Illiam Taal |
I definitely want to continue. My slow posting has been partially due to being in crunch time to get my latest book out the door (now done, and you guys might be interested (edit: or horrified) to know that the image on the cover is a probability model comparing the possible outcomes of rolling different numbers of dice), but the lack of anything to respond to has been at least as big a factor.
If Baradim hasn't checked in in two weeks I think we'd be justified in continuing without him until he does. Maybe come up with some crisis (off the top of my head, it could be something with his father) that he has to take care of, and that will take an undetermined amount of time.
Chrometatron, Avatar of Crayola |
Great Crayola is our shepherd; we have all the colors we want.
We lie upon the floor with coloring books; we sit at the table for finger-painting.
He enhances our blank pages, our line art he makes alive.
He leads us in the way of vivid hues, for Crayola he is.
Yea though mathematics loom upon every side, we shall not fear, for Crayola is with us.
His crayon box and palette do comfort us, for his truths are simple.
He has prepared an art studio with room for us, despite extravagant rental fees.
Our faces are anointed with paint spatters, our brush cups are easily tipped over.
Surely art class and playtime shall be ours till the end of time, and we shall stay in his studio forever.
MendedWall12 |
Okay, that's four of six saying continue, so let's definitely keep going. I like Illiam's suggestion to invent a crisis for Baradim, good narrative excuse there. Does anybody besides Baradim have Survival trained...? Just wondering, for this particular module it's not as important as it was for the one previous. There's actually a module element that provides for the contingency that the group doesn't have anyone trained in Survival. Elsewise, I could just run one of the NPC's like Ardan Bonsimund the Ranger as a GM NPC for a bit if the group wanted it? Having said that, I think the best way to push this forward is to have everybody meet back up at Jak's to be apprised of the situation with Kimi's disappearance? Shall I force that issue with some narrative push, or wait for you all to get there organically?
Illiam Taal |
Btw, wrt the question of opening up recruitment, I think we're still fine with 5. The imbalance toward arcane casters will be even greater, but we still have two characters spec'd for melee, so I think we'll be ok as long as the GM remembers that we're less OP than we once were when considering making adjustments to encounters ;)
MendedWall12 |
Btw, wrt the question of opening up recruitment, I think we're still fine with 5. The imbalance toward arcane casters will be even greater, but we still have two characters spec'd for melee, so I think we'll be ok as long as the GM remembers that we're less OP than we once were when considering making adjustments to encounters ;)
Having seen the way you handled everything I threw at you at level one, I don't see anything in this campaign that will even present a real challenge. Some of the encounters I looked and thought, "hmmmm, they'll probably be done with this before the first round of initiative is even over." :) But, yes, of course, I will make sure to keep in mind the lack of a Paladin and Hunter as I GM.
MendedWall12 |
Just to chip in a bit more to that line of thinking:
If we continue without Baradim, we're effectively losing half of our current frontline power -- Kanga has been a huge contributor.
That's why you picked up the chain shirt and the darkwood longspear though, right? :P
Like I said if you want me to run Ardan as a GM NPC, I'd be happy to do that. He's gots a bear companion...
Illiam Taal |
I'm not playing one of those frontline characters, so I'll defer to Syrus and Goruck, but for my part I don't think it's necessary. A wall like Goruck plus a reacher like Kairon is probably enough with three arcane casters behind them. Might want him just for one level though, since at level 2, we will have the same hit dice restrictions on spells as at level 1, but we'll be up against stuff with more of them. Once we all have second-level spells in the mix, the arcane casters will be more able to hold their own.
Chillel |
I think the best way to push this forward is to have everybody meet back up at Jak's to be apprised of the situation with Kimi's disappearance? Shall I force that issue with some narrative push, or wait for you all to get there organically?
Well, Chillel and Illiam have just left Jakk's to go to the butcher's house to see if Kimi is actually missing. If you post what happens when we arrive we can have a reason to get going pretty soon.
One thing that would hold things up is we don't have the writ [I think that is what it is] that allows us in the High Town to collect the others.
Illiam Taal |
We can fastforward that part of the timeline a little and have them meet the others as they are leaving Jak's
Goruck of the Stone |
You use the nicest adjective's Illiam. I feel confident in my ability to frontline, either running damage or sheer defense w/ our tower shield. My survival is there, but a +3 is hardly amazing.
However, if you squishies feel at risk, I have no issue with Ardan joining us. I do agree with one more level giving us enough staying power to stand alone.
Dolok Pickering |
Sorry I have been a bit lax in posting lately as well. Truly due to a lack of interest on my part due to no real activity in the game. I guess the 'newness' of role-playing has done worn off on me and no longer quite so fun. I have a tendency to prefer action. That being said I would definitely like for this game to continue! I will make an effort to post more frequently. I'm just having a little trouble balancing my time between this game, my PBP campaign, another PBP I'm in (Though I have been ignoring that one even more so than this one!) and my tabletop games, my new PS4, and of course RL. Not to mention that at my job we just started completely new computer programs for both the customers and the employees, so Monday we were swamped in calls, most of the day having more than 100 calls in the queue. And that's with roughly 100 reps on the phone.
