he asked for throughout the game just rubbed me like he was trying to have an edge and not trying to be creative or have fun (and in fact tried to abuse my own preference for character development by spinning his ideas. For instance, he was ok with Jira being blind but he wanted extra attribute points and other bonuses for it). I really messed up giving him as vague an ability as I did.

Agape also shot himself in the foot in several ways. First he really tried to game the Pathfinder system so that he could have a high AC, but as a result in his fight with LW he never could land a hit. Second he was very proud of Shadow Projection but it ultimately got him killed.

The new and improved Monk really didn't get a true showing here, even less than the Cavalier in PSW1. And it's a shame too cause now the Monk is gone.


The Sorcerer - ginganinja

ginganinja
Human Wizard 10
Init +2; Perception +9
---Defenses---
AC 17, Touch 17, Flat-Footed 15
HP 102
Fort +7, Ref +7, Will +8
CMB +4; CMD 16
---Offenses---
Speed 30 ft.
Phantasm School (opp Abjuration)
Spells Prepared
4 6 5 4 4 3
---Statistics---
Str 8, Dex 14, Con 18, Int 20, Wis 9, Cha 8
Feats Arcane Shield, Dazing Spell, Enlarge Spell, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Opposition Research, Quicken Spell, Toughness
Skills Bluff +9, Heal +9, Knowledge (Arcana) +18, Knowledge (History) +18, Knowledge (Local) +18, Perception +9, Spellcraft +18

Leonardo da Vinci
Heroic Sorcerer 20
Init +5; Perception +24
---Defenses---
AC 27, Touch 20, Flat-Footed 22
HP 134
Fort +8, Ref +13, Will +15
CMB +10; CMD 35
---Offenses---
Speed 30 ft.
Thrown Bombs +16/+9 (10d6+5)

Special Abilities

War Machines of Leonardi da Vinci
As a standard action, Leonardo can build one war machine. He can build a Flying Machine, Tank, or Machine Gun. Only one war machine can be out at a time.

Renaissance Man
Leonardo has 20 free skill ranks in all craft, knowledge, and perform skills. In addition, on sight of an enemy he learns everything about them.

Making Art into Life, Mona Lisa
Leonardo can spend eight hours to paint any wondrous item, within the DM's discretion. Once the painting is finished, the magic item becomes real.

Bombs (10d6+5)
Fast Bombs
One of each;
Concussive Bomb
Confusion Bomb
Force Bomb
Stink Bomb
Infinite;
Magic Weapon, Greater
Pyrotechnics
Rope Trick
Shrink Item
Prepared;
1/day Slow
1/day Telekinesis
1/day Transmute Mud to Rock
1/day Transmute Rock to Mud
1/day Elemental Body IV
1/day Resonating Word
1/game Form of Dragon III
1/game Time Stop

---Statistics---
Str 10, Dex 20, Con 14, Int 20, Wis 12, Cha 8
Feats Deadly Aim, Defensive Combat Training, Far Shot, Improved Precise Shot, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus (Bombs)
Skills Acrobatics +25, Bluff +19, Craft (All) +28, Escape Artist +25, Heal +24, Knowledge (All) +28, Perception +24, Perform (All) +19, Sense Motive +21, Stealth +25

Machine Gun
Construct
AC 25, Touch 10, Flat-Footed 25
HP 75
Speed 0 ft.
Ranged Cannons +10/+10/+10 (1d12+2)

Flying Machine
Construct
AC 25, Touch 20, Flat-Footed 15
HP 75
Speed fly 30 ft.
Ranged Cannon +10 (1d12+2)

Tank
Construct
AC 30, Touch 15, Flat-Footed 30
HP 150
Speed 15 ft.
Ranged Cannon +10 (1d12+2)

Problems that would lead to ginganinja's downfall started in character creation. He wanted a Transmutation champion but all the spells I recommended to him he shot down. He never used Resonating Word, didn't full attack with his bombs often enough, and rarely used his machines (even when he did he never used the machine gun). He was also very reckless in the end, he felt very defeatist.

Still for as far as vague champ abilities go he was the most creative with his. I liked his plans for magic items and I'm sad he didn't get to make more.


The Rogue - Aura Guardian

Aura Guardian
Human Wizard 10
Init +5; Perception +8
---Defense---
AC 16, Touch 16, Flat-Footed 15
69 HP
Fort +5, Ref +4, Will +8
CMB +4; CMD 15
---Offense---
Speed 30 ft.
Phantasm School (opp Necromancy)
Spells Prepared
4 5 5 4 4 2
---Statistics---
Str 9, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 18, Wis 12, Cha 12
Feats Alertness, Arcane Builder (Wand), Craft Wand, Dazing Spell, Improved Initiative, Opposition Research (Abjuration), Quicken Spell, Toughness
Skills Bluff +4, Diplomacy +7, Disguise +6, Fly +10, Heal +2, Knowledge (Arcana) +17, Knowledge (History) +12, Knowledge (Local) +12, Knowledge (Religion) +8, Linguistics +9, Perception +8, Ride +2, Sense Motive +9, Spellcraft +17, Swim +1

Hermes
Heroic Rogue 20
Init +7; Perception +24
---Defense---
AC 28, Touch 18, Flat-Footed 23
HP 127
Fort +7, Ref +15, Will +7
CMB +16; CMD 29
---Offense---
Speed 45 ft. Flight 45 ft. (Poor)
Melee +8 Short Staff +27/+22/+17 (1d6+9/19-20)

Special Abilities

Staff of the Messenger, Caduceus
Hermes has a a short staff of great power. It attacks using two snakes to bite its foe. The snakes transfer the base damage Hermes deals once per round back to himself as health.

Quicksilver Boots, Talaria
Hermes has a pair of winged boots. While wearing these, he gains a movement speed of 45 ft. and a flight of 45 ft. (poor).

The Cunning of Thieves
Hermes charisma skills are now magical abilities that require a will save against. The DC is the skill + cha modifier. In addition, once per day Hermes can trick an opponent in a way where the DM outright lies to another player.

Sneak Attack
When the Rogue attacks an opponent who is flat-footed (Surprised) or flanks an opponent, she gets +10d6 to her damage.

Rogue's Sense
The Rogue gets +10 to find and disable traps. In addition, she gets +6 AC and Ref to defend against traps.

---Statistics---
Str 13, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 16, Wis 12, Cha 18
Feats Critical Focus, Deflect Arrows, Endurance, Improved Critical (Staff), Improved Initiative, Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Vital Strike, Vital Strike, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (Staff)
Skills Bluff +27, Craft (Alchemy) +26, Diplomacy +27, Disable Device +12, Disguise +27, Escape Artist +13, Fly +23, Heal +21, Perception +24, Sense Motive +24, Stealth +26, Swim +2, Use Magic Device +20

Aura Guardian's champ was explicitly designed to "hide in plain sight", something that he never actually did. Hermes was the assassin that never assassinated, and that was what led to him losing the way he did. The Grand Illusion was lowered to being an escape button and an infuriating good one at that, given that I had lowered the number of escape options in this game (and Hermes already had his shoes). He didn't do much truly creative with the ability.

He WAS well designed what with exposing the flaw in Phantasm and sneak attack combined, but he was too much of a glass cannon to win in this fashion.


The Knight - imperfectluck

imperfectluck (Yu Ji)
Human Wizard 10
Init +0; Perception +0
---Defenses---
AC 15, Touch 15, Flat-Footed 15
HP 50
Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +7
CMB +5; CMD 15
---Offenses---
Speed 35 ft.
Counterspell School (opp Divination & Necromancy)
Spells Prepared
4 6 5 4 4 3
---Statistics---
Str 10, Dex 11, Con 11, Int 21, Wis 10, Cha 10
Feats Acrobatic, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Diehard, Dispel Synergy, Empower Spell, Endurance, Fleet, Run
Skills Acrobatics +14, Climb +10, Escape Artist +10, Fly +17, Heal +10, Knowledge (Arcana) +18, Knowledge (Local) +18, Knowledge (History) +18, Spellcraft +18

Don Quixote
Heroic Knight 20
Init +2; Perception +0
---Defenses---
AC 34, Touch 17, Flat-Footed 32
209 HP
Fort +15, Ref +8, Will +12
CMB +24; CMD 36
Damage Reduction 5
---Offenses---
Speed 30 ft.
Melee +4 Longsword +29/+24/+19/+14 (1d8+12/19-20)

Special Abilities

Impossible Dream
Don Quixote gains Leadership. In addition, for up to 4 rounds a day plus his Charisma modifier, he may burst into song in order to give himself and all those he deems allies a +4 morale bonus to Will, attack, damage, and 2d10 temporary HP. These bonuses are increased by his Cha modifier.

