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Sweet deal. Also: I just noticed there are PUGWAMPIS in the Player's Guide artwork.
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. . . . . . . . ./. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ,:`^`.}
. . . . . . . ./. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ,:”. . . ./
. . . . . . .?. . . __. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . :`. . . ./
. . . . . . . /__.(. . .“~-,_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . ,:`. . . .. ./
. . . . . . /(_. . ”~,_. . . ..“~,_. . . . . . . . . .,:`. . . . _/
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. . .. . .((. . .*~_. . . .”=-._. . .“;,,./`. . /” . . . ./. .. ../
. . . .. . .\`~,. . ..“~.,. . . . . . . . . ..`. . .}. . . . . . ../
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,,_. . . . . }.>-._\. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|. . . . . . ..`=~-,
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . `:,, . . . . . . . . . . . . . `\. . . . . . ..__
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .`=-,. . . . . . . . . .,%`>--==``
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _\. . . . . ._,-%. . . ..`\
...
What? Everybody likes pugwampis. Don't they?
:D
Just back from my local music festival where I worked long hours with no internet access. Not sure if I told you before I went. Will read the players guide tonight.
OK Natty will take Ruin Raider as a trait and loose outcast and its benefits on survival. A little alteration to the background, have him in Magnimar rather than Kaer Maga, but basically the greedy little half-orc is ready to go.
OK Natty will take Ruin Raider as a trait and loose outcast and its benefits on survival. A little alteration to the background, have him in Magnimar rather than Kaer Maga, but basically the greedy little half-orc is ready to go.
That's a hellacious Appraise bonus you're going to have going there.
All your saves appear to be one high, but you also don't have the orc ferocity trait listed on your sheet - did you take sacred tattoo instead?
So, recap:
Garden Tool's character, Zeuth, appears to be complete and ready to go except for picking his prepped spells for the first day and statting up his snake.
Black Tom's character, Erwin, is conceptualized but has no stats yet.
Deevor's character, Natty Grast, needs some tweaks to his backstory and modifications for the new campaign trait, but is otherwise ready to go. (Side note: Deevor, would you add some of the more relevant situational modifiers to Natty's skills? I'm thinking specifically of his total bonus to finding traps when he rolls Perception.)
Ferret's character, Arjun, has a few gold left to spend (assuming he plans to take at least some expendable gear) and perhaps type up his backstory for me, but is otherwise ready to go.
SuperUberGeek's barbarian remains, at this point, purely hypothetical.
Okay. I have the module in my possession and I've given it a first read-through. Since I'm about to have several days in which I will have very little free time (i.e., GenCon) next week, I'm hoping to get things moving before then. If at all possible, I'd like final versions of everyone's characters by Friday, or sooner if we can make it happen. How does that sound?
OK Natty will take Ruin Raider as a trait and loose outcast and its benefits on survival. A little alteration to the background, have him in Magnimar rather than Kaer Maga, but basically the greedy little half-orc is ready to go.That's a hellacious Appraise bonus you're going to have going there.
All your saves appear to be one high, but you also don't have the orc ferocity trait listed on your sheet - did you take sacred tattoo instead?
Yes, has two alternate racial traits, Sacred Tattoo instead of Orc Ferocity and Scavenger instead of the Orc Intimidation bonus.
I will manually add the Ruin Raider to the sheet the rest was generated using Hero Lab, so I'm surprised it didn't show Sacred Tattoo. Yeah not really sure of the Ruin Raider trait, but it does fit my understanding of Natty, driven by the need to make money, ruins are a bit easier to make money, there's no city guard to stop you. But a little burglary and pick pocketing is also handy.
I have added the various perception checks into the Game Helpers section, hope it helps, there's a lot of them ... :)
Familiar is done, and I included my Alertness bonuses (I forgot that familiars granted it) to my skill modifiers.
Reading over the mod, something really stands out for me:
This is an old-school dungeon crawl.
There's several scenes to set up the dungeon and apply the plot and so forth, but I strongly encourage you to get yourselves into a door-kicking, trapfinding mindset for this one.
