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OK I'll open this up for two more players then, since some of the encounters are really tough. I've played Refuge of time and my character died 5 times in that scenario. 4 times in one encounters. I'm using a star Replay since I didn't get to play most of the scenario.
Shandor,
If you have a couple people in mind let them know.
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Alright, I've sent several PMs, expecting some answers soon. My opinion is that we should go with 6 people, if possible a balanced group. These scenarios have a reputation of being tough.
Derek W just replied, he may be interested in joining with his level 9 cleric (Oswin). Yay!
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So I'm torn. Oswin is no heal-bot. He's finally ready to do some big-sized tanking once an adventure or so. And normal sized the rest of the time.
But invariably his low speed, mediocre init. and requisite spell buffs make his combat contribution far more limited than I'd like.
In most table games he has a chance to work, but for some reason not as much in online games, party mix may be the answer.
Anyway, I am also in a large number of pbp games. I'm worried about a repeat of his last game where he quickly ended up in the background and I was kind of disconnected as a player.
I really could use some retraining, but I don't have access to that right now.
Any cool/fun spells that I could make use of?
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Awveyen - EK 10
Julian - alchemist/barbarian 9
Talhaearn - rogue 8
Shandor - sorcerer 9
Arnthoth - barbarian 8
Oswin - cleric 9
@ Oswin,
Unfortunately with 2 barbarians at the table Front-lining might be tough.
Clerics are nice though because you can play around with your spell list to fill in different rolls. Looking at your character I can see that with some swapping and/or adding of spells you could be a good, Healer, Buffer/Debuffer, Blaster, or Face. Or with the right balance your could fill two or more of those rolls. Hope this helps.
As a side note this scenario is a lot of fun, with interesting RP and neat battles. As a cleric you will definitely not be left out not mater what you chose to do.
@ Maria,
Oswin reminded me, I'm retaining a feat out.
Minor Spell Mastery for Weapon Specialization.
Also I'm using a GM star to replay this.
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Ok, well for some reason I forgot about Blessing of Fervor. I know that Shandor can cast haste, but I think he likes to be more of a blaster.
I added an extra Holy Smite in case of evil outsiders or evil swarms (that may be more of a season 5 concern!)
And I never really looked at the spells from Ultimate Combat, but Liberating Command! A first level spell that lets me grant +18 to an Escape Artist check!
It's not Freedom of Movement, but what the heck?
Also I'm considering the option of selling my shield and replacing it with an enchanted mithral buckler.
It would cost me 1 point of AC, but would allow me to two-hand my sword when I did go tank and want some extra damage. Though it would give me a -1 penalty to attack rolls.
Or I could just go with a mithral heavy shield to make mine less vulnerable to sunder attempts...
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Ok, well for some reason I forgot about Blessing of Fervor. I know that Shandor can cast haste, but I think he likes to be more of a blaster.
I added an extra Holy Smite in case of evil outsiders or evil swarms (that may be more of a season 5 concern!)
And I never really looked at the spells from Ultimate Combat, but Liberating Command! A first level spell that lets me grant +18 to an Escape Artist check!
It's not Freedom of Movement, but what the heck?
Also I'm considering the option of selling my shield and replacing it with an enchanted mithral buckler.
It would cost me 1 point of AC, but would allow me to two-hand my sword when I did go tank and want some extra damage. Though it would give me a -1 penalty to attack rolls.
Or I could just go with a mithral heavy shield to make mine less vulnerable to sunder attempts...
Don't forget, the spell is an Immediate action!
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Sadly, I was recently reminded that you can't actually use liberating command on yourself. The reason for this is that the casting time is an immediate action, and the spell allows the target to make an Escape Artist check as an immediate action. Since you can't take two immediate actions in the same round, you can only use it on yourself. That being said, this spell is on almost everyone's spell list, so someone can use it on you, and you'll use it on them.
Even then, it's an amazing spell.
If you wish to take BoF, please do! One less round of buffing for Shandor means one more round of blasting, so that's always a good thing. When you run out of BoF, I can cast haste as an alternative.
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I have not played any games in this series…nor have I run any of them. I also apologize for my slow start; I'm just having a hard time wrapping my brain around the information gathering thus far.
That said, I just want to warn everyone that, despite my best efforts, a blizzard will be arriving later this evening and by this time tomorrow I will be digging myself out of approximately 2 feet of snow. Not sure whether I'll have consistent power or internet as a result of the storm but I will check in as often as I can.
In the meantime I have the day off from work tomorrow, plenty of beer, and the wife is planning on making cookies; so please don't worry about me too much!
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I have been bad about posting regularly.
I think I keep waiting for folks that aren't going to contribute due to prior knowledge.
Would it be too much to ask if you aren't going to add anything to the investigation at that location, that you just post a quick ooc text to press on or something, so I don't try to figure out if I should be waiting for more input?
I'm very sorry for the delays.
