House of Ainsley: Out-of-Character Discussion

Well, hope springs eternal, right?

We can always hope. I still hope that Wulf, E, Shadow and some of our other long-lost posters will return someday.

BTW, I don't suppose that Sylvia might suddenly, for no real reason, have an urge to tear out the crawler's brain and preserve it would she??

GoldenDrakon wrote:

We can always hope. I still hope that Wulf, E, Shadow and some of our other long-lost posters will return someday.

Well, we all know that Shadow is never more than a Wraith away....

GoldenDrakon wrote:

BTW, I don't suppose that Sylvia might suddenly, for no real reason, have an urge to tear out the crawler's brain and preserve it would she??

That's a good question...isn't it, Wraith?

I suppose that Ariean would be glad to have a juicy snack for the long trip back to Pax ex Quietus, since you mention it. Too bad all of that carrion crawler brain juice makes for a very sloppy meal, huh?

Well I was kinda hoping that she could get a snack in during the fight. Or is it not cocher to eat during a battle? *cocks head*

Haha

On a completely different note, I wish you guys could have come to my wedding... :-( it would have been awesome to see all of you...

Well, I don't know about kosher, but it would be pretty impractical, seeing as enemies aren't exactly known for being all that courteous. "Hey! Could you stop hammering me in the ribs for a moment? I'm trying to eat this pork chop!"

(Incidentally, carrion crawler brain juice is a paralytic poison which Karnoz would love to get his hands on. You should totally think of an in-character reason to harvest some brain juice (which can be trickier than it sounds), then maybe later on you can sell it to Karnoz for 300% of the standard market price. He has the most money out of all the characters here, and he sucks at beating up your undead bodyguards, so screw that guy! He can take it. )

But you had your wedding already? I had no idea! You should have said something.

So...wedding pics, plz?

And where's the honeymoon going to be?

Hmmm thanks for the tip. I will think about it, once the battle is over.

Also, i have not had my wedding yet. In fact its this Sunday. And no, its not for a religious reason, the 24th just happened to be a sunday lol!

FIVE DAYS TO GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And we are not having a honeymoon. I dont have the money for it >.<




Yet.

Oops. Did you ever have one of those times when you think that you've already replied to a post, but you actually haven't?

Yeah. I'll get on Sylvea tomorrow. Sorry about that.

So if or when you do save up for a honeymoon, where will you go?

Shadow wanted to go to bangkok so I like that idea :-)

And I was wondering but given my long absence I didn't think it right to say anything. Lol.

Yay, I'm free! Dad's home from St. Louis, so I no longer have to housesit for Mom and Dad, and Dad can take care of their animals just fine without me. And their house is a lakehouse off in the boonies, so their internet access is satellite internet. And it is horrible.

So that was ten days that I'll never get back. So are you married yet, Wraith?

Yup!!!!!!

My maid of honor gave me a four day holiday to surfers paradise in queensland next week. So.... yay honeymoon!!!
I wil be largely out of contact but i might find some time to pop by on my phone. We are planning on going to movieworld!! Yay!!!

And other honeymoon related stuff......

*squee!*

"Squee" she says.

So by "movieworld," do you mean Hollywood or Bollywood? Because those Indian movies get pretty creepy.

In the interest of not lying my butt off, I haven't been posting much because I've been grappling with a raging Plants vs. Zombies addiction for well over a week.


Really. This is the type of game that makes you rearrange your schedule just so you can play it. It's that good.