Golden Helmet of Bambrino
As a swift action, Don Quixote may don a barber's basin and declare it to be the Golden Helmet of Bambrino. Until his next round, Don Quixote is immune to all damage and negative effects. This is useable once per day.

The Windmill
Whenever Don Quixote acts sufficiently foolish in front of his enemy (according to the DM), that enemy must make a DC 28 Will save or be confused for one round.

Knight's Cover
The Knight's summoner may not be damaged when within 60 feet of her.

---Statistics---
Str 19, Dex 15, Con 17, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 14
Feats Combat Reflexes, Disruptive, Greater Weapon Specialization (Sword), Leadership, Missile Shield, Ray Shield, Shield Focus, Spellbreaker, Teleport Tactician, Weapon Focus (Sword), Weapon Specialization (Sword)
Skills Acrobatics +22, Escape Artist +22

Follower
Human Ranger 14
Init +4; Perception +19
---Defense---
AC 24, Touch 18, Flat-Footed 20
HP 93
Fort +10, Ref +13, Will +6
CMB +15; CMD 29
---Offenses---
Speed 30 ft.
Ranged +2 Composite Longbow +20/+15/+10 (1d8+8)

Favored Enemies: Champion, Constructs, Undead
Favored Terrains: Forest, Plains, Urban

Spells Allowed
4 3 1 1

---Statistics---
Str 12, Dex 19, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 10
Feats Acrobatics, Deadly Aim, Dodge, Far Shot, Improved Precise Shot, Parting Shot, Pinpoint Targeting, Precise Shot, Point-Blank Shot, Shot on the Run, Stealthy
Skills Acrobatics +22, Escape Artist +22, Heal +19, Perception +19, Stealth +25, Survival +19

imperfectluck was obviously occupied with other things during this game (cough, LoL) but whenever he was in an encounter he at least made sure to play up his role as Don Quixote and I think everyone fully appreciates that. He was the other player to really make great use of an open ability. Overall ipl was very powerful but found himself in some unfortunate situations, not unlike Agape during PSW1.


The Shaman - Raikage

Raikage
Human Wizard 10
Init +1; Perception +11
---Defense---
AC 16, Touch 16, Flat-Footed 15
HP 79
Fort +6, Ref +4, Will +8
CMB +3; CMD 14
---Offense---
Speed 40 ft.
Counterspell School (opp Evocation)
Spells Prepared
4 5 5 4 4 2
---Statistics---
Str 7, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 18, Wis 12, Cha 10
Feats Dispel Synergy, Greater Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Specialization (Dispel Magic), Improved Counterspell, Opposition Research (Necromancy), Piercing Spell, Spell Focus (Abjuration), Spell Penetration, Spell Specialization (Dispel Magic)
Skills Appraise +9, Bluff +6, Knowledge (Arcana) +17, Knowledge (Local) +17, Knowledge (History) +14, Linguistics +10, Perception +11, Spellcraft +17, Stealth +11

Mogh Ruith
Heroic Shaman 20
Init -1; Perception +20
---Defenses---
AC 32, Touch 14, Flat-Footed 32
HP 214
Fort +18, Ref +5, Will +18
CMB +17; CMD 26
---Offenses---
Speed 40 ft.
Melee +4 Longsword +21/+16/+11 (1d8+6)

Special Abilities

Prophecy of the King of Kings, John the Baptist
Once per day Mog Ruith can use the power of Prophecy to arrange a meeting between himself and an opponent.

The Stone that Turned into a Monster, Poison Eel
Mog Ruith can target an opponent to turn off their innate bonuses. This may only target one opponent at a time.

The Oared Wheel, Roth Romach
Mogh Ruith has an epic shield formed from parts of his flying machine. Since it was once a magical vehicle, it grants him and his summoner +10 movement speed.

Spell Like Abilities
Infinite;
Cure Moderate Wounds
Wind Wall
Stone Call
Thorn Body
Prepared;
3 Cure Critical Wounds
2 Ball Lightning
2 Fire Seeds
2 Thorn Body
Stormbolts
Heal

---Statistics---
Str 14, Dex 8, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 18, Cha 13
Feats Blind-Fight, Divine Interference, Glorious Heat, Greater Blind-Fight, Improved Blind-Fight, Improved Vital Strike, Saving Shield, Shield Focus, Toughness, Vital Strike
Skills Climb +10, Handle Animal +17, Heal +17, Intimidate +11, Perception +27, Spellcraft +22, Survival +10

Everyone knows that Raikage was one of the best built wizards in the game, but his champ suffered for a long time because he just had no damage capabilities. He was the only player I actually buffed mid game, but he didn't have the buffs for long before dying.

Raikage was frankly hampered by a bad team situation. His class is focused on being hard to kill but his partner dropped like a brick in every battle. He also expressed confusion over exactly what Eel would do to each player, which had more to do with me not being forthcoming about champion innates. It is probably better that Raikage will be doing that next game.

Still with a good partner he was able to destroy ipl, but he had just taken too much damage by the time icb showed up.


The Warrior - jumpluff

jumpluff
Human Wizard 10
Init +0; Perception +2
---Defense---
AC 15, Touch 15, Flat-Footed 15
HP 70
Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +9
CMB +3; CMD 13
---Offenses---
Speed 30 ft.
Abjuration School (opp Conjuration & Necromancy)
Spells Prepared
4 5 5 4 3 2
---Statistics---
Str 7, Dex 11, Con 15, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 10
Feats Enlarge Spell, Opposition Research (Conjuration), Fast Study, Improved Counterspell, Lightning Reflexes, Quicken Spell, Thundering Spell, Toughness
Skills Disguise +10, Knowledge (Arcana) +14, Knowledge (History) +16, Knowledge (Local) +11, Knowledge (Religion) +8, Perception +12, Sense Motive +7, Spellcraft +16, Stealth +10

Hervor
Heroic Warrior 20
Init +5; Perception +1
---Defenses---
AC 31, Touch 17, Flat-Footed 30
HP 195
Fort +15, Ref +7, Will +9
CMB +25; CMD 36
---Offense---
Speed 30 ft.
Melee +15 Longsword +40/+35/+30/+25 (1d8+20/17-20)(1d8+22)
Melee +2 Short Spear +27/+22/+17/+12 (1d8+7)

Special Abilities

The War God's Cursed Finger, Tyrfing
Hervor has Tyrfing, an epic and cursed longsword. When Tyrfing kills, it gains a +2 bonus. However, when Tyrfing is drawn and fails to at least consume an Order Spell it curses its user with a penalty of 10 HP that is not gained back until Tyrfing is saited.

Summoning Eleven Kinsman, Munarvagr
With a loud and commanding voice, Hervor summons the restless spirits around her. At any time, she can be aided by one ghost wizard from a specific school of magic.

Rage of the Enslaved Shieldmaiden, Hjorvard
Hervor gains the Barbarian class feature Mighty Rage. This can be used for up to 4 rounds per day plus her Con modifier. She takes -2 penalty to AC and cannot use Cha, Dex, or Int skills.

---Statistics---
Str 21, Dex 13, Con 17, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 7
Feats Blind-Fight, Bodyguard, Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Crippling Critical, Critical Focus, Critical Mastery, Defeaning Critical, Disruptive, Flanking Foil, Greater Cleave, Improved Blind-Fight, Improved Critical (Longsword) Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Pin Down, Power Attack, Saving Shield, Spellbreaker, Toughness
Skills Acrobatics +11, Climb +13, Escape Artist +6, Heal +11, Stealth +16, Survival +14, Swim +13

The most I can say here is that I was too fast and loose with those ghosts. I had thought about making them their own spell lists early on but I was too lazy to do that so I generally let jumpluff do whatever she wanted with them. I finally cracked down on this eventually giving her just one type of spell per day.

Not too much else to say, she played fine and was a force to be reckoned with, she just wasn't equipped to handle a flying Cavalier.


