GM alientude's Shackled City
Game Master Kyle Smith 700

GM alientude casts raise dead on the campaign.

So, real life has cleared up some time for me again, and if players are interested, I'd love to get this game going again. I'm sending private messages out to all the players, and hopefully Shackled City will start up again soon.

I'll have to look things back up, but definitely interested.

I've been summoned?! Huzzah!

Yay!

Hail the conquering heroes?

I hung my pbping hat so have fun all. Besides, I picked up te hardcover and have almost read through the whole thing. Thanks for the reminder, GM.

So no Dreygard, and I haven't heard back from Dorian. Luc PM'd me to say he's interested with some changes to Luc (he used the character in another PBP, so the name has to change, if nothing else). That brings the party from 7 to 5.

Diurn -> cleric
Adolphus -> fighter
Luc(?) -> gunslinger
Darthal -> druid
Valamont -> magus

That looks like a pretty solid party to me. It might be a good idea to bring in one more player to round it out at 6 characters. What do you guys think?

A trap-finder/disabler would probably be quite handy to have along.

I am back, aka Luc Theriot, with a change of name.

A trap finder would be good, but keep in mind that every player means more time waiting per post. I have no preference one way or the other.

With this particular dungeon, I'd say we definitely need a trap/secret door finder.

Some of us are 1st level and some 2nd, correct? I was planning on taking a level of rogue at 2nd level, if that helps, unless you guys were thinking of a pure rogue.

Everybody should be 2nd level.

If you guys want to DMPC Dreygard to help get through the current stuff be my guest.

Luc is now 2nd level and he has Perception +9 vs. traps and +10 to disable (more if we find a thieves' kit).

I'll leave it up to the players if you want to find another character or dive back in with what you've got.

I'm cool with giving it a go as is. If it's too much for us to handle we can also try recruiting then.

Likewise. Let us go forward boldly (but not too boldly)

I'm ready, waiting for GM to advance game.

Forgot to post letters/numbers to make referencing squares easier, sorry. Next map will have it.

Update coming soon. Regarding Adolphus's suggestion about initiative, I like the general idea. I'll be taking the average Initiative bonus for each group.

The new map will have coordinates!

I realized after reading chill touch in detail where my confusion came from. I was mixing it up with frostbite! I also learned that both of those spells grant 1 charge per caster level, so the 2nd hobgoblin would have actually been EXTRA dead and my last charge would have been expended.

Nifty!

Where is everybody?

Busy weekend. Update will come tonight.

I hope you guys roll like I did. You're going to need it.

Holy crap, Kazmojen! I think that dude can one shot any of us with minimum damage. Yikes!

Guess we should have explored more so we could be 3rd level instead of 2nd when facing him.

Wow. That dude is a champ. Darthal could take a hit from him, but just one. The rest of us would be pancaked in all likelihood.

I love that this fight is so terrifying though. With kidnapped children at stake, I think doing anything other trying to get to this point as quickly as possible would have been a bit meta-gamey, you know? Alientude also did a great job bringing in Fellian and Fario just in the nick of time. If we can thin the numbers of all the non-Kazmojens on the field, maybe staggered channels and cure spells can keep us going. DM's right though, a great round of high dice rolls will really help us out at this point.

Yeah, the geography of the room is also not helping, with 2 players inside and one 5' wide entrance. We're in trouble here!

I actually tried to give several in-game hints about how long it would take you to explore Jzadirune, how big it was, etc. You guys were very gung-ho, however, and have practically bee-lined to this encounter right from the start of Jzadirune.

Well, when one runs a dungeon that is not absolutely linear, there is always the chance that the PCs will run into sections in a different order than is expected.

And, yes, we are trying to rescue kidnapped kids, not trying to map everything in strict linear fashion.

Look at the bright side, if we beat this encounter we'll definitely be level 3. :)

Lesson learned. Save the troll for last in a long battle.

You guys are doing far better than I expected. Some critical good rolls have gone your way. Let's see how it wraps up. Just waiting on actions from Darthal and Adolphus (weekend probably prevented them from posting). Will update tomorrow evening.

I'm pulling for you to win just as much as you are.

Adolphus is still unconscious, but he is stable.

Was at 3hp and channeled for 3 then 4 then 4 to get to 14 before getting hit for 6 by porcupine then by the troll, then channeled for 5 and had the other cleric channel.

Lucky I was still on the ground so I didn't have far to fall.

If we were fighting only 1 creature, I could pull him off you, Diurn. But no such luck this time around.

I *highly* recommend we all aid Adolphus' attack rolls once he's able to close in on Kazmojen again. A couple of +2's from us and a flanking bonus and our fighter might be able to land a couple more devastating blows on this schmuck!

Especially considering I have to roll an 18 or higher to hit, as it is. The +2s could help me use power attack.

Despite the difficulties inherent in pbp combats, I have *loved* this one! Spending every single round completely terrified that Kazmojen would one-shot me added some considerable risk to basically every decision. It looked so bleak from the outset too.

I think this falls into that tremendous category of fights that can swing from victory to TPK with the roll of a die. Like this fight took every resource and bit of cleverness we had and really pushed us to our limits. (I'm really glad the Durzagon didn't show up mid-fight!)

I had a lot of fun with this encounter, alientude. A *lot* of fun!

Dart heal was very definitely trying to figure out ways to run if things went bad... Fortunately they turned around.

Though the Durzagons may yet make trouble for us.

Sorry for lack of update - emergency tooth extraction + root canal takes a great deal of time and energy. Will update when I can.

Ouch. Hope things improve soon.

(On another note, I mostly hate #%#%!@$ iPad autocorrect.)

This was an awesome fight DM.

I thought we were done for. I have been happy building a super specialized support cleric has turned out quite well. I felt truly useful this battle (thanks to the timely channeling by our ally).

As did I, aside from the stupid initiative idea. But apparently thats one of those things that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

Kazmojen was difficult, I agree. Ding?

I was as scared for you guys as you were.

So, initiative. How would you guys like to do it in the future? I actually liked the way it went in this battle, although a little fine-tuning for aid anothers might be a good idea.