RoTRL Experiment

Game Master ciretose

RoTRL Challenge Experiment.


Liberty's Edge

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This is carrying over from this thread.

We may still need one more player(I'm ok with someone doing two, but I would prefer 4 separate people) and at least one more judge (5 would be best)


Here's Boghu Khalee

Liberty's Edge

Boghu Khalee wrote:
Here's Boghu Khalee

Welcome. I'm going to wait for the other two and see if we can get a fourth. I appreciate you taking up the wizard, but I really want someone who has been taking the "Wizards are overpowered" stance to take it, as that will be the best test. I am assuming you are defending monks not being underpowered.

One thing I noticed, and I will defer to the others if this is what we are using as standard, but I saw you picked two traits.

Sczarni

PFS is 20 point buy, with 2 traits. At least, the document I checked said that.

Traits means the monk is 2 slower on Init & probably no Survival skill.

The wizard is 2 slower on Init and not a Diplomacizer.

No, I believe a well played monk has a valuable role in a party. Mixed with a Bard, Wizard, and Rogue, you have the potential for an "insta-gib" "rocket-tag" party. If you're looking for an "i win" play, you can't do much better than Stun/Surprise + Sneak Attack with Bardic buffs riding on top.

Oh yeah, add in Augmented Summoned Monsters, also Bard buffed.

The party that works together and holds good tactical advantage, succeeds. Those that fall apart, or work at odds with one another, die.

Honestly, any party with a decent melee guy, a summoning wizard, a decent healer, and a buffer, you will be set to play pretty much any AP I've read (all but Age of Worms, Shackled City, and Jade Regent) or DM'd. The tactics change depending on the party makeup, but that's where the cooperation and communication comes into play.

Liberty's Edge

psionichamster wrote:

PFS is 20 point buy, with 2 traits. At least, the document I checked said that.

Traits means the monk is 2 slower on Init & probably no Survival skill.

The wizard is 2 slower on Init and not a Diplomacizer.

No, I believe a well played monk has a valuable role in a party. Mixed with a Bard, Wizard, and Rogue, you have the potential for an "insta-gib" "rocket-tag" party. If you're looking for an "i win" play, you can't do much better than Stun/Surprise + Sneak Attack with Bardic buffs riding on top.

Oh yeah, add in Augmented Summoned Monsters, also Bard buffed.

The party that works together and holds good tactical advantage, succeeds. Those that fall apart, or work at odds with one another, die.

Honestly, any party with a decent melee guy, a summoning wizard, a decent healer, and a buffer, you will be set to play pretty much any AP I've read (all but Age of Worms, Shackled City, and Jade Regent) or DM'd. The tactics change depending on the party makeup, but that's where the cooperation and communication comes into play.

Just checking, I don't PFS so I wasn't sure.

If you believe in balance, I think it would be better served to have someone who believes wizards are overpowered to take that role, so they can show what they believe. I agree with you, but having someone who believes that in the refuting role is problematic.

So at this point we still need another judge and someone for the "Uberwizard" unless Ashiel is coming back...


I always build characters with two traits, that said, I can't remember the last time I saw someone make a character without the +2 initiative trait. It is nice to be able to add at least one class skill or get a bonus to a terrible save, though.

I'd allow the traits simply 'cause most people use them, I think. But that's just my two cents.

As for this AP....it may surprise how hard it can be at times as written. One decent melee'r, some buffs, a summoning wizard, and a healer will run into problems in certain encounters in this AP. Just a warning. RotRL is funny in that it lulls you into a false sense of security at times, and then unleashes a hideously hard encounter (that often completely skunks a party who is simply missing the right things to combat that encounter). It's actually one of my favorite things about the whole AP.


this is egoish, level one oracle.

i do not have to rotrl books so i cannot post exactly what i would do unless you actually run the combats, however i can post the abilities the oracle has and how i would use them.

healing: healing skill +4, would be using that to treat deadly wounds after fights to save on spell usage, cure light wounds up to 5/day and stabilise at will, channel energy 8/day with selective channeling.

