#Blaugust2019 Day 8 -- Project Gorgon Making the Old New Again

Ever since I first heard about Project Gorgon, I was fascinated by it. It would have been four years ago when their kickstarter was in full swing back in August 2015.

That happens to me . . . I get fascinated with something but never buy into it, you know?  I'm not one to bite for Kickstarters unless I personally know the person. Speaking of personally knowing the person, Eric Heimburg and Sandra Powers (the muscle behind building this game) seem like people I'd like to know. Husband and wife team that worked on Asheron's Call together . . . and engineers?! Awesome. In my mind, they would be fun people to get to know.

I mean . . . watching Eric talk back in 2015 about making flashy loot effects drop from loot pigs was friggen' adorable.

So for this Blaugust I thought I'd actually download the game and give it a run. There's a Demo version on Steam that allows you to play until your skills are level 15. There are certain features that are locked off from demo players like you can't trade with other players who have set up a bazaar stall . . . yup, you heard me right . . . just like in EQ you have lines of players selling stuff. it's really kinda strange and wonderful to think this is a "new" game.

Oh btw, yes . . . my character has a tail.  I'm a Raksasha. The game only has 3 character races from what I can tell (at least in the demo), and I'm a purple'y hued Raksasha named Mistermeowsiepaws.

It's a face only an old Everquest player could love to be honest.

The game starts you off on an island with minimal directions and a goal . . . to get off the island. It warns you that swimming will result in a shark attack, so don't do that. I didn't do that.

I kind of loved this noobie island. It was full of wolves, skeletons, and rats. I even tamed one of the rats by tempting him with cheese. That's genius and I'm a sucker for pets . . . even if it is an ugly rat.

I also picked a lot of mushrooms. It was the one ground spawn that seemed incredibly plentiful, and while I picked it, I leveled up in Mycology.

The best thing though was I found a quest to get me off the island by using teleporters. My friends, I was used to modern MMOs holding my hand and I just "believed" that as I touched these four teleporters, and they gave me their number, that the game would just remember it and I'd complete the quest to basically find the telephone number for the island. Nope. Instead I was asked to type in the code, and then the game did the most magical thing . . . it opened up a notepad and basically told me in not so many words, "yo, we have this cool feature called notepad inside our game for you to write stuff down like this."

Hilarious. Do you know in Everquest how many times I would have killed for a notepad in game?

As for community events, you know what they've got? Open mic poetry on Saturday afternoons. I kid you not. *hand slams down on desk* Now THAT'S something I've got to see!

So there you have it . . . a new game with a shiny old skin and a bit of kooky charm.

My next goal in Project Gorgon?  To make it to the giant hand without being killed by giant praying mantis.

Happy Dueling!

#Blaugust2019 Day 7 -- Slayin' them Spires!

About 3 months ago a gaggle of Designers (a drove of designers? an ambush of Designers?) that sit near me in the Mobile game section of KingsIsle all started raving about a Steam game they were playing called Slay the Spire.

I'd listen to them as they started talking "the crazy talk" about a donut guy, slime guy, suit of armor dude, etc. Back then I didn't know they were referencing the bosses in the game because I was late to the party in usual fashion.

BUT NO LONGER! I am now well versed in Slime Boss, Donu, and The Champ. But, let's face the facts, I'm still a noob when it comes to the game.

The game fools you by running the credits very early on after you beat Act 2 the first time with what appears to be your only character. After this, you open up two more characters and a couple of different play modes.

From what I understand the game isn't over until you enter a separate new game mode called "Ascension" in which you run that 20 more times to face the final level. Listen, I ain't even close to being done yet!

I can see why my co-workers liked this game so much. It's simple to play and deceptively hard. It's a deck builder, inserting a nice flair of randomness where you can royally screw yourself by picking horrible cards and artifacts, yet reduces RNG a touch by giving a good base of predictable cards, a shopkeeper to sell you essentials, and somewhat reliable pathways to the boss.

Last night I spent some time playing Act I as "The Silent" which is a female rogue type character who wears a skull on her head and works in the rogue-like ways of poisoning and shivs. I've yet to beat Act II with her let alone Act III . . . and I don't even know what Act IV is like yet.

