Post/Author/DateTime	Post
PeopleMcNuggets 09-04-05, 05:48 PM	Ok guys I got a doosy for ya. One of our players is playing an Artificer. During one of our games he pulled a total BS manuever where he escaped being trapped in a Harver Sack, who's size was altered due to an Enlarge spell, by using the Artificer's ability Retain Essence. Eberron says that the artificer only needs to spend a day with the magic item in order to use Retain Essence. Logically speaking during that day wouldn't the artifcer have to actually focus his attention on the item, possibly even spending the time to physically dismantle it (since the ability says the item gets destroyed in the process)? What happened in our campaign is that one of the other characters (an Efreeti) had him in a Handy Harver Sack, and was planning on selling our artificer into slavery on the Elemental Plane of Fire (as revenger for using Grim Revenge, and tearing off the Efreeti's hand). So our Efreeti had the artificer trapped in a Harver Sack, and our artificer showed the Retain Essence ability to the DM. The DM ruled that since he's inside the bag, he is considered to be with the item. Then since he wasn't spending a whole day with the item, then the DM burnt his remaining action points (he was 10th lvl and hadn't used any of his action points yet), allowing the artificer to immediately use Retain Essence, destroy/escape the Harver Sack, thus robbing the Efreeti of his much desired revenge. Now was the the proper way of going about this, or was that just a huuuuuge BS Move?
Thievingrouge 09-04-05, 06:01 PM	Huge BS... You cannot spend action points to lower the time it takes to use retain essence.
allenchan 09-04-05, 06:12 PM	Meh. I am indifferently. That's a lot of APs, fair 'nough trade, even if it's not within the RAW.
Salla 09-04-05, 06:18 PM	Using Retain Essence to escape the Haversack was a good move; letting him spend APs to speed up the process was the mistake. Bad DM call. I wish I had a digital camera so I could show you all the look on my DM's face when I used Retain Essence to drain a magical trap that we couldn't get past otherwise. They count as Wondrous Items. :D
PeopleMcNuggets 09-04-05, 06:44 PM	Yeah. The rest of the group was very disturbed by this decision, but our artifcer couldn't be happier with it.
slade_caizer 09-04-05, 07:25 PM	I have a different question: How long was the Artificer in the Haversack? What was the state of his air supply? Also...logistically it doesn't match up. Why would the mere presence of an Artificer destroy items? I would admit he could possibly take it apart from the inside out, but it would take the standard amount of time (1 full day I think you said). Most times a Haversack's compartments won't have enough air for one creature for one whole day--though I could be wrong. Please point your DM to this thread so he/she can see me refer to him/her as retarded. Also, it's in poor taste to favor one player over the other that badly. One had already been maimed for goodness sake. Where was the DM's protection then? This is just sad, and I recommend you Disintegrate the Artificer. Alternately, Avasculate twice and Animate. Either way all is good. ;)
DragnSpirit 09-04-05, 08:42 PM	Whelp, I am the DM of this game. I was surprised and delighted by the creativity of the Artificer's move. Some argued that the dimension inside the bag was not the bag, however I think the dimension is part of the bag... more like the inside of any regular bag. And I couldn't think of any way better to be with something than to be inside it. On the action point speeding his ability up issue: I thought all of the action points (of a character who's taken feats to make them better, and steadily relies on them) would be an acceptable price. The character was also very desparate for his life, had nothing to distract him (being in a void), and had nothing to do but try to escape. Sometimes I'll give a character a special option to spend a lot of action points in order to save their characters when I see that it would help the game progress, develop, or otherwise be more entertaining. Usually it's to do something "really cool" or I just feel really sorry for em and it's rare that I do this. On the air in the bag of holding issue: The efreeti character was remembering to open the bag to let air inside the bag periodically so that the artificer wouldn't suffocate. On the favoritism issue: I try very hard to be objective and fair to all my players. I was fully expecting the efreeti to kill or otherwise maime the artificer upon his exit from the bag. The artificer appeared before him on his back. Nothing would have stopped him from bashing the life out of him. He chose not to of course. The player with the artificer had also spent almost half of the entire day (real time) inside that bag not able to do anything in the hope that his character would be released somehow. I also gave him a 50% chance that he would pop out of the bag while in the plane of fire and would most likely have fallen into a volcano or died horribly one way or another. In hindsight I probably shouldn't have used action points to speed his ability up. At the time it felt like I was tossing a starving dog a bone. My DMing style is generally not completely traditional, and is more story/character oriented. I would love to see posts in support or against my call. Even more people calling me retarded if they really think so!! :D
