Navior's Serpent's Skull

Game Master Navior

Joana wrote:

*is sad in solidarity*

Well, with the DM away Saturday, you're really only missing a normal weekend's worth of action. We'll just assume Makoa will do whatever Douena tells him, hm? ;)

And thus, Makoa becomes Douena's pack animal.

Now, now, she prefers the term "new BFF." :)

Am I the only one that thinks that the map numbering for the new ship is... suggestive? -50 to -18 ?? What's up with that?

Heh, it's indicative of where on the MapTools screen I am. I'm using the same "map" for a number of generic jungle locations. If I were to scroll that particular screen shot to the right, the site where you fought the snake would be revealed a mere couple hundred feet away rather than the several miles you actually travelled. It's just easier for me that way. It does mean the grid references can get a bit odd. :)

EDIT: By the rules, burst effects do not go around corners, so the channel won't hit the ones beneath the upper deck.

Yeah, I couldn't remember what the ruling had been about channeling going through walls/floors. I just remembered some discussion way back in Beta playtest days, whether you could stand outside a house and channel energy to affect the people inside. I just didn't remember what the official answer had been!

Nice! So Mahjik *can* roll better than "1" for damage :)

500th post! Milestone! :D Congratulations Navior, and thanks for having us ;)

On the shipwreck map, there's a strip between the jungle up top and the water. Is that the edge of the cliff, or is it a narrow shoreline at water level?

On the shipwreck map, there's a strip between the jungle up top and the water. Is that the edge of the cliff, or is it a narrow shoreline at water level?

That's meant to be the edge of the cliff. Unfortunately, one thing MapTool doesn't do well is distinguish between different heights.

Just to straighten out the confusion:

Do you wish to wait here a bit to see if they move away, or turn back? If you wish to make it back to camp before nightfall, you will need to turn back soon, but you might be able to get a little bit further if you want to.

"It's going to be hot whether we're walking toward camp or away from it. We might as well go as far as we possibly can before we turn back; I certainly don't want to have to tramp all the way out here again tomorrow. I can't believe we haven't found a way down to the ocean yet; I wanted to find a seashell for Sasha."

Lorenz agrees with Douena. "We should go forward a little longer."

"Shall we agree to push forward another hour, then turn back? If we manage do determine that we're on the top northern sickle of the island then we can completely explore the northwest and have no more surprises waiting for us there."

"Another hour at least. Once the time has passed, we can re-evaluate the situation and decide from there. Like Douena, I don't want to have to retrace our steps tomorrow."

"I vote that we wait."

So as far as I can tell, the DM offered us the choice of returning to campful, or waiting a bit to see if the Dimorphodons move off and continuing a while further. Douena and Lorenz voted for continuing (assuming that the beasts would move off) and Mahjik suggested traveling for another hour before turning back. Lorenz tentatively agreed and then Makoa voted for waiting. I thought that Makoa was voting for waiting as the DM asked, when it looks like Makoa was responding to Lorenz voting for another hour, presumnably of waiting.

Sorry for the confusion. It looks like my comment about "Another hour at least" was a little less than clear, so I'll be more careful in the future.

Anyway, player-wise, I'm open for either choice; I just don't want two days of game play to pass while we're discussing such a simple decision.

For the record, I see nothing at all about Navior asking whether we wanted to wait or not. He asked "continue or go back". I got the impression that if we were to continue, we'd have to do so NOW, through those dimorphodons if they're interested in attacking us, if we want to get back before nightfall. And I think getting back before nightfall would be a very good idea.

I see where the confusion is coming from. Some people are seeing two choices and others are seeing three, and that's probably coming from my wording:

Do you wish to wait here a bit to see if they move away, or turn back?

The key words here are "a bit". By waiting, I meant a very short period, no more than a few minutes, to see if they fly away. If you wait too long, you'll lose any opportunity to continue and still make it back by nightfall. I could have been clearer about this. Sorry.

At any rate, whatever you do is your choice. There's nothing forcing you to be back by nightfall. It's probably a wise idea, but there's nothing forcing you to it.

