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[COURT OF SWORDS // E70 Q&A] Chariot Crashes Against the Walls

I think if they wanted, what happened today could XP-wise be covered as a quest. I guess technically a quest is something you get assigned first and then you complete it, but I still feel that doing something like saving the Tower is something that could be a “retoractively” given quest that they achieved before knowing about it. :smiley:

Yeah, it’s turned out to be this weird thing where Berg’s purpose in the party is completely separate from his personal desires. Unlike Sali and Ramus, whose desires tend to align somewhat with their classes and party roles most of the time, Berg rarely wants to do what barbarians do and fight things. His personality and emotions have moved beyond his rage for the most part, which makes it really hard for Max to create goals like “Find a worthy opponent” or “Overcome fierce odds in battle” etc. The closest Max can get to this is goals that would make him more powerful, since that reinforces Bergs role as a fighter, hence the shield and lava arm goals, but it still doesn’t quite mesh RP wise the same way Sali’s quest for knowledge or Ramus’ religious adherence does. Therefore, to remain useful from a gameplay perspective, Berg typically has to take a backseat goal wise.

On further thought though, his “Find out why bad things keep happening to me” is very in line with the fact that he’s constantly forced into combat, and cannot seem to avoid fighting things. Since this goal is probably going to net him a crap-ton of XP, the system might work better than we’re giving it credit for.

Of course, I’m probably thinking about this entirely wrong, and have no better ideas, so the current system is probably fine for now.

Berg should just take the goal “don’t die” so he can get 50* his level XP each session. Unfortunately since he would always be working towards it, it wouldn’t scale with his challenges.

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Slowly but surely, he’d hit level 20 on week 1200.

Haha, luckily the goal XP scales with level

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Maybe adam sets some secret/not secret milestones. Like overarching goals, e.g Defend the Tower, Find out what Farang want, what are the Mara up to. Which the entire party can work towards, rather than taking up their personal RP slots.

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I’m pretty sure it’s been stated by Adam that when Berg gets that figured out, it’s gonna be experience city.

I imagine it’ll equate to the Sicarian situation in Swan Song. Take most of the characters run to figure it out, but the payout is huge.

Also, if Berg becomes some Bodhisattva of battle, it’ll be the coolest thing ever. Hasn’t it been hinted that Berg’s rage is becoming closer to a peace of mind in battle? Some sort of Nirvana rage-monk. So oxymoronic it almost gave me whiplash typing it!

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During the post show Adam talked about losing fights as a GM and how you don’t necessarily want to win because a TPK means you need to rebuild everything. I just wanted to point out that this fits the description of the Tower he also gave in the post show. The Tower (GM) burns everything down so it can be rebuilt the same way, in accordance with the tenets of Heaven (the rules). The farang are the GM who want to TPK so we can play a different game.

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This is perfect and you are very very perceptive.

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Also, someone in chat suggested that this episode be called “Farangover” after Kalimat got drugged and abducted, and I feel the need to call attention to this amazing hangover pun.

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I do want to note that this is also a 5th edition problem, most people don’t play high level campaigns.

O man! I felt so bad seeing you setup that huge battle map, I was hoping during the break you’d kind of project clock or “fronts” the battle stuff to take some of the weight off you during the fighting w/ the PCs… but then realized that’s probably too far removed from D&D at that point…

There’s some definitely interesting things surfacing up still. The idea of exploring some of the geomancy w/ Sali is neat along w/ whatever the f**k Kali is being sent out to do. I’m kind of hoping to see one last gasp from some Sahir or the Immortals before the City truly falls. We’ll see what the PCs decide though!

I guess one like… logistics question(?) I have. While watching the patreon video I realized that 2 of the PCs are lvl 8 and the other two are figuring out how to continue getting XP fairly regularly (it seems you’ve avoided the issue that plagued Swan Song for a while). Is level 8 the next “mile marker” in case a TPK does happen? I vaguely remember like… dozens of episodes ago you discussing when the next plateau for new characters would be, but I don’t quite remember? 8 and then 10?

i wonder how connected reincarnations are to their past self and if Farang could touch it? is it “magical”, or dis Psychic side also affected?

What I mean is - would The Prisoner be able to discover reincarnation and learn something about Kalimat past self?
Or how much about Berg quest does Tulpa already know?

Also - if Farang discover reincarnation as a thing, how would they react? Would some be tempted by it? I see why most won’t, and that besides their feeling of superiority. But it would be cool to see Farang sympathizers who’d start trying to become part of the cycle or, colonially, appropriate that tech for their civilisation (thinking of course, that they are merciful towards those animals)

(Sidenote - I’m freakin impressed by how quickly Adam was managing the battle. Normally it’d take two shows to resolve)

My options for a battle that big were either “come up with a new system to handle it” or “do it all turn by turn” and sadly, the latter was the easiest choice. Honestly. I think it flowed pretty well, despite them being a PC down and Sali being unconscious so long.

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I think yeah, it was 3, 5, 8, 10 for the midrange.

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Can the Farang even die at all?

Just for kicks, my view before the fight started…

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Tower War Caster: - I’m not your guy bro dude, pal. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Man that battle was intense. I remember a long time ago the post-show was musing about how Hazan was like grooming Berg to take his place one day. I think that based on the last few shows Ramus would end up being the one becoming the Tower’s avatar one day. But he has to get his soul back first, right? Otherwise he dies?

How much time does his body actually have left anyway?

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if i remember correctly, when the PCs were first in Utrix’s domain Ramus cast something on himself to make his body last longer. This is off the top of my head so i dont remember what spell it was, but i think it was to preserve his body. Maybe adam would let Dan just say that he recast the spell occasionally to continue to preserve his body