Shadows of Eidolon - a GURPS Shadow World feature

Tell us how you are using our gaming tools and how your sessions are going.

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wrathchild
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Post by wrathchild »

trevor wrote:Post some screenies of them in use, I'd very much like to see them
A little, staged dungeon encounter:

Image

But, really, these stand out in large part due to the retaining of the bases, which is of course almost the same as true top down with an underlay.

Edit: A few more

Image
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wrathchild
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Post by wrathchild »

New session this evening

Content was fine, but process was marred by two things:

1) My darn Belkin Access Point. It runs hot.

darn, I wish the projector mode was here and that it would be independent of the LAN. That would SO slove my current problem. A new access point will also, hopefully.

2) Fog of war lag.

1.3.20 bogged down under vision + fow strain. I had two 512 MB MT's running on a 2 gig machine, with GURPS Character asssitant opene with 6 characters as well.

When FOW came on, the performance just dwindled until MT while nominally running couldn't save and exit, and all movement was impossible.

Abort was unfortunately necessary, but I'm confident these things will be solved - and of course, MT was entirely blameless for one of the problems.

The session still scraped in as OK because of the events and plotline (if I may say so myself) - GURPS shone with it's multi TL capabilities, and some severely strange happenings were taking place, as a group of renaissance people uncovered an ancient, functioning untra-tech bio-research station, complete with diamondoid android gardener and AI-run supercomputer.

Great Stuff that.
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RPMiller
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Post by RPMiller »

Hawke wrote:Instead of halos you can add underlays to the token image files if you like. I know it's work if you're doing it for a bunch of tokens but might be a neat effect for the PCs.
Hawke, any chance you could explain how you created these and how you use them in Token Tool if that is how you use them?
You're just jealous 'cause the voices only talk to me.

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Post by Phergus »

The shapes are easily enough created in Inkscape or some other vector drawing program which allows transparency to be applied as well. With a little more effort they can also be created in Gimp.

Then you can add the appropriately sized PNGs to TokenTool's overlay list.

Select the your new underlay from the overlay list. ;)

Check the "Use as a token base" checkbox.

Drag your figure image onto TokenTool and place over base. Adjust to suit.

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Post by RPMiller »

Just as I thought, thanks Phergus! Now if Hawke could just make the album available to be added to your cart... ;)
You're just jealous 'cause the voices only talk to me.

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Post by wrathchild »

Well, another session ran yesterday.

It didn't see any battles, but I did do some testing with some new equipment, and it does seem that all my woes hinged on that darn access point. I did use 1.3.24 instead of 1.3.20 and some of the improvement may have come from that upgrade also.

Otherwise some more notes on the session is here: http://greatbuddah.livejournal.com/

It got all exiting without getting violent, as the group did the SAS/Force Recon thing and scouted out troop buildups of a foreign power.

Missed doing one thing though: I should have entered the strategic/overview map into MT to see how that worked, especially with the arrow to point to things. Next time!
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Post by wrathchild »

Team has been on a long-range scouting mission in hostile territory agains a culturally and racially very different enemy - so it's been two sessions of "hide, hide, if they see us we're busted right away!".

They did get to do an infiltration-run last session (on friday) against an enemy naval base (where two from the group boarded a ship, flying and invisible (of course), tripped the magic alarms, but still managed to shoot a heavy hitter spelllcaster opponent AND get away with the chest full of maps and letters*), but it was not a raid the lent itself well to mapping (would have slowed the action down/lost tension), so MT has mostly been serving as a regional overview/travel map utility lately - but it does that well also :-). With the right scaling and using gridless settings, the distance tool becomes the travel distance calcualtor - quite invaluable, actually.

I'm just getting another idea writing this - using a token to represent the party, using movement and the spacebar function might enable rather precise travel measuring ... hmmm ... must try that!


* Best part was when they vacated the ship as heavy hitters arrived due to the alarms (the PC's weren't flying then - GURPS Flight spells are realtively short duration and fatigueing), and went into the water. They're up against a culture built around a snake cult, and they suddenly found the waters alive with sea snakes looking for them by scent (as they were still invisible). This was when they decided to shoot the controlling priest ;-). The super-sniper punched out his brain while treading water 8-0. Then they used the commotion to get back in the air, fly onto the ship, get the chest they had already located and get the hell out of Dodge.