spellcasting: bless or cause fear up to 5/day. bless if the party is outnumbered or cause fear to take someone out of the fight if there are 3-4 monsters, don't waste spells on easy encounters.

social: +9 skill check so easily likable, only speaks and understand celestial in combat so will not respond to instructions unless they are obvious or done with hand gestures (not exactly important for the test but a funny RP opportunity), see rerolls for clutch checks.

knowledge: pretty much useless but will still make rolls on the off chance of beating the dc, see rerolls for clutch skill checks.

combat: +2 to hit and d8+2 damage with the morning star if needed, high ac of 17 so can tank if needed. decent saves other than reflex and high hp. will wade into combat if there is no need to cast spells or heal, favours swinging to wasting daily uses of limited abilities.

rerolls: every single creature that the oracle meets gets one reroll per day that the oracle gets to pick. for her party mates she uses this for clutch saves or skill checks, she will use it on the first sucessful hit for minor opponents or on critical threats/passed clutch saves for major opponents. if there is what seems to be a major opponent in a fight will on the first round cause fear and force a reroll if needed. only usable once per round as an immediate action so if there is a major npc in a fight that has not been targetted then likely to save it to target them rather than target a minor npc.

Liberty's Edge

@egoish if you don't have the books it could be challenging. I will defer to the other players on how best to handle this issue. I could give a a general description of what is included in the encounter day or you could post last after reading the description of events.

Any ideas?

For the first encounter, it is three waves of goblins, more or less increasing in power with only a brief (a few rounds) break between the encounters which are spread out over a small town.

First comes 3 goblins, complete surprise, supported by a low level bard who is off scene in the initial encounter

After "a few rounds to recover" the next encounter is 4 goblins and the previously mentioned first level goblin bard.

After a few more rounds to catch your breath, the final encounter is 4 goblins, and a goblin ranger mounter on a goblin dog.

Later encounters are going to be more complex I suspect, so I am open to suggestions.


if you describe it i can probably respond easily enough.

in the first encounter assuming i didn't know that there would be waves i wouldn't waste a bless on the first 3 goblins and would just flank with the tank/dps and kill them, using healing if needed.

for the second wave i would probably open with bless and continue flanking, making it a priority to kill the bard asap and using rerolls to help land attacks on him or forcing him to reroll a save if the other caster targets him with a save or suck. when the second wave arrived i would move to cover any other casters with my ac so goblins wouldn't get easy charges at them.

for the third wave the bless should still be active (shouldn't take 10 rounds to kill a few goblins) so i would open with a cause fear on the goblin rangers goblin dog and use rerolls if it passed so he would be out of the fight for a few rounds, if he dismounted i would use a cuase fear/reroll combo on him as well unless someone else had a better sos like colour spray, then carry on flanking and melee everything down using channels or clw if needed. depending on how long the fight lasts i might use another bless if it seems worth it.

resources used at the end would probably be 1 bless, 1 cause fear, 1-2 clw and a 4-5 channels at a guess, i could probably do another encounter after that if i had to.

it might be worth adding us as players and posting each encounter grouping in the gameplay section of the campaign and then letting us have a bit of time to discuss tactics in the discusion part before we post a full set of actions for the judges to discuss.

Liberty's Edge

I believe it links you as a player as soon as you post in the game play forum.

I am going to copy and repost my "summary" of encounter day 1 in the gameplay thread now.

Below that, if you (and the other players) could copy and paste your plan using your player account, and nothing else.

We can then discuss the encounter in the discussion section.

After all four players have posted (and only after all four players have posted), each judge should post their evaluation in the Game Play thread.

Once all 4 players have posted (once) and each judge has posted an eval (once) I will then post a summary of the next encounter and move forward.

I think it will get easier as we go and the format gets clear.

At this point, I believe we more or less have two players posting what they would do in the first encounter, Abraham will post later I assume and we still need an advocate for the wizard power side as well as at least one more judge.

Any disagreement?


I can judge, if you like. We are basically just determining which of the four "players" would be most effective in battle?


