Aubrey's Eberron campaign. (Inactive)

Game Master Aubrey the Malformed

Wow, that was pretty cool, wasn't it?

*the resident two-weapon fighter sheds a single tear*

Wow, Aubrey's description was pretty cool, wasn't it?

Fixed.

I'll write something cool for Runzyl. Honest.

LMAO - you guys are great. Have I thanked you for letting me tag along lately?

If 83 damage against an unaware flatfooted foe from a greatsword wielding warforged doesnt split him head to toe, I dont know what would.

I keep looking at Runzyl's CMD and thinking "That can't be right... how is that right? This is madness!" so I'm going to post it all right here just to eliminate any confusion (and so I can see it on "paper" myself).

Combat Maneuver Defense: Each character and creature has a Combat Maneuver Defense (or CMD) that represents its ability to resist combat maneuvers. A creature's CMD is determined using the following formula:

CMD = 10 + Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + Dexterity modifier + special size modifier

The special size modifier for a creature's Combat Maneuver Defense is as follows: Fine –8, Diminutive –4, Tiny –2, Small –1, Medium +0, Large +1, Huge +2, Gargantuan +4, Colossal +8. Some feats and abilities grant a bonus to your CMD when resisting specific maneuvers. A creature can also add any circumstance, deflection, dodge, insight, luck, morale, profane, and sacred bonuses to AC to its CMD. Any penalties to a creature's AC also apply to its CMD. A flat-footed creature does not add its Dexterity bonus to its CMD.

So, for Runzyl, the base amount while Whirling Frenzy is active is as follows:

10 + 10 (BAB) + 7 (STR) + 4 (DEX) = 31

Then, 31 + 2 dodge bonus from Whirling Frenzy + 1 deflection bonus from ring of protection + 1 from Dodge feat + 2 dodge bonus from Tempest Defense

31 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 37

Then +1 more from haste. 38. So I was actually off by one. That's disgusting. Without Whirling Frenzy, he loses the +4 STR and +2 dodge bonus to AC, bringing his total CMD down by 4. If he is not holding Falla Caesenri (or otherwise dual-wielding) it is reduced by another 2 as he would lose Tempest Defense.

That is a bit obscene - but it looks correct to me. I may be slightly short-changing the NPCs a point or so as I wasn't really aware about the AC bonuses adding to CMD, but not enough to change anything.

Of course, CMD rather plays to Runzyl's stengths - or rather, his Strength and Dexterity, which are his two favoured stats. So, at the least, it should be good.

I'll write something cool for Runzyl. Honest.

I wouldn't worry yourself about it. Runzyl is, so far, the only party member who has gotten his very own special "side plot" and a considerable magic weapon to go along with it. One of my favorite things about D&D is "legacy items," weapons and armor with real game history and powers that often extend beyond the simple abilities listed within the rulebooks. I have not at any point been disappointed with my role in the party, and I understood from the beginning that I was never going to be a super-heavy hitter with my choice of build.

One of the most fantastic things about this game is that each character is so distinct and dynamic. There's virtually no overlap at all and each of us fills their role well. Lightbringer is capable of absolutely devastating blows. Janosz can dish out a constant stream of ranged damage almost anywhere on the battlefield under any condition. Ezreal commands a varied array of spells that often weaken and cripple our opponents. Gil gives us the power of illusion, deception, and potent party buffs as well as many critical skills. Rodergo, of course, is the beacon of light and healing that keeps us all going. Rolund is the closest thing this party has to a "tank," with his considerable AC and unique abilities. Runzyl's role is one of a "strong-arm" mobility fighter. Particularly when hasted, there is little that can escape his pursuit. Even if confronted by AoOs, low obstacles, or black tentacles, his incredible mobility and defense scores allow him to put heavy melee pressure on just about anyone, anywhere.

So yeah, by no means was my statement meant to be a complaint. In fact, I'm quite flattered by the attention I've received thus far. This is truly one of the most memorable campaigns I've ever taken part in and I look forward to more adventures for years to come!

So say we all!

I'll write something cool for Runzyl. Honest.