The Archer - Lightwolf

Lightwolf
Human Wizard 10
Init +2; Perception +0
---Defense---
AC 17, Touch 17, Flat-Footed 15
HP 75
Fort +6, Ref +5, Will +7
CMB +5; CMD 17
---Offense---
Speed 30 ft.
Shadow School (opp Enchantment)
Spells Prepared
4 5 5 4 4 2
---Statistics---
Str 10, Dex 14, Con 16, Int 18, Wis 10, Cha 7
Feats Arcane Blast, Heighten Spell, Improved Counterspell, Minor Spell Expertise (Magic Missile), Opposition Research (Divination), Parry Spell, Preferred Spell (Fireball), Skill Focus (Spellcraft)
Skills Climb +10, Escape Artist +12, Fly +15, Heal +10, Knowledge (Arcana) +17, Knowledge (Local) +17, Spellcraft +17

Tripurantaka Shiva
Heroic Archer 20
Init +5; Perception +28
---Defense---
AC 27, Touch 20, Flat-Footed 22
178 HP
Fort +11, Ref +17, Will +8
CMB +18; CMD 33
---Offenses---
Speed 30 ft.
Ranged +8 Composite Longbow +28/+23/+18 (1d8+11)
Ranged +2 Throwing Axes +20/+15/+10 (1d6+2)
Melee +2 Throwing Axes +20/+15/+10 (1d6+5)

Special Abilities

Manifestation of the God of Destruction, Shiva
Tripurantaka possesses four arms, two of which can be hidden at a DC 30 Perception check to overcome. He may dual-wield throwing axes in two arms while carrying his bow.

The Bow made of the Universe and Vishnu's Fire, Mount Meru
Tripurantaka has a mythical compound bow. In addition to being of the highest quality, it also catches the opponent on fire for 3 turns. This mystic fire deals 2d6 damage which is halved at a 25 DC Will save.

The God who Laughed and Burned the Three Purams, Tripura
Once per day, Tripurantaka may make a ranged attack as a standard action against any number of enemy champions that he can see that are at least 60 feet away. This attack deals 15d6 damage and cannot be defended against in anyway.

Favored Enemy
The Archer gets a +4 bonus on Bluff, Knowledge, Perception, Sense Motive, and Survival skill checks against other champions. In addition, she gets +4 on her attack and damage rolls against other champions. She also gains +10 on survival checks to track other champions.

Archer's Vision
The Archer has 200 feet of Darkvision. As a Standard Action, she gains See Invisible for one minute.

---Statistics---
Str 16, Dex 20, Con 17, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 7
Feats Dodge, Far Shot, Favored Defense, Great Fortitude, Manyshot, Mobility, Multiweapon Fighting, Parting Shot, Point-Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, Shot on the Run, Weapon Finesse
Skills Climb +26, Escape Artist +25, Heal +25, Knowledge (History) +20, Perception +28, Survival +25

Fitting that Lightwolf takes second after winning the last game. He also had one of the most straightforward champions, dishing out damage comparable to the fully fed Hervor (generally). The only reason his Smile ability was so UP was because his DPS was so amazingly good to begin with. Unfortunately Lightwolf just didn't come up with as many fun plans this game as he did in the last.


The Cavalier - icecoolblue

icecoolblue
Human Wizard 10
Init +0; Perception +10
---Defenses---
AC 15, Touch 15, Flat-Footed 15
HP 82
Fort +5, Ref +3, Will +9
CMB +5; CMD 15
---Offenses---
Speed 30 ft.
Enchantment School (opp Abjuration & Necromancy)
Spells Prepared
4 6 5 4 4 3
---Statistics---
Str 10, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 20, Wis 10, Cha 10
Feats Brew Potion, Greater Spell Focus (Enchantment), Greater Spell Focus (Illusion), Iron Will, Spell Focus (Enchantment), Spell Focus (Illusion), Toughness
Skills Fly +13, Knowledge (Arcana) +18, Knowledge (History) +18, Knowledge (Local) +18, Perception +10, Sense Motive +10, Spellcraft +18, Stealth +10

Bellerophon
Heroic Cavalier 20
Init +3; Perception +20
---Defense---
AC 29, Touch 18, Flat-Footed 26 (+3 with Shield)
HP 210
Fort +16, Ref +15, Will +8
CMB +26; CMD 39
---Offense---
Speed 30 ft.
Melee +8 Spear +34/+29/+24/+19 (1d8+17)
Melee +2 Longsword +28/+23/+18/+13 (1d8+8)
Melee Shield +26/+21/+16/+11 (1d4+3)

Special Abilities

Foaled from the Neck of a Gorgon, Pegasus
Bellerophon has tamed the epic mount Pegasus, and may summon and desummon it as a swift action. If Pegasus dies, it cannot be summoned for 24 hours.

The Golden Armament, Chrysaors
Bellerophon has an epic spear also birthed from Medusa. This golden spear functions as a lance during charge attacks.

Eternal Lycean Fires, Chimera
When Bellerophon deals melee damage to a champion, he infects them with the eternal fire of the Chimera. This deals 2d12 damage per day with a DC 30 Fort save to halve the damage. The fire can deal a maximum of 30 damage, but this HP can never be healed.

Cavalier's Retreat
Once per day, the Cavalier may transport herself, her mount, and one ally within 5 feet as if using Teleport. This differs in that it counts land travel, and thus cannot be anchored but can be potentially followed.

Cavalier's Chase
Once per day, the Cavalier may chase an opponent with her mount and one ally within 5 feet. The Cavalier will catch the fleeing opponent even through a Teleport, but not through Order Spells.

---Statistics---
Str 22, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 10
Feats Double Slice, Furious Focus, Great Fortitude, Improved Iron Will, Improved Shield Bash, Iron Will, Mounted Combat, Power Attack, Ride-By Attack, Shield Focus, Shield Master, Shield Slam, Toughness, Two-Weapon Fighting
Skills Fly +25, Perception +20, Ride +25, Stealth +22

Pegasus
Init +2; darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, scent, Perception +21
---Defense---
AC 29, Touch 13, Flat-Footed 27
HP 154
Fort +13, Ref +5, Will +4
---Offense---
Speed 60 ft., fly 120 ft. (average)
Melee bite +24 (1d3+5), 2 Hooves +17 (1d3+3)
---Statistics---
Str 20, Dex 15, Con 20, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 13
Feats Multiattack, Weapon Focus (horn)
Skills Fly +15, Perception +21, Sense Motive +17

Hailed by many as the ringer long before he had actually done anything, icb did not fail to live up to this and his exploits of broken D&D mechanics show it. Mind you he still needed a lot of luck, as he showed up right as two of his hard counters were dying. He also flexed the new Cavalier's very powerful escape and pursuit innates. Like Agape it wasn't always fun hearing about how he planned to break the game, but he stayed in character during encounters and his character was fun at that.


So there is the player run down, I'll do the day by day tomorrow but don't wait until then to post your own postgame thoughts.


Also order of class deaths in PSW1 and 2.

Cavalier Monk
Shaman Sorcerer
Warrior Rogue
Sorcerer Knight
Rogue Shaman
Monk Warrior
Archer Archer
Knight Cavalier
 
I already wrote a postgame novel on myself: here. I think by now everyone knows exactly what I got up to in this game, but I'd been keeping such detailed track of everything (logs, in-character diary, a much, much longer postgame post that I ended up rewriting in its current form) that I felt it would be a shame not to describe it in my characteristically overinformative style.

Everything is in there, so I won't gush in this post, but my logs are viewable here. Logs are really what I'm interested in, guys, please upload them!
 

LightWolf

lightwoof
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
LightWolf said:
Well, I guess I should start with my birth? It wasn't anything unusual, I was just one of many. Didn't get more care than the others, I had to learn how to live off my own power. Soon all of us left the family one by one, yeah the usual. So I lived my life on the streets, eating garbage, running for my life and sleeping in the cold alleys. Brrrr, I remember how I hated when my fur got all drenched in the morning... Oh did I mention I'm a dog? Well to be correct, I was one, till that fateful day.

I was only a little more than a year old, 8 years old in dog years, when I stumbled on a really strange guy, his smell, his words even that odd glow comming from his body, they were all different from the usual. I followed him out of the town, trying to avoid him noticing me, he was the first human I was ever interested in. Suddenly he turned arround, it seemed like he knew I was there, when I was sure I hid perfectly... He raised his hand towards me, first nothing happened so I calmed down. Then suddenly my whole body was in pain, I had no wounds but it felt like my body was being ripped into little pieces. The human just stood there and laughed, he kept laughing, and laughing, and laughing... My consciousness was slowly fading away, I tried to bark, but I couldn't even let out the sounds of pain. The man was still just standing there laughing... laughing till he was blown to smithereens... The pain stopped, but I knew my body was already dead, all the kept me in this world was the constant pain, all that was left in my body was my soul, wanting to live. A shadow appeared, a man was leaning over me, his eyes were teary, was it him who saved me? I wanted to thank him for stopping the pain, but I couldn't do anything. I focused, put all that was left of my soul into it, and let out one last woof. The man smiled as his tears cover his face, I left this world that second, or so I thought...