Yes, loosing Baradim and Kanga sucks! Though I interacted very little with either, I really liked Kanga!
I think we can give it a try with the party as is.
Chillel |
You know what I've always wondered? Why are the herrings red? I mean, they could be blue, or silver, right? :P
I once ran a campaign in a world of my own devising [well, not exactly a world] which was mostly ocean with islands floating on top. There, all the herrings were red.
Illiam Taal |
You know what I've always wondered? Why are the herrings red? I mean, they could be blue, or silver, right? :P
Herrings aren't naturally red. They are reddened by curing or smoking. This also makes them smell strongly, and a reddened herring can be used to distract a dog tracking by scent, (and are often using in training them for tracking).
Chillel |
Ah, so that is why we have the expression.
Herrings, red or otherwise, can also be employed to cut down trees.
Syrus Terrigan |
Nice work with that description, Mended. I feels it.
Have you changed the map yet? I ask because I haven't seen a change in the last couple "Battle Grid" loads I've tried. I thought you said you were going to change it some time back . . . .
Real life slowing us down still, it seems, but we're still in it! :)
Dolok Pickering |
Listen, I'd love to take credit for the great description but that was all directly out of the module. Modules... making GM's look great since 1975. :P
Hahaha! Yeah, though if the DM doesn't pay attention they can sometimes make you seem the fool as well, such as a 10 ft x 10 ft room, having a 'gargantuan' sized creature inn it? That actually happened to me in one campaign.
And I'm wondering here ... the only 'edifice' still standing is a stone archway? I'm fairly certain an archway does not qualify as an edifice? Or am I understanding that incorrectly?
Chillel |
Dolok is quite right. An edifice is a large, imposing building and a staircase doesn't qualify.
Dolok Pickering |
Dolok is quite right. An edifice is a large, imposing building and a staircase doesn't qualify.
Thanks for backing me up, but ... now I'm curious, where do you get the staircase from?
Chillel |
The staircase is just a random example of something that isn't an edifice.
And not a lapse of memory on my part. At all. Ever. :)
Speaking of correct English, Dolok, you have used your when you should use you're several times in posts.
Your means belonging to [or associated with] you.
You're is a shorter form of you are.
It probably does not matter. Me being rather obsessed with language I notice every time I see it.
Dolok Pickering |
Yes, you're right. I mean to try to correct it, but it is one of my most common mistakes that slips past me and of course since it's still a word, the spell checker doesn't catch it either. Which stinks. :P That's my tongue at the spell checker, not Chillel!
Syrus Terrigan |
Evidently, Kairon has already fallen through the floor of the burned orphanage into the room below . . . .
I lost my token beneath the new map tile! And then I accidentally shifted the floor about while I was looking for myself.
That's right -- reality-warping powers for the cleric at level 2: klutzus superbus.
My apologies. He's buried in there somewhere; I should stop fooling about with it. Sorry, Mended.
Chillel |
"You can do then undo. There is no try." Master Yoda
Goruck of the Stone |
"Is your friend, control Z is. No good, a hurt healer is."
Illiam Taal |
Just to clarify, that whole 8625 square foot area is one big subterranean room with no support pillars? Not sure I buy that Golarion has the construction techniques and materials to make that work, particularly without a vaulted ceiling. I only mention it because the description made it sound a lot smaller than that.
I don't think Illiam is going to enter, but there might be a visibility problem involved in what I wanted him to do, especially if the room actually does have the support pillars that I think it would need. By pathfinder's strange rules for light and darkness, in fact, it's probably impossible for Illiam and Dolok to see what's going on down there, because they can't see the lit area from outside it.
Syrus Terrigan |
*sigh*
Woke up with my left eye matted, swollen, and leaking . . . . This series of waking up with some ailment or another the morning after I visit my gaming pal and his petri dish kid is getting old . . . .
Just this year: 1) bronchitis, 2) mild flu, and now 3) pink eye.
EDIT: Am I to understand that the illumination rules impose an impossibility of perceiving things/events taking place in a sufficiently lit area when one is "outside looking in"?
MendedWall12 |
Illiam, I'm sure there are support pillars. I didn't add them to the map because it was hastily done just to get something up there with the semblance of a grid to scale. Honestly the whole thing is about 20' by 20' bigger than I would have liked, but whatever. If you want to add some drawings of circles where the appropriate support pillars would be I don't have a problem with it, but I'm not going to retcon what has already occured.