Quick Judging Question: If we are using a 1-4 scale, are we only giving each score once? Like, I need to determine an order, or is it possible for all players to earn a 1 in a specific encounter (or likewise, if I get the feeling the group would be TPK'd by an encounter, give multiple people 4s?

If it's a strict ranking 1-4 for each fight, that works, but will be tough. If it's more of each person gets an individual score, I suggest using a scale of 1-5, so that a 3 can be "average". It'll give me a little more precision without getting too crazy, I think.

Liberty's Edge

You need to deternine order.

There is a team "grade" but each participant is ranked 1 through 4 for each day.


ciretose wrote:

You need to deternine order.

There is a team "grade" but each participant is ranked 1 through 4 for each day.

Got it. On another note, I'll need to see full builds for characters somewhere, as I've already found things wrong with certain builds I've seen. People need to be real careful to do their work correctly so this is an accurate test. We'll need to do some group proofreading to get this ready to go.


i think before encounter one begins we should meet and greet our fellow judges and players and take a look at the party to start off with, for example knowing what spells the arcane caster has, how much damage the monk can take before its panic time, etc.

also i would propose that when you post the encounter in the gameplay forum (as you have already done) that we post in a set "initative" order. not actually rolling initiative but for example just in decending order of bonus so we know what the person who acts before us is doing, that way the highest init character gets to set the pace and the lowest init char gets to react in a similar way to in an actual game.

i would also like to use the discussion thread to have a chat between each player before we post our tactics as it is a group game and having each character just doing his own thing rather than acting as part of the team is unlikely.


Sylvanite wrote:
ciretose wrote:

You need to deternine order.

There is a team "grade" but each participant is ranked 1 through 4 for each day.

Got it. On another note, I'll need to see full builds for characters somewhere, as I've already found things wrong with certain builds I've seen. People need to be real careful to do their work correctly so this is an accurate test. We'll need to do some group proofreading to get this ready to go.

this is my oracle build, if there are any incorrect parts let me know and i'll fix them, i only took 1 trait since i didn't know what to do about that but its for a built in divine focus anyway so no biggy. assume the other trait is the one that gives +2 on concentration checks if i need 2.

Liberty's Edge

DukeRuckley wrote:
I can judge, if you like. We are basically just determining which of the four "players" would be most effective in battle?

Welcome. It is more most effective on that particular encounter day, combined with rating the overall effectiveness of the party.


I am sorry for being late -- I will be posted up with a character tomorrow. I'm afraid that I will not be able to post up through the weekend.

For those that are interested my time these pass two days has been spent at MEPS where I have successfully qualified for service.

Liberty's Edge

Abraham spalding wrote:

I am sorry for being late -- I will be posted up with a character tomorrow. I'm afraid that I will not be able to post up through the weekend.

For those that are interested my time these pass two days has been spent at MEPS where I have successfully qualified for service.

Congrats!

And you are never late, never early, you arrive just in time.


Congrats, man. That's great!


grats abraham, less time to argue on forums :p


i'm in the process of creating a diviner to go first, i am going to call him i-go-first. just putting some finishing touches to his stat block then i'll create an alias and let someone error check him.

Dark Archive

Very interesting. A monk, an oracle, a god wizard (whoever ends up running it), and... who? I look forward to seeing this fully fleshed out.


god wizard reporting, written by ego. i will withdraw this build if someone else thinks they can make a good run at god wizard though.

check over my stat block and i'll post tactics straight away.


To get the ball rolling I'm looking at the following for my rogue replacement sorcerer:

Human Sorcerer (Seeker, Crossblooded(Umbral/Sage))
Stats of:
Str 8 Dex 12 Con 14 Int 18 Wis 14 Cha 10

His first level power will be arcane bolt (Standard action 1d4+1 ranged touch attack 30 feet 7/day).

Skills will be:
Stealth
Disable Device
Perception
Spellcraft
Climb
Swim
Knowledge(Arcane)

I'm still thinking on feats, however it seems likely that either toughness and combat casting or point blank shot and precise shot will be my feats.