I wouldn't worry yourself about it. Runzyl is, so far, the only party member who has gotten his very own special "side plot" and a considerable magic weapon to go along with it. One of my favorite things about D&D is "legacy items," weapons and armor with real game history and powers that often extend beyond the simple abilities listed within the rulebooks. I have not at any point been disappointed with my role in the party, and I understood from the beginning that I was never going to be a super-heavy hitter with my choice of build.

One of the most fantastic things about this game is that each character is so distinct and dynamic. There's virtually no overlap at all and each of us fills their role well. Lightbringer is capable of absolutely devastating blows. Janosz can dish out a constant stream of ranged damage almost anywhere on the battlefield under any condition. Ezreal commands a varied array of spells that often weaken and cripple our opponents. Gil gives us the power of illusion, deception, and potent party buffs as well as many critical skills. Rodergo, of course, is the beacon of light and healing that keeps us all going. Rolund is the closest thing this party has to a "tank," with his considerable AC and unique abilities. Runzyl's role is one of a "strong-arm" mobility fighter. Particularly when hasted, there is little that can escape his pursuit. Even if confronted by AoOs, low obstacles, or black tentacles, his incredible mobility and defense scores allow him to put heavy melee pressure on just about anyone, anywhere.

So yeah, by no means was my statement meant to be a complaint. In fact, I'm quite flattered by the attention I've received thus far. This is truly one of the most memorable campaigns I've ever taken part in and I look forward to more adventures for years to come!

OK, I won't bother then.

I hope I'm not out of line here but I'd personally like to see the Rolund character, (excuse me Sir Rolund) get a little bit of the limelight.

His is such a conflicted and troubled character. He has enormous power in his dragonmark which he restrains by pure strength of will. He is dark and brooding and has that bone armor which makes him a very imposing character yet he seems driven by a cause in which he cares very deeply. He caries great amounts of shame for his past deeds and this seems to drive him to a unique path which, while no longer exactly holy, is very much paladin-like. His history combined with the obvious disdain for the ways of the Flame make him ripe for a side quest which could lead to either enlightenment and absolution or a manifestation of supreme power followed by his own destruction.

I think it could make for excellent reading.

I think it could make for excellent reading.

Yes. In fact, it just did.

I hope I'm not out of line here but I'd personally like to see the Rolund character, (excuse me Sir Rolund) get a little bit of the limelight.

That Rolund character? He is uppermost in my mind...

I keep a lot of this stuff in mind, but it can take years - about three in the case of Runzyl - for these machinations to come to fruition. That said, this isn't a novel, but a collaborative effort, so I can't inflict "a manifestation of supreme power followed by his own destruction" willy-nilly. And the other problem is to make sure a particular PC isn't grandstanding so much the others are simply bearing witness. It can be easy, especailly in PbP, to exercise one's authorly instincts but it can be bad adventure design.

Hey, I wouldn’t mind “a manifestation of supreme power” so long as I could pimp slap Rodergo around some times before being “followed by his own destruction.” ;)

At the moment, I’m not really sure which path to take with Rolund. I had originally statted him to be the team’s “tank” and he was supposed to have remained a silent brooding character. However, the conflict with his former faith and its representatives in the group was too good to pass up. So he ended up a little more chatty than I had planned.

I’ll need to give it some thought on where Rolund is heading and what Aubrey may throw into the game.

These things develop as we go along, plus ideas just sometimes pop up. One of the things I really enjoy about this game is how, as Fatey says, the PCs are all distinct and with their own agendas and foibles, and that a lot of what has happened from me has been in response to what has come up in play.

I have only a single round of rage left today... but your house rules state that AP can be spent (2 for 1) to gain an additional "daily use" of abilities like rage, smite, etc. Now that PF runs these abilities in terms of rounds rather than times per day, how do you want to run it? 1 AP per round seems a little steep since rage used to last a number of rounds equal to 3 + CON modifier (would be 6 rounds for Runzyl) per daily use. Do you think 1 AP per 2 rage rounds sounds reasonable? 1 for 3?

One for three seems reasonable in this context for this and similar abilities.

