Arklytte

My pleasure, as always, Kella. 😃

Sure. That works as a secondary freebie item.

Heya Starhawk! Sorry for taking so long to touch base. It's been crazy stupid busy for me IRL.

Your tradition looks great. Happily approved.

Hmmm...not sure how to do a Sphere's compatible Periapt of Negative Channeling, but I'm sure we could figure something out. I dont suppose you could link me to a description? Google came up with a Phylactery of Negative Channeling, but it seems kinda powerful, so I'm not sure if that's what you're asking for.

On 10/11/2023 at 6:48 AM, BBK said:

I think I might be going overboard with the 'Previous Adventures' section. Not sure how many short stories about Lance & Bolt you actually care to read, so I'll stop at the 4 I already wrote. For now. But, you know...if you want more, I can definitely make that happen. lol

LOL! I cant guarantee I'll read them all while I'm doing my review. But hey, if you want to write, I love to read. I'm sure I'll get to them all eventually. 😁

19 hours ago, Boogie Woogie Wookiee said:

Edit: Oh, right right right, now I remember why I had to do that. Their stupid whitelist scrubs all displays from their divs for whatever nonsensical reason. Totally fine to use with a span for some reason, but god forbid you want to use it with a div instead. 😆

But you're not bitter or anything, amirite? 😁🤪

19 hours ago, Boogie Woogie Wookiee said:

Oh yeah, both of those solutions worked, but tables are less annoying so I'll be going with that. It should look a lot better now.

Also, yes, whatever fix you did, it now looks perfect. I appreciate you making the effort, because it was driving me bonkers. 😝

Sounds good Ted. I'll be reviewing app over the weekend. Thanks for the heads up.

Heh...ALL the spheres can be cheesy, if you know what you're doing. But so long as you and the DM agree to not try and outdo one another, and everyone's having fun, that's what counts, IMO.

Heya Namo! My apologies for taking so long to get back to you. It's been a helluva week. 😝

Traditions both look good. I especially like the hypnosis based 'vampire mind control' one. Very cool.

Also, I prefer to have sphere specific drawbacks kept with the individual spheres. That's how I do it with my own characters, because, IMO, it makes keeping track of such things MUCH easier. 👍

ANNOUNCEMENT

Ok y'all, it is currently Friday, 3AM EST. Today is the last day to finish your apps. I'm going to try and spend a bit of time answering questions, but if I, for some reason, dont manage to get to your thread, do what you can to continue working on your character's fluff, so that I have a good basis to make my choices. I'm going to officially start the selection process at the end of the day today (ie in about 21 hours), and will make an announcement of who the Final Four are sometime this weekend.

My sincerest thanks to everyone who has applied. Having to whittle the rather awesome pool of characters I've been presented, down to just four, is going to SUCK! So give yourselves a pat on the back for making my decision damn hard. 😁

Best of luck to all and sundry, and, if I dont get a chance to post anything before the official 'end' of the app period, know that I deeply appreciate everyone taking the time to come fiddle around in my little corner of the intertubez. Y'all ROCK!!

ANNOUNCEMENT

Ok y'all, it is currently Friday, 3AM EST. Today is the last day to finish your apps. I'm going to try and spend a bit of time answering questions, but if I, for some reason, dont manage to get to your thread, do what you can to continue working on your character's fluff, so that I have a good basis to make my choices. I'm going to officially start the selection process at the end of the day today (ie in about 21 hours), and will make an announcement of who the Final Four are sometime this weekend.

My sincerest thanks to everyone who has applied. Having to whittle the rather awesome pool of characters I've been presented, down to just four, is going to SUCK! So give yourselves a pat on the back for making my decision damn hard. 😁

Best of luck to all and sundry, and, if I dont get a chance to post anything before the official 'end' of the app period, know that I deeply appreciate everyone taking the time to come fiddle around in my little corner of the intertubez. Y'all ROCK!!

Tradition looks good, and your Witchwarped idea sounds cool. Both happily approved.

22 hours ago, Boogie Woogie Wookiee said:

Ah, there's some font-size f*ckery going on. That's easy to fix, thanks for letting me know! I'll get to it later today.

::Five Minutes Later:: Is that better? I was forcing in some carriage returns so that the paragraphs looked a bit nicer, so I just took them out. Worse case scenario now is that the slight differences in fonts on different systems might result in an extra line or two, but pushing out of the container should be minimal if at all.

I really should have tested it out with different themes, too. I tried using a semi-transparent background color, thinking it would be opaque enough to overcome the differences between them, but it looks a little too dark with the one you chose.

Ironically, it wasn't the font size that was being f*cky, it was the height of the background. On a hunch, I quoted the post, went into the source, and increased the height from 480px to 720px, popped back into the post, and VOILA, all was good. The background was actually a bit too large at that point...600ish would probably have done the trick, I was just going for proof of concept. 😁

PS: I'll respond to the rest a bit later. Got to head out soon. I only got on because I had the above idea and just had to try it immediately. 😁

1 hour ago, BBK said:

I was very confused by this answer because I read it pre-coffee and I didn't make the connection to SoG since the Utilitatarian Talent Progression and Utility Talents in Non-Skill Spheres (the entire list of the available 'Utility Talents' for the SoM & SoP we're using for this game) are both Champions material. It took me a good minute to realize that the concept of 'Utility' talents originated in SoG. I think my brain misfired. That's what I get for reading posts pre-coffee, I suppose. lol

I feel ya. Before I've had my morning Diet Coke, my brain might as well still be in bed.

