The Strange Aeons Experiment


Strange Aeons

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Order of the Amber Die wrote:

Thanks Infinity! You are so right about the rubble. I made a little booklet that's in our Dropbox, which describes how I made the map and contains a lot of close-ups and production photos. In there you will see some comments about the rubble in particular. It was so challenging to create it all that I had to start every session with rubble, draw for a few hours, then finish with some rubble. I once threw myself at a rubble pile for about two hours, but that was too much.

As for our previous marathons, don't worry, it's all on our Facebook and in our Dropbox, so you can catch up! Glad to have you on board, Strange Aeons looks like a great AP so far.

Thanks! Yes I read through the additional map document before digging into the living document. I praise your patience for that rubble but it's a nice detail. I wonder if you can paint stamps with wet erase marker and then use them on the mats. That would be useful. Still, the hand drawn is beautiful.

I've read through the actual first module once but I need to give it further reviews. I love some of details (like why that unicorn exists).

And thank you, I will gladly review your other docs in Dropbox. I was looking through all the pictures on your facebook. I need a mounted TV to use as you have. I have an older one but no good place to put it yet so it waits on the floor til needed. I did just pick up the Phillips Hue White and Color bulbs so I can adjust the lighting however I want. I expect to use that heavily for this path! Blue? Green? Dim brown, or yellow light maybe? Very useful!

EDIT: I also meant to say that I've story told for World of Darkness games. The atmosphere was always important in setting the mood as you've done for your game. I really see it adding to game when you use low light, candles, the music (great soundtrack you made), and more. Greatly appreciate having the living document to help prep!

Order of the Amber Die

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SilentInfinity wrote:
Order of the Amber Die wrote:

Thanks Infinity! You are so right about the rubble. I made a little booklet that's in our Dropbox, which describes how I made the map and contains a lot of close-ups and production photos. In there you will see some comments about the rubble in particular. It was so challenging to create it all that I had to start every session with rubble, draw for a few hours, then finish with some rubble. I once threw myself at a rubble pile for about two hours, but that was too much.

As for our previous marathons, don't worry, it's all on our Facebook and in our Dropbox, so you can catch up! Glad to have you on board, Strange Aeons looks like a great AP so far.

Thanks! Yes I read through the additional map document before digging into the living document. I praise your patience for that rubble but it's a nice detail. I wonder if you can paint stamps with wet erase marker and then use them on the mats. That would be useful. Still, the hand drawn is beautiful.

I've read through the actual first module once but I need to give it further reviews. I love some of details (like why that unicorn exists).

And thank you, I will gladly review your other docs in Dropbox. I was looking through all the pictures on your facebook. I need a mounted TV to use as you have. I have an older one but no good place to put it yet so it waits on the floor til needed. I did just pick up the Phillips Hue White and Color bulbs so I can adjust the lighting however I want. I expect to use that heavily for this path! Blue? Green? Dim brown, or yellow light maybe? Very useful!

EDIT: I also meant to say that I've story told for World of Darkness games. The atmosphere was always important in setting the mood as you've done for your game. I really see it...

Yeah, the mounted TV is really nice, though 70" is a luxury and you can probably get away with a 55" just as well. It is REALLY nice when we put the maps/handouts up on it too.

Stamps might work for rubble, I guess it would depend on what size they were and how easily you can modify them. One of the concerns when drawing that much rubble is knowing what squares it extends into, as sometimes rubble only takes up half a square or less. You'll also want to decide how to play each square of rubble; our rule is that any rubble--no matter how little--is difficult terrain. The collapsing asylum was a unique feature of the adventure and we wanted to make sure it was felt on the grid as well. One last option would be to use Dungeon Tiles for rubble, but it would be hard to find enough of those for this adventure.

As for lighting, I think we'll see a lot more strange lighting as the path unfolds. Having all those colors gives you a lot of variety, and you'll likely need it as this AP roams quite a bit.

I haven't tried World of Darkness, I'll have to check it out!

Order of the Amber Die

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The complete stat block for Alahazra after the completion of In Search of Sanity can now be seen in our Dropbox.
Enjoy!