BaelinWhale 09-04-05, 11:11 PM	If the bag is overloaded, or if sharp objects pierce it (from inside or outside), the bag ruptures and is ruined. All contents are lost forever. The above is an excerpt from the SRD for Bag of Holding (which is otherwise identical to the Haversack). How much does the captured artificer weigh? A Heward's Handy Haversack's (HHH) central pocket can hold a max weight of 80 lbs otherwise it bursts or ruptures, causing the contents to spill over into the Astral Plane. Destroying the object through the aforementioned ability would have the same effect and by all rights, the player should now find himself drifting somewhere on the Astral Plane. With regards to the viability of being able to interact with the HHH from the dimensional space inside: since you can pierce it from the inside or cause it to burst by exceeding its weight capacity, it's therefore logical to assume that a character trapped inside can interact with the object (inside the proverbial belly of the beast so to speak). Also note that the HHH is a pretty lousy container to hold live prisoners since all he'd need to do is poke his finger, use any available pointy object (belt buckle, dagger, etc), or cast a damaging spell (acid splash) to completely destroy the object and break free (into the Astral Plane). :rolleyes: One other thing you might also have to consider is how extra-planar travel works when you're outside the Material Plane. Hope this clears things up. Happy gaming. :D
Thievingrouge 09-05-05, 12:51 AM	Mr. DM of this game- I'm glad you knew that wasn't what an action point could do, I came on the impression that is what you thought... Of course I'm still angry.. (I'm a by the book DM).. Good gaming.
Dargan Griess 09-05-05, 07:38 AM	With the magical essence drained out of it a Handy Haversack is nothing more than a backpack. Poking a hole in it or cutting it open will have only the effect of what's in there falling out.
Ginyu549 09-05-05, 02:18 PM	I don't think you can enlarge a magic item, doesn't it have to be a non-magical item? So unless it was a specially made "Large" haversack, or non-magical the gnome shouldn't have fit into it in the first place. Of course I could see how the dm might allow it for story development or something, but that opens up a few little problems maybe further down the road when they try this trick again somewhere....
PeopleMcNuggets 09-06-05, 04:20 AM	Well there is nothing we can do about the DM's ruling, now that the game has already progressed. But our Artificer, Sasha (he likes to call himself Sasha the Maker), has found himself in a pickle of a situation. First let me give a quick summary of the trouble Sasha has gotten himself into. He got into a deal with a blue dragon, Sorg, that went sour. Sorg Wants Sasha dead. Sasha was enlisted by a kingdom of goblins to teach them how to be artificers, and become ethereal. He lied to them about the death of Sorg, Sorg destroyed most of the goblin kingdom looking for Sasha. The rest of the party killed Sorg, and due to his lie, and a bad pull from the Deck of Many Things the goblins were in possession of, Sasha is now scheduled for execution by the Goblins. Sasha used Grim Revenge to tear of the hand of an Efreeti, Sa'hala Shabib Al Aga (a PC), who in turn decided to sell Sasha into slavery on the elemental plane of fire as payment for the Efreet effort to restore his hand. Sa'hala has yet to recapture Sasha to turn him over to the Sultan of the City of Brass. The Efreet was their Slave. While Sasha was working with the goblins, he helped them create a bomb that struck a devestating blow to the dwarves they were at war with. The dwarven kingdom wants Sasha's head. Sasha's Current Status The party of PC's in conjunction with the dwarves have capture Sasha as a prisoner. He has been stripped of his magic items, all his weapons, and magically anchored to this place by an NPC dwarven cleric. Sa'hala has been able to take a little bit of his own revenge on Sasha. Just so that he wouldn't escape capture Sa'hala has broken both of Sasha's legs, disable Sasha's right hand, and has been assigned to keep a watchful eye on sasha while he is kept in our ships brig (it's a water world campaign. godbless Stormwrack). Becuase of the trouble Sasha has cause to Sa'hala, he keeps a rather sadistic eye on Sasha. We have ruled that outsiders don't sleep. Sa'hala keeps a 24hr watch on Sasha. He does not allow Sasha to sleep (if Sasha starts to dose off, Sa'hala flings fire near him to wake him up). Sasha is kept in the deepest, wettest most uncomfortable part of the shipt. Sa'hala personally handles all of Sasha's food before he recieves it (1d6 fire dmg from touch), and basically does whatever he can to make sasha's 8month journey to execution a living hell. That is where we just ended our session today. Our Efreeti, me, Sa'hala Shabib Al Aga is satisfied....for now.
