Ask Arkanis

[Lockonnow]

yes but the city council /government know and the city about the The Iron Throne what they stan for so on till the dark plot have come to light and all of the evil member of Iron throne is dead city council/government,can now take the control of Iron throne and let it continued as merchant organization.

well was it the plan of savork the bhaalspwrn to start the war so he could be the new lord of murder

Ps there can allways be dark plot every ever in the sewer in the stars

[Simian]

Does the "Gruff" ability of Battlerager really give penalty to all charisma based skills? (Mainly worried about my cross-class UMD for wands, and Perform picked up for UMD.)

In PnP the penalty only applies for social skills.

[Azmodeth]

Q: Do you play any other games ? And if so which ?

Q: how did you start playing NWN2, did you play NWN1 ?

Q: How much experience do you have PnP wise ?

Q: What would you say is the single largest time consuming thing a DM like yourself has to do when they are online?

Q: What is one of your pet - peaves when playing/ DMing in BGTSSC?

[Hitman Hard]

What are the long term effects of mist leaf?

[DM Arkanis]

All good points Lockonnow. Our server has about six or so years in real time to catch up to this time line in terms of FR DR reckoning for where the Iron Throne is first known and nearly thirty years in real time to catch up to where they are in terms of trying to be a major political factor. I honestly dont see it being a real thread in terms of our RP in the long term, although I plan on playing this game forever.

[DM Arkanis]

Hitman - are you refering to the Mist Leaf seed/flower in Harvest Moon Otaku?

To the best of my knowledge the leaf in this game has no effect other than for RP/game purposes.

[DM Arkanis]

Montaron - good question, I'll ask you to throw that one over to the DM team as a whole as I don't know the specifics of the class IG vs. PnP.

That said, remember that as a Battlrager, Charisma is not really one of the skills that your character is counting on to help her out. She will find herself in a situation (or ten) where she is surrounded by enemies, ournumbered and hopeless, but will draw upon that inate battleranger sense to get her out of the situation. When you build your battleranger, IMHO you would not put a lot of points in CHA but rather focus on STR or CON as main stat attributes.

Characters with 13 or more points in UMD generally avoid the penalties or downside to negative stats (I have a toon with a 6 CHA that has 13 in UMD and does just fine.) If you also have points in perform (I am assuming because you are multi-classed with Battleranger) then you may have some issues as it relies on your CHA modifier heavily. Best advice - find an item that gives you a CHA bonus as high as you can get - I believe a Nymph Cloak can be +3 but there may be others as well, and take your chances when it comes to CHA based abilitiy or stat rolls - one of the negatives to the Battlerager class.

Ark

[Hitman Hard]

No in the first Eravis Cale book- some of the scummers in the first bar scene with Vraggen, Az, and Dolgan were using it and i was curious.

[DM Arkanis]

Azmodeth:

1. Other than Word With Friends, Scrabble, and the weekly Angry Birds Tourny on FB, this is the only game I am currently playing. I was level 2600 or so on Mafia Wars on FB when I realized it was not for me and left. That said, in a right mood, you will find me online on XBOX for COD... I'll let you guess my handle there.

2. How did I get started with NWN2? Well it actually started with NWN1 and a very good, long time friend of mine IRL who begged me to play. He lives in a city about 5h from where I live and he figured it would be a good way for us to stay in touch. There are a few VOIP possibilities out there and we could chat that way and play the game. Needless to say, he got busy with RL stuff (he has a 6 and 4 yr old now) and I ended up befriending a friend of his, becoming a DM, buying out the server, and running the whole show for about 2yrs...

3. I have been a DM, PnP-wise for 32 years. I have written my own modules/campaigns, been to GenCon (won an award there too), played PnP with some very well known people in the DnD world, and basically been involved in the game in some way shape or form since I took the plastic off of my brand new, "Basic D and D" set I got when I was 10. I still play PnP although the updated v4.0 version because my friends dont want to spend hours rolling up characters and getting their stats just right. I have a copy of the original DMG signed by E Gary Gygax in which he adds some notes about DM's having the final say about things even though the rules may say otherwise... lol!