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Sterling-Order of the Amber Die wrote:

The complete stat block for Alahazra after the completion of In Search of Sanity can now be seen in our Dropbox.

Enjoy!

Thanks for taking the time to put the character sheets up.

So it looks like the PCs were actually made with 18 point buy?


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Nah they are 15 point buys.

For Erasmus he was done : Str 13 (+2 Race, +1 level), Dex 14, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 12 (+2 Race)

Alhazra was done : Str 12 (+2 Race), Dex 12, Con 14, Int 9, Wis 10, Cha 15 (+1 level, +2 race)

It's fun trying to decipher point buys, especially when they don't use the typical 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 array. They like to give up the feat and skill rank for the extra +2 to an ability score by using Dual Talent.

Dual Talent: Some humans are uniquely skilled at maximizing their natural gifts. These humans pick two ability scores and gain a +2 racial bonus in each of those scores. This racial trait replaces the +2 bonus to any one ability score, the bonus feat, and the skilled traits.


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Huh, I didn't even know Dual Talent was a thing. Thanks.


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No problemo :) Always glad to help folks understand :)


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Out of curiosity, how are you guys handling character creation? That is, I know you've said you're each playing one of the iconic characters, but from the stat blocks, it looks like several things have been changed. What parts of the iconic characters are you/aren't you allowed to change?


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From what I read they are playing their vision of the 4 iconic characters featured in the concept art of the module. Tailoring the archetypes, etc. to meet the module by the advice given in the player's guide.


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Oliver Veyrac wrote:

From what I read they are playing their vision of the 4 iconic characters featured in the concept art of the module. Tailoring the archetypes, etc. to meet the module by the advice given in the player's guide.

So is it just the concept art that's constraining their choices? That's interesting, but a much weaker constraint than I had initially thought they were working under. (E.g., the concept art for Alahazra seems compatible with her being a samsarans cleric, or a changeling psychic, or...).

Order of the Amber Die

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Porridge wrote:
Oliver Veyrac wrote:

From what I read they are playing their vision of the 4 iconic characters featured in the concept art of the module. Tailoring the archetypes, etc. to meet the module by the advice given in the player's guide.

So is it just the concept art that's constraining their choices? That's interesting, but a much weaker constraint than I had initially thought they were working under. (E.g., the concept art for Alahazra seems compatible with her being a samsarans cleric, or a changeling psychic, or...).

Glad so many people are interested in how we play the iconics!

We've tried to lay out a lot what goes into character creation in our living PDF, but I'll try and clear up the rest. We do not simply build to the concept art, but players are strongly influenced by the art in that with their starting builds they have to try and match the art as much as possible (with equipment only). This sometimes gets trickier as we go along; for example, Erasmus will always carry a starknife, but he did use Red Destiny against the Tatterman and in a couple of other fights. Crowe from The Giantslayer Endeavor wouldn't pass up on wielding the hammer of thunderbolts, but he would have turned down something completely out of flavor (say a firearm or regional weapon). The goal is always to try as hard as possible to match the spirit and flavor of the iconic, and the art is one important aspect of that.

Another guideline is the background. When creating their characters, our players sometimes go so far as to speak with the authors about how they may have envisioned the iconic, or about what the author would have included in the background with a higher allotted word count. The goal is once again--try your best to stay true to the iconic's backstory.

However, two things in particular can alter an iconic character's build quite a bit: the AP, and progression. The AP might be Giantslayer, and in Giantslayer characters were intended to slay giants. In this case, players use the player's guide, flavored teamwork feats, and character options that match the AP, while still trying to maintain as much iconic flavor as possible. The best example of this in Strange Aeons is Alahazra, whose background is normally the flame mystery, but in this AP, time was one of the recommended mysteries in the player's guide; therefore, time was selected over flame. Regarding progression, sometimes things happen to a character over the course of adventuring that forever alters them; as examples, an iconic who permanently loses a limb or suffers an alignment change might stray from where we originally envisioned the iconic. It's part of the game.

