Nudist Progression

[Zed-F]

Where are we up to now? I just got back from vacation but haven't been on in a while. I can catch Ember Buffy up if need be, just need to know where to. I hope to be available next Tues as well, barring any unforeseen difficulties.

[Lurker Wyrm]

As far as I know, we're set for Frost Gate, and hopefully Borlis Pass (or is it the other way around?). Everyone should have all of their skill quests done, so we shouldn't need to spend any more time on those. Until we get to Beacon's, anyway.

[Zed-F]

Borlis Pass comes before Frost Gate.

[Hawkmoon]

I won't be around for tonight's Nudist Extravaganza - I've decided that I need to get some serious sleep to try to ward off what seems like an incipient ear infection.

Good luck to my fellow Nudists, and I'll be back next week!

Cheers,
Hawkmoon

[Hawkmoon]

So the Frost Gate mission (though not the bonus) was conquered, after we were treated to watching WarBlade (in Ragnar guise) solo the Borlis Pass mission + bonus after the rest of us got ourselves killed, all in order to run Angela Adams up to the Frost Gate. Most entertaining.

I'm surprised that no one posted anything about what was easily the silliest thing that has happened yet in our N00d adventurings - at the end of the session before, when there were 5 of us standing around in the Frost Gate staging area, and a PuGgie warrior requested to join. We entered the mission just to see what his reaction would be. He asked why we were all nude, and (I think it was) KoP told him that we lost all our clothes in a flood, and then Zed started chiming in with, "We're castaways! Ahoy, we're castaways!"

The PuGgie thought we were nuts.

I think I have a screenie or two of the chat - I'll have to look it up.

On a serious note, we ought to resolve the issue of shields/no shields. I looked back through the original Nudist thread, and we had not come to a consensus on it. I do remember discussing it in-game in an early session, and I thought that we had agreed that starter shields were okay, because the warrior would not be able to access a bunch of skills without them. That logic makes sense to me - we die enough now (even with Drasca equpping a shield of dubious legality) that I really can't see how allowing the warriors to use shields would unbalance things all of a sudden and make it all a cake walk. But we really do need to come to a decision on this that everyone can abide by.

Thoughts?

[FoxBat]

On a serious note, we ought to resolve the issue of shields/no shields. I looked back through the original Nudist thread, and we had not come to a consensus on it.

There was an argument along the lines of "nudist restrictions shouldn't completely prevent the use of any class skill" but this is problematic as it stands. Because 25e skills are generally unusuable if you don't have an elementalist somewhere in your class mix (and animate fiend would be very delicious to say KoP's necro, he's rather suffering far more than any warrior.) So if you want to go down this line, then we'd be looking at some +5 energy items (weak foci?). Then there's also the nature of playing nudist which makes some skills practically worthless (rather than completely unusuable), though I hope at least this slippery slope is one we can avoid.

A starter shield's whopping AC sn't going to do much of anything I'd say, especially compared to the armor bonuses of dolyaks and "watch yourself". It also opens up access to what is probably the most solid non-elite defensive stance in the warrior's arsenal, sheild stance. From my perspective a nudist warrior is already a somewhat weak choice, since his normally solid melee damage is so pathetically hobbled by being stuck with starter weapons, and his tanking generally inferior to ranger stances since the warrior lost his armor advantage: so I don't see the need for making them poor warriors any weaker. This line of reasoning notably does not open up foci items for casters.

Let's stick to the starter stuff though (and that of equal stats), none of this candy cane nonsense eh?

[WarBlade]

So the Frost Gate mission (though not the bonus) was conquered, after we were treated to watching WarBlade (in Ragnar guise) solo the Borlis Pass mission + bonus after the rest of us got ourselves killed, all in order to run Angela Adams up to the Frost Gate. Most entertaining.

It was? Damn, that was a gruelling run. Every time I thought the mission was complete or near complete I came up against that business of ending the damn seige.

RB 1: "I think you only have to kill the engineers"
RB 2: "No, I think you have to kill all the pinging groups"
RB 1: "Yeah, looks like all the pinging groups"
RB 3: "I told you we should have run around Ice Tooth"
Ragnar: *pant pant pant*
RB 1: "Drat! Door didn't open"
RB 2: "I think you have to go back and kill those ones from earlier"
RB 3: "I told you we should have run around Ice Tooth"

[Zed-F]

I vote for allowing starter shields. If we allow starter weapons to allow access to weapon-based skills, we should allow starter shields to allow access to shield-based skills. It has a certain symmetry and is in no way uber or reducing the challenge level significantly.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Because 25e skills are generally unusuable if you don't have an elementalist somewhere in your class mix

Energizing Wind lowers the cost of those 15-25 ene skills down to 10.

As one of the two warrior secondaries on the team (we don't have a W primary, so Dolyak's and its Strength attachment probably won't be an entirely great idea) I have to agree with the usage of shields, as they provide access to some of the best defensive skills in the game, which will probably be needed at some point.

[Drasca]

I am pro shields. There's both precedence and need for it.

My stance is clear after being killed time after time against dwarves and ettins in northern shiverpeaks. Going splat this often is a problem, shield or no shield, but with the shield skills I have a fighting chance. We have weapons to give us a fighting chance in this game, because skills and game mechanics depend on it. To play and utitlize those attack skills, you need weapons. Are these attack abilities absolutely necessary? No. Attack skill utility can be replicated to a limited degree with spells, and wands are also allowed as a convenience yet contribute to damage. We allow them because we want to be able to use them in the context of this variant. These values pave the way for shields on a warrior profession who wants to use those skills. There's two very important skills that my warrior secondary needs if tanking is worth any squat. If we do not value melee and tanking, it is pointless to have a Mo/W as a nudist at all. If attack skills were undervalued, we'd disallow weapons entirely and throw off notions of using weapon based attack skills. Wands are a convenience that provides range gauging utility that contribute neglible damage. Weapons bring damage and utility. Shields bring negligible armor, but a lot of utility.

If we are consistent, we should allow shields when we're going to use the skills associated with it, or disallow shields and toss out the lot of melee weapons, wands and bows completely and end up as a bunch of casters and trappers, restricting our variety and for some, fun. Heck, do you see our spellcasters stop using their wands after they've set range for convenience? Do we use our bows and melee weapons exclusively for attack skills? I do not see a good reason to selectively and exclusively forbid shields when we're allowing usage of other items for their skill utility and practicality.