Anyway, I recorded my run so you can see the game I'm ranting about here. It took me a good half hour to work through Act I and I ended the run with only 2 health left.  Gotta love the close ones.

For me, Slay the Spire is one of those games that just kinda sits on my desktop until I'm in the right mood for it. When I play it, I know I'm going to be there for at least an hour.

It's a fun game and I'm glad I listened to the other Designers and checked it out!

Happy Dueling!

#Blaugust2019 Day 6 -- Catching up with Rolled and Told

Back in September I started talking about a "comic" (although hard pressed to call this a comic . . . more like a really cool D&D resource in comic book style) I had discovered at a local game shop.  Rolled and Told!  I even talked about how happy I was to pick up issue one. Then . . . silence . . . sorry about that.

I had been posting a lot back then, and then posts just sputtered out. The kids were back in school and life got busy. Well now that Blaugust is here and I need content to post about, here's a "catching up" post on what happened since then when it comes to Rolled and Told.

1- I now own every issue save for one.

Such a bummer I'm missing that June 2019 issue. Cash was tight that month, and I thought I'd have no trouble picking up the issue early in July . . . only to forget about it and then miss my opportunity. I've been to 3 local comic stores so far and no one has it. Sigh. Now the hunt begins.

2- I was also psyched to see they put out a hard cover book with the first six months of the Rolled and Told comics PLUS extra content you can't get from owning the comics alone. I kinda want that.

3- Now the real question . . . have I actually run any of the adventures from these books? YES . . . well, one. I've run the Thunderlock Barcrawl adventure from the very first free promotional comic (aka Issue zero).

It was pretty great. I incorporated it as a side quest for an adventure on the high seas for my group that I DM for.  Basically the captain was bargaining with my players for their wages on the ship and then gave them an offer they couldn't refuse . . . her best signing bonus . . . all they had to do was win the Thunderlock Barcrawl.

Running the Thunderlock Barcrawl felt very much like running an escape room adventure for D&D characters. It's a series of action packed trap rooms that took a full two sessions to get through.

• There's a long hallway of shifting floorboards, flame traps, acid pools and stun spores . . . all while a large iron spiked wall slowly closes in on the party
• There's an animatronic owl bear
• There's a room with flying skulls
• There's a false-floored treasure room
• There's a room that's shooting arrows out at you from every direction
• There's a room with false levers that will send your party plummeting into a mist of doom
• There's a room with laughing faces that spew magic spells at you while you try to pull a lever.
• There's a room full of giant rats and a giant rat generator machine.

It's crazy, and it's fun, and the group made it through this whole nonsense and got their big signing bonus on the ship. HOORAY!

They were absolutely exhausted by the time it was all done . . . kind of like how you feel when you partake in a live-action escape room with a group of friends in real life.

As a DM for this, I have to say it was super confusing to have to keep track of all the initiative orders for all the traps. Typically in our games we work intiative in such a way that you just go in a big circle . . . either clockwise or counterclockwise based on who got the biggest numbers for their initiative rolls.  For this adventure, I had to do it by the book because I had flame traps going off on 5 inititive while blunted arrows shot out on a 10 initiative, etc. It made things a little hectic for me.

They were all 4th level characters, so they really had nothing to fear and by the end they had figured out the smoke and mirrors of the encounter.  If they had all been level one characters, I'm sure they would have never made it through. That would be a tough challenge for sure.

On the plus side, it was fun and very unique, and it was funny seeing Jeff Toney rage a bit when they couldn't find the fourth lever to get them through the final door. He was like, "Just drink a giant strength potion and rip the door down!" Nope. I wouldn't let 'em do that. You gotta figure out the puzzle, adventurers.

Anyway, I'm really digging this series and would love to run more adventures from Rolled and Told. These are chock full of one-shots that would be perfect for running over lunch at work.

Maybe someday!

Happy Dueling!

#Blaugust2019 Day 5 -- Birthday Recap . . . so much Diablo 3

Yesterday was my birthday, and it was pretty great. I got spammed with the usual happy birthday messages on Facebook and Twitter, received cards from family, ate cake, and got a few presents.  Couldn't be happier.

