Sat May 21 23:59:06 2016

At 9 o'clock AM, Day of the Moon, 35th of the Month of the Spring
on the Theran calendar Dol perished, never to return.

Race:	azure
Class:	warrior
Level:	51
Alignment:	Good
Ethos:	Chaotic
Cabal:	BATTLE, the BattleRagers, Haters of Magic
Age:	49
Hours:	246

We did not get along and got off on a really bad note. Not to mention, like you say, venoms can be instant death for a lot of ragers who haven't experienced/played a venom shaman.

I just hope you know that the vitrol between the characters was roleplay. Deldrach is....not an easy person to get along with sometimes and we became very fierce enemies very quickly. All in all though asa player i did like Dol (except for entwine at giant lol).

I respected you as a player and always knew you were going to bring it.

GLWYN

You were cool. Your character reminded me alot of myself started out a bit scratchy but really started getting the swing of it later on.

Well done. Its a pity you didn't stick it out for the rites. My one character regret is I missed the rights myself.

Never intended to play an azure. Actually hoped to try a minotaur, but would have played any of the usual races. But when I logged on to create a new character, it said there was an Azure available, and I figured that may never happen again so I shouldn't pass it up. Dol was born.

Always thought Azure Touched racial explanation lent itself to the battle cabal, it's a perfect living example of why magic is bad. So, ragers.

Last two characters had bad luck with religion, Baerinika and Akresius, both who left right at the time I created, and I really, really, really, really, really wanted to incorporate religion into the character, especially after wanting that before and having it shut out. So, a rager, and picked an active, cabal god: Jormyr.

Azure's highest stat is wisdom (22) so picked space for first legacy, and whispers for the second because as a rager healing up is very hard and none of the other legacies looked like they'd synergize with the racial stats (str 19 and dex 20, while con is at least one better at 21). Was pretty disappointed with whispers because the single most common malediction, poison, totally bypasses it, nerfs it entirely. Plague? Heal through it. Bleeding? Heal through it. Basic, run of the mill poison? Like you don't have the legacy. Legacies are really important, they are the pinacle of the class and you only get two, and picking one means you gave up a lot of other options. Having the simplest and most common of all things make it useless was incredibly demoralizing. Especially when I took it in part to help with all the poison shamans. I would ask the imms to take a look at that and make it work the same as it does for plague, or bleeding. Something.

Always thought whip/flail looked really cool and had maybe the best kill-sealing potential, so went with that, and then for second really wanted sword but ended up with mace because I wouldn't have a good malediction option with just whip/flail/sword.

I had a lot of great experiences, and met a lot of great characters, but truth be told I don't recommend Azure Touched as warriors generally, and even less as ragers. Also a couple personal comments on balance stuff, which of course is one of those FWIW things.

Azure touched have detect evil, and one of their inherents (though not actually inherent, a skill in the skill list) is entirely based on red glowing evil clothing worn by the person you're fighting. The helpfile for azure touched and just the general feel makes it pretty clear that evil clothing is an absolute no-no. Frankly I was surprised to find that evil equ didn't zap me, but I would bet that if an azure touch wore evil equ they'd get in serious hot water with alignment in short order by any imm who noticed. Ragers of course can't wear magic. And Azure are human sized.

As it turns out, there's precious little upper tier equ that isn't either evil (meaning both anti-good or just evil flagged with red aura), or magic, or both, and when it comes to maces, that aren't also two handed. Who knew? I never had a mithril mace. Ever. There are so many and I couldn't use any of them, other than one avg 12 one I think I found. Because of these restrictions I did a lot of hunting and noticed a bunch of weird stuff. Like the huge mithril mace, used by the bard in the wastes. The bard holds drums, too. The mace is two handed. Mace of holy empowerment? Magic. (This one really boggles my mind.) Fordurn, only 11 lbs, used by mage dwarf... two handed. Blessed mace held by the shearia healer... two handed. Other eil shearia undead... spiked two handed mace. Fluted mace used by the dwarf king... two handed. Scepters of chaos... evil flagged. I have a longer list if anyone wants but those are good examples. There was one great one I had for a short while but once lost, never got again. Same goes with equ.