Aubrey (and any other Brits we might have here), I hope that you are your family are keeping safe from the riots. I know you don't live in London, but has it affected your work or transit at all?

+1 stay safe!

Rugby is quiet. I personally don't see this as being about protest over police tactics but basic level criminality coming out of gang culture. It's an indictment of social policy to let a lawless, criminal underclass develop but it doesn't make the UK unique, but then I'm irredeemably right wing. Bring back birching and the death penalty, I say!

I'm 25 miles outside the nearest major city, and pretty far North, where it's not quite so bad....

That said, I agree with Aubry, except about the birching and death penalty.

Rugby is quiet. I personally don't see this as being about protest over police tactics but basic level criminality coming out of gang culture. It's an indictment of social policy to let a lawless, criminal underclass develop but it doesn't make the UK unique, but then I'm irredeemably right wing. Bring back birching and the death penalty, I say!

What's birching?

Beating the s!$@ out of someone with a tree.

Well, it's the same as caning. Corporal punishment.

Right on.

The difference in caning and birching seems to be one stick versus a bundle of switches soaked in salt water and bound together. I always thought they were synonyms. Yay Wikipedia. :)

I stand corrected.

Have any of you picked up the Ultimate Combat book? If so, is it good?

Have any of you picked up the Ultimate Combat book? If so, is it good?

I have it, but I can't say I have studied it closely. And I generally don't seem to be as critical as some folks. I like what I see so far.

Do you have specific areas I can share with you?

Have any of you picked up the Ultimate Combat book? If so, is it good?

I have it. I've been skimming here and there.

I really like the gunslinger.

I want to do an old west game.

It's just in the zygote stages of creation at the moment,...

And I generally don't seem to be as critical as some folks. I like what I see so far.

I know, right? You're prolly not a bull nergeek in musth then.

I've got it in my downloads, but haven't peeked at it yet.

AinvarG wrote:

And I generally don't seem to be as critical as some folks. I like what I see so far.

I know, right? You're prolly not a bull nergeek in musth then.

Wow, I have no idea what you just said.

mwahahahaha!!!

I can't explain it...

Vattnisse wrote:

Have any of you picked up the Ultimate Combat book? If so, is it good?

I have it, but I can't say I have studied it closely. And I generally don't seem to be as critical as some folks. I like what I see so far.

Do you have specific areas I can share with you?

Mostly if it is a 'good book' with 'usable content'. I was curious about guns.

I've got it, and skimmed it a bit. It's a bit of a grab bag and I get the impression they maybe didn't have a massive amount of stuff really for a full book, but my impressions so far:

- gunslinger: a good, interesting class, though with all the "grit" option a nightmare to put on a character sheet
- ninja: rogue meets monk
- samurai: fighter meets cavalier

They then provide a load of achetypes and options for other character classes, much like in the other books. There seems to be a bit of diminishing returns here, and nothing much stood out, but I'm sure there are some nuggets in there.

Then it's a massive feats listing, as you might expect. A lot of love for the monk, with "style" feats, but I'm fairly cool with that. Lots of other stuff, obviously mostly combat-related. Some interesting stuff here, but it's a slog working your way through.

Then they've got a fairly random collection of rules expansions: oriental armours, "performance" combat, seige engines and doubtless other stuff (I haven't tacked this chapter) which may or may not be useful - probably good for an idea or two. And then "variant" rules, like armour absorbing damage rather than causing misses, hit point variant rules, and so on - I haven't looked at this at all. And then some spells, also not looked at.

Oh, and I only understand half of what Heathy says, but that half is good.

Something that I hadn't picked up in the reviews was that the ninja and samurai are not new base classes, but alternative classes - kind of like archetypes for the rogue and cavalier (I think, I don't have the book in front of me), but deeper changes, so they gave them the full class write-up. As a result, you can't multiclass cavalier and samurai because it's the same class -- that's really the only difference from them being considered base classes, I think.

And I'm sure, to show some love to those missing their OA adventures. There is a section on various weapons - a section of eastern weapons (see above), stone-age weapons, bronze-age weapons, etc.

