[Shaira]

Hi all,

First of all - thanks to everyone for the really, really great feedback! And I've gotta say it first - DirkD, what a heckuva job! Wow! It just shows when somebody with an eye for these graphic design thingies gets a hold of my humble scrawlings, that a thing of design beauty can be born! I was over Urth's blue-green moon this morning to see that PDF!

Seriously, that's a very professional job. I think I'm landing firmly on the side of either example 3 or 4 as my personal preference, and probably example 4, as that indent might just make things a little bit more accessible in the heat of play. Plus, the whole stat block doesn't actually seem to take up that much real-estate the way you've done it - I daresay it's shorter than my own PDF version! Excellent!

I have one question for you, Dirk: how would you differentiate the stat block from surrounding descriptive text in a scenario? At the moment I'm toying with either placing the whole stat block in a light greyish box and leaving it more or less inline in the scenario body text, or grouping all of the stat blocks at the end of the scenario, which obviously frees up formatting options a lot. I wonder what's best from a graphical and also actual play perspective? What do people prefer?

Originally Posted by Puck

If I were running this creature as an npc I would get a little overwelmed.... I think.. because of the skill list and the spell/powers list. That is what used to happen to me in RQ when the Npc's were loaded with skills, spells, and items though. I always had to highlight or underline one to three spells that I was sure I was going to use and then kind of forget the rest. This was especially true if the Npc had friends. Maybe if you would leave a space between each catagory: skills, sorcery, bindings, etc. Unfortunately that would make the whole thing longer, but maybe easier for the GM to read and sort through when the dice are flying.

I absolutely agree with you. I think a lot of the longer RQ NPC writeups were hard to take maximum advantage of "on the fly", and required a lot of prep to work out how you were going to make use of them - often just too much information. I'm thinking of actually including a "Tactics" section at the end of the writeup - more or less just above or below the "Notes" section. Just a few lines to jog my memory during play as to how this particular NPC can be used. For example:

Ulega-Bagu mostly keeps to the background in any conflict, directing the shade and the embodied demon Baba Umbrai and using Mask's Howl ability to strategically stun foes. The shade attacks with its Fearshock and Freeze abilities in the same round, probably switching from one target to another every round or so; Baba Umbrai uses the Swallow Sun power to create another patch of darkness, and then will concentrate on individual targets, first using Fearshock and then attacking with Claw in the pool of darkness it has created - this pool of darkness will allow it to use the Limited Regenerate Ability.

If the combat looks like it will reach Ulega-Bagu, she will summon a Fog to hide her tracks. If there are contiguous patches of darkness, she will use her Darkwalk power to remove herself from danger. If cornered she will use Spider Bite whilst Baba Umbrai casts Swallow Sun again near her to provide enough darkness for her to use the Darkwalk power to escape.

That sort of thing. Hopefully at the least it'll be a memory aide during play, and may go some way to making the stat block's complexity a little less formidable!

Originally Posted by Puck

The P'Tek itself sounds very cool and unique. I absolutely love the general feel of the character as well as your names for things: umbrai, mana shard, Durghat. It makes your Chronicles campaign sound very interesting.

Thank you! I'm a linguist by passion and training, and wanted to give Chronicles a bunch of words which would hopefully seem unique and at the same time accessible and hopefully strangely familiar - it's so easy when creating new words to use the "random syllable dice" and come up with something unpronouncable and quite destructive to the game's atmosphere. For example, "Babisiya the Night Hag" is actually the human (Low Sakaraic) name for the darkness goddess: the P'Tek actually call her "Durgha", which in their language means "The Dark Mother" - hence "Durghat", the name of the language, means "The Tongue of the Dark Mother", or some such. She's their principal deity.

Originally Posted by frogspawner

Very nice. I hope you don't mind too much if she suffers a quick sex (and race) change to reappear as an ogre-ish shaman I need...

Originally Posted by RosenMcStern

Really cool, I dare say. I have done one a similar one today for my next MRQ book and I must confess I "borrowed" a lot of ideas.

I haven't actually had chance myself to playtest the full Ulega-Bagu scenario yet, & would be interested to see just how much of a threat she and, say, four or five P'Tek minions would be. I've a suspicion that if used in a kind of commando-mode - especially when they surround themselves with darkness and confusion - they could probably tear through an average beginning party, and hopefully give a reasonably experienced party a run for their money.

Also - RosenMcStern, I was about to take pretty much of your design comments on board, before DirkD provided his opus!

Oops - long post. Thanks again to everyone for comments, very cool indeed to have such good feedback.

Cheers!

Sarah