@Kairon, I don't understand the nature of your question? You mean Dolok and Illiam can't see what's happening in the cellar? Not unless they stick their heads down there. My assumption is that the entirety of the basement is now lit by a combination of Dolok's dancing lights spaced appropriately, and the light emanating from your spearhead. If I'm misunderstanding you, please clarify for me. :)
Edit: Also, sorry you got the pink-eye. I have had that several times in my life and I know exactly how fricken annoying it is. Opthamalic sulfur (or was it sulfa), that's what I used to get. It dries your eye in a painful stinging way, but it helps with both the symptoms and the healing. At least I think that's what they gave me.
Chillel |
Illiam, will your colour spray work against a swarm?
It is the only area spell I know of in this group. Otherwise maybe we can deal with the swarm by making a fire and using smoke to drive them off. But that may just drive them onto other people.
Illaim, you know the rules backwards, do you have a solution?
Illiam Taal |
Illiam, will your colour spray work against a swarm?
It is the only area spell I know of in this group. Otherwise maybe we can deal with the swarm by making a fire and using smoke to drive them off. But that may just drive them onto other people.
Illaim, you know the rules backwards, do you have a solution?
Everything's mindless, so unaffected by color spray. All I have is grease and Silent Image. Silent image is NOT mind affecting, and is my usual low-level way of dealing with mindless things, but its efficacy depends on the DM. My interpretation is that you can throw and illusory box around a mindless creature, thereby containing it, and it won't question it or try to get out because it's doesn't have the intelligence to do so, even when spears and swords start coming through the sides to kill it (though the last part won't work for swarms). You can't prove an illusion to be false to a mindless creature. What do you think, Mended?
If you want me to come up with a strategy for the other characters, I'll need some time to look at their sheets. Gotta rush out now.
MendedWall12 |
You're saying that if you put up an illusion of a stone enclosure around a spider it's going to just sit there and not even test the stone to see if it can climb on it to find another way out...? I mean, I've trapped spiders on the counter in plastic cups before, and when I lift up the cup they are, almost always, climbing up the wall of the cup. So I don't think a spider would just sit there and not move. At some point it is going to try to interact with the wall that just covered it out of nowhere. If it were me, I'd think more about creating an illusory wall of fire that is moving towards both the momma and the swarm. Spiders aren't dumb enough to hang around while a wall of fire moves toward them, even if they can't feel the heat, they certainly know what fire looks like, and know that it is dangerous, right?
Also, Kairon, don't forget that swarms take +50% damage from AoE's. So you roll the 2d4 divide by 2 and then add that much damage to the total. Or I suppose you could just roll 3d4...?
Chillel |
I think you are right about spiders and illusions Mended. Humans often don't realise that most other animals are not like humans in that vision is very much the humans primary sense.
I suggest rolling 2d4 for burning hands damage and multiplying it by 1.5 for the swarm. Goruck is going to be taking it as well unless someone figures out another way of getting those things off him.
Illiam- Thanks but I think we have it. Fortunately Kairon has a way of dealing with a swarm.
Chillel is meanwhile trying to look calm when she isn't and contemplating the irony of using web bolt on a giant spider. It is my best option now that my hex has failed.
Illiam Taal |
You're saying that if you put up an illusion of a stone enclosure around a spider it's going to just sit there and not even test the stone to see if it can climb on it to find another way out...? I mean, I've trapped spiders on the counter in plastic cups before, and when I lift up the cup they are, almost always, climbing up the wall of the cup. So I don't think a spider would just sit there and not move. At some point it is going to try to interact with the wall that just covered it out of nowhere. If it were me, I'd think more about creating an illusory wall of fire that is moving towards both the momma and the swarm. Spiders aren't dumb enough to hang around while a wall of fire moves toward them, even if they can't feel the heat, they certainly know what fire looks like, and know that it is dangerous, right?
I would think the opposite, that a spider's perception of fire would be more temperature-based and its perception of a box would be more sight-based, but if the GM says an illusory wall of fire will work, I won't argue with that.
It's true that a swarm of spiders is pretty much the worst thing that Illiam could encounter in terms of what won't be affected by his spells, since they would probably be unaffected by grease as well. Silent image is really the only option, aside from running-away-based tactics.
Illiam Taal |
Oh, just thought of another tactic vs spiders specifically. Use mage hand to tug on a remote part of the web to make it appear that they've caught something. That is, speaking of vermin senses, the way they're most attuned to noticing things. 5lb of force should be enough to convincingly simulate captured prey for a spider. A human-sized creature might not be able to exert that much force if sufficiently entangled, with nothing to push against.
Chillel |
My guess is a spider will see a box but is likely to try and climb it.
In the abstract I would think a spider would be more likely to identify fire by heat but it is a guess. I fear crayola if I continue this discussion.
In the game the illusion is a neat idea. Just don't set fire to my web bolt if I wind up casting it. :P