10 October, 2013: Cammer

[willpell]

At least now ve know for sure vat vas in de fountains...for hall ve knew before, it vas Lemonade, now ve know it's Mudhoney.

Thunt confirmed this some time ago via Twitter.

[Theonewhoisodd]

Just thought I'd bring up the fact that we have enough time for 19 more updates until it's been three years since we saw the GAP

[WastesTime]

Just thought I'd bring up the fact that we have enough time for 19 more updates until it's been three years since we saw the GAP

I hope Thunt is not planning on doing such a "sweet" anniversary...

[Loyal Backstabber]

I must say that they seem remarkably trusting of whoever wrote the notes, given the dungeon-crawls general viciousness. Last time MinMix ran to get loot like this he nearly lost his eye

True, but the last time he trusted the creators of the dungeon about their treasure he won an awesome teleporting and time-travelling sword that only he can affect. The dungeon seems honest so far.

[raaabr]

You have to wonder if it's been 15 minutes of Forgath's player choosing the loot or only 15 minutes in-game. If it's 15 minutes out of game..Yeah, Minmax has the right to be irritated.

Say, anyone have any experience with other players of Dnd acting like this?

[RedwoodElf]

At least now ve know for sure vat vas in de fountains...for hall ve knew before, it vas Lemonade, now ve know it's Mudhoney.

Thunt confirmed this some time ago via Twitter.

Vell not all uf us iz Twitter-pated...

[BuildsLegos]

If Herbert really made descriptions for every item in the Treasure Room, then Forgath's player would probably need 15 minutes to make her choice.

[spiderwrangler]

If Herbert really made descriptions for every item in the Treasure Room, then Forgath's player would probably need 15 minutes to make her choice.

"Forgath walks over to the next item and reads its description"
"Necklace of Eternal Recycling: The wearer of this necklace never needs to excrete waste, their metabolism functions at 100% efficiency and as a result, they only need to eat once a week, and only require 4 hours of sleep each day in order to wake refreshed and rejuvenated."
"Ok, Forgath walks to the next item and reads its description."
"<Sigh....>"

[willpell]

Say, anyone have any experience with other players of Dnd acting like this?

Are you kidding? The only thing that doesn't take a long time in D&D is traveling between plot-critical locations and talking to insignificant NPCs. Everything that might affect the supply of XP and loot is scrutinized in minute detail, even if it's taking place over the course of mere seconds in game.

[raaabr]

Say, anyone have any experience with other players of Dnd acting like this?

Are you kidding? The only thing that doesn't take a long time in D&D is traveling between plot-critical locations and talking to insignificant NPCs. Everything that might affect the supply of XP and loot is scrutinized in minute detail, even if it's taking place over the course of mere seconds in game.

Actually, come to think of it wouldn't Minmax's player have taken a long time to create the perfectly Minmaxed character?

And yeah, I'm kinda not very knowledgeable about this type of thing. I haven't really played D&D before

[ForgetsOldName]

Say, anyone have any experience with other players of Dnd acting like this?

Are you kidding? The only thing that doesn't take a long time in D&D is traveling between plot-critical locations and talking to insignificant NPCs. Everything that might affect the supply of XP and loot is scrutinized in minute detail, even if it's taking place over the course of mere seconds in game.

Actually, come to think of it wouldn't Minmax's player have taken a long time to create the perfectly Minmaxed character?

And yeah, I'm kinda not very knowledgeable about this type of thing. I haven't really played D&D before

No, because the minmaxer comes into the first DnD session with the perfectly crafted minmax character already in hand, and it's all a question of how long the DM wants to waste arguing about it.

[Kennerly]

You have to wonder if it's been 15 minutes of Forgath's player choosing the loot or only 15 minutes in-game. If it's 15 minutes out of game..Yeah, Minmax has the right to be irritated.

Say, anyone have any experience with other players of Dnd acting like this?

Oh my god yes. The last time I played D&D with my sister and her boyfriend, it literally took them 30 minutes of haggling to purchase one magic wand. Then, when we were in a dungeon, we came upon a room with a treasure chest and right next to it what looked like a bear. Despite my sister having a spell that makes her undetectable to animals, it took 45 minutes to convince her to walk into the room and retrieve the chest. The "bear" turned out to be a rug.

