More Roll20 stuff

 So last time here on this blog in November 2020 I discussed the first book of the Doomstones campaign I am running in 5th edition DND. Here is another follow-up of sorts, info on my current campaign, what worked, what didn't and plans for the future.

Last time

They were 9/10ths of the way through before after about 8 sessions and were level 4. They got the Crystal of Fire, a legendary Dwarven artifact that is more than it seems. The half-Elven Fighter acquired it and generally just uses it for Fireball, to great effect. They defeated the Orc mage known as Torgoch and got out of the dungeon intact. An ancient medallion was revealed to them with the location of Three Peaks mountain crudely carved on it.

Nearby was the town of Landbridge so they travelled south out of the valley to there. They undertook various jobs and met up with their original benefactor in the castle. He is trying to overthrow the Queens who rule the land and set up a new order. They participated in the arena and same as the first one there was a Battle Royale, Duels and Group stages. The BR involved the 8 participants picking a small model out of a bag and then at the start of the battle were polymorphed into that animal! The two PCs came 2nd and 3rd. This also provided their seed for the Duels, which the half-Elf Fighter won for the second time, making her Local and Area Duel Champion. Will she do as well in the Regionals?

The regionals:

Sidebar, I love when an idea jumps into my head and I just have to work it out somehow.

Final result after all the messing around figuring out what I wanted to do. Bottom concept drawing based off scribbles on various papers.

Players 6-12 will start on the blue pods on outside, then work their way into the middle. After a certain number of people are eliminated on the outside, the hexagon opens at various points. There will be some random d12 effects in the area outside hexagon. They enter hexagon and after a round or two the outer area blows up or whatever and the hexagon is the new arena, continue fighting. After one or two more eliminations, into the middle square. There can only be one winner! Same with previous edition, battle royale place determines seeding for the Duels, considered the more prestigious competition.

They won't do this until the timing is right anyway, probably in next few sessions/ level 8. If there are not enough players (most likely) I am going to give them a random 'ally' not unlike the random bag element of the previous one. Only this time instead of being turned into animals they may have them as friends and possible penalty for getting them killed...

On the way to the sandbox

They ignored the plot and went north and skipped book 2 of the adventure and opened book 3, the Eyrie and the Crystal of Air. I was more than happy to run with this and get to run a gigantic battle, which I considered a big success.

The Orcs surrounding the thing.

They had to collect about ten of these and unbeknownst to them match up the big words. 'Atop the tallest flag pole' or whatever - they sorta got it.

The Eyrie. The Orc army would have to cross the bridge but would also attack from under the earth, via air elemental paradrops and goblin grapnels.

The ground floor that they spent most of their time in.

The entrance. I made a crude bridge and a simplified battle map featuring just this and the area above it, getting rid of the various catacombs and whatnot.

They got the Crystal of Air right before the battle as planned and as I did with previous one it auto-attunes and all abilities are there to use. It is essentially a cursed item in dnd terms. Amazing power with amazing downsides if they fail a Wis 13 save. Might need to increase that as they get more powerful/hopefully acquire more crystals...

The battle in film! Two parts.

Sandbox

So they elected to go north toward the Confederacy and Highroad, a vast savannah that separates the desert Confederacy from grassland Lacour. Officially part of Lacour, it is loosely governed and full of monsters and adventure... perfect! Lacour is probably too domesticated by this point in history for a bunch of adventurers.

It also took me slightly offguard, I had the next dungeon ready but they didn't go that way! So I had to prep my sandbox area.

Super zoomed out. Early days.

My faithful friend, MS Paint, helping me figure out what the shit I am doing ha.

After a trip to a Beholder-run Inn full of Spectators that ended in blood and a new player joining the game, a Fire Genasi Wizard, they made their way north and encountered a blockade of a town. Confederate. They almost surrendered to them before fighting their way out, releasing a load of villagers. They made their way to the Wall while the party decided to circumvent the blockade by going up the hills to the east of the town.
 The result was the above map(s), they started in bottom right and made a number of rolls to see which way the went. Bottom left was a manticor sanctuary which was fun to run, 4 flying cores did well but not well enough, then they slept and were NOT attacked by phase spiders on the right, they never encountered the birds in the last or the trolls on the top right but they did encounter the harpies and their pet, a paragon creature. 3 health bars of 110, hit like a train and got stronger as it broke down but no, the goliath berserker put him down. They were almost levelled to 7.

