Was getting a bit too lopsided in the cabal war for my liking. I admire all of the evils that are playing right now. Especially during my play times which are a bit on weeknights(off and on) and weekend mornings. When I rolled this, Scion and Empire were powerhouses with Igbah and Kostyan ruling the roost. Add to that some good support and I figured the fortress would be the place to be.

Not much role-play, no background story, no goals, just prepping, fighting, and repeating. Tried to be cabal-neutral, no advice, keeping myself 'at work' and leaving the cabal politics stuff be. Just acted like a good soldier, taking my orders and doing it.

Non-cabaled:Kreo-sorry for the kill/bracer loot. Knew you were a newb, but you left town, and the ol flyto faerie fire, was all I needed. You were a darkling, that was the only reason. I was not picking on you.

Imperials: Awesome. Krikar, Carintsei, respect. Rest of you doing good despite the mess that is the current cabal system.
Villagers: Didnt really mix it up with any of you. The few darklings, Agar, et al. We fought a bit. Again, nothing personal. GOod fights.
Scions: Waris is tough and seems like a good roleplayed duergar. Not much talk though as was mostly in form. Kharnial, enjoyed our fights. Respect for putting up and logging in through the crap range you face. Simply not a good match-up as the grizzly deals more damage and has damage reduction. (SOOO slow though, and you could simply walk away when near the end.)Keep at it.
Tribunal: Not sure, never interacted much.
Fortress: Cool batch in there. Few pointers. Dont be pussies. If your fortress is being overrun, fight back a bit. Dont run in one by one when 4 skilled darklings are raiding and ready. Mizfara, Humbert, Iltanthal, Llondolis, Kernagar, Synoria, hell I forget fast. Lot of good interactions. Keep it up.
Immortals: Thanks for making this game fun. Appreciate all the little quests and things you throw in. Seriously. Well done and heartfelt thankyou.
Liches: Keep rocking. The game needs some evil powerhouses. Enjoyed fighting Satebos. Ahteili, saw you a few times, though our times dont match. Note: Am not going to fight a lich with full army one on one. Aint going to do anything but get the lich a phylactery. Form is so slow, it is sleep bait waiting to happen. Save the 'You are weak' nonsense. Liches are strong, period. Satebos knows this well. Strange bracers ala corpse.

Maran powers are alright. Cry of the phoenix is a bit much, but I used it a few times to join the fray. Not usually pleasant when an ABS grizzly bear appears through a portal.

I will only play evils from now on. Abernyte is going to hold me to this promise. I said it before but you can't go wrong with Scion. They never stay in power long.

Take care.

I wish Fort had more competent people. I have nothing against noobs, but something about being a goodie makes it hard to just refuse applicants who I know are going to be pk fodder, so you just induct them anyway, just grab the enemy cabal item anyway, and see them die on retrieval. It could make me cry. We need a Darascus. Acvilar. Lariya. Niheriva. And an ABS grizzly bear (bloody hell that thing does more damage than a 71 damroll sword spec storm giant with dual ave 31 weapons) may just be the solution. Now it's gone...

But that said, the current swing in cabal power is ridiculous. Logons are usually limited to grabbing cabal items, inducting, interviewing, exploring. I can't blame you for deleting..

Good luck with that Scion, and see you on the other side.

Since I almost always saw you with a wanted flag, I always mentally associated you with the outlander shifter flock that was around at the time. Thanks very much for that item, see you in the fields.

~

>I said it before but you can't go wrong
>with Scion. They never stay in power long.

That's sort of a matter of perspective.

When you've got, say, Igbah and Waris (to take nothing away from either of those guys) fighting, say, six average-to-terrible Fort players for a few hours . . . it's not Scion that's the underdog there.

OH GOD

This is an excellent point. One that many people, including serial players of evil-aligned characters, often fail to take into account.

I'd update your example to be Waris and Kharnial. Both wanded, which is almost always the case. Not that I'm complaining, just stating a fact. No single fort guy is going to stand up to that combo, short of a fully prepped Darascus, and even then it would be dicey. If you exclude characters who can zap, then I'd go so far as to say no two fort guys really have any business engaging that duo, unless it's at the Watcher. Three? Maybe, but then only if they're highly competent and well prepared. Between a/b/s, iceball, bash, Waris's gear, pounce, despoil, curse, and bloodlust...four seems like more of an even match.

Even then, best case for the goodies will almost always be forcing Waris to escape via invoke, or Kharnial to escape via "means I can't mention".

So now let's assume "more than four" fort guys are online, plus Kharnial and Waris. Is it realistic to expect the 4+ fort guys to spend all their time walking around grouped, just so they can be ready if/when the Scions come knocking? I don't think so. In that case, in a raid situation, they have to take time to group up before heading in to defend. Except, given the combo they're up against, odds are the raid will be over before they manage to assemble the group.

The other aspect of this is that if the 4+ guys are running around Thera grouped, every now and then they're occasionally going to cross paths with a lone non-powerhouse evil character. That guy, if he dies, will no doubt bemoan the fact that the fort characters were running around as a group and picking on little guys like him.

You're kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Heh.