Check out the super cool Lucio figure I got!

He's chillin' out on some comics and by a homemade card from my kids.  They know me so well. I AM Magical!

There was a mini-gencon going on at a local comic book store on Saturday called Dragon's Lair and we went there for my birthday and hung out for a bit and bought some stuff for my birthday. Also hit an Italian place (it's tradition to go eat Italian on my birthday) and got the worlds largest bowl of spaghetti for the family. I wish I had a picture of that, but instead all I have is this picture of me giving the side-eye to the side-eye picture of Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield. Thank you Twitter for helping us solve that mystery.

I also played A LOT of Diablo 3 over the weekend . . . as evidenced by my post from yesterday, but I have new NEWS on my progress.  Come to find out after burning though Chapter 2, I already had most of Chapter 3's achievements done!  So now Dalia Falmea is a freaking max level TERROR OF FIRE! And pretty awesome looking too.

Funny enough, there's no photoshopping going on in this picture, her hat actually does a mini-Falmea hair all on its own. I mean . . . it could be bigger, but I'll take it.

GUYS, lemme tell you what it's like to drive this character now.  It's amazing.  It feels so good to just chuck fireballs out and completely destroy everything in my path . . . and walking behind me as well. Anyone who played Diablo I will fondly recount the pleasures of kiting enemies through firewall. It feels a bit like that, but way better.

I captured a bit of game play footage of me wrecking the place on Torment II setting:

(Sorry about going the wrong direction there at first . . . I can't tell you how many times I've gone the wrong way to Mahgda from that waypoint.) I even got to "show off" the main cool feature of that set at around the 3 minute 25 second point of the video: every 60 seconds, when you die, you are reborn like a phoenix and do damage to those around you. It makes me feel super brave in the face of danger. LOL! And of course, the constant barrage of meteors is super apropos for Falmea.

So now it's just a question of if I can put in the time to get Chapter 4 done in time. I've got a lot of other video games to play this Blaugust, so . . . we'll see? I am having fun with Diablo 3 for sure though!

Thanks again for all the birthday wishes!

Happy Dueling!

#Blaugust2019 Day 4 -- Diablo 3 Featuring Dalia Falmea, Chapter 1

A lot of the people that read my blog from the Wizard101 Community know exactly who Dalia Falmea is, but during Blaugust, chances are I'm going to have to explain why this is awesome. 

The new set for Wizards this season in Diablo 3 features FIREPOWER.

In Wizard101, the FIRE professor is Dalia Falmea.

THUS DALIA FALMEA THE FIRE WIZARD WAS BORN!!

My only disappointment . . .

SHE NEEDS TALLER HAIR!!

Since I've never really played a wizard much in Diablo 3, I figured I'd try to really push myself hard to get all my seasonal achievements done by August 18th, which is when this season ends. That's super super soon, and I'm super super late to the party by deciding *now* is the time I want to go for a seasonal set, but I am happy that as of last night, I completed Chapter 1 of the seasonal achievements!

Go me! I'm going to have to really push myself to get those achievements done, but I figure enough adventure grinding should help me get that soon enough.

Time to KILL ALL THE THINGS!

Happy Dueling!

#Blaugust2019 Day 3 -- Barrowmaze Delving on Roll20

Do it! Just Google the word "Barrowmaze" and you'll find more links than you would think possible of reviews and information about this particular Dungeons and Dragons campaign. It's legendary. It's the ultimate Dungeon Crawl in a huge Mega-Dungeon that just goes on and on.

This is old-school role playing at its finest. 

The Barrowmaze was originally written by one Dr. Greg Gillespie. He's an Associate Professor at the University of Western Ontario and actually teaches a class there on pop culture and role playing games . . . and apparently is a blogger himself!

The Barrowmaze gained a lot of renewed attention when it was re-released in the D&D 5e ruleset thanks to a successful kickstarter, but the one thing most geeks know about the Barrowmaze is that 1- It's deadly and 2- The most impressive part of this dungeon is its sheer size. When they say "mega-dungeon" they aren't kidding.  You can easily get 100 long play sessions out of this dungeon.