I was honestly confused as well, since I just assumed I'd somehow missed Utility Talents/Talent Progression in all my time playing Spheres (it's happened with a couple other things as well), but when I saw Droobles post, I immediately checked the 'How to play with Spheres of Guile' section and realized what was up.

Gotta say, I really like the concept of the Utility talents, so I'm definitely going to spend some time wrapping my head around SoG.

Sounds good! Should be interesting, whichever direction you jump.

Cool beans. I'm definitely going to be checking them out. 😃

Sounds good. So long as your fluffy bits are done, and your crunchy stuff at least shows me the major direction you're heading in, that's enough for me to make my decisions. Anything more you get done before decision time is gravy.

Sounds good, my dude. I'll look forward to seeing what you put together. I hear ya re the free time thing though. IRL has been kicking me right in the shins the last few days. I wish it would chill the hell out. 🤪

4 hours ago, BBK said:

Are we allowed to make use of the Utilitatarian Talent Progression, if desired?

Nope, sorry. As @droobles mentioned, we're not using SoG (I haven't had the chance to dive into it yet, so I'd rather keep that Pandora's Box closed for now...going to have to make a couple SoG characters first so I can get a better grasp on it...perhaps next game 😁) so anything connected with it (such as Utility talents) is off the table for the time being.

4 hours ago, BBK said:

Would it be possible to modify the Oath of the Cryptkeeper, slightly? It states that "You may never raise undead or work alongside the undead." But that means if you find someone with intelligence that was raised against their will and asked for or otherwise needed your help to end their curse or ease their suffering...you'd have to turn them down? That seems like a really terrible way to go about respecting the dead. Can it maybe be tweaked slightly to something more along the lines of "or willingly benefit from or participate in the raising or use of undead raised on your behalf or for your benefit"? I'm just hoping for a way to make sure of the moral implications before committing to it because it is the difference between being an oath about being empathetic and being an oath of narcissistic zealotry and bigotry. lol

Like many other things, exceptional circumstances make for exceptional rulings. It's kind of a corner case, so it's not something I'm going to make a formal house rule on. But if such a scenario were to come to pass, and your character had OotC, then we'd play it by ear at that time. While I am a firm believer that a penalty that's not really a penalty isn't actually a penalty (and therefore, not worth a benefit), I'm also not such a hardass that I'm going to ignore good roleplaying opportunities by sticking so tightly to RAW that it makes no sense whatsoever.

• Yeah...dont get me started on all the "improvements" this site supposedly has. I could rant for hours. The Admin dont like me as it is, and my rather...AHEM...strong opinions during the comment period weren't exactly well received.
  • That said, I have to tell you, my first thought was that I'd somehow deleted the thread, and I FREAKED OUT. I know how I would have reacted to a whole app suddenly going poof. Fortunately, after the initial panic, I realized that the Q&A thread was inexplicably longer, realized what was up, and was able to fix it. <wipes forehead>
• I thought the formatting/pic was a nice touch. 😁
• Awesome vid!! I used to have a fur slinky (we used to call them 'fur snakes' as well) when I lived alone (she passed before I met my wife). But when I got married, my wife already had a home, so we moved into her place, and it came with kitteh's already installed. I'm hoping that I can convince her to take a chance on a couple ferrets to go along with the next batch of kittens we adopt, when these have gone to the Bridge to wait for us.

2 hours ago, Boogie Woogie Wookiee said:

1.) I'm assuming Insightful Strike (formerly Smite Evil) can be used against any old opponent under your house rules? You know, as long as it doesn't violate his code, obviously. If so, does it continue to deal double damage to outsiders, dragons, and undead regardless of (a lack of) alignment?

We'll just change 'Evil' to 'Enemy', and if the opponent identifies as an enemy (regardless of type), you can Smite them, if you choose. Note that you wont be able to Smite them if they're not an active enemy (so, obviously anyone who's not trying to actively hurt you, even if you're attacking them. If their only thought is to flee, with no thought of harming you, then they wouldn't actually be an Enemy AFA this ability (and Detect Evil, see below) are concerned.

Additionally, things without a conscious mind (constructs, for example), may or may not count as Enemies, depending on whether they're self willed or not. Same with Undead. I've never been a big believer in the whole 'all Undead are Evil thing. It's another artifact of the Alignment system that I hate, and another reason why I dont use it. Self aware undead, sure, they can be evil, but a skeleton, which it basically just a puppet, doesn't have enough awareness to have any moral thoughts, and isn't inherently 'evil' IMO.

Anyway, does that work?

2 hours ago, Boogie Woogie Wookiee said:

2.) Does Focusing Grasp (same link as above) override the number of times he can use Insightful Strike per day, with the new limit being the number of Lay on Hands attempts he gets? The wording is a little confusing as it implies that Insightful Strike relies entirely on expending your martial focus now instead of having to rely on a resource counter.

