Aardvark's "What a Royal Pain" CotCT Campaign (Inactive)

Game Master Troy Malovich

Wow! Congratulations!

Whoa! Congratulations! Hope it all goes as smoothly as possible!

Adding this for clarity across all my games, as the question came up in another. I will be adding it to the house rules.

Okay, not sure where all I've mentioned it, as I know I might have touched on it in at least one of my games. I really should add it to the house rules.

I put a LOT of stock in the identification of treasure, to include the appraise skill. The methods exist, and should serve some purpose. RAW you may also ID potions with a perception check, and Scrolls with a Spellcraft. I personally, even as a player, dislike the handing out of a list of fully identified treasure.

By RAW, it takes a DC 20 appraise to determine the value of a 'common' item. Yet there is no real clarification of what equates to 'common'.

The way I do Appraise is based on the value of the item. The DC is based on the number of whole numbers in the real value.

For example:
1-9 gp items = DC 5
10-99 gp items = DC 10
100-999 gp items = DC 15
1,000-9,999 gp items = DC 20
Etc...

Keeping to RAW, if you beat it by 5 or more, you determine if it's magical.
If you fail by less than 5, I randomly determine the value up to +/- 20%
If you fail by 5 or more, I randomly determine the value up to +/- 80%

Common weapons, armor, and the adventuring gear portion of the CRB do not need to be identified. However, special materials items (Mithril, Silver, Adamantine, etc...), stuff like Alchemical items (Acid, Alchemist's Fire, Hol/Unholy Water, etc...), and Masterwork quality gear (to include tools), needs to be identified to be recognized as such.

This all may seem like a hassle, but I still think it's better than the two alternatives...

Knowing the value of everything automatically and making all the skills and spells useless
-or-
A DC 20 to determine the value of a common item. Longswords are pretty common.

Back -- though we're still adapting to having a newborn, so I'll be a little spotty.

My appraise is +8, so I'm not terrible at it.

I am copying this to all my games.

Sorry for late notice, but I am headed down the road to vacation for a week. Connectivity and availability may be an issue, so please bot for me rather than waiting too long. I will peek in if I can and normal posting is expected to resume in nine days.

I don't say this enough to the people in RL, let alone to my virtual friends, but I appreciate you and this game we share. Peace.

I'm traveling for a couple of days, so I might be a bit sparse on posting. But I'll be checking in.

I just wanted to apologize to all my games, especially the ones I'm running. I have been going through a bit of posting malaise, and don't want to burn out, or even worse quit. As such, I've just been trying to build up to posting. Just wanted to let you all know, I'm not gone, not leaving, just less than motivated at the moment. So, please bear with me. For my games, I expect to have a post up today.

I'm terribly sorry. The malaise is a mix of my ability to post at work being more limited than before, and sharing a single computer at home. When I get the chance to post, all the updates I need to make begin to feel daunting. I truly intend to return to my previous level of posting.

Hey, don't stress. This is supposed to be fun. Take your time, post what you can when you can. It will be great if and when you can get back to a posting rate you prefer, but don't let it get you down in the meantime. I'm fairly sure everyone that has played more than a month online has been there.

Peace.

I second what Feldivar said.

Me three

Fourth'd! =D

I'm traveling extensively for the next several weeks. I'll have internet access most days, but I might be sporadic due to time and schedule.
Happy New Year!

Heads up, I will be having cataract surgery tomorrow in one of my eyes. As such I will not likely be reading/writing much soon after. I may be silent this week (at the least).

10-4. Best wishes, I hope all goes well.

Wishing you all the best!

Best of luck, Aardvark!

Glad to see you're back, Aard. I hope everything went well and that you are recovering.

Thanks. It wasn't as bad as I thought. The only issue is I went from near-sighted to far-sighted, and now I have to get used to typing and reading at arms length instead of hands breadth. lol

Did they end up giving you the mono-vision thing, with one eye set up for each?

Right, forgot to say this earlier:

Will be away starting tomorrow until the end of the month (well, back the 31st, actually) -- feel free to bot Vyshael while I'm away. He's running low on spells but still has wands and a rather nice blade. ;)

(Though he's likely to want to use his shield wand before closing..)

I will likewise be away from any sort of connectivity starting Sunday 21st through Sunday 28th.

Feldy's next action will be to try to grease the scythe. After that, I trust in your judgment to keep him involved or not.

Hey, guys, my annual CabinCon trip has arrived and, come Thursday, I'll be heading up to a mountain cabin to DM a long-running D&D campaign for five old friends from college. There's no cell reception up there and no internets or phones, so I'll be entirely unavailable while I'm gone.

Heading out early Thursday morning and won't be back until Tuesday the 30th.

I'm back home. I'll wait on Raliscar to return on the 30th for my move. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Back and ready to go, though I'm all shield-y this round. ;)

Let's talk tactics for a moment. I know Neva's low on spells. Do we have healing potions/wands for Vyshael?

Rutter has mobility (+4) vs AoO and a quickdraw shield (+1) and can take total defense (+6) to try to draw her AoO so Vyshael and Neva can move out of her range.

We've got an eversmoking bottle - would that help us more than it would harm us? Concealment is 20% miss chance w/in 5 feet, or 50% miss chance further than 5 feet, and can't use vision to locate target.

I was thinking concealment negated critical hits, but it looks like it only negates sneak attacks. It does, however, let Rutter enter stealth without cover. Could offer her death by a thousand 1d3 cuts. Of course, it's probably dangerous to attack her with melee without reach, since she's clearly diseased.

