As the name kinda gives away, I'm really into creepy undead s*#&, and I'd love to sink my teeth into Carrion Crown. Online means a better opportunity to soak in the horror and roleplay things a little deeper, since the written word conveys horror much better than the spoken, I feel.
Unfortunately I've also been hit by the gestalt bug and, following the pausing of my superheroes game due to a vicious finals season that doesn't lend itself well to homebrewing adventures, I'm in need of a place to vent it. While I feel that I can play it such that the horror is intact (see below) I know the general consensus is that high powered games kinda remove all the real terror, so I'd like to see if my 'qualifications' are convincing enough, and that in general the interest is there before I make an undeletable thread that doesn't get enough interest due to eyerolling.
I'm currently running a meatspace Wrath of the Righteous table with six players, all of them rather good at optimizing, in a campaign already notorious for underestimating player power level and providing little challenge. Despite that, I've managed to get quite good at retooling even the random schlub encounters, to go from cakewalks where everyone goes into autopilot into tense tactical fights where people carefully think out their turns and hardly escape unscathed.
Due to that, I feel that I can mantain the gameplay horror aspect as well as the atmospheric one. Enemies with class levels will all be gestalt as well, and enemies without will be tweaked in some way, as well as encounter design in general. The added character versatility will be outweighed by the increase in difficulty to keep matters tense, especially when important enemies are given major overhauls to go beyond slapping some extra class features on there to become monsters in a much crunchier way.
But of course, if people feel that gestalt and roleplay-heavy horror don't click too well regardless, I'm fine with running the AP as written and non-gestalt. This is merely feeling things out for a couple days to see if I'm just way off base with general opinion. So, if you're interest in Carrion Crown, sound off and let me know which direction you'd rather so I can know where to go with the matter.
Personally I am not a fan of Gestalt period.
I, on the other hand, am quite fond of gestalt games, especially since smaller table sizes seem to work much better for PbP. ^^
I like gestalt because of the challenge in meshing two classes for a good result. I'd be willing to give it a shot.
Personally I am a BIG! fan of Gestalt period and Psionics.
I'm interested in carrion crown (somebody needs to slay all those filthy undead!). Gestalt is intreaguing but I suspect its easy to make something ridiculously powerful which may spoil the atmosphere.
E.g. a paladin / oracle could be pretty ridiculous, practically unkillable.
I am interested in this as well. I'd be good either way, gestalt or not.
If the Gestalt does not scalate to monstruous powercreeping builds, I'm totally in.
If the game finally ends being not gestalt, I'm totally interested too, as I tried several times to get on one Carrion Crown game, one of them gestalt too.
If you would run Way of the Wicked Gestalted instead I have an interest.
I have a gestalted application ready to go (been there for a year now looking)
I don't think I've played enough pathfinder to get bored with single classes :)
If you feel like going higher power, then why not Mythic?
I fear mythic is even more broken than gestalt. IMO I mean.
It really depends on what you're doing with it. XD I'm running a single-player game with a mythic three-class gestalt character, for example. Yes, they're VERY powerful, effectively several levels above their actual one in terms of general deadliness.
This hasn't stopped me, as the GM, from simply upping the challenge and throwing in more monsters, stronger monsters, and challenges that their main strategy won't always work against. It's more of a challenge even when you're the GM, but it's really not so bad once you figure out the right way to build threats for the characters.
(One of my players is probably still nervous about some of the foes I've created - they cited that they've had TPK's from something easier than what I threw at them. XD Also, it's probably important to remember that Pathfinder is less about individually-challenging encounters and more about wearing the characters down over time by making them expend their resources. For that reason, I personally suggest careful limits on powers that can be recharged if you're going gestalt and/or mythic.)
Yeah Gestalt. As one of the players in Rednal's game it is quite fun :)
Ah I say it and suddenly I have an idea for a great gestalt character for this.
One thing though I'd really really like to get into an AP PBP that actually moves fast. I just got into two games that seem to have ground down within two encounters :(
I'm thinking of reusing this alias
Elf by the name of Cale'anon Vaty, spelless ranger/some kind of caster, maybe my first cleric, maybe my first inquisitor, maybe a class I've played before like magus
The animal companion will be a female panther by the name of Soba.
P.S. I've never done the AP and would like to try it.
Although, I guess part of the question is can you keep the feel with out simply relying on escalating power?
If fear comes from feeling threatened, then wouldn't it be better to go the opposite direction? 15 point game with careful management of encounters to keep us nearly dead without being pushed all the way to TPK?
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Uugh no hate those kind of games
Can't get properly immersed in them.