That equ thing was even worse when I was lucky enough to win the easter egg hunt, and my reward was one of the coolest things: dragon armor use! And set at 100 so when I leveled up to it, it was useful immediately. Except... midnight dragon hides? Glowing red. Red-gold dragon hides? Glowing red. Red dragon? anti-good. The only truly good dragon I found was in Enpolads and of course you can't request hides from a dragon, and as a goodie I couldn't kill him, so for most of the character's life I had this great cool niche ability I couldn't actually ever use. It was so frustrating. Again, couple times I had something I could wear (great crimson or ancient green) but for the most part all other dragon armor was evil, anti good, or magic flagged. Nobody's fault, and it was an uber cool reward, just ended up being bad for this particular character because of his race and cabal. Oh well.

And I want to say that this was definitely rager in harder mode. Maybe not as hard as a gnome warrior or others, but with the stats, and restrictions, it was very hard to be effective. And that's why I say what I say now, that equ really matters. I know everyone (especially in game) always likes to say equ doesn't matter, but I really disagree, and especially so here. When I had crappy equ not only could I not win, but I couldn't even stand up. 19 str and 20 dex meant I didn't really do particularly well with anything. Even with the drum edge and cranial edge I had only so-so experiences with both - even less than so-so with cranial, really. Didn't parry that well, didn't dodge that well, had relatively low natural hit/dam, etc. etc etc. When I had a great set, then I did well. But without it, I was a pretty ineffective warrior. And I did make plenty of mistakes, but after the first 100 hours or so I was into the "mind" of the character and used to my weapons and options that I think I generally did the "right" thing in most fights, or at least not the wrong thing, and so while I'll take responsibility for plenty of my deaths, or non-wins, a lot of it was due to the bleh abilities and lack of good equ. I'm sure this will generate a lot of mockery for me, but that's been the experrience with this char and you can believe mne or not, up to you I guess. Oh, about the evil equ, I had originally hoped that at the very least I could get paladins to use "remove taint" and the stuff that wasn't anti-evil but just evil flagged would be useable. Turns out that's a no-no. Led to some good rp with Jormyr and others, but in the end, it meant no red aura stuff for me, ever.

Also, Jormyr. Got off so great. And then... nothing. Just like the previous two. I would see you post here, and then not respond to prays or do anything and it would depress me. I'm sure you have your reasons, and doubly so if they're just real life stuff, but it really kicked me in the nuts for a third time to have the imm go awol on me. If it was me, please tell me in as much detail what I could have done better, I can't say strong enough how much I want to involve religion in my characters, it's such a big part of CF. But want to give huge thanks for that impromptu arena night, that was great fun again, so thanks for that!!

Thanks to the Imms who gave me some exp on two occasions, one for a defense, and one when I had an in-character spat with one of the duergs, and the imm liked that we each actually played our alignments not just our cabal beliefs. I know lots of other players say it but i want to repeat that it really makes such a huge impact on the player when things like that happen.

Same with the title, way way cool. Thank you for that whoever it was.

Sekope, loved our talks. Like a couple others who said on your death thread I thought you weren't "duergy" enough, but at the same time it made it easier for me to roleplay genuine hope that maybe we could get you to be redeemed, at least go from evil to neutral. As a player I knew it wouldn't happen but for the character it was worth trying and a fun rp angle during cabal interactions.

Llathe, think you didn't like me, but then did. We didn't spend too much time together but when we did you were competent and a bit sardonic and I appreciated both.

Izqi, reminded me of one of my friend's little sister (she's not actually little but you know what I mean). Perpetually cheerful, except when you weren't and at those rare times you were totally despondent. Essentially a cheerleader but with a rarely seen alter ego as an emo musician. Great fun.

The rest of the ragers seemed cool and I enjoyed the times I traveled with you, but honestly I don't think I had any deeper relationships with any of you. I hope you don't disagree and feel slighted! The only one I'll mention though is Saezhil, who was the duerg I had that alignment clash with, and you did it well. So keep it up. Oh and Thelatelao or whatever it was, you kinda rubbed me the wrong way, but I was never sure if it was duerg rp or just the player. Only you'll know for sure!

Darvoderis: Classy. Made it fun. Thanks.

Deldrach: Total ass. Made it unfun. I know it was mutual, but you were wrong and I was right, of course. :) I'm sure if we went back and read the logs we'd both slap our foreheads. But to be honest I kinda hope you don't post here, or at least don't identify yuourself, because I don't want to associate you with any characters in the future if I continue to play.

