Play by Forum: Hexplore It - The Sands of Shurax

Looking forward enough to participate? We’ve only got two people so far.

The only thing Tom hates more than play-by-forum games is Tabletop Simulator!

I also am not the biggest fan of either, but I want to Hexplore my curiosity about this game so I am also subscribing!

Heh, I wasn’t expecting Tom to join us. But y’all could!

I am also not a fan of TTS and I don’t own it. But I will play if I don’t actually need it myself!

Nah, strictly play by forum. I’m just using it to administer the game state so I don’t have to have it set up on my table for months and take photos.

@Thraeg, @Ormus - any thoughts as to Roles you might want to play? If you’re not already familiar with the game don’t worry too much about the finer details, mostly you just want a party spread between types of role: Strikers are DPS, Sappers are debuffers (and in particular, do a lot of damage to enemy energy, which limits their options as far as attacking - this hasn’t always been super high priority in older volumes but Sands has a keyword called Energetic that gives enemies with 50+% of their energy additional nasty effects), Healers are, you know, healers, Assists are kinda tanks/buffers, and Utility do various weird things that can help the group out. Also important to note, the party mostly acts collectively, except in combat. (Or there’s now a Merchant role who can split off, set up shops, and send hired goons to help out when the main party fights.) So supporting each other is helpful, solo capabilities irrelevant.

'mando’s contemplating a Striker, a Sapper, and an Assist, so one of those roles can be covered already.

Also, Healers are very much not mandatory, if that was a worry for anyone. They can be very good, but they’re the least common role overall and many of my games of Hexplore It have not had one.

I’d like to join up, provided the group can tolerate absences/pauses every so often. I often camp on the weekends, and If the game extends until late June, I’ll be in Costa Rica and mostly incommunicado for a couple of weeks.

I almost always play a tank in MMOs, so maybe I’d like to do an Assist class if you’ll have me. If my inconstancy would mar the group’s experience, I’m content to subscribe and observe.

I think in this particular game it’s probably fine as long as you don’t mind things going on without your input sometimes. Like I say, I’m not sure how much it even makes sense as a PBF yet since the most control individual players have is during combat and that’s probably too slow to resolve turn by turn on the forum. But eh. I want to give it a shot starting with the approach I discuss above, and if y’all feel like you’re not getting to make meaningful decisions we can always adjust.

I should also offer the option of just getting dealt a random Role of a type as well, or having me pick (I’ll probably just go with a Sands Role because theme and new content, if so).

The Trap Specialist looks fun, I could go with that.

I am familiar with the rules, but not any tied to SoS specifically. I will check the rules out tomorrow (I am on UK time).

I like the Warden, but in the spirit of theme, I’d choose the Whip Master.

That makes me lean toward Dervish to make sure we’ve got a Striker onboard. I wouldn’t say no to one last person taking a Healer slot, but like @malkav11, you can absolutely make it through without one. At least in VotDK and FoA, there was sort of an invisible threshold of power you’d cross midgame that you rarely if ever felt especially threatened beyond (assuming you were keeping difficulty within a couple of ranks of default, like we did).

I’m happy to play the Templar if @Thraeg wants to play an Assist or Sapper.

@Thraeg ? We are apparently waiting on you, man.

Oh, sure, I’ll try a Sapper then.

OK, if @Thraeg is a Defilist or whatever, would it be better for me to be a Whipmaster or a Templar? What do you think @malkav11 and @ArmandoPenblade?

I’ve been watching the Rolling Solo playthrough videos to get an idea about the rules.

Do what you’d rather play. They all work, and the SoS ones have a few specific tricks to interact with the SoS systems, too.

Do you have a specific preference or would you rather leave it up to me?

Ok, I’ll be the Whipmaster then just because I really like the peacock feathers

No preference at this point. I’m open to trying whatever.