But I'm pretty well through the game by this point, I've unlocked all of the Endless modes, I've beaten Adventure twice and there's only so many times that you can shout one or more of the following:

• "Where the hell did that Digger Zombie come from?"
• "Stupid-ass Magnet-shrooms! I don't care if there's a hundred Football Zombies charging my Tall-nuts! Digger Zombies are the first priority!"
• "I put you there specifically to kill Digger Zombies, Starfruit! Now kill the bastard already!"
• "I hate you, Ladder Zombies!"
• "Damn you to Hell, Ladder Zombies!"
• "Cheatin'-ass Ladder Zombies!"
• "[Even saucier language] Ladder Zombies!"
• "I need you online now, [name of desperately needed plant that's taking too long to recharge]!"
• "Where are my Jalapenos? Where are my slow-assed Jalapenos?!?"
• "Herpaderp! I'm a stupid Kernel-pult! I'm just going to lob ten kernels in a row at those two Buckethead Zombies because lobbing butter to slow them down would make too much sense! Derpa derpa derp!"
• "Useless goddamned Cob Cannons! Why did I pick you?"
• "Thanks for getting me killed, Crazy Dave! It's the hardest roof level, and you gave me a Peashooter and a goddamned Marigold!"
• [String of loud, random vulgarities and inarticulate screeches as you completely lose your composure because the game spawned three Ladder Zombies in the same lane, and said Ladder Zombies have bypassed your Tall-nuts, overwhelmed your Magnet-shrooms and are now tearing up your Twin Sunflowers with their stupid epileptic-convulsion-like eating animation while a Football Zombie is running up the ladder right behind them....]

...before the addiction starts to lose its edge.

But the game's still fun like you wouldn't believe. It also has a sweet theme song.


So today I'd like to finish up on the Cleric Spells topic so that I can finally move on to the rest of the spell lists. Also, Karnoz. Stay tuned.

A random aside for GD and Tiger (and maybe Taljor, even if he wasn't there at the time):

You know those random moments of recollection which come at you from out of the blue, even if the memory comes from about 20 years back? I just had one of those moments, and it's a bit of a doozy.

Remember when Lenny's elf Logan rolled an "Oops" for that Teleport spell and teleported 70 feet under the city? I was considerably greener as a gamemaster back then, but even then, I figured that he could have accidentally teleported into the city's sewers if he had teleported only 10 or 20 feet underground. But teleporting 70 feet beneath his intended destination pretty much united him with the bedrock on a molecular level, and so Logan was instantly and permanently dead...as I ruled.

But if I had known then what I know now, I probably would have cut him another chance to get out of it. "Okay, Lenny, here's the deal: I have three 20-siders in my hand. If any one of them also comes up seven, then Logan just teleported into a part of the Underdark. You're a wood elf, the Underdark is mostly pitch black and crawling with drow elves, and 99% of those drow elves hate you and want to either kill you, torture you or torture you till they kill you. Have fun getting out. But hey...at least you're not Quikrete mix, right?"

Considering that the city was in the middle of a plain, three dice would probably be a bit generous. Good thing the city wasn't right on the sea, or that Underdark idea wouldn't have worked...but then, I could have just thrown in a sea cave or a grotto instead. And Logan probably would have drowned because he was stuck in a sea cave 70 feet underwater, he didn't have any water-breathing magic going and he wasn't a good swimmer, but...yeah, nevermind. He still would have ended up dead with an unretrievable corpse. Let's just stick with the city-on-the-plains line of thought here.

So if I had thought to cut Lenny a deal like that, and if I did roll a 7, then Logan would have survived the botched teleport, Lenny wouldn't have had to roll up that even bigger combat wombat Micron, and it would have led to another adventure in the exciting and exotic locales of the Underdark (an adventure which would probably last right up until Logan had a chance to replenish his spells--in perfect darkness, with a million drow elves hunting him down and bickering over whether to toss him into the slave pits or sacrifice him to Lolth or whatever--and try that Teleport spell again)...as well as another development in the campaign. If the kingdom has drow elves, duergar, driders and worse tunneling 70 feet beneath their capitol city, then they probably have more problems than the Shadow King and his undead legions to worry about.