You and I both know it to be true.

assuming the player behind the elf bard is both fully prepped and experienced, and that RNG favors him (no bard is immune to permalag).

I'd say there's another combo with a chance, maybe a pally with the right virtues, defiance, and blademaster's gloves could give them a good fight, too. Maybe.

So two extremely powerful goodie powergaming combos can handle the heat. And I'd still say this would be chancy at best, unless the players behind these combos were skilled.

The reality of it all is, most if not all of the fort, who aren't currently playing these power combos and are pretty notorious for their inexperience, are just pk pads for these players.

I swear, even if you give fort mages despoil and fort melee classes resistance, they'd still die 10x more than their equivalent evil counterparts. I usually find logs of one fortie repelling 3+ evils much more impressive than logs of one, say, Eoria/Kostyan/Kharnial, repelling 3+ forties.

>assuming the player behind the elf bard is both fully prepped
>and experienced, and that RNG favors him (no bard is immune to
>permalag).

Actually, I disagree with DaBull that this fictional bard would have much of a chance. I suppose it's possible he might make one of them flee, but he's not killing either one, outside a situation where both get slept and neither calls in aid. How likely is that to happen? Outside that, how is the bard going to keep them from just...leaving? Vibrato? Please.

>I'd say there's another combo with a chance, maybe a pally
>with the right virtues, defiance, and blademaster's gloves
>could give them a good fight, too. Maybe.

Even dispelled, they're both still going to have a/b/s and despoil. With defiance, you won't be hitting a vuln on either one unless you phoenix brand Kharnial. I suppose if you used defiance, got the right brand on Kharnial, then fled and LotH'd him, then landed a 2h strike and defiance progged...you might kill him. Maybe.

>The reality of it all is, most if not all of the fort, who
>aren't currently playing these power combos and are pretty
>notorious for their inexperience, are just pk pads for these
>players.

That's a big part of it, but it's not the whole story. Imo it's a matter of class matchups. At this point, there's not really a goodie equivalent to Waris. Closest thing would probably be an uber-geared paladin, but you're still giving up detect hidden along w/ the possibility of ever wearing a certain piece of gear Waris uses to great effect.

I've seen a fiend rape tougher and better geared chars before.

####, Cabdru got waxed by a fiend.

If "beat down" = "run off but not kill" I agree with you.

Otherwise... not so much.

I mean, people can make mistakes, and anyone can kill anything if the circumstances are right and/or the other guy's not on top of his game that day, but... generally I don't see it happening.

But you're honestly telling me if you were playing an elf bard, you couldn't come up with a way to take down Igbah and Waris solo?

I want to believe (ala the X-files ) that you could.

There is no debating there are many more evil builds that lend themselves to killing a ####load of people, and many goodie builds that lend themselves to being hard as #### to kill.

It's the dicotymy(sp) of the alignment system in its' full glory, IMHO.

c deafen bard

Also, if the bard gets slept, he's owned. I'll give them a fifty-fifty chance of killing him then, with no risk to themselves.

Had a couple of matchups with Waris and Kharnial. Waris is pretty tough. I was a rake away from killing Waris in a three on three fight (correct me, maybe 4 on three...whatever) ANyhow, Kharnial reverted and worded him.

One on one, Waris would eat me for dinner. He knows it. I know it.

As for Kharnial. He plays with balls and I respect him. However, I could handle him in any straight up fight and send him packing. Grizzly was just too much for his form combo. Add to that his Yhorian reverting. Note: I did die to him during a raid in CHasm where I was getting black novaed out of my ass and playing too close to the edge. Other than that Tiger is no match for ABS GRizz.

Don't get me wrong I would take one Waris or Kharnial over 10-15 other chars at my side.

Also, Kharnial is cool in that he actually talks. Just wish our play times lined up better. WHen the poor bastard was on, there always seemed to be 6-8 enemies and not much time for anything but fight and regather wands for the guy.

I wish the Nightmare had more oomph cause I would like to see him in power, taking out the trash.

Of course it was only IC tainting, nothing else. I was surprised when you came for defend, because chances for a win were low.

...not OOC, and not personally IC.... but just the fact that you were always prepped to the gills, always found me at the most inopportune times... and no matter what I did, i couldn't figure out a way to kill that bear.

Avoid you and escape, that I could do, but take down that prepped bear... damn.

OOC, I hope you knew that my IC taunts were just posturing/saving face/etc. When you always seem to have a half dozen guys gunning for you, escaping with your life is sometimes as satisfying as a victory.

Come join the evil side... power rank... they'll be plenty of bad odds for you to enjoy for a quite a few hours.

You know, I'm less than a noob than you think. But as a thief I don't think it has escaped anyone that I'm new to the class.

And for the bracers, firs time ever holding them. Had them for 30 hours so pretty ok. Should have sold them straight of though, makes you a BIG target.

I don't remember what I said or did after that, but I sure hope I took it decent. It was VERY late at night and I was tired. And I did get someone to kill you for it before you could give Mizfara them. Heh

You were scary, was always keeping my eyes open and staying hidden when you were awake. (I was practicing scrolls when you found me...)