Fast, so you're roughly 350 XP from level 2.
I can't remember what we were doing before, but I'm finding as I get more PbP experience that the style of combat that seems to work best (in terms of balance between keeping the game moving and rewarding people for investing in initiative) is letting people post in any order they want, but then having those actions resolve in initiative order.
I still prefer the more freestyle party initiative, at least after the Surprise Round + first "normal" Round of Combat. After that point, the party is almost always acting in a block anyway, and forcing their actions to resolve in initiative order means they have to take delays and the like to time things in a "custom" order instead of just saying what they do, and when. The biggest reward for investing in Initiative order isn't going before your pals, it's going before the bad guys in the very first round, possibly killing some/all of them before they can do anything. After that chance passes it doesn't matter so much, IMO.
I understand where you're coming from, and that's a fair critique of my argument as I stated it, but I'm going to insist on maintaining some form of strict initiative order. It makes keeping up with things as GM a lot easier for me. Maybe some GMs can handle dealing with less structure, but I can't, and I think the situation in that regard is more likely to get worse than it is to get better as y'all level up.
I'll try to get a post up tomorrow. The random encounter dice have spoken, and they weren't kind to y'all. I'm trying to decide whether to ignore them or come up with some sort of non-combat encounter. I don't think anybody would have fun if I threw y'all back into combat right now.
We do still have two Melee combatants at full health. Rhona and I both have bows. But it's true a fight would probably not go well for us.
Is anyone rise going to try the Heal roll that Drexel failed?
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Yeah, I was kinda hoping somebody else would give that a try. We're hurtin'. Prrrrease?
I'm willing to fight if we hafta, but I don't think our odds are good. It'd be a shame if we died horribly before making it to the mountains.
I am always down for fleeing form enemies, we could always return later for our gear. In most great stories the Hero flees at least once or twice.
Is Umash still around? Half we lost both our half orcs? Do we smell bad?
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I'm here.
Yay! HP!
Are we waiting on something?
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Me to put a random encounter together. Sorry for it taking so long.
So what's the situation?
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160 XP apiece; current XP should be 1102.
Painlord's guide to a better PbP experience..
Hey all, I am always trying to improve myself as a player and GM, and this caught my interest, it was linked to in another post I was reading. Not saying that anyone here is doing anything wrong. I just felt it was worth sharing.
It's a great read. I do struggle to live up to it sometimes though.
Thanks for sharing Drexel
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I struggle as well, after working a long day it is sometimes hard to work up enough energy to write up an entertaining and energetic post. But I am going to try and put more into Drexel as well as create hooks so others can play off what I say.
Winner winner, chicken dinner. :) That was a satisfyingly easy fight. Sorry I killed 'im.
100 XP apiece. You are 1 normal encounter away from level 2! No problem on killing him. I thought about fudging his HP to keep the encounter going, but I decided not to; so far, all the dice fudging I've done has been in the party's favor...and I think I'll keep it that way.
Thanks for not fudging his XP. I don't want to know how much damage he'd have dealt me if he had time to land a blow. Killing the bad guy quickly is very satisfying anyway.
I'll be out of pocket some this Thursday-Monday. I should be able to post 1/day still but probably not much more than that. We'll see.
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Ok, so, I realize that this is a little early as we are only just about to hit level 2, but I would like to take Craft Wondrous Item at level 3 and start crafting minor magic items for the groups use. However I am noticing that the likely hood of finding a large town or the like where I could purchase needed spells/supplies (since I only get a couple each time I level up) isn't going to be very likely.
Would you work with me to find ways to get spells/supplies or should I just give it a pass because this game doesn't really support it?
Chantif, the answer is "a lot." Though the real temptation was seeing what would happen when you tried to disarm a raging barbarian.
Drexel, Craft Wonderous Item will be fine. I'll try to make sure you're getting some value out of it. It might help if you'd come up with a list of wonderous items that you're interested in making eventually. Sometimes I have a hard time filling in the last few slots in a NPC's spellbook; if I know you want a particular spell and it makes sense for the NPC to have it, that's an opportunity...
Well I calculated that between the AC/CMD penalty and the STR bonus that his CMD would break even.