[J0fSpades]

Idk if this has been discussed, but when I first read this comic, I thought the universe was slowly resetting as the characters were selecting their items. As it turns out, this is just an unfinished comic.

[RedwoodElf]

You have to wonder if it's been 15 minutes of Forgath's player choosing the loot or only 15 minutes in-game. If it's 15 minutes out of game..Yeah, Minmax has the right to be irritated.

Say, anyone have any experience with other players of Dnd acting like this?

Oh my god yes. The last time I played D&D with my sister and her boyfriend, it literally took them 30 minutes of haggling to purchase one magic wand. Then, when we were in a dungeon, we came upon a room with a treasure chest and right next to it what looked like a bear. Despite my sister having a spell that makes her undetectable to animals, it took 45 minutes to convince her to walk into the room and retrieve the chest. The "bear" turned out to be a rug.

Similar situation: A tribe of Kobolds had the perfect defense for their hidden cave village...they built a fake sleeping dragon over the entrance, complete with water powered machinery inside (built by an enslaved gnome tinker they had prisoner) that made it seem to be breathing and made a loud "Snoring" sound to disguise the sound of the gears. Kept them very safe from low level adventuring parties...at least until they go high enough level to decide they were ready to take on a dragon, and found themselves battling a pile of tin scraps (and thereby making plenty of noise to alert the Kobold villagers to flee into the underdark) - the players went through HOURS of preparation before attacking the "Dragon"...bwahaahaaaaa!

[willpell]

Similar situation: A tribe of Kobolds had the perfect defense for their hidden cave village...they built a fake sleeping dragon over the entrance, complete with water powered machinery inside (built by an enslaved gnome tinker they had prisoner) that made it seem to be breathing and made a loud "Snoring" sound to disguise the sound of the gears. Kept them very safe from low level adventuring parties...at least until they go high enough level to decide they were ready to take on a dragon, and found themselves battling a pile of tin scraps (and thereby making plenty of noise to alert the Kobold villagers to flee into the underdark) - the players went through HOURS of preparation before attacking the "Dragon"...bwahaahaaaaa!

I am so stealing this.

[raaabr]

Similar situation: A tribe of Kobolds had the perfect defense for their hidden cave village...they built a fake sleeping dragon over the entrance, complete with water powered machinery inside (built by an enslaved gnome tinker they had prisoner) that made it seem to be breathing and made a loud "Snoring" sound to disguise the sound of the gears. Kept them very safe from low level adventuring parties...at least until they go high enough level to decide they were ready to take on a dragon, and found themselves battling a pile of tin scraps (and thereby making plenty of noise to alert the Kobold villagers to flee into the underdark) - the players went through HOURS of preparation before attacking the "Dragon"...bwahaahaaaaa!

Ooh. You're so evil Still, at least they won't really have to do as much grinding later on, unless "preparing" isn't level grinding. (Can you tell I've played too many RPG's? Huh? CAN YOU?! )

Have to wonder how they reacted though. Did they just storm off angrily?

[stevedj]

You have to wonder if it's been 15 minutes of Forgath's player choosing the loot or only 15 minutes in-game. If it's 15 minutes out of game..Yeah, Minmax has the right to be irritated.

If Herbert really made descriptions for every item in the Treasure Room, then Forgath's player would probably need 15 minutes to make her choice.

Indeed. Imagine Herbert wrote each description on an index card. There would be somewhere between 218 cards (if only 1 treasure per group), up to something less than 218 x 3 cards! (if one treasure per person - some groups have less than 3 people).

Just guessing/estimating -- suppose there were 500 such cards... If you only spent 7 seconds reading each card (and some would take longer than that) you are close to an HOUR! And trust me, even for items you have zero interest in, you are going to be fascinated by all the fun facts, so you ARE going to read them ALL!

[BordeauxRow]

Stevedj, every winning group member, takes an item. I am reasonably sure the maze just resets itself entirely after each round. (which includes any chest and the Armoury/ Great wall of epic lewt.)

[stevedj]

Stevedj, every winning group member, takes an item. I am reasonably sure the maze just resets itself entirely after each round. (which includes any chest and the Armoury/ Great wall of epic lewt.)

But that's just it -- after a reset, the Treasure Room has to have a "prize" for every possible winning group (one for each in that group). That's a LOT of treasure! If EVERY group had all 3 members, the treasure room would have to have 654 treasures! We don't know how many have less, though some certainly do -- I was being generous to suggest only 500.