A reminder to our resident cleric and to those with nonlethal damage:

The nice thing about nonlethal damage is that, any time you're healed of X lethal damage, you're also healed for X nonlethal damage. It doesn't split up the healing; it applies to both types of damage at the same time.

Joana/Douena

I'm hopefully going to be getting out of the house for a while today, so here's my action for the next round.

Satisfied that he'd driven off the scaly bird he'd shot, Lorenz looked to the stunned one near him and decided to finish it off.

Attack to AO-80 1d20 + 4
Damage: 1d6 + 2

"Damnation! I can't even hit them when they're not moving! I must be cursed!"

If it's still unconscious when your turn comes up, you can just coup de grace it -- no rolling to hit. :)

Lorenz Aeryson wrote:

"Damnation! I can't even hit them when they're not moving! I must be cursed!"

If it's still unconscious when your turn comes up, you can just coup de grace it -- no rolling to hit. :)

Oops. You're right! I somehow forgot they were unconscious and thought they were just stunned.

Hey, Wander Weir, I see you're in another game with LoreKeeper. You want to give him a poke and tell him it's Mahjik's turn to post? :)

Hey, Wander Weir, I see you're in another game with LoreKeeper. You want to give him a poke and tell him it's Mahjik's turn to post? :)

Done! :)

Just a note on the dimorphodons: Carrying them all back would be a pretty heavy load. Each one is almost as big as a human. Thinner admittedly, and with a fairly light skeletal frame. Each one weighs around 50 pounds. That's 200 pounds to carry all four that you brought down.

Well Douena did say she tossed them over the edge, and the DM followed that up. All Urza said was he was killing them before returning to camp. I think it makes more sense to allow Douena's actions to carry through. Either way, Lorenz certainly wouldn't be carrying one back to eat.

Travel times: I think we should travel as fast as we can during mornings and afternoons and travel at half speed during hot periods. I also think we should travel for longer periods, even if it means coming back as it's getting dark. Otherwise we're never going to get anywhere. Far better than individuals going out alone and getting eaten by something.

Navior wrote:

Just a note on the dimorphodons: Carrying them all back would be a pretty heavy load. Each one is almost as big as a human. Thinner admittedly, and with a fairly light skeletal frame. Each one weighs around 50 pounds. That's 200 pounds to carry all four that you brought down.

Well Douena did say she tossed them over the edge, and the DM followed that up. All Urza said was he was killing them before returning to camp. I think it makes more sense to allow Douena's actions to carry through. Either way, Lorenz certainly wouldn't be carrying one back to eat.

That's a fair point, and it was, at least partially, the action of dropping them off the cliff that alerted the surviving one to your presence so it could squawk at you. Not that that really makes much difference. :) And you're right that nothing was said of taking them back.

On the other hand, it would have taken Douena time to push all of them up to the edge and then over. There would certainly have been time to stop her from pushing all of them if someone wanted to, and it's not unreasonable that someone would have wanted to. So I'm okay with Urza having brought one of them back if he wanted to, and the other three went over the cliff.

Navior wrote:

Just a note on the dimorphodons: Carrying them all back would be a pretty heavy load. Each one is almost as big as a human. Thinner admittedly, and with a fairly light skeletal frame. Each one weighs around 50 pounds. That's 200 pounds to carry all four that you brought down.

Well Douena did say she tossed them over the edge, and the DM followed that up. All Urza said was he was killing them before returning to camp.

And Aakif had expressed interest in eating them...

I'm sorry. I thought I had posted that I was taking the two birds with me. Of course that was before I knew how large they were. My mistake. I'm more than happy with Navior allowing us to bring back one.

Attitude is based on the standard diplomacy categories: helpful, friendly, indifferent, unfriendly, and hostile. You can make one Diplomacy check per NPC per game day, although you can work in tandem using aid another, of course. I'll apply bonuses or penalties based on your actions and how you've generally treated the NPC in question. The results of a Diplomacy check are permanent unless a future Diplomacy check or major event changes things.