Plan accordingly.
Also, because Garden Tool asked me about houserules, it occurs to me that I should explain how I handle play-by-posts.
The big thing is initiative. In my opinion, initiative is most important for determining whether or not someone is flat-footed once combat begins. While there are a few other elements that come into play, that's really the big one. Once the turn cycle starts, who goes before who is much less of a concern for me. Also, the order within a "side" is mostly irrelevant, since delays and readied actions tend to make such things academic anyway.
So, here's how initiative works: on the first round, everyone rolls their initiatives individually. Anyone who goes before the first bad guy can post. Actions occur in post order, not rolled initiative order. This allows people to post when they can post and keeps us from waiting on whoever is next in line to go. Once everyone on the PCs' side with better initiative has gone, the bad guy(s) go, then the rest of the heroes. If there are multiple bad guys with different initiatives, then it works similarly: good guys, bad guys, good guys, bad guys, good guys.
Example!
Wallace, Xander, Ysabel and Zeke are facing off against an Aranea allied with a Barghest. Wallace's initiative is 15, Xander's is 12, Ysabel's is 19, Zeke's is 4, the aranea's is 17 and the barghest is on 8. So, on the first round, Ysabel would post her actions, then the DM (me) would post the actions of the aranea. Then, because Xander and Wallce both beat the barghest but lost to the aranea, they could post now. However, if Xander posts before Wallace does, Xander's action happens first, even though Wallace has the higher initiative. Then the barghest goes, and then Zeke can go.
On later rounds (and really, even on the first round once the last bad guy has gone), I collapse the initiative order even further: the heroes go, then the bad guys, then the heroes again. So, in the example above, once the barghest had gone, Zeke could act - but so could everyone else, including Zeke again. Then the aranea and barghest would go, then the heroes would go again, and so on.
If you want to post now but do something after someone else does something, then feel free to ready an action, or declare that you are delaying until the appropriate time. "I'm going to attack the aranea, but I'll wait until Zeke casts bless" works just fine.
The other thing I do, PbP-wise, is roll on the table. Completely. You'll see the dice roll and the modifiers, and I won't be pulling punches as a result. However, if you see a number that looks screwy, let me know - I make mistakes, and I'm perfectly willing to admit it if I did screw something up.
Questions? Comments?
Sounds good.
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Confused about the initiative order thing. The first part I understand - whoever beats the bad guys on initiative can go in whatever order they post in... then the bad guys go, and then PCs who didn't beat the bad guys on initiative go in whatever order they post in.
However, I'm confused about your after-the-first-round rule. After the first round, it goes "all the PCs" and then "all the bad guys," regardless of their initiative scores? So, initiative only matters for the first round of combat?
Also, what constitutes the "first round?" If there is a surprise round, and I don't get to go (because I failed my Perception), does the round following the surprise round go "all the PCs" and then "all the bad guys," rendering my initiative roll completely irrelevant? Or do we keep the "first PC group, bad guy, second PC group" model until the surprise and "first" round are both over?
Disclaimer: I don't normally play PbP games, remember, so forgive me if this is a pretty standard rule that I'm asking for clarification on. It's new to me!
No, it's not standard - lots of people run it like you do in your games, GT, basically using the book method. I just have found this is slightly easier for PbP. But to explain further...
Surprise rounds work just the way the first round does. Basically, initiative matters until people stop being flat-footed. If there are two rounds where that applies, because there's a surprise round and then a regular round, then it all works like the first round I described before.
As for later rounds, yes, I pretty much ignore initiative entirely after that first round. I also tend to drop all the opponents to the "last" initiative, which can mean someone gets to go twice before the bad guys get to act again - however, they paid the price of going last in the first round for the privilege, so it doesn't really turn out to be much help.
