Emma (M)’s Comments (group member since Dec 02, 2014)

Emma (M)’s comments from the Nothing But Reading Challenges group.

I have similar goals for this year. I too am wanting intermingle classics with my modern reading. I have a list of classics that I've been wanting to read and have decided to sta..."

I am the same. I decided last year that I wanted to read more classics. I often find classics difficult to read though, so I listen to them on Audible. If I find a good narrator, it really helps me. Juliet Stevenson narrations of Jane Eyre and Middlemarch were two of my favourites.

11. What power would you want to have Jamie’s ability that is a little bit of everything but with some precog or Lauren’s ability with the mind and telepath? Of if not one of those what other “witchy” ability would you want?
I think I would actually like the healing power that has mentioned.

12. Nat and Jaime, the vision in precog of the child. Do you think it will come true?
I hope so!

13. Lauren apparently has very strong mind talents that she isn’t aware of using. Do you think she will be able to learn how to control them? What do you see happening to her in the future?
I think she will eventually be able to control them, and when she does I think she will become very important within the witch community.

14. The POV (Point of View) tends to shift a lot in thought from character to character. Do you like the style of POV?
I don't mind the swap in POVs, it keeps the story fresh for me.

Zee, there is already some discussion started on the Days of Bood and Starlight if you wanted to start earlier if you don't want to wait until the second week of Jan.

The 20th is good for me Elena. Did you want to do Divergent first and then Ancillary Justice after, say 28th January?

I have read to Chapter 10 as well. The chapters are really quick in this book, which is probably why there are over 80 of them!

(view spoiler)[ I don't think Karou is dead either, and I reckon that she is the one killing angels in revenge, but you are right that it is too soon to tell.

I am really enjoying Zuzana's part of the book, especially the emails - I love her sense of humour. (hide spoiler)]

Glad to have you back Erin!

Boo for going back to work. I am back on Tuesday as well. grumble, grumble, work seriously takes time away from my reading.

My opinion would be that it wouldn't attack back. Your first attack killed it, so technically it wouldn't be able to. I think that's why they put weekly caps on killing the common monsters because once the Heroes started to level they would be so easy to kill, we could just kill craploads of them one after another for XP.

Yay ST!

Yeah, that's a really good idea, I think you might be starting a trend.

Stephen King is proving to be very useful for these long reads :). Looks like an interesting story - but then he usually comes up with interesting stories.

Maybe wait a day to see if anyone else claims the 751-900 category before starting, just to make sure.

I don't think so. I think that is the only category yet to be filled.

That would be great Elena. I am a bit full at the start of this month, but anytiime after te 20th January would be great. Does end of Jan work for you?

Kelly, it would have been a really hard one to write up, its like having to explain World of Warcraft, in a just a few posts :)

Its a great challenge, it mixes my love of games (which I don't get to play anymore) and love of books into one awesome challenge :)

6. So a tall, hot and totally strange man approaches you during lunch, serves himself, and sits at your table. How will you react?
I would probably be a bit shocked. But I wouldn't run screaming from the restuarant.

7.Yeah, right. Put an image of you surrounded by models, that will totally conquer the girl. Am I the only one that keeps expecting something drastic to appear? Maybe is Harry Potter's trip to the zoo with the snake incident that ruined the "discovering I'm a witch" for me.
Yeah, I am waiting for Lauren to have that moment, where she knows without a doubt. But it just ain't happening at the moment.

8.What about the testing? Lauren was finally starting to freak out. I'm wondering what other powers besides the mind typed ones she will have.
It would be interesting if she did have other powers, something more tangible than mind powers would help her accept the situation I would think.

9. Wow. So Jamie found her soul-mate in Nat. And Lauren caught the backlash. And unusually well according to Jamie. What do you think about this turn of events?
I was happy at this turn of events as it is a twist on what appeared to be going to be a Jamie/Lauren love match. I do like it when you don't see storyliines coming a mile away.

10. Following Kelly's question, what do you think about the characters so far?
There are no characters that I dislike, but I don't think there has been enough personality development to be drawn in by any particular character.

Yeah, it is sort of one of those things that once it clicks, you've got it. I think it is just an info overload to start.