This wasn't the end of trouble. The reality of the campaign is that magic exisists that will locate something you have lost rather easily, so as long as they held onto the chest and content they assumed thet they could be magically tracked by a powerful priesthood. They had to pull som neat planning and tricks to get the info to their boss and get rid of the box fast. Fun stuff :-)
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Post by Hawke »

RPMiller wrote:Just as I thought, thanks Phergus! Now if Hawke could just make the album available to be added to your cart... ;)
I missed this, sorry! Actually it isn't my album, it's Cweord's work so you may want to ask him.

wrathchild: that sounds like some fun as heck gaming! I love the hiding aspect, definitely can make for some good usage of non-combat skills and tactics.

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Post by wrathchild »

Hawke wrote:wrathchild: that sounds like some fun as heck gaming! I love the hiding aspect, definitely can make for some good usage of non-combat skills and tactics.
That part was fun, yes, and I like it when skills other than the combat ones becomes crucial (even if it's mostly Stealth ;)).

Much of the latter part of the session was needed for character updating though, and while abilities were gained and cool stuff purchased/commissioned, that's just not quite as exiting as actual play ;).

Still, a nice little session :).
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trevor
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Post by trevor »

That was some good manoeuvring on your player's part, makes for a very action movie style experience :)
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Post by wrathchild »

New session from last friday. MapTool got to play a pretty central role.

I had decided that their new enemies from last time would send a demonic strike team to asassinate their sorry asses. The strike would take place in the characters' town house (in a city many leagues away from where the action took place the last time).

Only problem was - we never did those floor plans did we?

So the session started with us doing just those - the floor plans to the house. So we did up a little two-storey building with a cellar and an attic. They got the house they wanted and I got the death-trap I wanted, hehe.

Image

Now, I am fortunate to have mature and seasoned players, so they willingly "acted normal" and the PC's slept soundly apart in their individual rooms, which are spread out over all four stories (yes, the earth priest-former dungeon denizen lives in the basement).

Well, the demons - Seductor type things in unearthly beautiful human forms, with considerable magical and martial powers to match those of the PC's - entered, overconfidently so and not keeping especially quiet or hidden. Things came to a head on the second floor, as PC's came rushing in from above and below. They came in waves, and were thus more exposed to be taken out by the enemies as they arrived - which was almost what happened. Also, a critical spell failure that placed a very powerful protective spell on one of the demons, played a significant part, as the female demon got rendered impervious to metallic weapons. Oops! All PC's were out of their usual armour, of course.

The two PC's who lived on the second floor were the first to encounter the demonic team. Both PC's are fearsome warriors, and as they beat the natural enthrallment powers of the demons, they could proceed to battle. The male demon fared badly agains Baruk, a master fencer wielding dual rapiers, but the female had a significant edge against Niviena, who is a master swordswoman specializing in dual-wielding shortswords. Those swords passed right through the demon when they struck, and Niviena had to turn to unarmed combat, a weak aspect of her trainig. The demons had this as their speciality, and the female demon basically wiped the floor with the poor PC, throwing her into walls, pinning her to the floor and skewering her with mighty talons suddenly sprouting from the demon's hands. Niviena was soon out cold on the floor.

Next, another PC arrived from above. Lac is a martial artist and a match for the female demon, and he heroically jump-kicks at her ... and get's his leg grappled in the process, after which he get's the same treatment as Niviena, getting slammed back-first into a doorpost, then held to the ground while the demoness started carving him up. His traning (and luck!) enabled him to just keep hanging on, though, warding off some of the attacks (but still getting grieveously wounded).

The male demon has in the mean time tried to get hold of Baruk, but has flied and has taken significant wounds. So he goes for a big charming spell ... and Baruk fails to resist, becoming the willing slave of the demon (within some limits).

OK - three out of five PC's out - the players are starting to sweat here.

The last two PC's arrive, one from below and one from above. They start attacking the demoness who is in view, with little success. Lac is still fighting back, so he holds the attetion of the demoness, even if others are attacking her. He is risking death every moment, though, taking constant and serious damage.