To extend the example out further: once Zeke goes, all of the PCs get to go before the aranea and the barghest go, in whatever order they post. Once the PCs have gone, the aranea and barghest go, then the PCs, then their opponents, and so on. So yes, Zeke gets to go twice there - but since he had to suffer through whatever the aranea and barghest did to him first, I doubt he's happy about it.
Make a bit more sense?
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Hm. I understand the rule, then, but I find myself really hoping that I go last. This system is looking downright broken, to me.
I think you should keep the same rule you use in the first and second rounds for every round. Otherwise, I'm literally going to WANT to go last. Like, REALLY want to. Can I choose to take an initiative penalty?
Here's an example of why I really want to go last:
Sample Initiative:
PC 1
PC 2
PC 3
bad guy
PC 4
PC 5 (Me)
The bad guy goes before me, but he'll probably engage PC 1, 2, or 3. Those PCs will have engaged him, after all, and going after me means provoking, moving, etc. Even if he does go after me, I still want to go last! Here's why.
On my turn, I hit the bad guy with ill omen. Since I'm last, I immediately go again, because it's a new round and we all go first. I blast him with slumber hex (or any number of save-or-suck spells), and he has to roll twice (no save) and take the worst roll against my awesome DC. Even if he's got Spellcraft, he'll never get the chance he should have had to remove or reverse my ill omen, and he's almost surely going to fail his save and go night-night. Fight's over.
Different scenario: I'm not a witch - I'm a big, bad fighter. I go last, so I charge the bad guy on my turn. I get +2 to hit (yay!) and -2 to AC (boo!)... but who cares? I'm just going to immediately go again, and my AC penalty is lifted. Basically, I take no penalty to AC whatsoever, and I get to move twice my speed AND attack AND gain a +2 bonus, all because I went last.
Same thing for feats like Cleave. AC penalty? Not really. Cleave every round! Or let's say I need to take a move action to climb something. I'm flat-footed while climbing? No problem. Just climb up the rope, then go again, and attack / cast / whatever. Nobody ever gets to take advantage of my flat-footedness.
Also, this rule complicates some strategies: What happens if I delay until after the bad guy? On the next round, am I going first again, with the rest of the PCs? If so, I don't even need to roll low in order to take advantage of the Cleave / charge / ill omen types of strategies described, above. There's no reason I shouldn't do this stuff every round.
I'll go with whatever you decide, of course, but I feel like this ruling is inherently broken. Keeping the same rule you use for "round 1" across all rounds is the way to go, in my opinion. It still simplifies combat and initiative, but it doesn't open the door to these all these double actions, no-save tactics, and penalty-ignoring scenarios.
Just my 2cp.
Well, the advantages you're describing only apply once per combat - at the transition from round 1 to round 2. If you delay past the bad guy, you've effectively given up your action for the previous round - you don't actually get to go twice. So "Cleave every round" doesn't really work. Moreover, if I started seeing as a problem, I'd switch it so the transition point were when the first bad guy goes on round two (i.e., when every PC has gone at least once, but only the initiative winners have gone twice) and then have all the bad guys go then, so the slower folks would move up. However, in all the times I've run PbPs, it's never actually been required. Partly because the theory doesn't work out as well in practice, and partly because no one's ever really tried to game the system. It is inherently designed to be a little bit PC-friendly, but I don't think it's as much of an issue as you think it will be.
Got my character up.
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True enough, I guess it only matters in the first and second rounds. How are you working the delay action, though? Do I go with the rest of the PCs in the next round if I delay until after the enemy? Many times, one wants to see what the enemy does before deciding what action to take or what spell to cast.
Basically, the delay action only applies with regard to the enemies, and if you delay until after they go, you have effectively lost your action for the round. (Note that this is not really different from the way it works normally. If you take your action before the opponents on round 2, and then delay until after them on Round 3, you have effectively lost an entire round's worth of actions between the two.) You would take your action with the rest of the PCs on the following round.
If you want to delay until after another PC, you can either post something to that effect or simply wait until after they've gone to post.
Got my character up.