I've been keeping these NPC character interactions in mind as I play, but one of the things I'm unsure of is when I should be using the Diplomacy roll. Do I need to be trying to convince an NPC of something, or can I use it as part of the general interaction with the NPCs?

Also, does roleplay have any influence on the diplomacy checks we make? Or is it better for someone, like Lorenz for instance, who does not have Diplomacy ranks or an above average Charisma to not bother with trying to roll for fear of actually lowering the NPC interaction due to a bad roll?

Yeah, Douena's trying to cheer up Aerys, but I'm a little afraid to make the Diplomacy roll the number of times it's come up a 1! (Maybe she just doesn't like gnomes.)

[ooc]I'd love to be on watch with Aerys again.[/b]

I'm not sure if that was actually intended to be OOC or IC but Lorenz would put a great deal of effort into ensuring that didn't happen again. :)

I've been keeping these NPC character interactions in mind as I play, but one of the things I'm unsure of is when I should be using the Diplomacy roll. Do I need to be trying to convince an NPC of something, or can I use it as part of the general interaction with the NPCs?

Also, does roleplay have any influence on the diplomacy checks we make? Or is it better for someone, like Lorenz for instance, who does not have Diplomacy ranks or an above average Charisma to not bother with trying to roll for fear of actually lowering the NPC interaction due to a bad roll?

Roleplay does have an effect on the Diplomacy roll, as well as how you've generally treated the NPC. As for when you make a Diplomacy roll, it can be pretty much whenever you choose (up to one per day per NPC). You don't need to be convincing the NPC of anything. It can be just part of general interaction.

This is a concern for me as well. If only Diplomacy rolls matter (+ circumstance bonus) then things may get a little lopsided if bad rolls matter. I purposefully keep perform (mime) rather than any of the traditional social skills as Mahjik's "social" skill as I like the way it makes me rethink interaction.

While bad rolls matter, I always keep in mind what makes sense in the circumstances. If your characters have been nothing but friendly, then even a roll of 1 is not going to suddenly turn the NPCs hostile. Likewise, if you treat them like crap, it doesn't matter how high a roll you get; they're not going to like you. I can be pretty generous with the circumstance bonuses when the situation warrants it. Likewise, I'm okay with things like Perform skills being used in place of Diplomacy in this kind of situation.

In short, for the NPC interactions, the dice are there to add a bit of variation and uncertainty, but in cases where common sense and the dice disagree, common sense wins.

Urza Sha'rahad wrote:

[ooc]I'd love to be on watch with Aerys again.[/b]

I'm not sure if that was actually intended to be OOC or IC but Lorenz would put a great deal of effort into ensuring that didn't happen again. :)

It was out of character.

I spent a couple of hours setting up a new character sheet layout on the google page; you can see how it looks on Mahjik. The idea is a one-page layout for everything and it kinda works (but preferably you should have a wide monitor or high screen resolution). If you want to copy it, I suggest you set your character sheet to "3 column" layout and then copy each column by using the HTML button and copy-pasting that. :)

Wow, that's pretty, LoreKeeper! I'm too intimidated to do anything other than copy and paste from Hero Labs. :P

Thanks :) - it's not that hard, its just a matter of time really. If you want I can set up the basic sheet on your google profile, then you just need to edit your values in.

Man, it's been a slow day for posts today. People must be pretty busy.

Yeah, I've had a busy day. I had to accompany a friend to a clinic where she was having a procedure done that required her to be put under for a short while. She needed someone there who could make sure she made it home in her groggy state afterwards. The time of her appointment was changed last moment, so the person who was originally going to go with her wasn't able to. I stepped in last moment, so I wasn't able to give you all a heads-up that I'd be unavailable for some time.

I'm back now though and will update the game shortly. :)

No problem. Things like that certain come up. I hope your friend is doing okay!

Here's the list of potions so far. There's still 2 I need to ID

- cure light wounds
- cure light wounds
- cure light wounds
- cure light wounds
- cure moderate wounds
- lesser restoration
- lesser restoration
- lesser restoration
- lesser restoration
- remove disease

So there are six of us and five healing potions identified so far. I think we ought to get those potions so that all but one of us have one available to them. The cure moderate should obviously go to one of those who is typically in the forefront of battle and more likely to take damage. Lorenz is happy to stick with a cure light; so far he's been fortunate enough not to get too badly wounded and he's hoping to stick with that.