A final note on playing iconics is that words like "constraint" may imply that we are forcing our PCs into the box of an iconic build. We have played enough of the game that after dozens of campaigns over the years, our players no longer demand the individuality they once did in regard to building their own character. Instead, the players now see it as an exciting opportunity to bring an iconic character to full life by playing it as their own. The players also counsel each other, and often confer as a group about what an iconic's theme may be. They will even voice it to each other if they think that someone is stepping close to the line of an iconic's flavor. To their credit, they guide themselves and try to stay true to their characters--so far it's been a lot of fun GMing many iconics!

The Exchange Order of the Amber Die

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Quinn's full stat block, post In Search of Sanity, is now available for viewing in our Dropbox.
I'm excited to see people are enjoying these!


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Oliver Veyrac wrote:

Nah they are 15 point buys.

For Erasmus he was done : Str 13 (+2 Race, +1 level), Dex 14, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 12 (+2 Race)
Alhazra was done : Str 12 (+2 Race), Dex 12, Con 14, Int 9, Wis 10, Cha 15 (+1 level, +2 race)
It's fun trying to decipher point buys, especially when they don't use the typical 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 array. They like to give up the feat and skill rank for the extra +2 to an ability score by using Dual Talent.
Dual Talent: Some humans are uniquely skilled at maximizing their natural gifts. These humans pick two ability scores and gain a +2 racial bonus in each of those scores. This racial trait replaces the +2 bonus to any one ability score, the bonus feat, and the skilled traits.

Hey, I’m glad you enjoyed that! I like to do the same thing, trying to extrapolate bonuses out of stat blocks. Actually, I thought about including the alt racial traits in the these, but I left them out on purpose to see if anyone would catch them. I figured someone would notice the missing feat or skill ranks, but you picked up on it the harder way.

But let me add another layer to why we all went with Dual Talent. It wasn’t entirely to give us a boost from the 15-point build, because another +2 to an ability score is really just a +1 modifier in the end. Although that can surely help a lot in many areas, the other purpose was to have them be closer to the original stat blocks that use the 20-point build seen in many modules, as they certain aren't fragile--they are iconics after all.

Also, even though we do implement some rules and restrictions when we develop iconics, they only encourage us to be more creative with our character concepts. Starting age, for example: According to his backstory, Quinn is middle-aged. So right there, that was a must. Sure this makes it more of a challenge to take on the combat-oriented role that we envisioned him playing in this campaign, but it’ll also make his victories that much sweeter. Now, on the other hand, Feiya could also be middle-aged. Her backstory mentions that she spent twelve years under the tutelage of the hags, which would put her at a minimum of 28 years of age if she started at 1st-level at that point, but the rest of her history is relatively vague as far as length of time is concerned. Therefore, it’s conceivable that another decade had passed (especially given what happened to her in the fugue state) so we decided it was fine to make her middle-aged too, and--unlike Quinn--it helped instead of hindered her stat block.

The bottom line is there are different ways to approach building iconic characters. There may or may not be a decent amount flexibility in certain aspects, but we think we’ve made some tasteful decisions with them thus far, while trying our best to live up to their names in the process.


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Order of the Amber Die wrote:

We do not simply build to the concept art, but players are strongly influenced by the art in that with their starting builds they have to try and match the art as much as possible (with equipment only). This sometimes gets trickier as we go along; for example, Erasmus will always carry a starknife, but he did use Red Destiny against the Tatterman and in a couple of other fights. Crowe from The Giantslayer Endeavor wouldn't pass up on wielding the hammer of thunderbolts, but he would have turned down something completely out of flavor (say a firearm or regional weapon). The goal is always to try as hard as possible to match the spirit and flavor of the iconic, and the art is one important aspect of that.

Another guideline is the background. When creating their characters, our players sometimes go so far as to speak with the authors about how they may have envisioned the iconic, or about what the author would have included in the background with a higher allotted word count. The goal is once again--try your best to stay true to the iconic's backstory.

However, two things in particular can alter an iconic character's build quite a bit: the AP, and progression. The AP might be Giantslayer, and in Giantslayer characters were intended to slay...

That answers my question. Thanks!

P.s.: The ways you guys are running this is pretty amazing. And the Module Analysis part of the living document looks extremely helpful to DMs preparing to run this. Kudos!