4. The largest time consuming thing I find as a DM is the multitude of questions I get when I am on. I honestly try to answer everyone, but sometimes there are too many questions/requests and not enough time to answer. Sometimes the requests are for appearance changes, sometimes because players have issues with quests, or sometimes players get stuck - yes, stuck and cannot move. These kind of housekeeping items do take up a lot of a DMs time, but that said, I do log on without having anything else in mind just so I can help out. There are times (like today) where I am on for hours (6.5 or so today) and have very few requests. This enables me to mess around a bit with the DM client and figure out things like how to move large numbers of NPC's, how to use a catapult, how to do mass-area effect spells, etc.

5. My biggest pet peeve, hands down, no question... lol! is, that when as a DM you are trying to port to someone or port them to you, that when someone logs on or off, the list of players you are scrolling through resets to the top and you have to start all over again... this is especially frustrating when there are multiple log on and outs within say, a 20 second span... believe me I have been tempted to make a shout to players a time or two but I realize the futility in it, and just go with the flow in the end. Any kind of porting we do requires very specific attention, and things like the list resetting or multiple player requests/comments/making fun of Arkanis things coming in at the same time certainly adds to my aggrevation. If you ever get a PM from me saying I am coming to get you, log right away... lol! kidding

[DM Arkanis]

No in the first Eravis Cale book- some of the scummers in the first bar scene with Vraggen, Az, and Dolgan were using it and i was curious.

OK I will email Paul Kemp and ask him if he has any ideas. It is a really vague reference and I am not sure he had any specific effect in mind. I would assume <ahem> that it has similar properties to any other hallucinagenie leaf. Let me get back to you on this.

Ark

[DM Arkanis]

Hey Hitman - this is the email I have from the author of the Erivis Cale books:

Arkanis,

Hi! Nice to hear from you and please say howdy to all the folks on the board.

As for mist leaf: It is typically dried and smoked (for a more intense effect) or, less often but more cheaply, chewed in its raw form. I think of it has having an effect similar to that of Khat (chewed in parts of Africa and the Middle East). It's a stimulant that produces a sense of euphoria (or, when the effect is more intense, an out of body experience) and is moderately addictive.

Hope that helps!

Paul Kemp

[Hitman Hard]

My thanks! That's so cool, how fast he responded.

[Bobthehero]

I love the idea of a fencing school, especially if you as a player have some IRL knowledge about fencing. I think that you could RP around the game dynamics too (i.e. you could train Finess in light swords, be a Swashbucklers training centre, etc.) You could probably have a lot of fun RPing this and would attract some flamboyant charcters (I'm thinking like the Three Muskateers.)

I say, run with it.

I have little knowledge, but I did find a place where I am planning to go, along with a copy of the IS.33 manuscript.

It would be open to all martial styles, I said fencing because its the first word that sprung to mind, but the character I want to establish the school with is a fighter/WM, and I'd really like to play the ''Master'' part of Weapon Master.

[Considerate_]

Do clerics speak comprehensible phrases/prayers and invoke their deities name with each spell casting, or is it akin to arcane magic where it's pretty much just unintelligible words put together?

[DM Arkanis]

Good question Considerate_

In the game if you have your speakers up and listen, the spells (magical and clerical) all have some verbal component to them. Now, that said, I have no idea which language, "Your dee to ex" is but voila, the spell is cast.

In the PnP version of the game it depends on the DM I think - how much detail do you incorporate into our RP? Should spellcasters carry material spell components? Do you make the party carry food and water? etc. I did play in a group once where the DM made the spell casters actually say some words to their spells and used them saying it as their initiative - it was kinda cool but took ages for us to do anything game-wise.

In real life there are many religions that practise chanting, but in language and in non-sensical words although I believe this is mostly related to prayers rather than casting spells. In an article I read about Wicca, they do make up spells and cast them using language and material components combined with ritual. Again, there is some chanting here, but spells have specific purpose - healing, banishment, curses, etc. and are generally not used like the spells in NWN2 are.

I have seen players emote after casting, "Tymora be with us!" or some such phrases to give emphasis to their casting (but with no real effect) and to enhance RP.

Ark