Qinsa: Kinda in the middle. I am afraid I'm with the vast majority when I say you broke the laws, and even more you were a total hypocrite. And then when you full looted me when I defended against 5 people - and you didn't even have anything to do with my death - I just wrote you off. I know from your death thread that you think you had your reasons for some things, but for a lot of them, no. Not in my opinion.

Golthazar: Mostly classy, except at the end. Mostly because you took a bunch of stuff when you already were a ghost and had nothing to do with killing me. And also because I came to you and the others, at centurions, to give you the fight. Unlike many I would come and try to retrieve even when it was an obvious death sentence. And mostly people respected that and didn't loot or looted very lightly. But that last time you went against form, after it mostly was the felar bandit and others who got me that time. Even so though, you were very well roleplayed, loved the stuff you'd say, so major points for that. Killing you the few times I did was always a real boost to the ego and an accomplishment in my book. You were one of the people I really worried about and had real fear for.

Rodacir: I don't know how many times I killed you or was at your corpse when you died. A lot. Let's say 10. 7 of those times I took nothing. Absolutely nothing. A few of them not even the gold. Two times I destroyed your unholy, but one had only 1 charge, the other only 3 charges. One time I saw you had an unholy, but it had zero charges, meaning no souls to free, so I rp'd not destroying it at all. Then, when I died near you, having died just before and having half my worn equ taken (all my best equ), you proceed to take the next best thing left, an 8th thing, again for a death you had little to do with. In some ways this makes you more a douche than Deldrach. I don't know who you are, but I found you to be a total and complete waste at best, and an asshole at worst. You NEVER came to even try to retrieve the codex when we had. You NEVER came to defend when I came to take it. I even discussed it with Darvoderis. I have zero respect for you (even Deldrach has my respect for coming once he got older) and I think despite the low numbers, you should stop playing the game.

Caecilius - didn't talk much, so not much to say other than the immoation traps, like malice, are pretty much an unavoidable death sentence for non-defender villagers. Only when I had over -90s or -100s saves (which I only did for a short while) could I make the save. Not even sure if it was a save or just luck.

Nexuns - kinda annoyed I never got Lanning, I had the right idea but never had a chance to implement. Koelagh was mostly avoiding but when was ready, was a good fight. Thulevar, loved that you'd come. And yes, I did always carry a staff entirely just for you. And I'm glad I did, it worked! I hope when you got me you enjoyed it as much as when I got you. Always a close call.

Outlanders - had some interesting talks, and I get that you have to go by what the imms say the cabal rules are, but the logic of hating azure doesn't make sense, especially one who is fighting to close the very hole you're so up in arms about. Azure touched are the victims, not the oppressors. I didn't inhabit myself, I was forced there, and was very unhappy about it. Maybe try and figure out a way to incorporate.

Can't think of anyone else, so I apologize if I forgot someone obvious.

Now for the balance/game comment stuff. Feel free to stop here if you don't want or care to hear my opinions about it, I won't be offended!

Talked about the real shortage of non-magic, non-evil high end stuff. I get that it's not going to effect most villagers, at least the evil flagged stuff, since only azure touched get detect evil (anyone else who does can't be a villager), but I think it'd be worth the time spent for an imm or three to go through stuff (maybe a heroimm assignment?) and take a fresh look at whether things shyould be flagged with what they're flagged. Like that mace of holy empowerment. Or a two handed mace used by a bard. Or something magic that doesn't have anything to suggest it's actually magic.

Malice. Malice really sucked. For the most part it's an I Win button for the shaman when fighting a rager, and all they have to do is land it and then run away. Yes, occasionally you can survive, but pretty much only if you just flee immediateley and go sit somewhere with all your hp. Otherwise, if you get hurt, you're dead. Can't cure it, it's not "poison", can't heal yourself as a rager, and can't reduce it. It's pretty much a death sentence. I'm sure there's a lot of testing and discussion on balance before powers are put in, but I would suggest thinking about how things will play with ragers specifically, because right now, I'd go for malice every single time. This is somewhat similar to the immolation traps.

I'd give serious consideration to making summon one of those things you can't do as a ghost. I'd win, and then a ghost shaman would come and summon mob after mob and I'd die. I get it, but I've read that lots of things have been taken away from players while they're ghosts, and I think this should be added to the list. Yes, it would make it somewhat more tedious for summoners to re-gear after they die, but that's true for everyone and it's not right (in my mind) that they can have such a big impact on alive pcs when they're ghost pcs.

