aluminiumtrioxid

Mmm... so real life has intervened with my attempts to prep for today's session. How about Sergiy's Wushu game instead? Alternatively, we could hold a houserule session, where we figure out how naval battles and carousing should work.

It's pretty.

I'm not sure that's a fair comparison.

Semi-relevant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_heM8YPhHkQ

Yay! Reactions! Capital! Anybody has anything else to add?

Session summaries were promised; session summaries shall be delivered. I wrote up session 2 so far, and retroactively made notes of session 3-6. Also, the original module's writers are hungry for player feedback, and I'm a big believer in giving back to the community, so feel free to provide me with such. (I should probably offer inspiration for it.) Note: these summaries are incomplete and you're actively encouraged to expand them. Without further ado: Chapter 1, session 2 (The Treasure Trove) The half-orc wereshark, Joxnir joined the party, and was swiftly brought up to speed regarding, well, everything. After his orientation, the threesome explored their new ship, noting that they’re rather low on supplies: the only food they found in the Serpent’s cargo hold was stale bread and maggot-ridden meat. On the other hand, it was rather well-stocked with bottles of alcohol containing dead animals. Lacking an appreciation for the finer things in life, Joxnir immediately sampled these, and found them to his liking. At this point, the party split up, possibly due to an inability to stomach the sight of the wereshark guzzling down the foul liquid. Fubsy went to the Royal Liquor to report his findings about the Walrus Skull Island to his mentor Gregory, who didn’t seem to be pleased with funding an expedition that brought home nothing but possibly cursed old bones. He was dismissed shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, following the cryptic ramblings of the previous captain's log, Vycarion decided to break into the Treasure Trove. After some searching, he found a trapdoor marked with the symbol of the Serpent. Upon opening it, creepy music started playing, so he quickly closed it and went to get the others. Exiting the smoky backroom of the Royal Liquor, the halfling was soon faced with the terrible realization that he spent all his money on throwing knives. Wanting to buy a drink, he decided he’ll pick the pocket of a guy in a fancy hat. To increase his chances, he cunningly used Joxnir as a distraction, sending him to the second-fanciest table with a bottle of Dead Animals™-brand wine as “a gift from the house”. I decided the clientele of the Royal Liquor is jaded enough to find nothing remarkable about a muscular, half-naked orc guy serving them (besides, he has a positive CHA modifier, after all), so they only realized something was amiss when they tasted the horrible beverage. They started yelling and demanded the barbarian to be fired. He took offense at their inability to appreciate the brew, so he changed into wereshark form and yelled back. They responded by screaming like a bunch of little girls and jumping out on the window before he could get any closer. However, they were not the only ones reacting extremely: gazing upon Joxnir’s terrible countenance, the barmaid started wailing uncontrollably and tried to claw out her own eyes (botched Wisdom saving throw). The calamity provided Fubsy with the distraction he sought, allowing him to lift 2d10 gold pieces from Fanciest Hat Guy. Sadly, it also drew the attention of Gregory, who, upon seeing that his employee can’t even cope with the sight of a hulking sharklike monstrosity with three rows of razor-sharp teeth, fired her immediately while grumbling about “kids these days”. Feeling terrible about causing an innocent bystander to lose her job, Fubsy… stalked her on her way home, taking care to remain unnoticed. For some reason. Also, his newfound interest absolutely had nothing to do with the fact that said barmaid was a busty redhead, honest. An unspecified amount of time later, Vycarion arrived in the Royal Liquor to find Joxnir lying on the floor in a drunken stupor. A bucketful of water returned the wereshark to consciousness, and the pair returned to the Serpent, where they met their captain returning from stalking looking for prospective employees. Prompted by the cleric sharing his findings with them, our heroes headed back to the Treasure Trove to engage in some old-fashioned looting. There was some debate over the meaning of “Undulating Sign”, but the group has finally decided which path to follow. In touch with his inner beast, Fubsy decided to talk to a centipede before proceeding, but as it turns out, creatures whose brain development is limited to the presence of a supraesophageal ganglion don’t make good conversationalists. After passing through caverns marked with the sign of an octopus, a serpent, then a shark, Joxnir became convinced that a giant shark and a similarly oversized octopus must guard the treasure, so he drew on the ancient rites of his people that let him communicate with his kin in order to convince the beast to reenact the cinematic opus Megashark vs. Giant Octopus. Sadly, upon descending into the final chamber, he was immediately grabbed by a tentacle, and came face to face with the terrifying monstrosity that was neither a shark, nor an octopus, but an abominable union of the two: a SHARKTOPUS! The monster struggled mightily, and took a few painful bites out of the barbarian, who foolishly used up all his shapeshifting capabilities earlier, but the combined might of Joxnir’s axe and the spell support of his comrades eventually prevailed, and the creature’s lifeless, mutilated* body sank down to the bottom of the pool. The only thing left to do was looting the giant chest standing on the island in the middle of the lake, which our heroes did enthusiastically, obtaining an unassuming-looking, but strongly magical telescope and about 800 gold pieces in coins and gems. *They hacked, like, three tentacles off the poor thing. Not to mention slashing right across its eye. HOW COULD THEY DO THIS