Order of the Amber Die

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Porridge wrote:
Order of the Amber Die wrote:

We do not simply build to the concept art, but players are strongly influenced by the art in that with their starting builds they have to try and match the art as much as possible (with equipment only). This sometimes gets trickier as we go along; for example, Erasmus will always carry a starknife, but he did use Red Destiny against the Tatterman and in a couple of other fights. Crowe from The Giantslayer Endeavor wouldn't pass up on wielding the hammer of thunderbolts, but he would have turned down something completely out of flavor (say a firearm or regional weapon). The goal is always to try as hard as possible to match the spirit and flavor of the iconic, and the art is one important aspect of that.

Another guideline is the background. When creating their characters, our players sometimes go so far as to speak with the authors about how they may have envisioned the iconic, or about what the author would have included in the background with a higher allotted word count. The goal is once again--try your best to stay true to the iconic's backstory.

However, two things in particular can alter an iconic character's build quite a bit: the AP, and progression. The AP might be Giantslayer, and in Giantslayer characters were intended to slay...

That answers my question. Thanks!

P.s.: The ways you guys are running this is pretty amazing. And the Module Analysis part of the living document looks extremely helpful to DMs preparing to run this. Kudos!

Thank you too, Porridge, this whole thing works a lot better when Pathfinder fans are engaged and discussing it--exactly what you and others have been doing here. There will be a lot more to review as time goes on, especially as these characters develop and encounter more within the path that we can share with everyone. Happy gaming!


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

I know you're playing strictly to the intention of the module/path so you wouldn't have done this necessarily, but would you consider there plenty of opportunity for someone to gain a Corruption? By your living document, it does seem Quinn's death was at the hands of Ghouls so perhaps he might gain that one... Is that something your team discussed by chance? Or maybe it might get sprung on him? Do you prefer to discuss that OOC first or maybe unveil it IC and make him decide quickly to go down that path?

I'm considering making a Dopplegagner and/or "Tatterman" related corruption to use before the path starts. The Corruption (as well as other Horror) rules have lots of opportunity for use it would seem.

Order of the Amber Die

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SilentInfinity wrote:

I know you're playing strictly to the intention of the module/path so you wouldn't have done this necessarily, but would you consider there plenty of opportunity for someone to gain a Corruption? By your living document, it does seem Quinn's death was at the hands of Ghouls so perhaps he might gain that one... Is that something your team discussed by chance? Or maybe it might get sprung on him? Do you prefer to discuss that OOC first or maybe unveil it IC and make him decide quickly to go down that path?

I'm considering making a Dopplegagner and/or "Tatterman" related corruption to use before the path starts. The Corruption (as well as other Horror) rules have lots of opportunity for use it would seem.

Good question, the corruption rules do look like they're going to have a lot of potential in this AP. Corruptions were something that I definitely considered trying to implement; when it comes to optional rules like that, sometimes we discuss them as a team, but if they're more of a GM-decision then I won't tell the players. In many ways, these are some of the most traditional aspects of our game, and an area that I get to have sole control over as any other GM would; despite running the modules to the author's intent, supplemental material that Paizo produces which is designed to enhance the game can be employed if we choose. This not only lets us utilize some of the new supplemental material out there, but we also record and present data to the community about it. If we do get a corruption going, you can be sure we'll tell everyone how it worked out! :)

Two examples of optional rules that we did discuss using, are the massive death rule from the CRB and the instant kill rule that we carried over from 3.5. We implemented these in our Rise of the Runelords campaign, and since it was our regular campaign and not a project, we thought it would be a good place to try out both rules and record some stats about them. In addition, regardless of the combat optional rules we employed, we still played each module in Runelords just as written. There are a lot of photos of this campaign on our Facebook, but a writeup is still in production (entering part 5 of the AP this fall).

Scarab Sages Developer, Starfinder Team

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So... that map you sent to the office is AWESOME, by the way!

Order of the Amber Die

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Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:
So... that map you sent to the office is AWESOME, by the way!

Thanks Owen! We are glad you all like it. Many thanks for sharing it with the community and on your own Facebook as well. Happy gaming!

Order of the Amber Die

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Feiya's full stat block following In Search of Sanity, is now available for viewing in our Dropbox. Of course, no stat block of Feiya would be complete without one for Daji as well.