slade_caizer 09-06-05, 05:14 AM	Well there is nothing we can do about the DM's ruling, now that the game has already progressed. But our Artificer, Sasha (he likes to call himself Sasha the Maker), has found himself in a pickle of a situation. First let me give a quick summary of the trouble Sasha has gotten himself into. He got into a deal with a blue dragon, Sorg, that went sour. Sorg Wants Sasha dead. Sasha was enlisted by a kingdom of goblins to teach them how to be artificers, and become ethereal. He lied to them about the death of Sorg, Sorg destroyed most of the goblin kingdom looking for Sasha. The rest of the party killed Sorg, and due to his lie, and a bad pull from the Deck of Many Things the goblins were in possession of, Sasha is now scheduled for execution by the Goblins. Sasha used Grim Revenge to tear of the hand of an Efreeti, Sa'hala Shabib Al Aga (a PC), who in turn decided to sell Sasha into slavery on the elemental plane of fire as payment for the Efreet effort to restore his hand. Sa'hala has yet to recapture Sasha to turn him over to the Sultan of the City of Brass. The Efreet was their Slave. While Sasha was working with the goblins, he helped them create a bomb that struck a devestating blow to the dwarves they were at war with. The dwarven kingdom wants Sasha's head. Sasha's Current Status The party of PC's in conjunction with the dwarves have capture Sasha as a prisoner. He has been stripped of his magic items, all his weapons, and magically anchored to this place by an NPC dwarven cleric. Sa'hala has been able to take a little bit of his own revenge on Sasha. Just so that he wouldn't escape capture Sa'hala has broken both of Sasha's legs, disable Sasha's right hand, and has been assigned to keep a watchful eye on sasha while he is kept in our ships brig (it's a water world campaign. godbless Stormwrack). Becuase of the trouble Sasha has cause to Sa'hala, he keeps a rather sadistic eye on Sasha. We have ruled that outsiders don't sleep. Sa'hala keeps a 24hr watch on Sasha. He does not allow Sasha to sleep (if Sasha starts to dose off, Sa'hala flings fire near him to wake him up). Sasha is kept in the deepest, wettest most uncomfortable part of the shipt. Sa'hala personally handles all of Sasha's food before he recieves it (1d6 fire dmg from touch), and basically does whatever he can to make sasha's 8month journey to execution a living hell. That is where we just ended our session today. Our Efreeti, me, Sa'hala Shabib Al Aga is satisfied....for now. :clap: That's beautiful.
Ph0eNiX 09-06-05, 10:07 AM	Sasha should have been a warforged and built magic items as warforged components, then they could not be taken except in death. Or considered getting Craft Contingent Spell, so as to have options when such situations arise.
rampant 09-06-05, 12:28 PM	any artificer who lets himself get disarmed completely deserves a good thrashing
PeopleMcNuggets 09-06-05, 05:12 PM	Yeah, Sasha seemed very prone to giving up his weapons, but then went to ridiculous lengths to get them back. Like for instance when he used his wand of Grim Revenge to take Sa'hala's hand. Sa'hala managed to get the wand from him, then plane shifted to the elemental plane of fire, and dropped the wand into a river of lava. When Sasha found out happend to his wand, he tried to shoot Sa'hala in the back with an Arrow of Disintegration. He missed.