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One of the first things I would like to make is some apprentice gloves. Give me unlimited castings of prestidigitation and mage hand, both 0 level spells that I find useful and would open up a few other 0 level spell slots for me.
I would also like to make a level 1 pearl of power or two, for the same reason though it would only allow me to recall a spell I had prepared and cast that day already.
Are you still interested in continuing this campaign, GM?
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I second this question! I'm still on board if you're game, Sarpadian.
I'm still here as well, just wasn't posting much due to preparing to pcs to CA
Also still here and ready to continue.
I'd like to continue; I'm just sort of at a loss about how to do so. I don't want to just hand-wave the crossing, but I can't make up my mind on what kind of check is appropriate. I'll make a decision today and get something posted tonight.
Hand waving is okay sometimes.
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Suddenly we need Use Rope to come back.
Might I suggest handle animal for getting the beasts on the tether, and swim, with a backup climb check ot get oneself across.
I feel at this point it is safe to say Det wont be coming back.
I'd come to that conclusion myself. I thought about having him perish crossing the river, but I decided to keep him around in case you guys run into combat between here and Meston. I think I'll go ahead and open recruitment to replace him, though, so that the new character will be ready once y'all get there.
EDIT: New recruitment post up. Feel free to chime in.
Yeah, I was in the Rise of the Runelords game Det's player was running when he poofed. I don't think he's coming back anytime soon.
As for the recruitment thread, I'm all for it! I love fresh meat.
I was going to suggest my cousin before doing open recruitment but this works too.
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Do you care for any of our input on the applicants? If so, do you want it posted here, or PMed?
Go ahead, in whatever format you're comfortable with.
Is everyone ready for me to move things along? Does anyone have feedback on our two character submissions?
Yes please. I believe our characters have indicated as much in the thread.
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Crunch-wise I think I prefer Arasmis. The Bard/Cleric combo seems more capable of improving the party in combat while also offering healing (channels 6/day, spontaneous casting for CLW). The Shaman is neat, and technically offers a much higher healing capacity (healing hex for each party member 1/day, plus channels 8/day), but overall I feel Arasmis has more to offer. I also like that he has Endurance(!).
Player-wise, they're both pretty inexperienced (like I was when this campaign started). Ladamire (the Shaman) has been in one campaign that died because of GM issues. Arasmis is in 2 campaigns that both started relatively recently and looks to be a regular poster. I think they both work out to be the same, as far as we can see, when it comes to commitment/regularity.
So altogether I prefer Arasmis.
Not since my last post. I'll admit that my prod was partly a "Doesn't anybody want to comment on how close you are to Meston?"
Feedback duly noted. Anybody else?
Player fail. I read that post and then completely forgot about it.
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Generally if it has been 24 hours since anyone has posted, or 48 hours since I've posted, consider Chantif/me as implicitly approving of whatever is happening and wanting it to move forward to the next decision-point.
Of course, I should also be posting after every 24 hours of total silence to try to get things moving forward somehow.
I agree with chantif, I apologize because I have been busy getting ready to move across the country and so have been neglecting the boards. But it has my full attention again.
I'm not sure how a cleric/bard combo's healing scales with level, so I'm somewhat partial towards the shaman. His channeling per day gets twice his charisma modifier because he essentially has two channeling sources, so whenever his charisma goes up 1 he has 2 more channels. And the healing hex is sugar on top, although the greater healing hex would have to wait a while considering how many hexes the archetype leaves out.
So I think i will stay neutral, they both seem good to me.
Neither seems to have provided any backstory, which is sad. I think i could work better with that.
The lack of backstory is at least partially my fault; I didn't ask for one. I'll summarize the feedback and ask them to provide backstories.
Aye, I'd need more backstory in order to have a proper feel for these applicants, but I like 'em both. I've never seen a Shaman in action, but I hear good things; Bard/Cleric sounds like a great support character. I think we'd be good either way. I'll be happy to have either/or.
My other thumb went up for Arasmis just now.
Indeed! I quite liked it. I still want to see what our other applicant comes up with, but I'm confident that we'd do well with Arasmis if he is picked.
We have a couple more applicants now. I'm about to post an update in the gameplay thread, and then I'll finish reviewing character sheets.