Enjoy!

Order of the Amber Die

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Hey all!

Just wanted everyone here in the thread to know that we've posted the next set of photos from our marathon session of In Search of Sanity on our Facebook.

The link leads to the photos just posted. The rest can be found in the In Search of Sanity photo album which is clearly marked in the photo albums page.

We typically take over 2,000 photos each marathon so it can take a while to find the narrative and edit. More to come soon.

Enjoy!

Order of the Amber Die

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Strange Aeons fans:

We will be live on Know Direction, Wednesday, September 21st, 830pm EST. We'll discuss everything from The Strange Aeons Experiment to what it takes to marathon an entire volume of an AP in one sitting, and much more. Come out and join us!

Sovereign Court

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Order of the Amber Die wrote:

Strange Aeons fans:

We will be live on Know Direction, Wednesday, September 21st, 830pm EST. We'll discuss everything from The Strange Aeons Experiment to what it takes to marathon an entire volume of an AP in one sitting, and much more. Come out and join us!

That's late in Denmark, will it be possible to see it, after tonight?

Paizo Employee Developer

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Know Direction posts their older shows to their YouTube channel and audio only versions on their website, so you can certainly catch it later if you miss it live.

Sovereign Court

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Adam Daigle wrote:
Know Direction posts their older shows to their YouTube channel and audio only versions on their website, so you can certainly catch it later if you miss it live.

Thank You Adam :-)

Paizo Employee Developer

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Certainly! For ease, here's the episode!

I missed it because I was playing in our Hell's Vengeance game, but I'm home and watching now.

Order of the Amber Die

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Adam Daigle wrote:

Certainly! For ease, here's the episode!

I missed it because I was playing in our Hell's Vengeance game, but I'm home and watching now.

Hope everyone enjoys watching, we had a great time chatting it up with Ryan and Jefferson from Know Direction last night.

Thanks for posting the link, Adam!

Order of the Amber Die

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Yet another interview!

We did a "locker room" Q&A with Tabletop Terrors this past weekend, and they purposely caught us right in the middle of the marathon for part two, The Thrushmoor Terror. We were pretty tired, but it was a load of fun and we covered topics that differed from the Know Direction interview--check it out if you get a chance!

Tabletop Terrors Interview Link

Order of the Amber Die

Pathfinders! A quick update: the first group of photos from our recent runthrough of The Thrushmoor Terror are up on our Facebook.

Enjoy!

Order of the Amber Die

Post marathon 2 updated stat blocks for Feiya and Daji are now available in our Dropbox!

Order of the Amber Die

Winter Klaczka's stat block (post marathon 2) is now available in our Dropbox!

The Exchange Order of the Amber Die

The updated stat block for Quinn, post marathon 2, is currently available in our Dropbox!

Sczarni Order of the Amber Die

The stat block(s) for Erasmus at the end of module two are available in our Dropbox, check him out.

More to come soon!

Paizo Employee Developer

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Thanks for all y'all do!

Order of the Amber Die

Adam Daigle wrote:
Thanks for all y'all do!

Thanks! Daji and I are packed and ready for a river cruise!


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Interesting advancement choices for the PCs as they level up. A fun mix of clearly effective spells/feats/options (e.g. spells like Haste and feats like Weapon Finesse) mixed with what seem to be more flavorful choices (e.g., spells like Create Treasure Map, feats like Psychic Maestro and Fortune Teller, the Feral Speech hex, and so on).

This makes me curious. How much use have you guys been able to get out of the more flavorful options you've chosen? Have you found any of them to be surprising helpful, or surprisingly fun?

Sczarni Order of the Amber Die

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Porridge wrote:

Interesting advancement choices for the PCs as they level up. A fun mix of clearly effective spells/feats/options (e.g. spells like Haste and feats like Weapon Finesse) mixed with what seem to be more flavorful choices (e.g., spells like Create Treasure Map, feats like Psychic Maestro and Fortune Teller, the Feral Speech hex, and so on).

This makes me curious. How much use have you guys been able to get out of the more flavorful options you've chosen? Have you found any of them to be surprising helpful, or surprisingly fun?