Sasha The Maker 09-07-05, 04:02 PM	Well, I have finally been caught. I write this letter in the hopes that it will reach someone through the oceans road, I hope this bottle and cork hold up. After a year and months of avoiding two dragons, an army of goblins forcing me into servitude, a battle with the dwarven kingdom, and surviving the constant attacks of my so called team mates. I have been caught and mercilessly thrown into the brig. Its cold here, and wet. My food is always over cooked, and it has been days since I last slept. Argh, my legs are killing me, they have been broken. Damn that Effreet. All his fault. My letter comes to you from my good hand, since that blasted creature hurt my other. I have lost count of the days I have spent here. I miss my land, I don't know why I keep thinking of Yakov Smirnoff but it puts a smile on my dry lips... Ruskyvania, my land, I guess I will die away from my home on this infernal strange land that I find my self on. Wish I had my old team mates... They would not allow me to be in this situation. Wish I had a cleric to help me...I pray to my God "The Traveler" in the hopes that he will provide me an answer. If I am to die, I will die in peace though, I have Traveled well. I have adventured and seen things others have dreamed off. I don't blame anyone though. I have dissasembled and created wondorous items. Though, it would appear others will benefit from them better than me... As the towns fool of Mos CowRia would say, "oh well" I wonder what tomorrow brings, I sence my death soon but I will be damn if I don't try my hardest to survive. Thank you for reading this, spread stories of me, I hope that I am remembered...As a Ruskyvanian...
PeopleMcNuggets 09-25-05, 02:54 PM	It's done...it's finally done. Sasha the maker has finally met his demise. However, he did not die in the fashion that we chose, but nonetheless, he is dead. While he was in captivity under the watchful eye of Sa'hala he waited for the moment when Sa'hala left the ship. Though I did not specify that I actually closed the hatch to the room where Sasha was being held, it would not have made much of a difference. It was a hatch that Sasha could've still opened. Even though we stipped Sasha of his dangerous weapons, he still had two significant magical items on him....Boots of Levitation and Cloak of the Manta Ray. When Sa'hala left the ship, he used the boots to levitate up to the ceiling, and pushed he was over to the door. He did take damage, seeing as how his legs where broken. He suffered greatly to escape. He did the same thing through all the decks. He was attack by our dwarven crew, who did what they could to stop him. He recieve a couple vicious wounds from the dwarves, and their axes. Next he dove into the water, activated his cloak, and turned into a giant manta ray. However, he did not take into consideration that he was still bleeding. The sea that he dove into was shark infested water. He swam out for about two miles, when his scent was picked up by a school of blue sharks. Sasha tried to hide, but you're not going to be ablel to hide from sharks when you're bleeding in the water. Needless to say he tried to get away, but he was inevitably torn to pieces by the ravenous blue sharks. Sa'hala was not able to be there to see Sasha die. But.....He did speak to a dwarf that said he wounded Sasha, he saw the bloody axe, he knows that sasha went into the water, he knows that the waters were shark infested, and he saw the blood come up to the surface after Sasha was eaten.....he knows what happened to Sasha. Sa'hala finally has obtained his satisfaction. Burn in hell f***er!!
BlaineTog 09-25-05, 03:28 PM	If I was the DM of that game, I would be extremely ******. I don't tolerate any sort of in-fighting amongst party members.
windscar18 09-25-05, 03:42 PM	I certainly wouldn't celebrate the helping of killing a teammate.
barret3b 09-25-05, 03:45 PM	It seems like the DM either didn't mind or encouraged it. I don't think the players did anything wrong.
windscar18 09-25-05, 03:47 PM	Of course. I'm not saying that the players did anything wrong. I'm just saying that that must have been one different campaign to celebrate such fighting.
Vaalingrade Ashland 09-25-05, 04:32 PM	I don't think the players did anything wrong. All that PVP stuff. I would have booted all of them.