I believe in the "damn good reason" rule of adventuring
If you're going to be an adventurer you better have a damn good reason to think you'll survive it, unless of course you don't have a choice
Then you need a damn good reason not to quit
@Johnny-Panic: Psionics will unfortunately be off the table no matter what; just not that fond of it.
@JuanAdriel: The obvious counter would be that if the party ends up too powerful, I just scale everything up harder and start giving enemies h*$%%~*+! builds too.
@Edward Sobel: Seeing as a gestalt WotW recruitment just ended, that won't be happening. And if I wanted to run that I would have made a thread about it.
@Nohwear: Because Mythic is a different kind of high power, in that it is generally only a power increase. Gestalt is not quite as much of a boost, especially at low levels, but provides character versatility, which means a small party can hit a lot of bases. Mythic turns Pathfinder into Dragon Ball Z. Which is fine; I love WotR and am running it with my riends, after all. It's just not right for horror.
@Rednal: Yeah, that's how I'm handling my Wrath game. Once they hit mythic I started rewriting encounters; adding enemies, scaling up/replacing the ones there, adding complications and features that completely changed the tactics. The result is that our crazy blasty sorceror can't go nova on bosses, which is one of the main issues with the Archmage path.
@Azih: That would be the typical way to run it, but I see it as a more interesting DMing experience to give the players more tools (thus keeping party size low rather than going or my usual six, thus a more expedient game) while still providing that sort of difficulty.
I'll leave this running a couple more hours, but already there's enough feedback that I'll probably be making my decision and putting the recruitment thread up tonight .
@ Spooky: I know you are not running that mod. and I never expected you to run it. I'm sorry if you took it the wrong way.. (I may have not really posted clearly anyway.) also I really don't want to talk about that recruitment fiasco that just ended.
Cool! One thing that would be really helpful is if you could elaborate on what your expectations of the players are. Stuff like:
1) How long do you expect the game to take (kind of dictates the post rate. It is possible to do an AP in under a year but you need 5-6 posts per day.)
2) What standards of prose you are after? There's a big difference between saying 'I rolled 18 to hit and did 9 damage' and the player describing how their fighter traded blows with several minions before desperately parrying the undead horror's lunge and counter attacking with strength they scarce knew they had.
3) How much optimization do you want? This one is often particularly hard to gauge. One person's munchkin is another's gimp. Ideally all the players will have a similar level of optimization.
@Edward: Well, you kinda stuck your head out in the interest check to say you would have interest if I ran that game instead, so yeah, kinda seemed like it.
@FangDragon: Well, expectations would follow when I actually make the thread, since this is purely a conceptual thing.
1) I'm not putting a goal on it, just because roleplay is hard to guage people's devotion to; they might take to certain NPCs or tasks with much more or much less interest than expected. One post a day minimum is th rate I'll be looking for though.
2) I'd like some decent prose even in a combat round post. "He attacks" ain't interesting.
3) I don't really seek out optimization. I'd rather people use the build rules to make interesting characters and builds possible than just throw together the optimal choices. If someone can make an interesting character with those choices, then I'll allow them, and merely balance things around what's given; I think I could handle a degree of parity. Anything particularly abusive, like Rogue/Vivisectionist, would be vetoed pretty quick though.
Huge fan of gestalt myself. I'd be interested in CC game with those rules for sure.
@Edward: Well, you kinda stuck your head out in the interest check to say you would have interest if I ran that game instead, so yeah, kinda seemed like it.
Yeah I know, my bad there. I apologize there. I do wish you could go back and delete posts anytime. would make my life so much better.
If fear comes from feeling threatened, then wouldn't it be better to go the opposite direction? 15 point game with careful management of encounters to keep us nearly dead without being pushed all the way to TPK?
I agree with this statement wholeheartedly. It really just depends on you, Spooky. Are you wanting to flex your DMing muscles by going gestalt, or more interested in maintaining the horror element of the AP? You can run an AP with just 4-5 with normal builds, if you're worried about the game being dragged down. Just my two cents. :)
Gestalt is pretty sweet.
I put a lot of thought to it while making supper, and my main realization, aside from the fact I should think campaign ideas through after a final paper all-nighter, is that while gestalt might be cool, a well-slept, clearer head says that it doesn't pan out quite as well as I thought. As a result, I'll be opening a thread later tonight for a non-gestalt Carrion Crown game. Sorry for anyone who got too excited and idea-ey, but hopefully there's enough interest in the normal edition of the game to get things rolling.
link it here, please.
I think that will decision will make your life easier in the long term :)
Have fun. I'll pass.
I like gestalt; some of my favorite character builds are not viable without it, and some become a little overpowered.
The GM really needs to want it for Gestalt to be workable.