Too bad for Logan that we weren't playing D&D 3rd Edition back then. These days, you can't teleport into the ground or a hundred feet up in the air anymore; you just take wounds from having your body scrambled by the botched Teleport spell. Sure, a botched teleport can possibly kill you if your luck really sucks and your dice keep coming up "Mishap! Take 1d10 Damage and roll on this table again." But at least you don't have to worry about teleporting into the bedrock anymore, and your corpse will eventually end up somewhere which vaguely resembles your intended destination, even if said corpse has been reduced to a gooey pile of slop by repeated scrambling. How good does that sound, Lenny?

(I'm still kicking myself over letting Logan try and try again until he killed that lich, too. Granted, the lich wasn't permanently dead because his phylactery was still perfectly intact and hidden somewhere else, but Logan still got all of that loot. Besides, that lich could have cured Logan's vampirism with the strings of a geas or other magical domination attached to that bargain, and Logan as a lich's mind-slave would have made for a pretty nifty campaign development. Speaking of liches, phylacteries and Geas spells, do you think there's any chance of Karnoz coming back and trying to bump off Vorog the Embattled later? His loot buckets are really, really fat. )

Anyway, I hope that Lenny's doing all right, wherever he is. Also, Karnoz is ready! Let me get some soup in me and I'll get cracking on those spell lists.

And that concludes the Spell Components and Spontaneous Casting parts of the Cleric Spells thread, as well as the first post of the Assassin Spells thread. After I type up Cleric Domains and Spell Components for Assassin Spells, those two threads will be done.

Is there any way to create a subforum within this forum, just to have a neat and tidy place for all of these spell topics? I still have to cover Bard Spells, Blackguard Spells, Druid Spells, Paladin Spells, Sorcerer/Wizard Spells and possibly Vigilante Spells and Virtuoso spells, so there are going to be quite a few of these topics.

Also, Wraith, check out all of those required components for that 5th-Level Atonement spell! Crazy, isn't it? That's the kind of stuff that Sylvea can look forward to when she becomes a Level 9 Cleric. Sure, she can catch a break on the Experience loss if the spell's subject unwillfully sinned because of the effects of mind control (such as that of a Dominate Person spell), but if that person fell from grace through deliberate action and full consent of the will, Sylvea has to pay full price. So if some wretched schmoe comes crawling up to Sylvea and desperately begs her to cast that big, long Atonement spell and grant him release from the burden of his sins, Sylvea had very well better make sure that he's worth it.

Of course, the definition of "sin" tends to go through a few spin cycles whenever evil clerics are involved....

Just throwin' that out there.

I'm back. Wraith still isn't back yet, though. I guess the honeymoon worked out after all.

And thanks for all the birthday wishes, hosers.

The House of Ainsley wrote:

And thanks for all the birthday wishes, hosers.

According to the tracker on the main page, you're still on the 'in the next 7 days' category. But I'll give you that time;

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AINSLEY!!!

D,awww, thanks. You're all heart.

I finally got my laptop!

It's a Visio 14" Thin + Light. My local Walmart was selling it for $598, but they bumped it down to $400 because it was a former display model; naturally, it still has Walmart's demo mode installed, something which I shall be doing away with soon, because its solid state hard drive only has 128 GB. But that's the price you pay for the lightning speed of SSD's: low memory capacity. Regular hard drives only cost about 8 cents per gigabyte right now, while SSD's cost a dollar per gigabyte. But yes, this little bastard goes from "Completely Off" to "Ready for Action" in less than half the time of my eight-year-old desktop. I'm about to find out how well it plays an online game of Neverwinter Nights. More breaking news shall come as I play around with this little beast.

By the way, Tiger, were you still interested in rolling up that character here?

HOWDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hahahahahhahaha!


So.... yeah. I'm back.

I've been extremely....erm.... lazy. LOL!! (stop laughing)

The honeymoon was awesome. Now i'm back to the real world and trying (unsuccessfully) to get another job. I've basically finished my tenure at my current job so now I have to move on. My head chef is keeping me on until I get another job, which is awesome, but I still feel like the odd man out. I'm not learning anything really... and it's fast just becoming a job.


ughh.