Yep "gold". First gets raped then branded a rapist. It must be that male privilege we keep hearing about. Double funny. It would be helpful if you didn't grab quotes out of context in an attempt to knock down a strawman you yourself have set up. I'm just going to copy the relevant bits of the post you have... let's just say, "adjusted". We could give him same helpful tips that we give women, don't drink too much, don't go in parties alone, don't dress up too sexy, don't be friends with members of opposite sex, don't be out in late, etc.. Solid. Gold. The perpetually offended, of course, will turn everything into a cause for outrage, no matter how far they have to twist the original meaning. (...Am I doing this right?)

We could give him same helpful tips that we give women, don't drink too much, don't go in parties alone, don't dress up too sexy, don't be friends with members of opposite sex, don't be out in late, etc.. Solid. Gold. None. But you can keep in mind that while the plural of anecdote isn't "data", the singular sure as hell isn't either. So until reliable statistics turn up about the false conviction rates being higher than the number of actual rape cases (ie. "proof that the program causes more harm than good"), I remain sceptical of the idea that incidents such as this are a widespread menace.

Well you got one thing right, I'll give you that: "misogin" indeed doesn't have any actual meaning. I wouldn't consider that a weakness of "leftish style argumentation", though.

Moreover, extremely ignorant.

On one hand, based on the companions in Pillars, I think Obsidian still has a pretty great talent pool to draw upon (although I'd be lying if I said I'm not curious what Mr. Avellone's next project will be). On the other hand, based on the plot in Pillars, I weep for the future of Obsidian.

Even if we put aside the enormous potential for that information to be abused, and the fact that mass surveillance, as people have proven repeatedly, is a completely inefficient tool of terrorism prevention - therefore a vastly funded program that employs mass surveillance does hurt citizens indirectly, by virtue of not assigning that money to methods that actually work, which simultaneously counts as a misuse of taxpayer money, hurting said taxpayers, and a failure to protect people whose lives could've been improved if said money was spent more productively-, even putting these concerns aside... ...actually, we shouldn't put these aside. They're valid concerns. ...Anyways, even putting them aside, if we accept that internet harrassment is wrong, even if it doesn't result in physical harm, due to the mental stress inflicted, we should also accept that surveillance is wrong. There are a lot of people who are incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of being spied upon by their own government (for some reason), who are hurt by such a program. There are studies concluding that productivity plummets when faced with the prospect of being surveilled, not to mention that it results in generally increased stress levels. Knowing the effects of prolonged stress on the human body, I can only conclude that surveillance is physically harmful to the subjects. I'd definitely count that as "being hurt".

Obviously if the existence of said secrets is in itself harmful to the citizens of your country, revealing them should be your patriotic duty, shouldn't it? Well that's obviously a risk, but, it's kind of the job of an intelligence agency to predict this, and employ appropriate countermeasures. Remember, we wouldn't be having this conversation if they weren't completely **** at doing the only thing their government pays them to do.

This is pure ****ing genius

[citation needed]

That's not what the word "censorship" means.

Did you consult the heavens to come up with that answer? I pointed out a very obvious false equivalence.

That's extremely unpatriotic....yet you don't seem to be embarrassed ? It's the opposite of being unpatriotic. Patriotism means standing for the principles and values your nation was built on. Violating the privacy of your citizens for ****s and giggles (terrorism prevention through mass surveillance is a statistical impossibility, if you do the math involved) is very much not in compliance with said principles and values.

Better than some of them, in any case. Then again, being better than IWD 1-2 isn't a high watermark to clear.

My reaction:

Dunning-Kruger strikes again.

It's not on the bard spell list.

How original.

So, I have updated everybody's character sheets with current xp, xp needed to level, class features and class resources (like barbarian rage wereshark shapeshifting, bardic inspiration, channel divinity and thunderous rebuke). Both casters can pick up a new cantrip. Moreover, Fubsy gains a new spell and can switch out another for one of his choice. Your HP also increases: Vycarion and Fubsy can roll 1d8 or take 5, Joxnir can roll 1d12+3 or take 10. I also wrote up the benefits your named crew members provide.