There's a real bug with mobs or pcs being "nearly dead". You have killed them, or they are incapacitated, but you are still "fighting them", even though there is no actual combat round or damage being done. This means you aren't really engaging the other people in the fight, and you can't redirect or start or anything. Really screws you up.

Fear poison trumps bloodthirst. Kinda question that, but even if that's how you want it, the problem is that you walk into a room with someone and you get spammed with the MORE BLOOD MORE BLOOD but don't actually engage or do anything. You're just standing there, totally vulnerable and unable to act, with scrolling spam. Or, like me, thinking you are fighting because you have that spam, but then realize you're aren't... too late.

I know the entwine/flail/whip bug is know, but I repeat it here because it did get me killed or lost me a win on several occasions. Maybe people can chip in and pay someone to finally fix this?

All in all it was a good experience and I'm glad I did it - the two special azure abilities are cool, though I think the timer on Conviction should be shorter. I get why Heaven's Warmth is a full day, but conviction I'd reduce to 12 hours. And it was fun to have that certain knack for something (don't want to spoil for those that don't know) when dealing with people trying to put me to sleep or knock me out. I'd be happy talking about the race itself if any of you want more detail about being azure. Like I said before it's not particularly well suited to being a warrior, but it did come with some great rp angles and a few fun tricks. Ragers were great. Most enemies were great.

Finally, I deleted because I'd been full looted or half-full looted about 9 times and honestly I just didn't have it in me to try and get new good equ again. I really wanted to do the rites, and I think I had a good chance at getting commander, but at that point I was just tired of it and annoyed at how people I took nothing from - and I mean literally nothing - would loot when I was brought down by gangs or mobs. As it turns out though, I wouldn't have been able to do the rites. My aunt passed away this past thursday and the funeral was Monday, so I wasn't going to be available to play the game during the rites. Also why I haven't written this until today, been busy with family stuff and then today catching up with work stuff.

Not sure if I'll be playing again, the last log in when I died really put a bad taste in my mouth and I haven't had the desire, whereas before I was always looking forward to logging on. But who knows, maybe it will come back. Best to all.

I only saw you later in your life, but I liked this character. Your RP was good, you were both a rager and a light walker which is hard for a lot of people to pull off. We had some good talks, and throwing down against the hordes with Dol happening along (or vice versa) felt awesome.

Sorry to hear about your woes from a mechanics perspective. Are the icy batons magical? Seems like those might have worked.

Icy batons. Heh.

nt

They're magic. Couldn't use them even if I got them from someone else.

And I'm sorry I forgot you (and the other paladin whose name I forget). You guys came late in Dol's life but it was nice having some goodies around I could do stuff with, even a little. Would never be too close as for him the true evil was magic, and evil-evil came second (though was also important), but I liked what I got from you, which was to me at least the stern but friendly priest type, and fortress leader. You always seemed ready to mix it up with people and I think highly of that. I hope you've been doing well!

Were you able to master it? Did you get any good mileage out of it?
When I played Efarem, I thought conviction sucked.

Yes and yes, a little. It was a real bitch to perfect but I got lucky with a few exp skill learns. It definitely has some perks, some depending on what weapon I used, some depending on what they were wearing. But to be honest even at 100 those perks didn't actual fire very often. I'd say about 15%. One was particularly cool though. I don't want to say so it won't ruin for someone's surprise, but pay attention to what you wield when you use it, future azures...

Hey!

Played an azure myself in other incarnation and fully agree with you on eq, it is really hard trying to fill out a slot with something that doesn't suck. Especially on such an eq-dependent build as a one-legacy rager warrior. Other classes can generally get by with mediocre stuff, but not warriors.

Outlander cold shoulder:

If you didn't notice, I didn't ever attack you nor wanted to. We did some RP banter, but I guess didn't fully explore everything and it's probably due to all the constant fighting. :) Really highly doubt we could have ever grouped, but coordinating a raid together or coming to help you out in the village was certainly a possibility...

Overall, what I saw was cool and GLWYN and don't pick a cripple! :) Play a power build now.

Yeah, we definitely spoke and that was very cool, but you actually told me at one point we couldn't travel together. And Ardish and others just attacked me on sight sometimes (though other times not, perhaps because I'd killed them the last time, perhaps not). Dol wasn't one to call for a lot of help when raiding and stuff - meaning outside the village - but it would have been fun if we could have figured out a way to explore or something. I found you exactly as advertised: smart, arrogant, elf priest, concerned with goodness but only as long as it fit your idea, which is exactly what should be your role, in my opinion. So well done.