Snowtulip wrote: "Emma wrote: "So for those girls who were interested in the role playing challenge, but were a bit put off by the complexity, I thought you might like to know that once you get the hang of it, it's ..."

Sorry in advance for the long post.

Ok, so monster battles are just a way for your hero to increase his Experience Points (XP for short). Your hero needs to accumulate XP in order to progress his level. The higher his level, the more maximum Health Points he accumlates, which help him to fight higher level monsters.

For instance, your hero starts as a Hero Level 1 with 10 maximum health points. To get your Hero to level 2, you need to accumulate 5 XP through completing quests or killing monsters. Once he has reached level 2 he receives 12 maxinum health points.

Now, you can attempt to kill a monster at any time, as long as you have enough HP and attack points to make it through the fight. (Monsters have HP points and attack points like the hero does).

Attack points are accumulated through the levelling up of your weapons (Staff and Sword). The higher the level of your weapons, the higher your attack points are.

To give you an example, I decided I wanted to gain some XP quickly in order to level my hero to the next level (level 2), which requires 5 XP. I had gained 3 XP from completing the 'Introduce yourself' quest, so I only needed 2 more XP points to level my hero to 2.
I gained a further 1 XP from another quest, so I only need 1 more to progress my Hero to the next level.

To achieve this I decided to battle a sewer rat. For every attack point my weapon had, the equal number of points would come off the Sewer Rat's health points. So if I attack a Sewer Rat with 5 health points with my sword (that has 2 attack points), his health points then reduce to 3. Once its health points are 0, the Sewer Rat is dead and the hero gets 1 XP for killing it.

Of course, the Sewer Rat doesn't just sit and take the attack until you kill it, the Sewer Rat will fight back. So after your hero makes his first attack, the Sewer Rat will counter attack. So if the Sewer Rat has an attack level of 3, you will lose 3 points off your Health Points.

So, for my battle, the Sewer Rat's and Hero's stats were as follows:

Sewer Rat: 3 Attack, 5 HP, Reward: 1 Experience
vs
Level 1 Mod Hero - Level 0 Staff (2 Attack) Level 0 Sword (2 Attack) 10 HP

And the battle looked like this:

Hero attacks Sewer Rat with Level 0 Magic Staff (2 attack):
Sewer Rat: 5 HP - 2 attack = 3 HP remaining

Sewer Rat attacks Hero (3 attack):
Hero: 10 HP - 3 attack = 7 HP remaining

Hero attacks Sewer Rat with Level 0 Sword (2 attack):
Sewer Rat: 3 HP - 2 attack = 1 HP

Sewer Rat attacks Hero (3 attack):
Hero: 7 HP - 3 attack = 4 HP remaining

Hero attacks Sewer Rat with Level 0 staff (2 attack):
Sewer Rat: 1 HP - 2 attack = Death

Reward: 1 Exp: after battle hero has 4HP | 4XP

Anyway, the higher your hero and his weapons level, the higher the level of monster you can battle. The aim of the game is to level your hero and his weapons high enough so that you can fight the ultimate battle with the Great Novel Dragon and get your name in the NBRC Newsletter as the 'Great Novel Dragon Slayer' and also receive a place in the hall of fame.

some additional info. There are several different types of monster:
Common Monsters (unlimited number, so you can kill them over and over again, with a week cooloff in between each battle. There are several types of Common Monster, so you can battle all the different types once per week)
Uncommon Monsters (limited number, once you have killed the number of monsters of each type listed, you cannot kill anymore)
Rare Monsters (only one of these, you can only kill it once).

Also, I think the healing potions that you get from the healing quest can be used during battles where you run out of HP mid battle. They will give a big hit of HP in one go. Whereas the general heal can be completed anytime, likely after a battle to top up HP and could probably be classed as a heal over time since you get 1 HP per book you read for it.

Well they still contribute to the total number of books for the mini challenge, which is the most important thing. The more books the better!

Why don't they count?

V Audio Nerd wrote: "Whoop Whoop ! Finished ......and that ladies pulls us up into 4th place !!!"

Wow, that's awesome! We're slowly crawling our way up :)