I woke up lying in a bed, I remembered every moment of what happened before losing it, but what I was doing in a bed of all things, I had no idea. I slowly stood up, I felt that I could fall at any time, it felt like I had no balance, I tried to focus more on standing with my front paws, but as much I forced them downward, I was feeling no response from the ground, I was just stand on two legs! I looked down and what I saw shocked me, in the place of my paws were the hands and feet of a human boy. I quickly ran to the mirror on the wall, still expecting a dog to look back at me, but all I saw was a young human child. This was complete madness, what happened, is this just a dream. After hitting myself a couple of times I knew this was the truth, I had become a human...

Then I heard the door opening, the same man who saved me was standing next to the open door. "Well well, I see you are fine now little one, I think you can deal with the visitors now!" As soon as he said those words, an army of dogs ran in, and started liking and jumping around me. "That is enough for now little ones, I'm sure he wants to hear some explanations, so leave us be for a while." With that the dogs left and me and the man sat down on the bed. "I should start by saying sorry, I was too late to save your body, by the time I arrived it was way too late for that. So I think I should explain what happened, you became the plaything of a bored wizard, it happens too much lately, testing their magic power to kill animals, there are no rules in place for stopping that sadly..." The man continued to explain how the world of mages work, then he got to part explaining my new body. "You should have actually died the moment the pain stopped, but you still managed to move, even if only a bit, which proved you had some magical abilities, it seems likely that your family may have some blood of a familiar or judging from your high resistance, a shapeshifting wizard, not that I approve of such deeds!" "Either way, I had to give you a new body, I based it around your soul, if you were born human, this is how you would look, I'd say you are an eight year old child now, though you possess all the knowledge of a dog, which makes you much more intelligent than your average eight year old. So then, I think it's time to introduce myself isn't it? I'm Gelu, Gelu Luminosus at your service, 1 year ago, I won the PSW, and with that gained the power of the stone. Well I originally set out to cure my paranoia, but I got used to the insanity so much, that I didn't mind it any more AHAHAHAHAHHA! So here I am, using my powers to help the dogs of the planet. So what's your name little one?" I had no name, there was no one to ever give me one, I stayed away from humans, so I wasn't even sweared at, I saw others getting sweared at, but I always stayed out of troubles ways till that fateful day... "Well it seems you don't, then I think it's decided isn't it? You shall live here, you shall become one of my sons, the little ones who greeted you earlier. And naturally you need a name too, so how about Canis? It sounds nice doesn't it? Canis Luminosus, I like the ring of it. Well Canis, one question remains, do you want to become a wizard like me?" The only man who ever treated me with love, who has given me a name, wants to teach me to become a wizard! I would give my life for this man, becoming a wizard was nothing compared to that.

My learning went smoothly, the magical blood got stronger with every generation, and all it needed was that trigger, to turn my switch on. At the age 12, father took me to a party held by high ranked wizards, he usually doesn't like to go to such events, since behind his back everyone calls him a lucky doggiemancer, not that he minds, but he'd rather spend his time with his children. But this time, he wanted to show off with me, that the great Gelu has an apprentice. The initial response was good, till I said I was orginally a dog, when everyone burst out laughing, to make the situation worse, one of them brought a cat familiar, which activated the only instinct I had left, which made the whole thing only more hilarious for them. "I told you he was gonna teach a dog magic" "Like hell he could ever become a true wizard!" I was sad, not because of those comments aimed at me, but the shame I brought on my father. I had made the decision to fight on the very day...

Father was regarded an insane powerless wizard before winning the PSW, even with people hating him, throwing words at him, he still was respected. To us his children he claimed he only got lucky, but never forgot to say, that luck too is a skill. I had one option to prove my father's choice of raising me wasn't wrong, I had to win the next PSW, which will happen in 5 years, but with my skills, powering up the normal way was impossible. I found an old divination that could answer any question, by sacrificing ones abilities he got at birth, for most humans this would be suicide, but for me it meant I'd lose only the abilities of a dog. I prepared for the spell, and behind the back of my father I cast it. The question was simple, what champion will I get in the next PSW, if I attain the strongest possible abilities by the time of the summoning. The answer was Archer. Knowing this my target was simple, make plans and attain everything possible to support an Archer, and if I get it, I know I have reached my max potential.

In 4 years I had attained a lot of knowledge, researched wizard school specializations and took Shadow due to it's abilities. Attained the skills and feats I needed, learned every possible spell I could, and added together with the normal lessons that my father provided, I knew I was ready. I went up to my father and told him what I have done. But instead of anger sadness and other emotions I expected, he gave me single smile. At that moment I realised, the lessons complemented my plans too well, the right books were always in reach when I needed them... Deep inside I knew he was helping, but I blocked the thought, I wanted to only focus on gathering power. With my father supporting me, I was ready. 1 more year, and only weeks were left, I was 17 now, as a dog 2 and a half, I had lived longer than I could wish for, I was ready to lose my life out there. I began the summoning, and infront of me stood the might champion, an Archer, at that moment I knew I succeeded, with my champion Tripurantaka by my side, we were ready for combat, at whatever cost. I gave up my given name till I was ready to take on the name Luminosus, and taken on the alias Canis Bellum. I shall die with this name or live as Canis Luminosus, this battle shall decide.

Name: Canis Bellum
Allignment: Chaos Good
Personality: Lost all abilities of a dog, but he couldn't get rid of the inability of not barking at cats, at least he doesn't chase them anymore. Kinda insane and very paranoid, but in both cases way less than his father, he has decided to improve those points though. He fights wild, but his plans themselves are still calm and mostly defensive, with the right support, he can go all out.
Languages: Common, Latin, Chinese, Islam, Spanish

When am I getting the award for this story?
Sadly I never met a cat :(

So why not so many cool LightWolf ideas you may ask? I lacked a bard, the bard allowed my to do all the crazy ideas I had in the first game, because I didn't have to prepare spells with him, I could find something nice, and just do it. Not that I didn't try, but my paranoia took over. I didn't want to use Geas, due to interrogation turning my geased right on me, with them surely revealing all the info they could. So I decided to look for alternates, of which one was a tricky little magic mouth, which tried to suggest that the champion it reacted to, just got photographed. What went wrong was ginga showing up right as I finished it, making it useless since he p much figured out it was my doing, and he got so much more out of that meeting... After that I ran into Agape, and battled on the first day which I didn't really want to. I won, but had to go regain some health. After that I did my last try at some unorthodox and tracked down Agape, finding his home to be in the lake. I left a message revealing this fact with another, but nonperma, megic mouth. After that though, I had focused on tracking.

For my abilities, I regret not my UP smile, but my Axes. I was under the false belief that if I kited people with tools like Shadow Step of the Shadow School and Parting Shot, then if they got to me at last, I could surprise them an melee their faces. This was p much an anti Monk plan, due to their arrow blocking sheningans. Sadly all I did was lower my of Attack Bonus, due to triple wielding, and was better off even against the monk to take a step back and just get two arrows in his face, or just rapid shot for 3(which would have been a much better option without the triple wielding). I should have reconsidered this move after my weapon became legendary, or especially after the bonus damage by mystic fire.

The rest of my abilities were von's ideas, generally because I focused may too much on the aspect of beating monk, instead of thinking up interesting things(tbh archer was one of my least wanted classes since I had no cool ideas for it). The bow itself was great, and while the smile was UP, it was a decent tool against those stacking against arrows, really should have blasted raikage's face with it earlier.

Biggest regret would be two things. Rushing the game and forgetfulness. When we finished off ginga, we instantly went after AG and Raikage, which we had no reason to. We had used up two Dispel Magics and a Dimensional Anchor and while not that much, Don was damaged. We should have realised that killing AG would mean auto alliance between pluff and raikage, but we still didn't give up. This is the first reason why I think I'm to blame for ipl's death. The second reason is p stupid, I kept forgetting to use Nightmare. I had that spell prepared every day, and I have used it like every other day. It's a last action I kept forgetting, and at two very important times even. I didn't cast it the night when we killed AG and ginga, which could have prevented the ambush of Raikage and jumpluff the next day, with one of them being to tried early, and us being holed up in our house(we went to the market hoping for some fresh prints, alas none were found, so we bought some binoculars and I planed to camp in my house, which would have been a better place to face them. The other missed use was against icb, on the night before the final day, he was so dependant on spells, we could have stalled for a day till we synchronised our spell lists better and gotten ready for his tricks.

Now, for some fun facts:

Cavalier Monk
Shaman Sorcerer
Warrior Rogue
Sorcerer Knight
Rogue Shaman

-Both Archers got in second, go Archers!
-Both first deaths failed to show what they could actually do, but had an extremely deep impact in the other game. Also both had a rough day 1
-Both second deaths got ambushed in their house, resting, and then got offed. Well ok one was an extradimensional space, but still counts.
-Both fourth deaths were offed being focused in a large 2v2 fight. Did I mention there were black tentacles in both cases?
-Both fifth deaths were killed as a result of a now allyless guy finding someone new to work with till one of their enemies are defeated, and this new ally helps chasing them down. Sure Cav's chase and Archer's tracking is different, but p similar cases still.