[Krulle]

Bordeaux meant that any physical change is reset.Among the physical changes are all treasures being taken away. That means that if the MoM only had 3 items for a set of Alternatives (in this case Kin, Minmax, Forgath; other sets could be You and me), that would be sufficient.
Any item once "lost" in the MoM could become a "prize", and thus being copied to as many alternative realities as alternates decide to take the item out of the Maze.

A reset means, that everything is as it was at the beginning of the run, except for the group that won last round.
And at the beginning of the run, the treasures in the treasure room include a "cammer", a "racist Axe", and a "Jade teapot", and during the next run it will still include the same treasures.

[spiderwrangler]

Similar situation: A tribe of Kobolds had the perfect defense for their hidden cave village...they built a fake sleeping dragon over the entrance, complete with water powered machinery inside (built by an enslaved gnome tinker they had prisoner) that made it seem to be breathing and made a loud "Snoring" sound to disguise the sound of the gears. Kept them very safe from low level adventuring parties...at least until they go high enough level to decide they were ready to take on a dragon, and found themselves battling a pile of tin scraps (and thereby making plenty of noise to alert the Kobold villagers to flee into the underdark) - the players went through HOURS of preparation before attacking the "Dragon"...bwahaahaaaaa!

I am so stealing this.

I'm still suspicious of dragons, I won't be having my spider ranger waltz right up to any dragons you give me thinking it might be fake!

[Sessine]

Bordeaux meant that any physical change is reset.Among the physical changes are all treasures being taken away. That means that if the MoM only had 3 items for a set of Alternatives (in this case Kin, Minmax, Forgath; other sets could be You and me), that would be sufficient.
Any item once "lost" in the MoM could become a "prize", and thus being copied to as many alternative realities as alternates decide to take the item out of the Maze.

A reset means, that everything is as it was at the beginning of the run, except for the group that won last round.
And at the beginning of the run, the treasures in the treasure room include a "cammer", a "racist Axe", and a "Jade teapot", and during the next run it will still include the same treasures.

That makes sense.* All (or nearly all, I suppose, we don't know 'all' for sure) Kins are in the Maze to retrieve the Jade Teapot. After millions of resets a lot of other teams have already won, a lot of teapots must have been claimed, yet there is still a Jade Teapot hanging in the treasure room for our Kin to claim. Therefore the treasures have to be recreated by the reset.

And your theory of how all the treasures got in there in the first place matches what Kin said about the Teapot. Very efficient, if so. Anything sufficiently magical brought in by any alternate of any adventuring party is rather likely to be lost in at least one cycle before they win -- unless it's so overpowered that the party just sails right through on their first attempt, in which case the Maze doesn't want their stinky old god-level artifact anyway, so there, nyah! Good riddance!

I wonder if that staff of many rings is powerful enough to qualify as loot?


--
*Until you think about it too closely, whereupon it will make your head spin, but with the Maze of Many that's par for the course.

[willpell]

At this point my assumption is that our Kin will let MM and Forgath leave via the Teapot, then join the Kinship for long enough to get a copy she can keep, and ask them to change her reality-number back to 156 so she can leave too, after which they could win one more time for themselves. Ruby won't like it, but if they take long enough, Kin-156 can at least convince Onyx and Sapphire. Unless, of course, Onyx sides with Ruby because she's attracted to her, and Sapphire melts down due to the removal of her face tattoo. But K-156 doesn't know about either of those risks, so she would conclude that this was a valid strategem.

I'm still suspicious of dragons, I won't be having my spider ranger waltz right up to any dragons you give me thinking it might be fake!

I didn't mean I'd steal it for your game. Your dragons will probably be real ones.

[spiderwrangler]

I didn't mean I'd steal it for your game. Your dragons will probably be real ones.

I kind of figured. Just stating that I won't be roped in to any false sense of security!

[knightwalkr]

Coolest weapon I ever gave a player

Bow (given to a ranger)
When fired at a favored enemy the arrow acts as the spell magic Missile cast by a wizard of Equal level to the bow holder. If fired at any other enemy the arrow acts as a sleep spell. And as an added bit of annoyance... it had a 1d6 chance of dis enchanting. roll a 1 on a d6 and it becomes a standard Bow.