Cormallen, an elf diplomat/fencer, learns of the spell protecting the demoness, and Levin's (the earth-priest) wooden staff seems all that can hurt the fiend.

Then the male demon orders Baruk into action - to neutralize Levin. This gives away his position to Cormallen though, who makes a mad dash around the corner from the stairs, and buries his saber deep into the body of the demon, ending his exisitence, as he was already grieveously hurt from his battle with Baruk. Baruk's enchantment is not ended though, and he disarms his friend, then runs to find healing for his fallen master.

But one demon is down, and three PC's are there to deal with the remainig one, even if one of them is at death's door.

Realising this, Lac feigns unconsciousness. As the demoness is otherwise under attack, she must attend to this, turning around. Lac quickly rolls away, out of more harms way. Cormallen and Levin try to harm the demoness, but make little headway, Cormallen having lost his sword. On the other hand, the demoness has been attacked many times now, and has been hurt some. Cormallen turns to taunting, calling the demoness' attention to her fallen mate. Seeing this has the surprising effect of snapping her out of her battle-frenzy, making her take a step back, and teleport (or something) out, with the name of her fallen mate on her lips.

Image

With several of the PC's seriously hurt, the group has to call on their patrons to get more healing assistance. Leg and arms have been broken badly, needing powerful restoring magics, and even if they have ressources available to them to mend, it is obvious that they have had a close call, and they have to delay their next mission some.

The rest of the session deals with character updating, something we have now decided must take place outside the sessions. The characters have become powerful and complicated, with equipment adding to the time needed to deal with. We are spending too much of our prescious time dealing with that.

But the battle was fun :)
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wrathchild
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Post by wrathchild »

After a session cancellation last month we were back into it. Followin the assassination attempt on the group, they travelled to Nuyan-Khôm to try and play a role in healing the internal divisions of that land, as official representatives of their homeland.

There was much intrigue and negotiations between the PC's, factions of the Khômi and another foreign power and ally that was present, but not much consensus was formed. The native council of nobles ended up sequestering themselves to debate.

And then the snakedemon-led ninja army struck.

The enemy had tried to cause the PC's to be comatose by magic, but they had protective amulets that burned themselves out saving their hides. Then they had a battle with the yuan-ti-like snakedemoness and a handful of her ninja cohorts, while the rest of the attackers invaded the palace where the council is debating.

The ninja were not so much a match for our crew, but the demon spewed fire and poison, and triggered some phobias in a PC or two, so it was an uphill struggle until the demoness made a tactical gamble ... and lost, her braincase pierced by a crossbow bolt.

The group then had to take a break to pump out their powerful healing magics once more to be able to continue ...

MT didn't fare to well this day, though I don't think it was really MT's fault. I hadn't had time to prepare the battle scene map (because of a serious computer mishap earlier this week), and when it became time to create it on the fly, to show that MT could do that too, MT was suddenly freezing and acting up with lag etc., so I probably had to much stuff running. We had to "revert" to a convetional battlemat. Sucks. Because of course later, MT would work fine again. Sheesh.

But the game was great and the battle as well.
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trevor
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Post by trevor »

Do you have the campaign file that was causing so much trouble ?
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wrathchild
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Post by wrathchild »

I've been thinking, and I have come to the hypothesis that it is not MT really causing the trouble, I think it's another program, GURPS Character Assistant, that I'm running at the same time - it's behaviour suggests that it is ressource intensive, and I really don't need it to be running. I'll do some testing and experiment with that next time.
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Post by Naryt »

wrathchild wrote:I've been thinking, and I have come to the hypothesis that it is not MT really causing the trouble, I think it's another program, GURPS Character Assistant, that I'm running at the same time - it's behaviour suggests that it is ressource intensive, and I really don't need it to be running. I'll do some testing and experiment with that next time.
The way I get around the GCA issue is to print my character sheets to PDF (using the free CutePDF) and then I open up the 15 or so sheets for the PCs and named NPCs. I still run GCA during my sessions for on the fly NPC work but, as I'm only dealing with one sheet in it at most it has a small footprint. The PDFs also only make a small ripple allowing me to run a server and client, web browser and email client in addition to the above PDFs and GCA with no problem and all on 1GB of RAM.
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