I would take the extra spell favored class option (which will net an extra cantrip at level 1), with vanish being the most likely first level spell for the guy. Cantrips will include detect magic, prestidigitation, acid splash, and Daze.

Any comments are always welcome and I'll work on getting the actual alias up soon.


Abraham spalding wrote:

To get the ball rolling I'm looking at the following for my rogue replacement sorcerer:

Human Sorcerer (Seeker, Crossblooded(Umbral/Sage))
Stats of:
Str 8 Dex 12 Con 14 Int 18 Wis 14 Cha 10

His first level power will be arcane bolt (Standard action 1d4+1 ranged touch attack 30 feet 7/day).

Skills will be:
Stealth
Disable Device
Perception
Spellcraft
Climb
Swim
Knowledge(Arcane)

I'm still thinking on feats, however it seems likely that either toughness and combat casting or point blank shot and precise shot will be my feats.

I would take the extra spell favored class option (which will net an extra cantrip at level 1), with vanish being the most likely first level spell for the guy. Cantrips will include detect magic, prestidigitation, acid splash, and Daze.

Any comments are always welcome and I'll work on getting the actual alias up soon.

thats a very interesting build and it looks a lot more fun than a normal rogue type and has the potential to be very handy with a decent spell selection.

the only thing i would criticise is the crossblooded selection, i think a seeker/sage sorcerer would be fine and i would debate weather +1 caster level in shadow is worth a spell known per spell level.

i look forward to seeing how it pans out though.


Honestly I understand where you are coming from Egoish -- however I'm specifically wanting the 9th level shadow power, the capstone, and some of the specific spells known. In some ways I'm a bit jealous of the shadowcaster wizard that gets the power at level 10 instead of 20... but it just goes to show that sorcerer's can't have nice things compared to wizards in my opinion. I would like to find a way to pick up that darkvision too but I don't think it's happening with what I got.


Abraham spalding wrote:
Honestly I understand where you are coming from Egoish -- however I'm specifically wanting the 9th level shadow power, the capstone, and some of the specific spells known. In some ways I'm a bit jealous of the shadowcaster wizard that gets the power at level 10 instead of 20... but it just goes to show that sorcerer's can't have nice things compared to wizards in my opinion. I would like to find a way to pick up that darkvision too but I don't think it's happening with what I got.

i did not read the powers, that 9th level power is awesome, at 13th level moving a healer out of combat and a tank into combat is amazingly good. however i would just like to remind you that we are playing through an adventure path and that we should create the characters as such, bearing that in mind you will never really get to use the capstone power.

i would consider crossblooded anyway as that 9th level power is really very good, but once again is it better than an extra spell known per spell level? the specific spells known that you want are entirely cancelled out by just not being crossblooded so it basicly comes down to the ability in my opinion.

either way excellent concept, but these are all questions i would ask if we were sat at my house around a table while writing characters before we started an ap.


Yeah -- I'm planning on switching some of the spells out, and over all I just want to see how well the power plays out honestly. I'm figuring on rays for a large part of what he'll be doing and shadow spells for when I need them... I'm honestly considering spell focus(illusion) and some of the shadow magic feats. I'm thinking to focus in on necromancy and illusion for the most part with a bit of abjuration on the side.


just a question abraham...

what will your sorcerers role be in combat at 1/3/5/7/9, i'm sure with that ammount of skill points and the class skills you get from seeker you can be an effective rogue for the purposes of detecting and disabling traps but what are you planning on bringing to the table for fights?

if you see yourself as more of a controller i could write up a wizard dedicated to blasting and just make sure i had the right spells to cover the ones missing out of your list.

i'm sure we can handle the ap with both of the arcane casters doing control but we might find that we're missing on damage in some of the more important fights.

Liberty's Edge

Once Abraham Spalding posts his gameplay, judges should feel free to post your grades, ratings, and comments

Once all three judges have posted (and we still have room to add two more judges if anyone is interested, speak now...)

I will post the average scores for all three characters and the outline of the next encounter.