Also good thing Monk is out, looking at the statistics it should have won PSW3.

My battles were meh, and most will be posted by others.
 

ginganinja

It's all coming back to me now
is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Wizard Name: Peeta (picked it cos it would appeal to jumpluff)

Wizard History:

Peeta has had a difficult life. By nature, Wizards were feared in Italy, due to their inhuman abilities and unnatural power. At the age of 12, any person with magical abilities would be sent to live in the Circle, away from there family, and have no more contact with the outside world. The Circle was an isolated tower guarded by the Paladins. The Paladins had the right to execute Wizards who they believed to have strayed, and learnt “evil”, powers such as necromancy. This made for a climate of fear among other wizards, who often attempted to escape, at the risk of being killed for escaping. When he was born it was discovered that he had the ability to cast powerful spells, giving him access to incredible power. While this power was useful, it also meant that Peeta was often ostracised out of fear that he would adopt powers of necromancy or such like. When Peeta began to approach 12 years old, his sister and mother fled the area, hiding from the Paladins that would seek to take Peeta away. Peeta and his family lived in the wild, alone and hunted, for several years while Peeta gradually honed his powers, becoming skilled at maintaining illusions to confuse his pursuers.

This hard lifestyle abruptly ended when Peeta and his friends were finally cornered by the Paladins and he was sent away to live in the tower. His mother and sister frequently exchanged messages but Peeta grew lonely in the tower and grew more resentful of the paladins, who would occasionally abuse there powers and punish wizards harshly for any sort of transgression, however minor. Being in the circle did however, have its advantages. Peeta now had access to books containing magical knowledge and grew even stronger. He could now master powerful spells such as Fireball, or Cone of Cold which he could use to great effect. His illusion spells however, were stronger than any other wizard in the circle, capable of fooling many.

Peeta had been in the circle for a number of years, (reaching the age of 18) when he encountered a young woman named Rose, who he was instantly besotted with. To his delight, Rose felt the same way and Peeta and Rose began a relationship in secret, for relationships with wizards were not allowed. Eventually, there relationship progressed far enough that both Peeta and Rose felt that escape was the only option. With the help of Peetas illusions, they managed to escape the Circle, although Rose was hurt in the process. With his companion hurt and the Paladins closing in Peeta forced his way into a house in order to rest. Peeta and Rose gained a few hours rest, before the door was broken down. Marcus the powerful mage hunter, had tracked them down. Peeta reacted quickly, creating an illusionary web in the mind of Marcus. With Marcus helpless, Peeta prepared himself to cast Phantasmal Killer, however, Rose stopped him with a light touch, claiming that she did not wish for him to become a killer. Wanted to appease Rose, Peeta spared the mage hunters life, and turned to leave. He and Rose turned to leave the house via a side entrance, when there was a sudden rumble and a fissure appeared in the air. There was a great howling and then Leonardo Da Vinci stepped through.

Peeta realised that Marcus had summoned a great sorcerer to give him an advantage. Despite Peeta sparing his life, Marcus was desperate to return Peeta to the Circle, or kill him if he resisted. Da Vinci tapped the Wall, which disappeared in an instant. Overcome with fear, Peeta and Rose fled onto the street.

It was dark, and the streets were empty as Peeta and Rose fled down the streets when suddenly, a massive machine gun appeared, ready to fire. Peeta turned and saw Marcus and Da Vinci stalk down the street behind him. Realising the situation was hopeless, Peeta fell to one knee, and pleaded to be punished, if only Rose could go free.

Marcus laughed, and then stalked toward Rose, calling her a whore, before punching her in the face. Marcus raised his hand for a second blow, however Peeta charged forward and took the blow himself. Marcus paused, as Peeta stood in front of Rose, shielding her. Marcus tilted his head, then blasted Peeta with a white light, causing him to scream in pain. The light faded, and then Marcus struck again, and then again for a third time, enjoying torturing the mage who had defeated him. Peeta lay shivering on the ground, his muscles trembling, as Marcus reached for his sword and readied himself for the final blow… when there was a sudden cry, and Marcus was thrown backwards, riddled with bullets. Da Vinci turned to Peeta and remarked “"We should be free to study what we like, yes?" Peeta was scared, but had little options. He removed the black stones from the body of Marcus and then followed Da Vinci has he led the way out of the city.


Peeta, Rose and Leonardo Da Vinci stuck close together, living in hiding for a few weeks, avoiding the Paladins. However, disaster struck when Peeta received news of his families murder at the hands of the Paladins. His mother and sister had refused to co-operate in tracking down Peeta and thus, had been declared “evil” and killed. When Peeta heard the news he was furious, swearing vengeance on the Paladins who had carried out this act. Da Vinci, worried about his master and, cautioned him against a rash and dangerous path but Peeta was overcome by anger and sorrow that he refused to listen to reason. Da Vinci decided to accompany Peeta on this quest to protect him and Rose joined them. Together, the three tracked down the Paladins who had murdered Peetas family and Peeta enacted justice, rendering them insane due to his illusion skills, before killing them one by one. The brutal killing of the Paladins by a wizard enraged the Paladin order and sent a vast number of men after Rose, Peeta, and Da Vinci. The trio were eventually cornered and the paladins charged, determined to kill Peeta. Realising that death was certain Da Vinci called on his final reserves of power, and transformed himself into a mighty dragon, snatching Peeta away from the Paladin attack. Da Vinci attempted to save Rose as well, however the Paladins were exceptionally fast and strong, and Da Vinci was forced to retreat as Rose was captured and taken away.

Peeta was distraught when he realised that Da Vinci had been unable to save his love. He was even more unhappy when he found out Rose was now living in a Paladin stronghold, and had been sold into slavery to a nobleman there. Realising that there was no way he could fight his way in and out, Peeta realised he needed an object of such power that would cause the Paladins to leave him alone and give up Rose. Realising that the stones that Marcus had in his possession. Granted him entry to attempt to gain a new Philosophers Stone, Peeta set out for Amesbury to win the Stone and his sweethearts freedom. When Da Vinci found out that he friend was leaving on a dangerous journey where death was highly likely, he promised to accompany his master, to protect him at all costs and to help him free Rose.

Peeta’s Alignment: Neutral Good

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Personality: Leonardo Da Vinci is an exceptionally talented old man, with superior intellect. A master inventor, Da Vinci has an in depth knowledge of how things work and as such it can be difficult to outsmart him.

Da Vinci is exceptionally loyal to his friends and is happy to defend Peeta, as they share common ground in that they both have magical skills. Da Vinci is a very kind man but has vast measures of patience. He thinks long term and tactically in order to prevail against his opponents. Da Vinci dislikes fighting as he considers it the response of an uncivilised man, but will defend himself if need be. Leonardo Da Vinci can be rather secretive and eccentric at times, however is not afraid to joke around with Peeta from time to time, as well as anyone else he counts as a friend.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s alignment: Chaotic Neutral

o.k so when von told me I was a sorcerer I was pretty stoked. O.k, Agape had been nerfed a bit but he had still managed to scare the shit out of pretty much everyone, especially me, LW and (irrc) IPL. So, naturally I did a fuckload of research and spent hours and hours looking over spell lists and such like getting ideas. When von chatted to me about my champion the idea of being an alchemist was put forward. Seeing as I knew basically nothing about it I did some massive research on the fly and it looked pretty cool tho I missed spells. After discussing it with von we agreed that I can have a small number of transmutation spells (the tree I was rather set on) and follow the alchemist tree. Bombs did about as much damage as a Fireball (pre nerf) so I could hit pretty hard if needed.

Da Vinci was a fucking cool scientist so I picked him and got my war machine ability which basically worked as an extra “summon monster” which was kinda what I wanted my team to do anyway. Renaissance Man was another cool ability which let me find the skills, names and classes from any character I met which I hoped would aid me in counter-spelling anyone I met. Da Vincis painting made me an expert crafter which meant I was pro at creating items to aid me. Granted, certain items von refused to let me make but (by and large) I felt the ability worked rather well. I think my character was defiantly strong (but not quite broken) and that made me feel a bit more confident going into Day One.