Anyways, I'm back and hopefully better prepared for this year

ALSO!!!

I won a 7 day holiday to THAILAND! on my HONEYMOON!!!

Shadow is one lucky bastard. LOL!

We're planning to use it for our one year anniversary

*SQUEE!*

Ainsley, I know you're tight on the monetary thingy, but what possessed you to get an ultrabook with a SSD?.... especially for gaming?! I suppose you're gonna pair it with a portable harddrive? Anyway, its still gonna be spiffy - congrats buddy!

Wraith wrote:

HOWDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hahahahahhahaha!


So.... yeah. I'm back.

I've been extremely....erm.... lazy. LOL!! (stop laughing)

Hey, we won't fault you for your honesty...right, guys?

Wraith wrote:

The honeymoon was awesome. Now i'm back to the real world and trying (unsuccessfully) to get another job. I've basically finished my tenure at my current job so now I have to move on. My head chef is keeping me on until I get another job, which is awesome, but I still feel like the odd man out. I'm not learning anything really... and it's fast just becoming a job.

Aw. I guess the old restaurant needed to make room for some new trainees. Sorry to hear that you're not there anymore.

But you never know. Maybe you'll end up somewhere better, like how I did when the tornado flattened the gas station where I used to work and I proceeded to get a job at a resort instead. It happens.

Wraith wrote:

Anyways, I'm back and hopefully better prepared for this year

Yeah, we hope so.

Wraith wrote:

ALSO!!!

I won a 7 day holiday to THAILAND! on my HONEYMOON!!!

Shadow is one lucky bastard. LOL!

We're planning to use it for our one year anniversary

*SQUEE!*

You know, I hear that Thailand has entertainment strips that could make Las Vegas look sane. Where are you thinking of going?

Wraith wrote:

Ainsley, I know you're tight on the monetary thingy, but what possessed you to get an ultrabook with a SSD?.... especially for gaming?! I suppose you're gonna pair it with a portable harddrive? Anyway, its still gonna be spiffy - congrats buddy!

You know it...two external hard drives, in fact: my trusty portable hard drive and the 1-terabyte Seagate Desk drive that has spontaneously wiped itself out twice before. Maybe now that I'm on Windows 7, that drive won't fail on me again.

Then again, maybe it will.

(One more auto-wipe and you're my next air rifle target, Seagate Desk! )

But thanky. It has proven to be a nice laptop so far.

Anyhoo, Sylvea's coming around tomorrow morning. Stay tuned!

Okay, sorry for being AFK for a while. Three recent developments:

1) My new laptop's battery won't hold a charge, which pretty well limits its portability. And it took me longer than 15 days to figure that out, so Walmart won't do anything about it. (How much would the Geek Squad charge to fix this? I've bought enough stuff from Best Buy in Tyler....)

2) My car needs some brake work done before my brake problem gets worse; I kind of like it when my car stops when I want it to, you know? So I've been mowing a lot of lawns lately, because my regular job's pay won't cut it and it cost me close to $400 the last time I got my brakes fixed.

3) Yahoo decided to upgrade their File Transfer Protocol to the Super Totally Awesome FTPS. But since I was on the old FTP client, this new jazz doesn't work and neither do Yahoo's instructions on how to change my FileZilla settings from FTP to FTPS. So now the only way for me to upload images to my site (like those maps for the House of Ainsley campaign) is to go through their awkward Small Business Management menu and their equally awkward File Manager. Thanks a lot, Yahoo.

4) The computer guy that our workplace rents from Titan Group decided to be a big man by blocking Illusion Vale from the work computers again. Nevermind that my home computers have never gotten a virus or anything else icky from this site, nevermind that there's nothing on TV at 3:00 AM after all the work's been done...no, he's just doing it to be an anti-entertainment prick. So if you see Chris Goldsmith from the Titan Group, tell him that he's a royal cheesedick who has zero people skills. Or maybe I'll tell him myself. I'm pretty peeved at him, after all.