The mechanics look all right, though I wonder how long it will be before you decide that the Wisdom 7 was a mistake... ;) OOC, do you have any thoughts on your character's mysterious past, or are you gonna leave that all up to me?
Gonna leave it up to you. The wisdom was a little high, but I needed a 15 Con for raging vitality. I figure there is a reason that he embarrassed his family enough that they dumped him. Besides, raging helps, some.
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@ Shisumo: So, if I delay until after the enemy, I lose my action in the round I delayed in?
If I delay, does it look like:
1.) PCs (except me) > monsters > end of round; or
2.) PCs (except me) > monsters > me > end of round
@ SuperUberGeek: Hey, at least (thanks to your poor Will save) I can put you to sleep easily if you get dominated and turn on us (thanks to your poor Will save). : P
@ Shisumo: So, if I delay until after the enemy, I lose my action in the round I delayed in?
If I delay, does it look like:
1.) PCs (except me) > monsters > end of round; or
2.) PCs (except me) > monsters > me > end of round
Before I answer that, let me ask you this: what is it you're thinking about specifically? Because in general, the answer's basically irrelevant.
I actually strongly encourage you to think of it as "monsters=end of round" rather than putting the 'end of round' marker somewhere separate. There are, I think, a few places in the rules where it matters - if you were to delay past the monsters with an unresolved true strike, for instance - but I would ordinarily handle those on a case-by-case basis, in a way that is consistent with how the rules would work in a regular tabletop situation (so, if you did delay past the monsters with an unresolved true strike, you'd be able to say, "Before the end of the round, I make my attack with the insight bonus" and things would be fine). In general, though, the monsters' turn essentially represents the dividing line between one round and the next.
To further expand on that, the whole point of this system is that the initiative system is already pretty abstract, and the number-values don't really matter much once everyone's gone at least once. If you have an initiative of 15 and the monsters are on 13, and you delay until after 13 on a given round, then the monsters have gone twice since you last went, and will go again before you get another action. The actual number is not especially important - what's important is that the monsters got to go twice and you only went once. Also, between delays and readied actions, things can get pretty muddled anyway - but as long as no one delays past the monsters, the end result is more or less arbitrary. I'm just running with the arbitrariness.
I should also give credit where it's due, here. I've basically stolen this system wholesale from Black Tom, for whom it also works pretty well in all of his play-by-posts. So it's pretty tried-and-true at this point.
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Hm. Alright, we'll see how it goes. My (home) PCs tend to ready and delay a lot, especially healers and casters.
I still really feel like I want to go last in the surprise/first rounds, though. So much so that I wish I could voluntarily take an initiative penalty (can I?). Taking two back-to-back actions will be VERY advantageous for me - especially in the surprise and first rounds, when enemies (especially, but not exclusively, low-Int enemies, mindless enemies, or single enemies) will tend to engage the PCs that engaged them, or simply the closest ones.
I expect a lot of first-and-surprise round effectiveness thanks to effects like back-to-back ill omen/hex combos, or unseen servants who can move up to, then close, then lock doors in my enemies faces in the space of two consecutive rounds. Heck, I can even five-foot-step up to a guy, put a slumber hex on him, and then coup de grace him before his buddies can take an action to wake him up.
I'll give you that it doesn't matter much in the second round and thereafter, but can matter quite a lot, I think, in the round(s) before that. Time will tell?
EDIT: Question. If I daze a guy with two back-to-back ear piercing scream spells, is he dazed for his next two turns?
I think our DM has it right, doing it his way a round should only take 24hrs, (maybe get a couple of rounds in per 24hrs). But if you go by initiative order all the time, then we all get zapped by time zones and you could end up with each player taking the best part of 24hrs so 1 round could take about 4-5 days.
Add into that some days players miss a post and the game gets drawn into a long yawn.... Keeping it this way should keep the game going at a pretty good rate.
Hm. Alright, we'll see how it goes. My (home) PCs tend to ready and delay a lot, especially healers and casters.
I still really feel like I want to go last in the surprise/first rounds, though. So much so that I wish I could voluntarily take an initiative penalty (can I?).