Moonwheat shenanigans/buying stuff/what's next

They arrived in town but not before I put a little camp of bugbears, displacer beasts, chimeras in their way... Good time to get them to level 7. I always try to have a handful of encounter maps and whatnot prepped ahead of time for various reasons. This is mainly a combat-heavy/experience point-based/get to level 20 campaign.

They managed to free the lady Susie but not the villagers, who were consumed by fire, but kind of worked out for them in a way, I guess. She got them into town hassle free, and the lord owes them one. The session after that they spent exclusively shopping, we had 2 hours or so and they spent the whole time buying stuff and seeing what quests are available so while it wasn't the most exciting session I'd say it was useful as this was their first major town in... months of real time so they spent a load of their hard earned gold and upgraded all manner of equipment. Feeds into the whole 'throw tougher monsters at them' approach I'm taking.

All the CR match, so if they are level 7 I got for CR 7 but I throw in loads of other shite. They are about to fight a variety of stuff including two hopefully clever CR 8 encounters that fuck them up a bit. I don't want to kill them but I want to give them a challenge. I've not fudged like 99% of my rolls and if I ever do it's to SAVE the players, not hit them. But trying to not do even that and just call it as it is. Brutal campaign attempt!

The main thing as stated elsewhere is to deprive them of 'resources' to create challenge. By that I mean if they have spell slots, have them fight all day, three different encounters, and see what happens. They almost never take short rests, not in a while, so might try and do that again. Even in the Battle of the Eyrie versus maybe 500 enemy tokens they never quite were beaten. The berserker has 82 health now and is tough as nails, the rogue is re-spec'd even sneakier (with a Crystal) and the wizard knows not to get hit. They also have a former PC turned GMPC who is a broken ass fighter who can cast spells from a chaos rock so they are TOUGH.

Moonwheat, credit to author in bottom right

I also recently caved and bought a subscription for Roll20 and I love it. I just love the possibilites with Dynamic Lighting, more to follow but one character has no dark vision so should be interesting!

Love/hate #29 Halo The Master Chief Collection Halo 1 Halo 2 and Multiplayer Impressions

 Managed to play through Halo 1 and Halo 2 over the last few weeks. It is amazing looking back how many levels can be simply sprinted through, especially when you try to beat the new par times. Other levels you just gotta fight some classic battles and beat the par score instead. Either way, plenty of achievements for me to unlock!

I installed the MCC if you will months ago but for some reason couldn't get it to run, something about my Microsoft account or unable to connect or some shite. So I left it alone and came back to it in 2021, I must have installed it late 2020 for something to play and obviously left it in disgust. It worked in 2021 anyway, online multiplayer and all.

I started with Halo 1 on Heroic because fuck it. First thing that struck me how true to the original it was. Also all the new features, including like a dozen different control schemes to choose from. The biggest change was the ability to shift between the classic graphics and the new, refined graphics at the touch of a button. While it looked amazing, I simply wasn't used to the new graphics and found it difficult to navigate and shoot the enemy. So I played the whole thing on the old graphics as I have a dozen times before.

Halo 1 is so weird now, huge levels and surprisingly difficult. Perhaps going in cold playing on Heroic after not having played Halo in any form for over a year was a bit much but hey. Last time may have been co-op in Royce's apartment in Dublin in 2019 or 2020. I missed having a co-op buddy to split the kills and the incoming shots but I managed it.

Classic.

Keeping Keyes alive was one of the tougher things to do in Halo 1. After one particular shootout you cam just sprint ahead and keep the marines et al wayyy behind you and clear the way yourself.

Read online that the improved graphics are useful in scenes like this one where it was just too damn dark in the original. I persisted anyway with the classic view as I could never get over the enemy hitboxes and general feel of the refined graphics. Looked great though. One of the best levels of the old Halo.