Sorry to hear about your aunt.

We did not have much time to interact, but I liked Dol. Made the few logins we had together more fun and I can't even say why. Just a good presence.

Thanks for the write-up as well. That was some good critique.

GLWYNIYHO (...if you have one.)

Yeah, I really did forget a lot of people, I'm sorry. I had mixed feelings about Ild at first, it was kind of annoying once when you spoke to me and got testy when I didn't respond but you were never visible and so I got annoyed that you got annoyed when I couldn't talk to you even if I wanted to.

But then we got to know eachother better and we actually did a few things together and I pretty much did a 180. You were fun, had a good sense of humor, and were almost never afraid to run up and fight anyone. That's kinda rare for thieves I think and I really appreciated that. And you were definitely solid with the bandages and poultices and no berserker likes anything more than a good defender standing behind him!

Thanks for posting, and glad you liked the write up. I was (and still am) worried it was maybe a bit too long. At least one person read it all!

For some reason I thought you were a duergar at first. I even called you a butt-dwarf once in the arena. Doh!

~

1) Goodie ragers are really difficult, seems it was even rougher re: Azure eq restrictions. That sucks. You seemed to fight through it though, so good on you!

2) My go-to maces that aren't magical for good aligns (non two-handed) are usually elvish maces from Maethien (which are often maxxed but sometimes they are not), batons from the old Manor/new Manor, and elemental maces from the guys in the Elemental Temple (at least 1-3 are usually in, though that's a bitch of a fight solo). Not sure if those are flagged evil, though.

3) I think malice is like old rot. So it's a con-check. Right? But yeah, ragers get boned with a lot of malediction stuff if they don't have a defender on. That being said, poultice is amazing at 100%.

4) Entwine bug sucks. Every flail spec knows this. That being said, I can imagine re-coding combat ENTIRELY (isn't that what Zulg said?) would also suck, so yeah.

5) Finally, re: Loot, eq, etc. So, I'm going to assume you went berserker, because of the comments about poison and also I think I remember seeing you deathblow someone. Eq re: Berserkers is weird. It's the one time, really, besides assassins, where a near-naked character is nearly as deathful as a fully geared one. That being said, you are a 100 times more likely to die as a ####-geared berserker than a well-geared one. Berserkers who have gear that gives stat-loss protection and saves are a lot more easy to survive with, which leads to a better PK record, which leads to keeping your better eq more often. It's a weird aspect of CF.

I don't think anyone has ever said gear doesn't matter (if they do, they are stupid). It's that it's not the #1 thing that decides PK battles, although there are some that strenuously argue such. I'd wager it's not 2nd or 3rd most important either, but likely in the 4-5 range.

>2) My go-to maces that aren't magical for good aligns (non
>two-handed) are usually elvish maces from Maethien (which are
>often maxxed but sometimes they are not), batons from the old
>Manor/new Manor, and elemental maces from the guys in the
>Elemental Temple (at least 1-3 are usually in, though that's a
>bitch of a fight solo). Not sure if those are flagged evil,
>though.
>

Those were also mine (the baton is now a granite hammer, I had that). And they're good, but not great. I'm fighting guys with avg 27, 28, 30, 31 weapons. Elvish and all the temple maces are avg 24. It makes a difference. Again, I'm sure people will think less of me for it but that difference changed the damage verbs and really changed fights.


>3) I think malice is like old rot. So it's a con-check.
>Right? But yeah, ragers get boned with a lot of malediction
>stuff if they don't have a defender on. That being said,
>poultice is amazing at 100%.

Oh we thought of that, but poultice doesn't affect malice. We tried. A lot. With people who had it perfected. That'd still not be a huge help as most of the time there's no defender, but at least it would be something. But nope, doesn't cure it.

Thanks for responding!

Went to post about three times after you deleted, then never did because I kept waiting/hoping you'd make a post.

From an Immortal/admin standpoint, I generally enjoyed Dol. Approaching it from Jormyr's perspective was a mess. You were definitely conservative for Jormyr, and obviously the alignments made for a mess for both of us. To be perfectly blunt, a lot of it was I just couldn't figure out what else to do with you. In part, it didn't help that such a major character issue was conjies - which were totally absent on you, but there's also a part that I need to figure out on a way for people to progress with Jor's religion. Also, there's some trouble that Jor's evil, and just plain not nice to you. The no-remove-taint isn't something that'd go for everyone, but Jor/I spotted it, and it just seemed one of those things that didn't fit. Hopefully it wasn't too much a kick in the nuts to deal with.

