Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Combat Mechanics

I really need to review some of the combat mechanics in 5e it seems. I didn't understand or forgot that there's an entire action to disengage an enemy in combat as I'm really used to being able to use shift in 4e. I think the opportunity attacks are a little more devastating in this edition as well, since when it happens in 4e it tends to be a basic melee attack. Needless to say, I got my ass handed to me a few times I tried to escape enemies in this past weekend's D&D session. 

Mesk ran one more session for HKS to set up his character and I joined in once more playing as the NPC I did last time. I may be joining the regular campaign, which will be interesting as I'm getting rather attached to Renfis (this always happens with me though). I'm definitely more biased towards HKS' side of the campaign though as I'm more interested in the demon side of Mesk's Apex world. Either way, looking forward to seeing the interaction between all the characters when the time comes.

The session went well, and we started in the afternoon, which was really nice because it meant I wasn't up until 3am and hating myself the next day. I was also more or less awake and not struggling as much to recall details late-game. Though, the lack of sleepiness didn't seem to help me remember a lot of vital combat elements. The fights were larger and more complex as well, which I really enjoy, especially from a strategy point of view. 

I really liked the maps/locations we used this time. Having the environment involved in the overall mechanics and story was also interesting. I tried to not inspect every single thing this time, which I hope Mesk was happy with as I know he was scrambling a little last time to populate the rooms with STUFF to find. Also I noticed there was only one door to open, and it was more of a gate. Poor Renfis. 

Also HKS managed to roll around in more stuff due to some bad investigation checks which was just perfect. He's just going to have to roll around in everything from now on whether or not he actually succeeds a check or not. His character is going to think that's just how you look for things. 


In addition to the campaign, also ended up playing a long session of Outlast 2 on Monday. After playing a bit more, I'd say we're more or less enjoying it aside from the stupid pick-axe lady (which I'm sure someone is going to correct us on her real name about a million times once the video is posted). That said, we forgot our protagonist's name at the start of the session so...

We played about 4-5 hours of the game, which was added onto the original 1 and a half. Shauna looked up how far we had to go and apparently we're only on something like 2 or 3 out of 6 chapters. So uh...there's a lot of game left. I also have no idea how I'm going to handle editing this stuff. Usually when I do LPs with Shauna, there's no audio delay between what we see and what the system records. There is a delay here, which means syncing up the audio is going to be an adventure of epic proportions. 


As for my own projects, I picked up Pillars of Eternity again over the weekend in the hopes to finish the game and get it off my current project list. The only problem is there seems to be DLC as well and I'm not sure if I want to delve into that as an LP or not. It could mean a lot more content and A LOT more videos. I have some other games I'm going to want to finish as well...so we'll see what happens. I think I'm at the end of the main quest though. I still need to fight the Master Below, which Shauna says I HAVE to fight. Meaning if I somehow talk my way out of it, I need to reload and get my ass kicked. 

I also continued some work on the RPG. Really all I did was set up waypoints and some dialogue events. I have one string of dialogue that I would, ideally like to do, but it's going to require some mental gymnastics to determine what the order of operations on that is going to be. I've actually fully mapped the layout of Map 2 (not Map 1 cause I'm a little hung up on assets vs the image I have in my head). But I also need to make pig people for Map 2. I at least know how this map will function mechanically. I'll have two options for getting the main door open, a combat route and a puzzle route, cause I know there are people out there who aren't too keen on one or the other. I mean, I know how much Mesk loves puzzles. 


Anyway this week my focus is finishing PoE, having a character ready in case I join the campaign and trying to figure out what I'm going to do about the first area in the RPG.

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