Managed to finish it anyway. The Library was tough but not too bad, I was reliant on Halo 1 infamously unreliable checkpoints. They seemed to be tied to murdering enemies so I just killed what I could and hoped for a checkpoint completed to pop up.

Halo 1 - still great but even better in co-op. There are still plenty of achievements for me to go back and get, namely Legendary, par times, par scores and some miscellaneous ones. Unlike many of my recent playthroughs, I was just playing for fun and not playing for the achievements alone. I tend to get a bit obsessed with getting them and not playing the game itself and wind up not enjoying the experience.

Aww shi here we go again. Halo 2. It also has a remastered graphics option but feck that. More so than Halo 1, Halo 2 had a big impact on me and was probably my fave game from like 2004-2006+, for both the singleplayer, co-op, local multiplayer and of course Xbox Live. The main campaign is way more linear than Halo 1, with less gigantic open levels and more staged fights and linear progression. We enjoyed playing it co-op but multiplayer was where this thing shined. We didn't play too much between ourselves due to the old problem of screen watching but we played the frick out of the Xbox Live wherever we could get it.

A series of events. I always liked those first few levels of Halo 2, half of them are movies and like most cut scenes these days that I have seen before I skip the hell out of them.

Outskirts. Also a nice early game level. I immediately went up and grabbed the Blind skull and sure enough there was an achievement for it. I also grabbed the sword up high in the buildings and got one for that too. No achievement for sword charging my way up to the truck though. Shame. 

Delta Halo. All the Master Chief levels are good. All the Arbiter levels... not so much.

Metropolis 'soccer ball'. I never knew this existed but noticed it as an achievement. I didn't bother getting the Scarab Gun achievement YET because the effort involved but managed to do this one with the help of some skulls.

Halo 2 remains great. I enjoyed playing it more by myself than co-op though co-op is always welcome. To this day there are tons of things to find and areas to explore that I have yet to do so I will always come back to it. Heroic Halo 2 is also very manageable, especially coming off the back of playing Halo 1. One thing is the absolute primacy of the Battle Rifle or BR (and in some levels, the Covenant Carbine). Holy fudge. Extensive no-scope BR shots at Elites and whatnot prepped me somewhat for the online experience. But not that much. More on that in a minute.

Killing the final boss with a Banshee. Just because.

The last time Sarge was badass. If I recall from my Halo 3 playthrough over 10 years ago, he acquires the Idiot Ball and becomes less competent in the final part of the trilogy.

The Brute Plasma Rifle. We hardly knew ye.

Jumping to my death as the Arbiter.

Halo 2 online. I bit the bullet and played an online game for the first time properly in.... years, not sure how many years. I recall Xbox giving a free weekend of Xbox Live wayyy back in like 2016 or 2017 or something and Theo found it on the Xbox and I spent that nigth playing Gears 1 online multiplayer with like 4 Russian and Polish dudes. Not even enough for a full lobby! Anyway:

I SUCKED the first match. It was Ascension, Battle Rifles and I was just awful. Or everyone was really good. Or both. It took me a few minutes into a I think 12 minute game to score a kill and I think it was an assist. Jesus. My enemies rightfully teabagged my corpse I was just woeful. One of my allies smacked me with a rocket launcher in frustration, I think. Thanfully there wa sno voice chat as far as I can tell so far. There is a text chat but almost no one uses it. I was too busy to screen cap actual play but caught a few of the after action reports. Sorry, CARNAGE reports. Ahem.

You can select from both the classic and remastered graphics to play from but after a while I unticked the remastered ones. Less chance of getting a lobby but I've had no issues so far except one or two disconnects and indeed the 8 vs 8 lobbies are completely dead, which is a shame. No Coagulation for me.

I eventually got better as above reports show but it varies. I suck at capture the flag, always kind of did. Very hard to balance offense and defence especially considering the absolute chasm between two types of player online I seem to encounter. Hopeless, AFK, laggy, out of their depth, guests and first time players versus very long in the tooth veterans who know exactly what they are doing. 2006 it is not where there were thousands of players and veterans were a rarity. Its 2021 and there might only be a few hundred people playing (if that) I haven't encountered the same names too many times but enough to tell me the pool of players is very, very small.