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OK looks like we're not all on the same page with how to play this scenario. Its meant to be a very sandboxy, RP heavy, investigation.
Our mission is "Find this cult and get to the center of its inner workings. Brute force might get you in the door, but we won’t learn much from a bunch of dead cultists, so infiltrate it if you can. Learn what secrets you can, and get out safely to report your findings to me."
Our plan:
1. We were given a fake alias for Shandor. He is posing as Avis Dimitrov in hopes that cultist will see him as a potential convert and invite him to join.
2. We are going to different locations in town to fine clues as the who might be in the cult and where the cult is operating.
Complications:
While we do want to get the cult's attention we do not want them to think we are looking for them, or else they'll guess our ruse and will not divulge any information.
Going around yelling at people in the middle of the day will likely lead to a lot of doors slammed in our face, or at the worst, being thrown into jail.
Shandor and I were under the impression that we would be RPing each encounter start to finish (for the most part). This is not the same expectation our GM (and some of the other players) had.
So it looks like we need to figure how we want to move forward. As Shandor said we can start using less in-character RP to get through the locations quicker. I will say that I find this a little disappointing since one of the reasons I'm using a GM star replay on this is because when I played it we where rushed for time and didn't get to RP as much as we could. This style of play isn't for everyone and can be tough to GM so I understand if everyone wants to kind of fast-forward to the more exciting part of the adventure.
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I'm OK with role play...but this far I feel as though our role play has been all over the place and I'm finding myself spending more time figuring out what is going on/deciphering what we're trying to accomplish which leaves me less time for posting.
Additionally, Tal has many skills but being charming isn't one of them. I've tried to throw out an Aid on Diplomacy here and there but until I need to climb a wall, pick a lock, look for a trap or tumble out of harm's way I'm not going to be much help. That said I'm happy to RP to keep things interesting but making sense of things has been tough for me so far.
I'm not sure what the solution is...PbP in a sandbox setting can be pretty tough.
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I'm certainly fine if you want to take your time and RP everything.
As a matter of fact, knowing that is how you want to proceed certainly helps me. I'm rather used to folks that want to get through asap and I suppose because there are a total of five scenarios we'll be doing, I had assumed you wanted to get through them quickly.
If you're all good with taking your sweet time, I'm fine with that. :)
I'll certainly coax along the heavy RP. Thanks for clearing this up for me.
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Awesome!
OK, now that we're all on the same page lets try and figure out our specific rolls and how we are all going to work with the cover story.This will let those of us really in the the RP to do our thing while the other take care of other stuff and we'll be able to move through the scenario a bit quicker.
Here is what we've established so far:
Shandor - Avis Dimitrov noble, here on business but also interested in some extracurricular activities
Awveyen - Stick in the mud adviser, I'll help "legitimize" the operation while giving Shandor a "straight man" to play off of
Here is who still needs to be established.
Julian -Good Intimidate and survival
Oswin - Decent diplomacy and sense motive
Talhaearn - Good knowledge local, perception, and sense motive
Arnthoth - Good Perception and Survival; decent Diplomacy and Intimidate
Some suggestions:
Recon - Some of us can move a head and ask around while on our way to the next location. Skills like Diplomacy, and Knowledge Local can get us information to use when we play our alias.
Snooping - While Shandor and Awveyen talk someone(s) can sneak off and look around for clues. Perception and Survival can find things that might lead us to the cult.
Enforcers - Avis Dimitrov's over enthusiastic body guards. They can break off from the group during social situations to find a worker or staff who might look suspicious and try and get information out of them. Sense Motives with Intimidate and/or Diplomacy would be helpful in shaking down some people while not drawing too much attention to ourselves.
Backup - Aiding "Avis Dimitrov" with diplomacy and watching for lies and half-truths. Using diplomacy and sense motives while playing at being a friend of Avis, a sycophantic hanger-on, or a watchful guard could help us on a bad roll or catch something we missed.
We'll then need to designate who is making the main roll and who will be aiding. This way we can work the same lead from different angles. Hopefully this will make the RP encounters more even-keeled and give everyone a sense that they are contributing.
Once we figure this all out we can just move on from there. Realistically speaking, we would have done this before heading out in the morning.
I hope this is OK with everyone. I don't mean to be bossy or tell people how to play I'm just trying to unify the group. And my no means is this the only option. If anyone had any other suggestions or comments feel free to let me know.
Splitting the party into teams can sometimes lead to a lot of extra work. If you need help, either with ideas on how to proceed or on posting responses, please let me know. I've played and GMed this and I don't mind using my knowledge to help out.
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@Awveyen Thillvahna, I'm certainly not opposed to assistance.
I want to make this as an enjoyable game as possible, and if you have tips, hints, or tricks that you'd prefer the rest of the party not be privy to, please feel free to email me directly at marietta.sca@gmail.com or you can find me on Facebook (I'm the only Marietta Messina in Delaware, I think).