For Erasmus, I'm going with as much flavor as possible, making only a few concessions for combat purposes. Spirit Focus (Champion) with Sudden Attack and haste gives him three attacks per round at his highest BAB, but that's where the "power gaming" stops for the most part.

He has a lot going on in his portrait, so I made a majority of his choices based on that. I spent a decent amount of his starting wealth on items from Occult Adventures, like psychometrist's gloves and a talking board, both of which have seen a decent amount of use. The automatic writing and psychometry occult skill unlocks have indeed been surprisingly helpful, and more often thanks to the Psychic Maestro feat, and I expect more similarly inspired abilities to be useful in the future, like the Harrow Deck. Erasmus is holding one in almost every portrait I've come across, but since there was no way I could get him to meet the prerequisites for the Deadly Dealer feat without multiclassing and Harrowed seemed too self-serving, I went with Fortune Teller instead. As creepy as a spell like create treasure map is, I think it's right up his alley, as well as other divination spells. Being able to handle evil spirits is important, but in the more traditional sense of being a "medium" he should also be communicating with benevolent ones for good purposes, so eventually being able to cast divination, legend lore, and true seeing for FREE should be very beneficial, although it's not really about the cost, it's more about being able to cast them whenever he wants without having to worry about the additional components. A lot of players are probably (and rightfully) reluctant to add those to a list of spells known because without the materials they might as well be blank spaces on their character sheets. But, for this campaign particularly, I think using those sorts of spells to "break the 4th wall" and interact directly with the GM will be integral to our success, because - let's face it - we spent a lot of time in the first few adventures not knowing what was going on, and these choices could go a long way to mitigate that in the weeks ahead.

Also...

spoiler:
His 1st-level spells, calm spirits and detect undead, were extremely valuable when we were in proximity of haunts in module one, and in module two I was very thankful that I chose purge spirit as one of his 2nd-level spells!

Order of the Amber Die

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Porridge wrote:
Interesting advancement choices for the PCs as they level up. A fun mix of clearly effective spells/feats/options (e.g. spells like Haste and feats like Weapon Finesse) mixed with what seem to be more flavorful choices (e.g., spells like Create Treasure Map, feats like Psychic Maestro and Fortune Teller, the Feral Speech hex, and so on).

It’s all about the Formerly Mind-Swapped campaign trait with Feiya, and how it translates to her connection with Daji. I took with Feral Speech so she could communicate with Daji before the Speak With Master ability kicked in. Thanks to the sage archetype he has a lot of knowledge skills, but what use would they be if he couldn’t communicate? Feiya has a lot of those too, but it turns out that Daji rolls better. *cough*

Also, as a hex channeler I wanted to focus on channel energy, so this also helped remove any temptation to go with any of the staples of the witch class. So no Slumber hex in the Strange Aeons Experiment. Sorry!


I was looking at Erasmus, and under the archmage sheet it does not look like it modified your att, st, etc for the archmage spirit.
Do you simply do those mods on the fly? Or is this an error in the program? Or am I reading the stat block wrong?
Thanks
MDC

Sczarni Order of the Amber Die

Mark Carlson 255 wrote:

I was looking at Erasmus, and under the archmage sheet it does not look like it modified your att, st, etc for the archmage spirit.

Do you simply do those mods on the fly? Or is this an error in the program? Or am I reading the stat block wrong?
Thanks
MDC

Are you referring to the influence penalty? If so, I do that on the fly. It's one of the drawbacks of the reanimated medium archetype, but it was totally worth it. Besides, I try to use Spirit Surge as early as I can to get back to normal, so it doesn't come into play very often. Although I did spend a few encounters taking the -4 penalty on attack rolls to deal nonlethal damage after channeling Veldira for the first time, that was rough.


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So Erasmus used more than the Champion spirit this time around?


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Aerick Lim wrote:
The automatic writing and psychometry occult skill unlocks have indeed been surprisingly helpful, and more often thanks to the Psychic Maestro feat, and I expect more similarly inspired abilities to be useful in the future, like the Harrow Deck.

Neat! Now I'm really jealous -- I'd love to be in a game where abilities like that are useful enough to earn their keep, but not so useful that they break the game.