I actually had a pretty simple plan throughout the entire game. Basically I would Summon / control undead and monsters (and use my crafting abilites to create cool items and stuff) and then hammer my enemies with them, overwhelming them with sheer numbers. Ideally id also have an ally which would help us handle anyone teaming up against us and make us even more formidable. When, when pretty much everyone had died id be able to use Form of the Dragon III and crush my final opponent
Day One

Lol I had a few plans going into Day one but a reality check came in the form of von who told me my plan was not going to be that effective and was pseudo broken. Basically, I wanted to create a secret organisation owned by me which would fight, gather intelligence etc etc. Unfortunately, von reckoned this was basically me attempting to use the leadership feat so the idea was canned. It was a very fun idea tho!

So yea my actual day plan involved using Renaissance Man to go around town looking for champions to which I could then get information on. In turn I could offer an alliance which would increase my chances at surviving late game and if they declined, then at least they still had the option of accepting later if something big happened. Plus, id still get information on them and there champion for me to counter team later. It was win/win for me so I was pretty happy. I also went around setting up torches around the city so I could abuse Leonardo’s Pyrotechnics spell which could help me make a quick get away.

I met Lightwolf in what was prolly the games first encounter and we had a little chat. I realised he was the archer and knew that (as we were talking at close range) I had a decent advantage over him and seriously debated killing him. I decided not to however as I had a feeling LW would just run away and ally with some other player and then go hunting for revenge. LW declined my offer of alliance but we made a non aggression pact for D1 (since I was worried about an arrow in my head the moment my back turned) and I went on my merry way.

Later on I met Agape. Again, neither of us really wanted a fight which was fine by me. I discovered that Agape was a pretty skilled monk and we exchanged contact numbers to help out if anyone of us was in strife. I had no idea if agape would honour out agreement but w/e it was something I guess.

Lastly I had an encounter with jumpluff. I quickly explained I had no real wish for a fight and offered an alliance. Offering jumpluff an alliance was a little bit of a gamble. On the one side, a Sorcerer and Warrior are an incredibly strong combo, and having a wizard strong in the abjuration tree (which I was weak in) would be very useful. I also knew that players would start allying quickly and did not want to be vulnerable and run into a 2 v 1 scenario. On the other hand, I was pretty sure jumpluff could beat me in a fight one on one since she could counter spell a lot of my tactics. I decided to stick with the alliance however, since in keeping jumpluff close to me, she could lose the odd order spell making it slightly easier for me to overpower her late game. Also I did’nt really want her roaming around hunting me either so decided to keep her close. In talking to pluff I learnt that AG was up to his old crafting tricks again, and had allied with Raikage and had also asked pluffs servent for an alliance. I wasn’t really happy about this but then again, pluff told me she had turned now there offer and we needed to trust each other for this to work so w/e. So yeah, I decided to stick close to pluff, and together we would attack Raikage and Aura Guardian the next day, after I had prepared sufficiently. I had a feeling that Day 2 would be pretty rough on me but as far as Day One goes, it had been pretty productive.


Day Two

Day Two had a lot of stuff happen in it so ill add a little bit of background. Firstly, pluff and I pooled out information and we came up with a few bits of key information

-jumpluff and I were in an alliance together
- Aura_Guardian (Rogue) and Raikage (Shaman) were allied together. Raikage was of particular concern to jumpluff since he could prevent her from activating her beserk ability.
- Lightwolf and Agape had had a large engagement, LW had fucking crushed agape and we knew / figured that agape was prolly lying in a cave hurt somewhere, an order spell down.
-We almost knew everyones starting class and what Special Abilities they had giving us the opportunity to counter them if need be.
-We knew that Raikage and Aura_Guardian were planning to craft scrolls today

With this information jumpluff and I quickly formed a plan. Jumpluff wanted to shut down the scroll crafting organisation and I wanted to spend much of the day crafting. So basically jumpluff went to the bank to attempt to evict Raikage and to steal his scrolls while I stayed home and crafted.

Jumpluffs plan failed when Raikage had left his house so that was kinda gay however, I succeeded in creating the powerful Orb of Storms which I was pretty happy with. The Orb of Storms let me control the weather which I figured could have a large impact in any engagement, especially if I was facing off against a ranged attacker (like Lightwolf). It also gave me access to the Storm of Vengeance super spell so I could pull that ace out of the hat if I was stuck.

In the meantime my Wizard too a leaf out of Aura Guardians / Raikage’s book and crafted spells for a bit, really just killing time until jumpluff came back. The spells I picked were kinda random but w/e I still didn’t have much handle on useful spells at this point.

Then suddenly, out of the blue, I had a phone called from Aura Guardian. This was fairly unexpected but apparently Agape had told them my number which greatly pissed me off. Still, I had an excellent opportunity to get more info out of Aura Guardian so I took part in the convocation and actually got a fair bit of news out of it. Firstly, I found out that IPL was the knight and had apparently taken on both Aura Guardian and Raikage single handily and “won”. This was of particular interest to me as from the start of the game I really wanted to form an alliance with the knight. Now that I knew it was IPL I had reservations with allying with him (since he tended to bail a lot in PSW 1) but left it open in the future. I was also kinda concerned when Aura Guardian implied that Lightwolf and imperfectluck had allied since that was a pretty strong combo, possibly stronger than jumpluff and I really didn’t want that at all. I told Aura Guardian that I would consider helping them take down imperfectluck as hopefully a 4 v 1 (or 4 vs 2 if Lightwolf assisted IPL) would be decent odds and would hopefully take off and order spell off one of the most defensive classes in the game.

Anyway so yea that was basically what I got out of the conversation, good information and I don’t think Aura Guardian got too much from me in return so that was good.

Moving on it was around this time I found out the biggest flaw in my day plan for today. It was soooo fucking BORING. Since 8 hours of my day was being wasted crafting, I was basically sitting around waiting for players to get there encounters done so I decided to put the time to good use to attempt to plan for future days rather than taking it one day at a time. This actually resulted in a few key moments

1. I finalised my crafting item list and sorted it in order
2. I picked what type of dragon I would transform into
3. Spell Combinations!!

Creating Spell Combinations was actually pretty cool. I was sitting down, at a loss as to what to do and figured I might as well see what sort of spells would work well together. Eventually, I came up with quite a large list and shared a few of them with jumpluff, while keeping ones useful against her secret in case I needed them later on. Jumpluff said some of my combinations scared her a little which was kinda funny but I found it kinda fun trying to make combinations work effectively.

The creation of spell combinations also let me finalise a “catch all spell list” which had a final spell list with spells slashed in with one another. Spell combinations were a part of the spell list but what I was really happy with was the fact that basically every spell I had listed would have use every single day, which made me feel pretty prepared.

It was also around this time that (in the absence of things to do) jumpluff and I began working on tactics together. We finalised a formation (that I really just stole from LW in PSW 1) and yeah, just talked a bit. Looking back, pluff and I complemented each other well with her being pretty darn good at thinking creatively while I preferred to think about battle strategy and stuff (hence my small obsession with creating the spell combinations above).

When I finished my crafting my day plan really took effect. I took advantage of the massive number of necromancy spells I had memorised to create a fucking massive number of undead which served as an escort of jumpluff and me, as well as soldiers and even guards for night time use. It would also (hopefully) serve as a method of intimidation, discouraging further attacks thus giving myself time to create even more items making it even harder to stop me. The “statuette of wondrous power _______” really interested me as I kinda had the whole, “build an army out of undead + animals + monsters (summoned) + war machines then rape” idea thing, but I knew I needed a bit of time to pull that off and the undead could help me do this.

Once my undead army was built, jumpluff and I felt strong enough to take on and defeat a single player (provided we caught them by surprise). Agape and Raikage were on top of our list (both for obvious reasons) although I extended it to include IPL as well if he proved too threatening. I also wanted to check out the Aura Guardian vs IPL battle which Aura Guardian had told me would be happening so that jumpluff and I could pick them off if they were both weakened. So yeah, Day 2 started to take an offensive turn once my undead army was created.

With the above in mind pluff and I set off for the abbey, for me to do my undead thing when we encountered IPL. This was interesting and pluff and I debated killing him there and then however, I really just wanted IPL GONE so I could do my undead thing. Things were taking a peaceful turn when AG called me and told me to team up with him to take down the knight. This actually put pluff and I in a slightly difficult position since I don’t think either of us were keen to do a 2 v 2 battle so early when we risked losing an order spell so quickly. IPL asked for assistance so we agreed to help him out and hopefully take off a quick order spell from one of them. (I was also worried that AG and Raikage would turn around and attack us once we attacked IPL. I didn’t really like pluff and I’s chances in a 2 v 2 and I thought (from listening to IPL) that AG and Raikage had a habit of turning around and attacking ppl w/o warning. When AG and Raikage delayed there teleportation I assumed they were waiting till IPL had gone and pluff and I had been slightly weakened + they had seen our tricks + would get a surprise round which in turn led to more buffing etc etc.