One plus side of Jor is he's very chaotic. Downside is...he's very chaotic. I've also come to learn that I've tended to enjoy "behind the scenes" interaction over Jor in a lot of cases. Probably comes from my years of playing when they weren't so accessable. If random Battle NPC started talking, pretty solid chance it was me. I'm around, just not always consistent in times - and of late not always super able to interact (yay toddler!), whereas posting only requires the time it takes to write it.

Sorry about your aunt - just had my nephew's grandmother pass away this morning, so I'm going to be going through the same thing myself here shortly. Hopefully you'll be around sometime or another, again. Good luck with everything!

>From an Immortal/admin standpoint, I generally enjoyed Dol.

I'm glad, thank you.

>Approaching it from Jormyr's perspective was a mess.

Ok, but a mess as in "you were a mess, you played him wrong or problematically or soomething" or as in "you were fine but the concepts were hard/weird and messy and not easy to play out"?

You were
>definitely conservative for Jormyr, and obviously the
>alignments made for a mess for both of us.

I wouldn't have called Dol conservative. Can you maybe please tell me how or explain what you mean there? It would be really helpful if I ever decide to try something even remotely similar again, please.

To be perfectly
>blunt, a lot of it was I just couldn't figure out what else to
>do with you. In part, it didn't help that such a major
>character issue was conjies - which were totally absent on
>you, but there's also a part that I need to figure out on a
>way for people to progress with Jor's religion.

Well as far as it being your inability to figure out what to do with me, I am sorry I created the problem, and at least maybe it gave you some thinking you can use if it happens again. I'm disappointed of course, but I get it and am not upset. About the conjies part, I don't know what you mean? If you mean absent that there just weren't any around most of my life, yah, I agree. Not sure what else you mean though?

But with the progress in the religion, I guess that's kind of the same as the part about figuring out what to do. I wish we could have figured that out together. Again if there's any advice on how to get over that hurdle, I'd really be grateful for it!

Also, there's
>some trouble that Jor's evil, and just plain not nice to you.

Here's where I'm a bit frustrated because I don't understand why that would prevent you from talking to me again (in character I mean). I knew he was evil, we talked about it, I even said during one of our talks at the beginning that I fully exepcted to die a couple times because you'd just like to see a "Goodie" die in pain. Never expected you not to be evil. And I tried to make clear that I hated you for being evil. But I had hoped we were getting to a place that because of the shared beliefs/philosophical dogma, we could respect eachother and Dol could be a good representative of the religion (tattoo obviously), while noting the damn shame of having it come from a god that's evil as can be. I guess if there's one thing I'd feel comfortable saying as in ME giving YOU advice, maybe it would be that if you really don't think you can come up with a way to work your religion with good aligned people, just say so in the helpfile religion, plain and simple. Then there's no pressure or let-down. If someone tries then, they know they've only got themselves to blame when it doesn't work out.

>The no-remove-taint isn't something that'd go for everyone,
>but Jor/I spotted it, and it just seemed one of those things
>that didn't fit. Hopefully it wasn't too much a kick in the
>nuts to deal with.

It was, but it was fine and it happened when I was very young so obviously it didn't stop me from playing the character for two hundred more hours. Don't worry about that!

>
>One plus side of Jor is he's very chaotic. Downside is...he's
>very chaotic. I've also come to learn that I've tended to
>enjoy "behind the scenes" interaction over Jor in a lot of
>cases. Probably comes from my years of playing when they
>weren't so accessable. If random Battle NPC started talking,
>pretty solid chance it was me. I'm around, just not always
>consistent in times - and of late not always super able to
>interact (yay toddler!), whereas posting only requires the
>time it takes to write it.
>
>Sorry about your aunt - just had my nephew's grandmother pass
>away this morning, so I'm going to be going through the same
>thing myself here shortly. Hopefully you'll be around
>sometime or another, again. Good luck with everything!

Blah, I'm sorry for your loss. I know how it is. And good luck to you, too. And I also want to say that when we did interact, they were quality. You're very good at it. Thank you.