No. Focusing Grasp is specifically for regaining your Martial Focus. Martial Focus(MF) allows you to use many Spheres of Might abilities and feats, as well as certain class features. Gain it at the start of the day automatically, and retain it til you expend it. For some abilities, you need to simply have MF active, but for others, such as Insightful Strike, you need to expend it. It is then gone, and you can only regain it by resting one full minute, spending a full round taking the Total Defense Action, or by using a class ability/feat/talent to regain it faster.

So Focusing Grasp lets you 'spend' a Lay On Hands use to regain your MF as a simple Move Action (while also healing you, as normal).

Does that make sense?

2 hours ago, Boogie Woogie Wookiee said:

3.) What should we do about his Aura of Good class feature? As far as I can tell it only comes into play when detecting alignments (which is null and void) for the most part, but there's a chance to stun "overwhelming evil" for 1 round when coming into contact with it, like with evil outsiders and junk, at least according to the Detect Evil spell. Vice versa applies as well, of course. Regardless, it's pretty damn niche anyway.

We'll do like Insightful Strike, and change that to 'Detect Enemy', with everything else being the same. It'll let you know if an entity is actively hostile towards you, or not. It wont give you insight into their motivations, and it wont necessarily tell you if it's you, specifically, that they think of an an enemy (they could just be attacking everyone, there could be a misunderstanding (ie they think YOU are the bad guy), could be crazed, berserk, or just a plain old psychotic asshole 😈), but it will immediately let you know if they're actively hostile towards you/your party/anyone you're protecting. It will also do the whole aura thing, if you continue to Detect for multiple rounds, which will let you gain additional insight into the nature of said enemy and the why of them being your enemy. Rather than come up with some additional, complicated house rules, I'll just adjudicate it on an as needed basis.

Same caveats as Insightful Strike would apply here as well.

Works?

2 hours ago, Boogie Woogie Wookiee said:

4.) Regarding's Killian's Code of Conduct as a paladin, I was planning on basing it on his deity rather than on the traditional paladin values, but still of a moral high ground (mostly). Examples of what I'm thinking include "stealing is acceptable as long as it is not for personal gain," "vandals of art or architecture shall not be abided," "protect art and artists at any cost," "defend the elven way of life," "inspire others," "protect the homes of those who cannot protect them themselves," and things along those lines. Given that she herself has befriended a succubus-turned-goddess, things like "working with evil shall not be tolerated" and whatnot doesn't seem important to her, so including something like "tolerate those who do evil, but only as long as they do not violate your code" or something like that would fit well (and make him much less "Awful Good" which can often by all but unplayable, especially given some of the other applications I've glanced at). Would that be an acceptable route to take, or would you prefer more traditional paladiny-ness in it?

I MUCH prefer personalized Codes of Honour/Conduct to 'I'm a generic Lawful Goodytwoshoes Paladin'. I mean, if that's what someone want to play, more power to 'em...those kinds of moral absolutists can be fun to play, if the player is willing to fully commit, but that mold doesn't fit every person/character/situation. So, yeah, I'm definitely in favor of Killian's Code being HIS Code, and not a generic one.

You might even consider taking the Oath of Honour. I mean, if you're going to be living it anyway, you might as well get some bennies out of it while you're at it. 😁

Figured it'd be easier to just show you, so here's a screenie.

For reference, fully updated FF (v118.0.2). I normally have it override native fonts, when it can, because eyestrain is yet another fun prize in the cracker jack box of 'getting older' 😝, but I reverted it to default and still got the issue.

I might end up kicking this over to the admin folks, just to see if they have an idea/solution, because, like I said, I really like the format of the app, and want to play with it as an option for my own characters/NPC's going forward, but if it's going to be all hinky in my browser, that's not going to work well.

Tradition looks good, and everything else looks like it's coming together nicely. Cant wait to see the final product.😀

Heya Relek. Tradition looks solid. Approved.

Looks like he's starting to come together. Cant wait to see the final product.😀

I'm totally ok with Oath of Honour. I like what you put together, and I can definitely see it being easy to work into the game. As you say, it'll need a bit of adapting, but, if and when, we can work on the specific, necessary adaptations.

Heya Keante!

Looking good so far. I really like the Wyrwood. Is that an official race, or something you came up with yourself? Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing how it all comes together.

That was very...diplomatic. 😁

I was FAR less so about my various opinions when they first started talking about the new site. They SAID they were interested in feedback, and were taking it to heart. After several months of testing, and a couple months of being live...yeah...not so much with the 'listening to user opinions' (other than the ones that are full of copious amounts of praise, of course).

But hey, I'm just a simple geek (with a pretty fair amount of coding experience)...what do I know?

Do I sound bitter? Yeah, I probably sound bitter. 😝😁

Heya RD! 😀

App's looking good so far. Not sure if your traditions are custom (they look like they are), but if they are, consider them approved (and if they're standardized, just ignore me😁).

Cant wait to see how it all comes together.