AG and Raikage had the slowest teleport ever which gave us a fuckload of buffing time before they arrived and then pretty much started attacking us straight up. I have no idea if they already knew that IPL and us had an alliance thing going but dam they sure were aggressive. I opened up with my Orb of Storms trump card which (in my opinion) made things difficult for Raikage (and Aura Guardian I guess). Raikage took a fucking hammering (seriously he must have been on the verge of losing an order spell I reckon) before escaping with Aura Guardian. With the Storm still up, IPL could’t get away so jumpluff and I forced IPL to lose an order spell to escape and then the day pretty much ended. We tried to find Raikage so we could finish him off but we ran out of time (and our spell lists were running low) so we decided not to. I was kinda guttered I had to use Storm of Vengence but still, 8 hours work in exchange for taking an order spell of a Knight and hammering a Shaman isn’t bad going so I resolved to craft it again if I ever got time.

Day 3 was fun as fuck. I had gotten a call from Agape offering to set up a meet between him, Aura Guardian, Raikage, jumpluff and I at the pub, where himself, jumpluff and I would team up to take down Aura Guardian and Raikage. I agreed to his offer but after a fair bit of thinking and tactical analysis, pluff and I decided it would be far too risky. We reckoned Agape could easily sell us out to AG and Raikage (especially since he had freely given them my number with no explanation) and I legit thought they were working together (considering they worked so well together last game).

Pluff and I decided to turtle it out since it really would benefit us both. Pluff could still keep track of in-game events thanks to her assortment of ghosts, while I could only get stronger with every item I made. Also, we were staying out of harms way while (hopefully) others got weakened so there was a bit of “lets outlast them” kinda thinking going on. The trouble was, we needed a large building to turtle in, and it was pretty hard to get that. After a bit of discussion, pluff and I agreed to act as terrorists for the day, and then to blame it on Raikage and Aura Guardian. So, jumpluff and I killed the mayor, and then I launched a TWIN TOWERS ATTACK, by flying Da Vinci’s flying machine, strapped with bombs, into buildings to start a mass panic.

The combination of these attacks allowed pluff and I to pull off the “Secret Service” agent kinda thing, while setting the police on Raikage and Aura Guardian, hopefully allowing us to find their home.

Then I basically got 2v1ed with AG and Raikage which was a bit annoying. I got a bit pissed off that everything I cast got counter spelled, which resulted in my deciding that with so many damn dispellers, and with Raikage and AG hating my guts, pluff would have a better chance at winning. I transformed into a Dragon, ripped off an order spell from both of them but von vetoed my plans to burn down the city while I was in dragon form. O well
 
The game was nice, but I started it with a completely wrong attitude. I aimed to minmax and win thru it and neglected the RP part wholly. I'm relieved to hear that others fell for the same trap to some extent, though. I aimed at high HP and high overall survivability while dealing damage thru counterattacks. I managed to reach AC34, but unfortunately my +hit was awful. I ended up getting beaten by the LWmunchkindog Boon was cool though but I didn't get the immortal alicorn mounts, body swapping, spell immunities, insta-teleports and instant heals from it like I tried :) I abused Shadow Projection thinking it gave me invulnerability. Well the opposite happened, when ICB marched in my underwater cave base (after getting the location from the bloodhound LW), marched right through my traps (Fire Trap, symbol of scrying, alarm and 2 undeads. Plus a beartrap.). Then ICB coup de graced me. I messed up my order spells then, attempting to survive the situation without using an order spell by relying on boons. I ended up dying after using up both my boon and my last order. Funny thing: I actually survived ICB's full champ attack at -17HP. But then his summoner Scorching ray'd me :/ I'd write more but I've gotta go to lunch. E: I followed the game after me dying as well. I was sure of a jumpluff victory due to her +15 blade. I made some damage calculations and found out her to be stronger than LW, who in turn had better mobility. I think that with snaring spells (and undead throwing tanglefoot bags) pluff would have beated LW in a 1v1. However after seeing ICB's stats and abilities I think the end result was inevitable save for a successful ambush on ICB. Thanks to Von for hosting this despite the players (mostly me) being imperfect. I will try to improve the RP value for next games, this one made me realize that the fun comes from RP, not optimization.
 

LightWolf

lightwoof
is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
(after getting the location from the bloodhound LW)(and undead throwing tanglefoot bags)
Magic Mouth for the kill, you shouldn't have been as offensive Agape. As for that plan, jumpluff opposed necro, so no go, and I sure wouldn't have given her a chance to craft. It depends on how long I can kite Hervor(which with Shadow Step and parting shot I should have been doing decently). Though if I tried to use height, I'd be meet with and angry climbing Hervor. It would have been such a good fight :(
 
Yeah, I think we would have had a good fight. As you can see from my struggling against flying!AG/Raikage and most of all icb's flying pony, 'not getting full attacked' was pretty much the best counter to Hervor, short of poison eel. Kiting would work pretty well, since you could deal a hell of a lot of damage and keep out of reach. On the other hand, well, +15 sword is still a +15 sword if you can get even one full attack in, especially with Haste and Bull's Strength*, so I was planning to spam mobility / transport spells. I also had the aid of my ghosts, even though I wasn't the best at using them or anything, but then again I think von would've cracked down a lot earlier if I was :p

Raikage felt that you had a very good shot against me with one Order Spell, since you could just get up somewhere very high (say, inside a building) and snipe me down while I would be unable to get inside (the specifics involved filling the room with cardboard boxes, but depending what was in the boxes those would've been p. easy to get rid of...).

*I wasn't planning to use Mighty Rage too early if I could help it, because the fatigue would be pretty bad against you at a rate of 2 rounds for 1 round of Rage, and going full Rage would put me on a timer. When I started the game though I didn't realise how many rounds of Rage I actually had, because the battles this game were so much shorter. I popped Mighty Rage from the start vs. Don Quixote because Raikage and I planned to pop the Rage, get it over with, and be out of there easily within the Rage timer, even with DQ's stall turns (Hervor hit through the confusion anyway, which was a nice stroke of luck).

Calling icb really fucked that one up, I'm very glad Raikage and I will be hosting a PSW without mobile phones. I think everyone thought of using a mobile phone at the start of the game; it changed the dynamics so much (and facilitated metagaming and not-roleplaying as well, tbh).
 
First, major props to von for hosting this game and putting all the time and effort into keeping a brand new type of game going on smogon!

My profiles and my thoughts are in spoilers tags below to save space.

Alignment: Neutral Good

'Kamijou Touma', real name Evan Black. He does not resemble the fictional Kamijou Touma at all, and is in fact obviously not Japanese with blond hair and blue eyes. He usually wears normal clothing instead of sporting elaborate outfits.

He was an orphan who was picked up by the Mage Association in a town near Amesbury. Surprisingly, he was found to have aptitude for magic and was thus allowed to stay on and learn to develop his powers. He never exhibited much talent for casting offensive spells, but had a surprising ability to discern and dispel the magic of other casters. After completing his education, he moved to Amesbury and started supporting himself by working as an anti-magic specialist.

A mage who loves fiction, but hates sad stories with bad endings. This stems from his belief in the 'best possible ending' - a phenomenon that exists only in stories and not in reality. He also has a tendency to act as a fictional character or quote lines from his favourite series. However, his love for the unreal conceals a shrewd pragmatism, and it is in fact this pragmatism that causes him to adopt a false name - in fear of attacks that target his name. His choice of a fictional character's name is due to his fear that using a common name could cause innocent people could be hurt in such a case. He is similarly unpleased with the fact that he could have to kill 7 other people, and prefers to simply defeat the enemy champion if possible.

He plans to use the Philosopher's Stone to help the world. When he first summoned Mogh Ruith, the Shaman, still unfamiliar with the modern world, suggested that Touma accept a geas (not the spell) from him, to aid Ireland in becoming a mighty nation. Touma accepted this condition, but only if Mogh agreed to place a second geas on him - to always use the Philosopher's Stone for the true benefit of the world. Mogh pointed out that these two geas may well conflict, but Touma said, 'I've already thought of that. But I'll bear the burden of both promises.' Now, both the summoner and the champion are well aware that Touma may end up never using the stone.


Alignment: True Neutral

Mogh Ruith has a giant frame, standing at 7 feet 2 inches, and easily towers over Touma. Having supposedly lived over the reign of nineteen kings, he has long, flowing white hair and an equally significant beard. He is blind, but this is not immediately obvious because of the bird mask he wears. He is also dressed in a tunic made of bull-hide. His experience in aiding many kings and people have given him a habit of giving advice to others. He is usually amicable and treats Touma as a good comrade.