I didn't watch Dol much from immland nor interact much with him as a mortal, but I saw a couple things in this goodbye post and thought I'd mention them.

>Always thought Azure Touched racial explanation lent itself to
>the battle cabal, it's a perfect living example of why magic
>is bad. So, ragers.

IIRC the original spec for Azuretouched layed out that it was expected that they would never be allowed to be ragers, because they were a magical creature in and of themselves. So when I saw a rager azuretouched I was pretty surprised. I know what your role was and it definitely *worked* as a rager, so I didn't ever say anything up in Immland about it or anything. I'm making this comment for two reasons:
1. To make you know that you got something pretty special (unless somewhere in Immland they made the choice to just allow Azuretouched into Battle anytime) and
2. To make you aware that your hardships with EQ were something that I thought about when Azuretouched were first proposed, but wrote off as a non-issue once I understood they wouldn't likely be Battle.

>The only truly good dragon I
>found was in Enpolads and of course you can't request hides
>from a dragon, and as a goodie I couldn't kill him, so for
>most of the character's life I had this great cool niche
>ability I couldn't actually ever use. It was so frustrating.

My only other comment I wanted to throw out there is that you don't have to kill that dragon to get the armor. If you look at the room it is in, you'll get a small clue as to how to get the armor.

Good luck with your next!

Re: Azuretouched in Battle...I totally get why when they were created people in IMMland might say something like 'Yeah, with healing + radiant beam damage these guys are never being ragers'...but in actual practice, look at the azure-touched race.

They are not allowed to be any type of mage. Like, at all. So they can't cast any spells, like, ever, unless they get a role reward. So that lends itself well to rager dogma.

Second, I may be mistaken, but aren't they vessels for angelic souls? Thus, isn't their ability god-given? Now I know rager lends itself to a lot of takes on magic = bad, but isn't the main factor that it's bad because it should only be in the Hands of the Gods?

Re: Silver dragon armor...wow. I'm ####ing stupid. I hate you now for dropping that hint, since two of my recent chars were goodies and I straight up gave up on ever getting that armor. ####er. This is worse than when you asked me to tell you about that book of fire knowledge.

When Azure-Touched were in the R&D phase, the main point of contention between them and Battle appears to have been their inherent abilities versus their background lore.

As far as the latter goes, it seems (to me, anyway) like we're using the Azure Fields somewhat interchangeably with the celestial Outer Planes where angels and archons come from. In that sense, I wouldn't call celestial beings or humans associated with other-planar places to be blessed by the gods or something like that since in the grand (cosmic?) scheme of things, those places/things are just as ordinary as Thera (prime material plane) and mortals. But, that may be reading too much into CF's possibly archaic interpretation of D&D lore, which we've deviated from plenty in the past.

Personally, I'm fine with Azure-Touched being barred from Battle not being a rule written in stone, but I would certainly expect most BattleRagers to be skeptical (at best) of them.

NT

>Re: Azuretouched in Battle...I totally get why when they were
>created people in IMMland might say something like 'Yeah, with
>healing + radiant beam damage these guys are never being
>ragers'...but in actual practice, look at the azure-touched
>race.
>

What is radiant beam damage? I never saw anything like that and had no skill/power/inherent/supp/spell of that name. Are you saying Conviction can get that effect with certain weapons?

...because it seems like a power they might have.

My only azure autoed at level 2.

NT

Hey, sorry you had to go, I liked Dol. I was the one who gave you xp after that defense; I was hunting for people to drop hints on my return to, and I just happened to look in and see you holding the village down.

I don't know about what was intended with azuretouched originally, but I thought your role was a great spin on it.

Anyway, good luck with everything, hopefully you find your way back to something fun soon.

Aarn

You're right! I definitely didn't like you at first. You being a goodie (which makes Llathe question your dedication) PLUS being a near-magical azuretouched started you very deep in the hole, as far as I was concerned.

I came around in time, since you were both ballsy and pretty competent, and didn't complain too much when you ate some nasty deaths.

Totally agree on malice. I've played a couple of poison shamans too, and I've personally avoided using it repeatedly on players for whom it's a death sentence.

Sorry to see you delete before the Rites--but I'm still on vacation myself and so have no idea how they went down :-)

This is very surprising to see. Especially with the Rites coming tomorrow. You seemed like you might have been gunning for leadership. You were competent and skilled and it was fun being logged in when you were on.