Anyhoo, I'll be back tomorrow. Chat ya then, peeps.

Wow! Alll of that sucks so much that I can't even measure it. Yeah this site hasn't given me anything icky either...

Hehe... haven't heard the term cheesedick for a while. Almost wanna meet the guy so I can say it! Lol.

Well. My honey moon went awesome. I had such a great time. Settling back into a routine was a bit hard once I saw what life could be like lol I'm still at the same job. I've trained three apprentices on the job and rapidly learning morw supervisory roles. I even get to do tje ordering these days! But still looking for another job. I need more mulah.

The trip to thailand fell through. It was won via a travel company and ended up being more trouble than it was worth. But the trip is still plannned. Just have to do it on my own :-)

Not sure where to go yet. Will try to gey a nice resort package deal.

Also. Doesnt all electrical devices come with mandatory 12 month warranty in america?If walmart is not at fault at leasr the manufacturer is. It is a brand new product. Unless you unknowingly bought a machine that only holds a limited charge. But the lowest I've ever seen is about 4 hours with constant use. My old laptop dropped down to 2 hours but it was about five years old by then.

Should investigate that. After all you went through to get one too.

And if you have already explored these avenues and come up with bumpkiss then I am sorry dude.

Also man. Sorry I missed your birthday.

To all. Sorry about my absence. May is hectic for me. Three birthdays and a mothers day. I spent most of my waking hours making money.... then spending it.

Blech. I need to save for my anniversary....

Oh, so you're still cooking for the same restaurant where you went through your apprenticeship, and now you're training newbies and placing orders for them? That was nice of them to keep you aboard. Maybe you're more irreplaceable than you thought.

(Also, don't book your trip to Thailand through Orbitz. I hear so many bad reviews about those jokers, it's scary.)

My internet at home has been down for four days because East Texas Cable sucks sour frog nads. They gave me two weeks free for the inconvenience, but they still suck and I'm considering making the change to satellite internet. My connection's finally back up, but it's still dropping intermittently, and as I type this, I'm worried that my connection is going to fall off at any time. So believe me, I'm hurrying here.

And I think I will contact Vizio about this battery issue, since you mention it (and now that my internet connection works again, at least for now). Thank you.

Apologies for dragging my butt on the House of Ainsley for a month or two. Tomorrow's Sunday, and a new roommate who was supposed to be moving in tomorrow isn't moving in after all. So we'll see what I do with the extra time.

Okay, I got the laptop shipped off to Vizio for repairs this morning.  Seeing as the laptop is indeed still under warranty, Vizio is covering everything, including shipping costs both ways.  Thank you for reminding me about their one year warranty, Wraith.  

The people at Vizio do seem rather focused on customer satisfaction; their customer support line has minimal answerbot handling and their call center is right here in the USA, not outsourced to India or whatnot.  And all of the people I talked with did everything to help me fix the problem on my end; when we determined that the laptop couldn't be fixed on my end, they had me email a copy of my receipt, and I had an email with the shipping label (for FedEx Express Delivery, no less) within an hour or two.  And they should have the laptop back to me within the week.

So y'all might consider Vizio for your next laptop or TV.  They don't just say that customer satisfaction is their first priority; they mean it.  

Sorry about letting the House of Ainsley drag again.  I have to go to work now, but we'll see if this chipper mood gets me back on track by the morning.  

Yahoo! I thought you might have a warranty thingy going for you! I'm glad, and I sincerely hope that it gets all fixed to rights

No probs about the reminder. I certainly have enough new fandangled electronics to have experienced this sort of stuff. I just recently acquired a new HP laptop. Its the new windows 8 and I'm lost. After having gained expert level in 7.... wow. Complete change. But still, besides a few niggly things that make me think (seriously HOW IS THIS ERGONOMIC?!!!!)... its all good.

Anyways, I find that most companies won't actively go out of the way to help you. Unless you start making a fuss.

So there's the thing. Make a fuss. It's worth it