Comments from the players toward the judges should remain contained to the discussion thread, not as responses in the gameplay thread.

I will likely make comments in the discussion thread as well if I have opinions, but otherwise I am just the MC.

A am assuming there is no dispute with how I divided the encounters in the first book. Once we complete those I will post my opinion of divisions for the second book for debate.


I know you would like me as a judge but I can't. I don't own the AP. I have never played nor ran it. I may also end up being a player in it in an upcoming campaign and I don't want to know what's coming.


I'll volunteer my services to judge. I've run RotRL half a dozen times for a wide variety of groups and have a pretty good handle on the thing.

Liberty's Edge

Bob_Loblaw wrote:
I know you would like me as a judge but I can't. I don't own the AP. I have never played nor ran it. I may also end up being a player in it in an upcoming campaign and I don't want to know what's coming.

Fair enough...maybe another AP another time...

Liberty's Edge

Ringtail wrote:
I'll volunteer my services to judge. I've run RotRL half a dozen times for a wide variety of groups and have a pretty good handle on the thing.

I don't remember what side of the God Wizard argument you fall (if any) but you are more than welcome.


ciretose wrote:
Ringtail wrote:
I'll volunteer my services to judge. I've run RotRL half a dozen times for a wide variety of groups and have a pretty good handle on the thing.
I don't remember what side of the God Wizard argument you fall (if any) but you are more than welcome.

Is apathetic a side?

Over a year ago I posted THIS monster of a troll thread (which I whole-heartily apologize to the Paizo community for), but honestly I could care less.

Solidly neutral.

Liberty's Edge

Ringtail wrote:
ciretose wrote:
Ringtail wrote:
I'll volunteer my services to judge. I've run RotRL half a dozen times for a wide variety of groups and have a pretty good handle on the thing.
I don't remember what side of the God Wizard argument you fall (if any) but you are more than welcome.

Is apathetic a side?

Over a year ago I posted THIS monster of a troll thread (which I whole-heartily apologize to the Paizo community for), but honestly I could care less.

Solidly neutral.

Perfect. Feel free to jump in over at the discussion thread. I believe Abraham is busy for the weekend, but he is always a very reliable poster so I have no worried there.

Liberty's Edge

@Abraham spalding

Eta?


Alright I'm back -- sorry con was long and had PT today, feats will be point blank and precise shot, traits are going to be Focused Mind and Lessons of Chaldira (spent a lot of time living with halflings as a youth). Equipment is going to consist of ceremonial silken robes (black in color for what it matters with gold designs on them) and a buckler (putting his AC up to 14).

Basically his early actions are going to amount to Daze when he can to prevent the goblins from attacking. His arcane bolt and acid splash will provide actual damage when it looks likely to end an enemy (which with goblins should be often since the arcane bolt is going to do 1d4+2 with point blank shot). Movement will be to get away from melee as much as possible (generally a five foot step) or to get just into range for his spells.

Vanish will be used to get clear of bad situations and to protect allies/ NPCs that he can reach.

This pattern will probably repeat for the first three encounters. I'm honestly not expecting too much from him at this point unfortunately -- he's got just enough damage to contribute and just enough tricks to help out in a pinch, hopefully without needing too much back up on his own. Quite frankly this isn't going to be his strongest point of contribution.


AC of 13.

Liberty's Edge

Abraham spalding wrote:
AC of 13.

If you could post your strategy for the first encounter over in gameplay and link to the build (or put it in an alias) I think we are good to go and ready for the judges.


You want me as a player or judge. Either way is fine with me. If you want me to play then I might need a little while to come up with a character. I will look over the rules either way.

Liberty's Edge

We've actually already started, but your input would be more than welcome in discussion. For example, I'm not a judge, because of my obvious bias, but I make my opinions known there for the judges and players.

We've gotten through half of the first book over in game play, and the discussion has been really great so far, I think.


Ok. I will go to the gameplay area.


If you will allow I'll pop in with some input once in a while as well.

Liberty's Edge

Input is always welcome. The judging is closed to the three, but as many people are welcome to add to the discussion as possible.

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