Mogh Ruith is extremely outspoken against Christianity, and walks around with a severed head of John the Baptist. To his disappointment and anger, Christianity has taken root in large portions of the world. However, he is even more enraged by the fact that Ireland is now a fairly small country with no real power or authority. He believes this to be the result of a curse on the Irish people, inflicted when he executed John the Baptist. He therefore makes Touma promise to aid Ireland with the power of the Philosopher's Stone so that it may become a superpower, hoping to pay penance.


I was kinda surprised by getting the Shaman and didn't really have any good ideas for him. I looked the descriptions von wrote up and figured that druid Shamans are unlikely to be chosen, so I decided to make sure at least one Shaman in a PSW was a druid. I looked through wiki and gave von a list of potential figures, and he decided on Mogh because he thought a char carrying John the Baptist's head was awesome. Sorry I didn't RP it out more von! :(

The character creation process was fairly straightforward. Von suggested my meeting prophecy power immediately and then we brainstormed for further ideas. Some suggestions I had was Mogh's flying machine and poison eel being able to summon a monster, but both were shot down because they weren't really suitable to the Shaman. von changed the flying machine to a shield instead and made Poison Eel a debuff which he promised me 'was really good' and it was even though I never understood how good until I died. I didn't complain because I knew the meeting power was broken already.

Speaking of the meeting power, hilariously nobody except AG ever figured out that I had it all game because von managed to invent very good reasons for them. Day 1 AG chased kids to the abbey to find me, and then I revealed my power to him. Day 2 we used it on IPL and he ran back into us after escaping from ginga and probably thought he was unlucky. Day 3 I used it on ginga. Von told him he had to go to the forest where he was to get herbs for the poison he was making so he never realized. Day 4 we used it on ginga again but he died to LW/IPL, and Day 5 I used it on jumpluff and her ghost told her to come meet me, which was the closest someone came to realizing really.

So anyway, as everyone knows, I built the incredibly powerful and anti-fun Evan Black/Kamijou Touma who could always cast Dispel Magic due to Greater Spell Specialization and had two free counterspells a day. I also picked spells from the schools I figured my opponents would use (Trans, Conj) and was greatly rewarded for doing so because Improved Counterspell allowed me to counterspell those spells without rolling. Overall I feel like I had one of the best spell selections in the game, even if I do say so myself. Everyone else just packed stuff that was overall good instead of trying to use specific counters against their opponents (Halt Undead VS Hervor, Resist Energy vs yu ji/leonardo, all the anti-range stuff LW was complaining about)

I casually asked von when I was building Mogh if I should munchkin and von was like 'well it looks like you're munchkinning a lot already' so I decided to make Mogh less powerful in compensation for my wizard. This is really obvious once you consider things like his 14 STR and 13 CHA as well as all the Blind-Fight feats which served no real purpose other than for flavor (Mogh is a leader, has a blue longsword, and is blind). Unfortunately this led to me messing up Mogh because he had no way to do any kind of real damage at all. My initial spell list was - Infinite: Cure Moderate Wounds, Stone Call, Hurricane Blast; Prepared: 3 Cure Critical Wounds, 2 Wall of Fire, Heal, Stormbolts. I'm kinda glad that this happened cause it shows that caster Saviors need some way to heal and attack at the same time, which is probably most easily achieved by move action spells like Ball Lightning. It didn't really matter until d5 because I was always too busy healing AG from certain death, though, and von buffed me afterwards because of this.

So, Day 1 I summoned AG to me using my meeting power and offered an alliance, safe in the knowledge that the Rogue had no real chance to defeat me. We allied and AG proved to be much more proactive in creating plans, which was fine with me cause I'm terrible at making plans. We met IPL and fought incredibly horribly vs him due to not understanding each other's abilities and bad teamwork. I tried to not use poison eel so that AG wouldn't figure out my trump card but then AG lost an order and IPL teleported away. We then met pluff's ghost and wanted to ally but nothing came of it so we just made scrolls instead.

Day 2 the abbey encounter happened. The reason we didn't teleport in was cause we suspected IPL Pluff and GN of allying VS us. My suspicions appeared to be confirmed because they did not fight and just buffed instead. I didn't even want to teleport in but AG insisted we did so we did and made ginga use his Storm of Vengeance and escaped via Cunning. My meeting power activated and we ran into IPL again and I made the mistake of letting him go, because he said he was going to order out and he only had 1 order left. I gambled that he would go fight the Pluff/GN pair or LW instead but this proved costly later to us later on.

Day 3 I decided to trap the abbey door with a symbol of scrying (which never activated, either no one went to the abbey again or LW removed it). I ran into LW as I was leaving, and luckily we left without any fighting because I had no chance of winning what with my zero offensive abilities. We headed to McTaggarts on Agape's advice, reasoning we could always Cunning out if we needed to. Agape never showed up, probably cause he was dead, and pluff and GN decided not to either, so we just crafted more scrolls and went to the forest for my meeting power.

We successfully ambushed Ginga and forced him to burn Time Stop. He used Instant Fortress which I dispelled only to discover that the only thing it did was to remove the door. This was the only thing I got pissed at von cause he didn't warn me about it at all and also cause he told me Da Vinci's bombs were fire but later retracted it once he realize how bad he would be vs Resist Energy. Well, we just DDed into the Fortress instead and forced Ginga to use an order after Pluff teleported in. She managed to successfully stall long enough for Dragon Form Ginga to come back and wreck us, and he used his second order to stop us from teleporting out and unfortunately Jumpluff's ghosts + Dio being grappled by a dragon prevented us from escaping via Cunning like usual so we both had to order out because I was out of teleports.

Day 4 we messed around with the SWAT team and spent an astonishing amount of time and resources on them, causing von to become visibly frustrated by how badly we were handling it. AG burned cunning on the police and this led his death later on. We managed to get the police on our side after I ungeased the chief and Hermes used his cunning diplomacy on him. We then prepared for our fight vs Ginga and Pluff but unfortunately LW and IPL appeared instead. I made a half-hearted effort to escape via DD and, when that didn't work, decided we should fight before teleporting since Mogh could heal us and they couldn't. Unfortunately, this plan was foiled by Don's Teleport Tactician and I take full responsibility for AG's death. I then teleported out myself after AG died and got my buffs.

Day 5 I met Pluff and successfully allied with her, we decided to use her ghost to scry on and ambush LW. However, Don walked out of the market instead so we decided to kill him. We made a number of errors in that entire encounter but were still winning thanks to Hervor's ridiculous damage and Mogh + Evan's defensive heals and buffs. Unfortunately we didn't manage to kill IPL before he called ICB. I then suggested that LW ally with us temporarily after he lost an order while Hervor used an order offensively on ICB to take out one of ICB's orders so that we would all be on equal footing, but LW decided to full attack me instead and took my order. I then made the mistake of not sticking Eel on Bell and got PKed after my teleport and died.

I think my main mistakes were not figuring out how Eel worked and always taking too many risks. I am kinda disappointed I never really got to fight Agape, because the RP interaction between Mogh and Aquinas would have been amazing. I am also disappointed that I never got to fight ICB cause my wizard was the best equipped to ruin his strategy and I was convinced that he had no real answer to my meeting power either. But overall the game was amazing and very fun, although I don't think I'm really suited to it because I had no ideas for crazy plans like everyone else did.
 
I then suggested that LW ally with us temporarily after he lost an order while Hervor used an order offensively on ICB to take out one of ICB's orders so that we would all be on equal footing, but LW decided to full attack me instead and took my order.
I think I forgot to mention '40 damage' in my list of little things that make me mad because they contributed to us losing... although that was kinda ridiculous and not as much of an obvious misstep as other things...

(LW so meta, mentioning how much damage I did on the phone! Also, this is pretty much the best example of what von means by manafactured OOC arguments, I guess, even though they weren't serious. I mean, you have things like me/gn vs. Raikage/AG, but that was partly because we wanted to take on the alliance while we were equipped to do so, but this was just silly. My bad, though, sorry D:

For those whom this is unclear, I full attacked Tripurantaka and took an Order Spell midway through. I did not think of being merciful and stopping short before the Haste bonus attack, and it did 40 damage. This made LW mad and also made him feel vulnerable, since Raikage and I were a fairly solid alliance and he felt his alliance with icb would dissolve after the encounter, so he didn't want to stab icb when I proposed it.)

If Raikage and I had gotten away from icb that day (eel on Bellerophon or him showing up a turn later or something), things would've been really different, at least for me and LW -- Raikage and I were coming up with ideas to deal with him, though there were some good ones we never thought of, but we needed to heal and refresh our spell list. And like he says, his wizard was the best one for handling icb's. icb was still a very relevant danger, and I quite well could've gotten picked off, but it's still obvious that things would be different.
 

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