I'm playing through this one with the infamous Jeff Toney as our DM and a few other cool people like The Art of Warlord, Vanessa Mythdust, Professor Falmea and Decius. (My word, we all got crazy handle names except for Jeff Toney -- I guess that's not true, technically his handle for fun work stuff is The Gobbler King.)

Jeff DMs this game every other Thursday for us on Roll20.net, and because of that is redrawing the entire map for his campaign to fit the Roll20 format.

In the Barrowmaze, you begin as level 0 characters who basically die if you breathe on them the wrong way. In the beginning of the campaign, it's best to try to keep your distance from monsters and get lucky with treasure until you get 100 xp. At that point, you're level 1 and Jeff will make you a personalized token for your Barrowmaze adventures.

My character is the green half-orc named "Gumby." He's a fighter that uses a spear and is about as smart as a bag of rocks. Which reminds me . . . another thing about your Barrowmaze characters, they are made with 6 3d6 rolls straight in a line from Strength through Charisma and what you get is what you get. 

Our game this week was pretty great. We managed to fight a couple rats and got surprised by a couple of ghouls who burst through the door below when they heard the scuffle. Gumby was in great form and saved the level zero characters from being eaten alive by rats with a brave action surge and taking a risky opportunity attack from one of the Ghouls. If Gumby would have blown his Constitution saving throw, he would have been paralyzed and pretty much a tasty snack for the Ghouls.

This is actually my second time running through the Mega Dungeon. The first time was over lunch breaks once a week at work for around a year until our DM, Ben Durbin, wasn't able to host anymore. It's so huge that there's no way to memorize your way around and it's easy to get lost.

Needless to say, it's a good dungeon and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to pick up a new adventure. You can get it at Drive Thru RPG.

Happy Dueling!

#Blaugust2019 Day 2 -- Gems of War Necromancer Build

The Necromancer class in Gems of War seems to be a one trick pony for me, and that pony gallops to the hoof beat of farming souls. For those that don't know, spending souls on your troops is the main way you level them up, and it isn't cheap. You can pony up anywhere from ~4,300 to ~6,900 souls to level up one troop based on their rarity.

I've horsed around with the Necromancer class enough that I have the class's Mythic weapon, which is a pretty mean-looking Scythe.

I hear that weapon actually pairs better with the Sorcerer class, but what I use when playing the Necromancer is the Soul Blade, which is arguably a little easier to get as it's a free weapon from getting 28 gem mastery in both blue and yellow. You get gem mastery naturally as you level up vs. having to win 250 battles as a Necromancer to get Creeping Death.

The whole key to farming souls in Gems of War is jockeying characters that have the Necromancy trait.

Yes, in fact, there's a great old video by a really talented Gems of War player, and he simply used three Warlocks and a Valkyrie in his set up, but that video is old and Valkyrie has been nerfed since then.

(I'm sorry, I can't stop with the "lame" horse puns.)

The best team I've seen so far comes from Sinnycool Games (Side note: wouldn't the name Whinnycool games be better?), but I can't use it . . . because getting the Pharos-Ra elite troop is a "bit" out of reach for me at the moment. (You need to "rein in" 4,000 diamonds by hitting the dungeon boss game every day for about three months)

If you're looking for the ultimate soul farming set up, that video above is probably what you're looking for . . . he even goes over how you should find the pet named "moon moon" and level him up for bonus souls.

But, again, I don't have Moon Moon . . . and you, kind reader, probably don't either.

So what do I use?

I use three troops with the Necromancy trait that also have the widest color variety. For me that's Soul Blade with Necromancer wearing Celestial Armor, Warlock, Keeper of Souls, and Flesh Golem.

With this team I can consistently hit the max cap on souls and survive moderately well. Basically you want to charge soul blade 3 times, and with all the other bonuses from being a necromancer and wearing Celestial armor, it does pretty well.

I'm sure your mileage may vary and there are a lot of builds with more horse power than this, but this seems to work pretty well for me.

Now the real question is . . . is there a necromancer build that *isn't* about soul farming, and how does that work? That's a mustang to ride on a different day!

Happy Dueling!