Other types are okay, territories, KOTH and Oddball. Didn't play Juggernaut yet but it must be in the Free for All section. Must try that later. As I said above, 8 vs. 8 is totally dead, which is a shame. There is an infection option, so I must try that. Give me Classic Zombies, Tower of Power, Cat and Mouse. How I miss them!

There is also the option of ranked but feck that. May give it a whirl if there is an achievement to go for but otherwise, no. Well, maybe. Not that I'd get very far these days at the rate I'm going.

---

So that about does her, wraps it all up. I am currently installing Halo 3 and Reach, both of which I have played before, as well as ODST and Halo 4, which I have very briefly played but not to conclusion. I assume they will bring more multiplayer and of course, achievements. There are 700 to collect in total over all the games and at the time of writing 21st March 2021 I have 79. Here's to many more!

February 2021 update

 Just a quick update in general

Night shift is over, going back to day shift tomorrow, March 1st. Will also be going back to working on the line as opposed to in the office, so will be a bit of a blow financially and career-wise but it's also a good time to reflect and rebuild.

Night shift was great monetarially but ruinous personally. Well, it wasn't that bad but I think I spent much of April to June 2020 sleeping poorly, then didn't really get up to much until now. I was reminded of my time in Finland in 2011-2012, wherein I gradually became nocturnal from there being not much to do. Lockdown exacerbated that feeling as in Finland there is no life or buzz as there is in Ireland. Besides just having enough energy in 2020 and 2021 to do night work and exercise, I managed to save the same amount of money in 2020 as I did between 2017-2019. I also took a break from saving money and bought a few trinkets and of course takeaway.

Excited to not rely on melatonin pills and CBD and ibuprofen soon. Who knows what impact they had but helped me sleep for the last six months or so. Melly and CBD combined for good sleep usually during the day (I usually tried to sleep 10AM-6PM max) and the ibuprofen was for my feet which were usually swollen after walking/cycling home most mornings or in general.

I started walking to work in January 2021 after a few poor incidents with taxi drivers, namely me not having cash money on me ever and my card being rejected for unknown reasons. Bit embarrassing asking work for cash to pay off inexplicably angry taxi driver parked outside. You know where I live and work buddy! Anyway walking has been good, I haven't done this much since 2011 when I went to Finland. Seriously, it's been that long. Now my legs feel pretty good after two months of walking 5km to work and 5km home five times a week on average. Feet are no longer as swollen either and with me coming back in the evening from now on will no longer need meds, I hope.

I've given cycling a bit of a rest but may expand into that again maybe once a week or so when I get back into the swing of day shift. Also, I have not run since March 2020 so may try to re-incorporate that somehow.

Twitter is the main app I use other than YouTube. I can't believe it's free.

I'm currently playing in one DND5E game, the Curse of Strahd, as an Aarakocra Ranger Gloom Stalker. I am currently running one DND5E game, the Doomstones from WFRP, for three people since June 2020. They currently have two of the four possible crystals and the Battle of the Eyrie is imminent. Strahd is early days but is tough and a nice scary sandbox.

Uhhh not a whole lot else going on right now. Haven't drank alcohol since November 2020, no particular reason but I purely drink it for socialising and that's currently gone. Weights are going fine, re-introducing creatine after stopped taking it sometime in mid 2020. Combined with walking for good results and now with going back to days should be better.

Lot of gaming lately, will document some of that in a love/hate soon: Halo 1 remake on PC I finally got working, going good so far. Heroic difficulty on my slightly uncomfortable Xbox controller I have plugged in. Other games: Minecraft and a possible Pokémon series of playthroughs in the works. Theo is big into Garry's Mod, specifically all the workshop downloads.

Hair is getting big but no way to cut it in sight. Will leave it for a bit as a small act of rebellion and nostalgia but when barbers come back will probably trim it a bit.

Agh there is not much else, if there is I'll update here!