Rutter also has a thunderstone, which could make it harder for her to cast spells - 20% chance to miscast spells with verbal components if she fails a DC15 Fort save to avoid being deafened (unlikely she'll fail, I'm guessing).

Do we have any other tricks?

I have wands to heal Vysh. I can probably take an AoO and survive. Especially if we can keep that scythe out of her hands. Maybe Rutter could do that?

I think the eversmoking bottle would hurt Raliscar more than her. Thunderstone sounds good.

I have a scroll of Hide from Undead, but it's a touch spell, she'd get a Will saving throw, and we'd lose the invisibility if even one of us attacked. Doesn't seem worth the action.

So, I'll focus on keeping everyone healed, Rutter takes her weapon, and we'll ablate her HP as best we can?

Does Feldivar have another grease spell he can cast? That could work too.

Her weapon is her hand, no longer a separate object. It grew into a long scythe-like claw.

Ahhhh. Nevermind then! =P

Oh I forgot. Rutter also has a tanglefoot bag. So that might help keep her out of reach for a round or two. (She's large, not huge, right?)

I have AC 22 but no effective attacks. My spells are probably not much help, but I can grease the ground at her feet all day long. I can also put Rutter invisible a few more times.

And I have wands of mage armor and cure light wounds (50% chance of success on UMD to use it) that might help someone.

Other than the above, I'm thinking my small heavy crossbow and acid splash are what I have to contribute. I presume we should split up before we find out she exhales a 10' spore cloud or similar area attack.

Sounds good. I think you're up first, Feldi.

Sorry guys, been dealing with a hospitalized father -- which makes me a bit of a slacker.

I wasn't really holding any magic back to deal with this, no -- but I do have the convenient temp hp from when I killed the priestess, so while I do like ideas that involve "heal Vysh", I'm not likely to cease to be in a single round -- plus, I've got a few more rounds of being big to deal with.

Traveling for the week, but booked a place with wifi. So, as long as my laptop cooperates, I should be able to post regularly. More than usual, potentially, given I have nothing much else to do after work each day. :)

Sorry, I had access, but it was very spotty, and wasn't reliable enough to not piss me off if I lost a post, not to mention I had less time that I thought. The combination of the two made my posting limited. Then, since my return, been busy catching up with work and plumbing issues at home.

Welcome back. I hope the plumbing issues aren't horrible.

Ever get that feeling in a game like the DM sees the TPK coming and doesn't really want to roll the dice? :-)

I think survivors might need to bolt if she's not out next round.

The only proper response.

Don't be silly. She's only going to kill Vysh, then the rest of you can finish her off. ;)

Our next characters can be inspired to take up arms by these characters' sacrifice.

Maybe after the last of us falls, the City Watch will arrive and finish her off. One of the sick patients managed to stumble out and fetch them. Too late to save us, but in time to finish her off and arrest Davalus.

Lol, Rutter, you must be a nice DM. I'd be all "Your failure leaves Korvosa prey to the evil of Urgathoa and the Queen. The few surviving citizens curse your names between hacking coughs and blows from their master's whips."

:-)

So sorry, time has been fleeting lately, but I will get a post up tomorrow morning I promise.

Ever get that feeling in a game like the DM sees the TPK coming and doesn't really want to roll the dice? :-)

I think survivors might need to bolt if she's not out next round.

Don't worry, I'm never plagued by crises of conscience such as these. :)

The dice will do what they do, and as players, when we choose for our characters to live by the dice, we choose to let them die by them.

A few of you were in my Shattered Star. Wasn't it that one where someone decided to just walk out the illusioned opening and fall like 120' into the water?

That 120' fall was freaking hysterical. I laughed so hard, but I remember the player not being too pleased. Then another PC jumped out to "save" him. My cleric Tanjvats had the ring of feather falling, jumped after both of them, with the first PC dead in the water and the second one in deep negatives. I saved him, I think.
The rest of the PCs were like "Why do all these people keep jumping off this ledge!?!? Is there a curse?!!?"

So funny!

Are we pretty much completely out of resources? There's a lot of door we didn't try along the way. Presumably there'd be nothing worse than the same relatively weak priests we fought along the way.

Yeah, I think we should open the last few doors. Let me do some IC healing first.

I'm almost totally out. Down to 1 shocking grasp and cantrips -- pearl of power and arcane bond used. 2 rounds of rage left.

That said, I can't imagine the skipped door is as bad as what we've faced -- and I did prepare Disrupt Undead -- plus I have a sword, arcane strike and a wand of shield.

My computer took a dump this week, been working on getting it back.

Well. This vampire seems a bit daunting, considering we've already (presumably?) fought the big enemy.

Did the designers think that players were going to rest in between encounters in this "dungeon"? I can't imagine how anyone could justify that in-character. They'd have to come to the conclusion that the place would be reinforced or relocated when they tried to come back 8 hours later.

Purely metagame, I don't think we can take on this encounter in our condition. Rutter would recognize that, and he would be able to walk away from this fight begrudgingly. He'd want to get the musician back, since he did say he'd try, but he could also go back and tell the sister that he's already dead. In Rutter's mind, walking away will doom somebody - if not this musician, then whoever the nosferatu gets to replace him for his experiments - but it can't be avoided, considering the party's not prepared for this encounter. Besides, ending the plague will save enough lives to assuage his conscience. "Hey, people die. Sometimes those people have sisters. We can't save them all. But a lot fewer people in this town will die because of what we did here tonight. That's gotta count for something."