PeopleMcNuggets 09-25-05, 07:38 PM	ok, if you were playing with someone who used Grim Revenge to tear your hand off, and have it attack you, you'd want to kill him too. Besides, it was his own fault. The player created a character that absoultely refused to trust anyone. I'm not saying he was beyond trust, but he played the charater to the point where gaining his trust was neigh impossible. At one point in the game, Sa'hala's alignment was changed to Chaotic Good (thanks to the Deck of Many Things). He decided to forgive Sasha for what he did. Sa'hala plane shifted to the Elemtnal Plane of Fire, and found a beautiful piece of volcanic glass. He plane shifts back to Alranthia (the world we're playing in), tells Sasha he is forgiven, then attempts to give Sasha the peace offering. What does Sasha do? He becomes incredibly paranoid. He rolls a sense motive on me, and finds out that I'm sincere in wanting to wipe the slate clean. That still isn't enough. After Sa'hala leaves his presence, he casts detect magic on the volcanic glass, thinking there was some magical trap on it. The result is negative. It's just a piece of volcanic glass. It wasn't even hot. So Sasha is still completely afraid to touch it. So he uses a chair to push it outside his room. That still isn't enough. He continues to take the chair, and try to push the piece of glass up the stairs to the upper deck of the ship. Our DM described it as him looking incredibly ridiculous to the rest of the crew for pushing up the stairs, when he could've just carried it. So then, in plain view of Sa'hala, Sashs pushes the peace offering off the side of the ship. So it can't be said Sa'hala did not give him a chance. Had he done so, Sa'hala would've kept the CG alignment, and Sasha would've had quite a powerful ally. But Sa'hala got a little too carried away while incapcitating Sasha, and doing so made him revert to the Lawful Evil alignment. Let's not forget that Sasha tried to shoot Sa'hala in the back with an Arrow of Disintegration. So yeah, we took great joy in a player character dying.
PeopleMcNuggets 09-25-05, 07:40 PM	I certainly wouldn't celebrate the helping of killing a teammate. After all the crap he pulled, trust me, he wasn't a teammate. We didn't consider him one, and he never made an attempt to be one.
windscar18 09-25-05, 07:57 PM	Heh, hooboy, that brings back memories. Now, truly, I'm not going to say that he didn't deserve to die. But, in all actuality, you didn't really have to get anywhere close to torturing him. That's, in general, sign of a very screwed up game.
Vaalingrade Ashland 09-26-05, 01:19 AM	The insanely evil Efreet offers a piece offering... and you're suprised he was suspicious? Terrified even?
Xaxor 09-26-05, 02:57 AM	I'm glad I don't play with any of you.
PeopleMcNuggets 09-26-05, 03:34 AM	The insanely evil Efreet offers a piece offering... and you're suprised he was suspicious? Terrified even? He was not evil at the time. In fact the only reason he even tried to give a peace offering was because he had gone through an alignment shift, and had become chaotic good. Not to mention that the Efreeti had never once been hostile towards him in anyway when they first met. it was only after his hand had been ripped off, and was almost shot in the back with an arrow of desintigration. Btw, and Efreeti is Lawful. He's far too disciplined to act insane.
PeopleMcNuggets 09-27-05, 12:18 AM	Ok, Sasha's dead, we're happy. So the player has created a new character. A character that is more fun. He makes a Drunken Master. So far things are going well. About an hour or two into the game, the drunken master jumps through a wall of fire the Efreeti has created on an opposing ship. When he gets on he realizes he's on a burning ship, then jumps back through the wall of fire. After that he's Konked on the head by one of the many ogres we're trying to kill. Needless to say his HP is taken into the negatives, and he fails to stablize. The Drunken Master dies. That's it. I just thought you guys might want to know.
DragnSpirit 09-27-05, 02:52 AM	As the DM I discourage fighting within the group. I give the requirement that people make characters that can work together and aren't going to fight each other right away. Usually it hurts them in the end if they choose not or fail to meet my requirement. As seen with Sasha haha. However, as a DM I am a facilitator. I let the characters do what they wish and players to be what characters they want. I judicate what happens due to their actions and there are always reprecussions. I make the world, they can try anything they want within it. It's been a very enjoyable game to myself and all my players and if they think otherwise I encourage them to say different. I give them tough choices to make, which sometimes include whether or not they should betray a friend because those choices are what make a great story. It's conflict. If they want to rise to the challenge and be a hero they can. If they want to fall into darkness so be it. If all of that conflict comes from the characters themselves I don't see it as a problem. haha, I'm kind of surprised to see so many people shocked at this sort of thing. Then again it never seemed like a normal game. Pleased to hear it though! Keep em coming 8)