I’ll have more time to do initial setup, fill out stats, etc later but for now, presenting our party:
@Matt_W as the Empowered Troll Whip Master


@Ormus as the Metabolic Shifter Trap Specialist

@Thraeg as the Headstrong Drian Psion

and @ArmandoPenblade as the Resonant Fairy Dervish

Please feel free to come up with names and elaborate backstories for your doom…I mean, valiant adventurers.

Edit: Okay, calculated the numbers, and put them in this spreadsheet.

Before you do anything else in the game, you can spend any or all of your ten starting gold on Gear Upgrades for your stats. Abilities start at 4 gold for the first Rank you purchase as Gear, and go up 1 gold each time from there. Skills, 3 gold etc. Vitals, 2 and up. (The ring around each stat is the gear ranks and their costs.)

General thoughts: y’all suck at skills. Especially survival. Holy shit. Three of you kind of really need survival (well, 2 of you if our Metabolic Trap Specialist can get some Metabolic ranks going) or you’re going to be starving in the Wastes constantly. (Speaking of which, you might want to save some gold for buying rations - they’re 2 gold plus a surcharge from whichever Caravan Master is at the nearest Caravansary, or just 2 at a city bazaar. Up to y’all, though - some enemies also drop food and most will drop gold.) Mando, you’re kind of unprepared for this whole frontline fighting gig with a whole 1 point of attack and 3 health. Thraeg, you really want to get at least one more point of Ectoplasmic Growth because you don’t get to actually get any Mutations when you use it until you have 3 points of it. Which, you would normally start with, but…you’re Headstrong. Tough luck! Let me know which gear if any y’all would like to grab. Keep in mind after this you won’t be able to buy gear usually except in City-States, and they’ll only offer specific stats.

For our spectators, a quick breakdown of what all this means:
Hexplore It characters start with a Role sheet, which defines baseline stats, including Abilities (Attack, Defense, and two unique Masteries, all with Role-specific names, which are primarily used in combat but Masteries may have some out of combat utility.), Skills (rolled every turn to navigate in the correct direction, possibly locate miscellaneous resources, and forage for enough food to spare one’s nonperishable food reserves; as well as being used for Missions and other stat tests), and Vitals (health and energy, the former self explanatory, the latter a resource primarily used to activate Masteries and some Racial abilities). There is also a section for recording derived stats - masteries will often have effects based on how many ranks you have in your Abilities, things you pick at certain ranks or similar. And Attack Abilities have a couple other associated icons indicating whether they do just Health damage or can optionally do Energy damage or Outlast damage instead (in this party the Psion and Whip Master can choose to do Energy damage, and the Psion can choose to do Outlast damage). Nobody in this group has it, but certain Roles in Sands of Shurax have a gold icon on their Defend ability that indicates that they are better at Bribing bribable encounters and Caravan Masters. And some Forests of Adrimon roles can optionally attempt to Influence enemies to their side. (If that enemy has an Influence rating.).

The Whip Master is a control specialist who can bind an enemy in their whip to injure them and potentially sustain an ongoing effect that reduces the enemy’s available actions and later gives allies a damage boost against that enemy while the effect continues. They can also electrify the whip to do damage, at higher ranks,reducng the enemy’s number of targets that round and also boosting allied damage.

The Trap Specialist lays damaging traps for the enemy and they do extra damage (at later ranks, permanently improved) when they correctly guess enemy actions, and can also exert control over the enemy’s actions.

The Psion can always do two different actions on a combat round at a potentially significant energy cost, can spontaneously manifest temporary Mutations (a new mechanic in Sands of Shurax) for the duration of combat, and can lay mental traps for the enemy to heavily energy damage and debuff the enemy if they guess the enemy’s action correctly, at later ranks also buffing party skill rolls triggered by those enemy actions.

(You may notice a pretty freaking strong synergy between these three classes.)

The Dervish can reduce damage dealt to them whenever they spend energy in combat, make multiple attacks per round, and self-buff to be more evasive and opportunistically gain extra damage during combat when they evade. (No synergies here, but pretty strong abilities nonetheless.)