(My players rarely try to use these kinds of divinations, probably because I have a hard time getting a feel for how much/what kind of information to give players who use them, and so tend to treat them a little inconsistently. Something for me to work on!)

Jody Gerst wrote:
I took with Feral Speech so she could communicate with Daji before the Speak With Master ability kicked in. Thanks to the sage archetype he has a lot of knowledge skills, but what use would they be if he couldn’t communicate? Feiya has a lot of those too, but it turns out that Daji rolls better. ... So no Slumber hex in the Strange Aeons Experiment. Sorry!

Ah, that make sense. (And if you guys are using the retraining rules, I guess you can always train out of it when you do get the Speak With Master ability?)

I'm kind of glad you didn't choose the Slumber hex. That kind of save-or-suck ability can really make a lot of encounters pretty anti-climactic, which is less fun for everyone involved (including your readers!).

Sczarni Order of the Amber Die

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Spatula wrote:
So Erasmus used more than the Champion spirit this time around?

Yeah, it wasn't as easy finding "places if violence" in Thrushmoor as it was in Briarstone. Also, a being a medium isn't something you want too many people in Ustalav to know; they're understandably apprehensive about anything or anyone that has to do with undead, and channeling spirits is too close for comfort. We did get to hold a seance with Nissa (champion) in more isolated areas we found, but for the most part Erasmus channeled Veldira (hierophant) since we used New Chapel as our safe house. The séance boon was really effective, considering everyone in the group could cast cure spells. Then towards the end, after Alahazra and Quinn were slain, it was pretty cool to have the remainder of the group - Erasmus, Feiya, and Winter - all be able channel positive energy. We weren't dealing a lot of damage, but we were able to heal our way through encounters like I've never seen before. Sometimes the best offense is a good defense!


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Aerick Lim wrote:
Mark Carlson 255 wrote:

I was looking at Erasmus, and under the archmage sheet it does not look like it modified your att, st, etc for the archmage spirit.

Do you simply do those mods on the fly? Or is this an error in the program? Or am I reading the stat block wrong?
Thanks
MDC
Are you referring to the influence penalty? If so, I do that on the fly. It's one of the drawbacks of the reanimated medium archetype, but it was totally worth it. Besides, I try to use Spirit Surge as early as I can to get back to normal, so it doesn't come into play very often. Although I did spend a few encounters taking the -4 penalty on attack rolls to deal nonlethal damage after channeling Veldira for the first time, that was rough.

Yes I was just looking at the sheets and seemed to notice that the abilities at the bottom -2 ST were not taken into account in the stat block.

I have not read about the class yet so I should probably do that.
Thanks
MDC

Order of the Amber Die

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We just released over 50 more photos on Facebook from our playthrough of In Search of Sanity and The Thrushmoor Terror. Enjoy!

Dreams of the Yellow King is around the corner, and we are both excited and honored to announce that we will be joined by a celebrity guest! Author, editor, and Paizo alum Savannah Broadway will be flying from coast-to-coast to play the role of Winter Klaczka for all of marathon three! As this is a very special occasion, we will be posting on our Instagram and Facebook live throughout the marathon, which begins this Thursday morning (Nov. 10th) and rolls until late Sunday night. Hope some of you can follow along and wish us luck as we reach the halfway point of Strange Aeons!

Sczarni Order of the Amber Die

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Erasmus's stat block(s) are ready and uploaded to our Dropbox for the end of Dreams of the Yellow King!

Order of the Amber Die

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Feiya's full stat block following Dreams of the Yellow King is now available for viewing in our Dropbox. Daji's too!


Aerick Lim wrote:

Erasmus's stat block(s) are ready and uploaded to our Dropbox for the end of Dreams of the Yellow King!

How was the experience of being a Medium in the Dreamlands? Did you stick with Champion spirits, or rely on more of a variety?

Order of the Amber Die

We just posted our next map giveaway contest on Facebook! The winners will receive two maps from The Thrushmoor Terror, expanded and remastered to a 1" scale by Axion Studios. The maps are both of Iris Hill, and can be seen in action on our Facebook.

Good luck everyone!!

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