No, you can't. Partly because doing so makes no sense except as a means to game this particular system, but mostly because there's no provision in the rules for doing so. (Well, I suppose you could also cast ill omen on yourself...)
Taking two back-to-back actions will be VERY advantageous for me - especially in the surprise and first rounds, when enemies (especially, but not exclusively, low-Int enemies, mindless enemies, or single enemies) will tend to engage the PCs that engaged them, or simply the closest ones.
I expect a lot of first-and-surprise round effectiveness thanks to effects like back-to-back ill omen/hex combos, or unseen servants who can move up to, then close, then lock doors in my enemies faces in the space of two consecutive rounds. Heck, I can even five-foot-step up to a guy, put a slumber hex on him, and then coup de grace him before his buddies can take an action to wake him up.
I'll give you that it doesn't matter much in the second round and thereafter, but can matter quite a lot, I think, in the round(s) before that. Time will tell?
It will indeed. But let me say this: I went back and reread the adventure with an eye toward going-last/going-first exploits, and I really don't think it's going to be a problem. There are a lot of combats in which you're going to want to go as fast as possible, I think... especially until you get another Hit Die under your belt.
EDIT: Question. If I daze a guy with two back-to-back ear piercing scream spells, is he dazed for his next two turns?
Nope. They'd just overlap. Also, because it wouldn't work that way in a normal game, it won't work this way either. This is intended to speed up play and ease posting restrictions a bit, nothing more, and I will absolutely rule accordingly if there's ever any question about how things work.
Okay! It looks like everyone's got their characters done!
Since it's the weekend, I know GT at least won't be posting, and several of you tend to slow down then. That's fine - I tried to post the first post of the campaign already, and the PostMonster ate it. So I'll try that again tonight after work or tomorrow. But regardless, we're about to get this train out of the station! Adventure ho!
And the gameplay thread is up! Click on the tab at the top of the page and let's get started!
I would normally prefer you to do so, though of course if it matters for some reason I would step in. But under ordinary circumstances, it is your class feature, and is as under your control as anything else on your sheet.
Not me. Of course, I would not know anyway.
Actually, any target of infernal healing can "sense the evil of the magic," according to the description, so you'd know after the first time it was cast.
>.>
<.<
I am merely a tool of fate.
If anyone wants to get a good mental image of what just happened, pg 8 of the Player's Guide does indeed capture the moment quite well.
Speaking of art in the PG, Sheila Heidmarch is depicted on the cover - she is the woman in the center wearing the blue dress. I will probably get her picture linked into the campaign information next week, but I don't think I'll have time for graphics manipulation during GenCon.
See, I would be angry about the PG artwork spoiling this, but a) it's the first encounter of the adventure that happens about three seconds after the story starts, and b) the anticipation just made it better...
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I just want to brag to my PbPs... Abandoned Arts totally got a little mention on the Store Blog today. I'm on the font page of paizo.com, and I've only been at this in a professional capacity for a month and a half. And I've been featured in the Paizo newsletter at least three times recently, and three of my products occupied three (low-ish) spots on the "top 10 downloads from other companies" list last week. How cool is that?
I'm stoked. Hey; does anybody want a free PDF? Send me a PM and let me know which one you want, and I'll ask Liz to hook you up. If you can't hook up your gaming table with free stuff, what's the point of authoring for a third party production company, right?
Just back from GenCon last night waaaaay late. Probably going to be a day or so before the thread gets going again.
Hope you had a great time, ready and willing when you turn the key and start the motor again .. :)
Away at Music festival 7-9th Sept, no posting during that time.
Away with family 15-16th Sept, no posting at that time
Likewise, the computer issues I that had been resolved earlier this summer have returned with a vengeance, to the point that I am posting this from my cell phone. I will update as soon as I can, but I fear we are on hiatus for at least a short while so that I can get it sorted out.
FYI, I will be away from the 17-21. I do not expect to have any internet access during this time. If needed, please GM PC my character.