Since Douena is the healer, does it make sense for her to go without for now?

I think the remove disease ought to be reserved for dire circumstances, in which case it doesn't matter who holds on to that one. But we probably ought to give the four restorations to those who are more likely to get poisoned. As I recall, Aakif has so far attracted a lot of that kind of attention so I'd definitely vote for him to take one for future needs.

Any other ideas about dispersal?

Douena is fine not taking a potion. As far as the restoration potions, give one to each of the fighter-types that are likely to be in melee; that ought to spread them around enough that someone's available to give one to Urza or Douena, should they need it.

I just noticed that Makoa hasn't posted since Wednesday and Aakif hasn't since Monday.

Hello? Anyone there? Bueller?

Since there's been no further discussion on the topic of the potions, I'm going to just assume that no one has any objections to one of the Cure Light Wounds and a Lesser Restoration going to Lorenz.

I don't want to start panicking too soon. Makoa just posted. As for Aakif, it looks like Zurai has not been very active all week, so he might just be really busy at the moment. We'll give him a bit more time.

Aakif/Zurai is usually a very regular poster. Hope he's okay.

I'll be playing DnD irl tomorrow, so when its Mahjik's turn just auto-AI him. He'll try to take opportunities to flurry or try to act as a squishy meat shield (using total defense); he'll move into flanking and attack normally if no other sensible option presents itself.

Aakif/Zurai is usually a very regular poster. Hope he's okay.

His last post was on Wednesday, and before that one was Monday. That is definitely unusual for him. Hopefully, we'll hear from him soon. In the meantime, I'm going to go ahead in the combat, and let him join in when he can.

I'll be playing DnD irl tomorrow, so when its Mahjik's turn just auto-AI him. He'll try to take opportunities to flurry or try to act as a squishy meat shield (using total defense); he'll move into flanking and attack normally if no other sensible option presents itself.

Sure, no problem.

We play with the crit-fumble (and crit-hit) decks, and it has made very fun contributions. Just today our paladin of Iomedae (with sword oath) had an unlucky streak with her longsword flying 30 feet off and the next attack feeling unusually heavy in her hands - she became pale and is seeking atonement as clearly her goddess has been angered. True to form the GM also hinted at specs of rust that she might be noticing on her weapon.

I've played in groups in the past that have used various forms of critical fumble rules. As long as the fumbles aren't too severe, they can be a lot of fun. Those that are too severe and can result in characters killing themselves because of a bad roll are much less fun. I don't actually have Paizo's critical fumble and critical hit decks (I own most of what Paizo's published, but not everything, alas), but I've heard good things about them. They're something I might consider one day, but for now, I'm good with a natural 1 just being an auto-miss. :)

I've played with the Critical Fumble deck in the past, but only briefly. I agree they can be a lot of fun but I think you need to have the right kind of campaign for it. It's also probably better to wait until people are higher level. :)

Auto-miss works for me. I'll just play with the flavor text when it happens the way I did today.

Joana wrote:

Aakif/Zurai is usually a very regular poster. Hope he's okay.

His last post was on Wednesday, and before that one was Monday. That is definitely unusual for him. Hopefully, we'll hear from him soon. In the meantime, I'm going to go ahead in the combat, and let him join in when he can.

Sorry, I've been under the weather just a wee bit. Staring at the computer screen for more than a few minutes at the time was giving me blinding headaches (which is pretty bad when one of your jobs is only doable on the computer...). I'm back now, though. I'll do my best to get caught up ASAP.

Sorry, I've been under the weather just a wee bit. Staring at the computer screen for more than a few minutes at the time was giving me blinding headaches (which is pretty bad when one of your jobs is only doable on the computer...). I'm back now, though. I'll do my best to get caught up ASAP.

No worries. Glad to know you're feeling better!

Sorry to hear you haven't been feeling well, Zurai. Glad to see you back!