I never got a chance to really study Unearthed Arcana back in the day, but areas of UC seemed very reminiscent of what I remember from UA when you reach their variant rules section.

Like Aubrey said, a bit of a grab bag. I would guess there's something for everyone to love, something for everyone to hate, and few people are going to be 100% happy with the whole book. Unless they're a soft touch like yours truly, of course.

Yes, there is a bit of a whiff of Unearthed Arcana about the latter section.

I hadn't noticed the bit about alternate classes, but you probably wouldn't be massively interested in multiclassing them anyway due to the similarities you mention.

That said, there are quite a lot of rules here that could be used in my (abortive) steampunk campaign. Hmmm.......

So - how is everyone? Not a question about the game, just a query as to how everyone is.

Bored much? :D

Could you elaborate about the steampuckyness of UC? Weather I buy UC or UM first may depend on it? At the moment UM is winning after running the Magus in PFS......

I am good. I've been getting up silly early to run this week, which combined with the 6 month old waking in the night, is fun. Also going to see HP7 tonight, so wont be home till Midnight. Should be fun......

Not that I'm a player in this game or anything, but I thought I'd post anyway.....

So - how is everyone? Not a question about the game, just a query as to how everyone is.

I'm doing okay. It's conference season where I work, so my workload is a bit elevated from the norm, but that should be settling down by next month. We've been having some utterly nightmarish issues with our phone systems lately, so that's been the bulk of my aggravation lately.

Home life is good. Very happy to be away from the in-laws now. Daughter is starting school in a couple weeks. We're simultaneously excited and terrified by this fact.

I protest! I'd ask how you were even if I wasn't bored. Though I am.

Steampunkiness: the main exhibit is the rules for guns. Certainly for my proposed game I was quite keen to incorporate them, and they have been done in reasonable fashion for PF. They also have some variant rules on armour, where it absorbs damage rather than makes you harder to hit, which may be relevant because platemail isn't much of a defence against a bullet generally. There are also some variant hp rules, which could potentially be adapted for guns to make them deadlier. They have some rules for siege engines (including cannon) and although these feel slightly primitive for steampunk (being more Renaissance) they can probably be adapted. And they have vehicle rules, which are of interest as I was thinking airships.

HP7 is quite good, much better than the previous movie.

So - how is everyone? Not a question about the game, just a query as to how everyone is.

Life is good. We have a physical fitness challenge going on at work and I'm happy to report that I'm ahead of my planned pace, so I should complete it in the required time. I was able to spend a great day Sunday with my family doing some dreadful work, but it was with some of my favorite people, which made the load much lighter.

At work, the three or four threads of tasks that I'm responsible for all went from light to heavy in the space of a couple weeks, so I'm feeling a little weighted down, but it's all good -- makes me feel like a necessary cog in the machine, you know.

Life is good. And if it wasn't, I'd probably look for a reason to say it was, anyway. Thanks for asking. ;-)

My month and a half of vacation after summer school has just ended and we’re into the third day of Teacher Preparation week before school starts. My duties and workload have increased and I’m also expected to temporarily fill in as the principal’s secretary until she returns after the Labor Day holiday.

In all, its good to be back to work. :)

Pretty good.....real busy....been on call last two weekends; worked til 9 Tuesday, might do it again Friday.

Living for the Conan movie this weekend.

Got the Ultimate Combat, I'm bouncing around my own idea for a homebrew....Cowboys and C'thulhus or something along those lines.

Dealing with lots of s@~# (annoying clients, clueless consent authorities and frustrating consultants) and big work load at work, but that’s not all that new. Have a huge deadline looming in October which may make me scarce around here, we will see.

Things at home are ok, I finally got around to setting up the cot on the weekend for Abigail, so we could move her out of her little basinet (which she is getting far too big for), but since then she has not been sleeping through the night, which is tough on everyone. We have a broken front fence and stair balustrade which are beyond my meagre skills to fix, but trying to get a carpenter or handyman even to look at it and provide a quote is like pulling teeth ... so the rotting fence continues to collapse under all the rain we’ve been having lately.

Kids are cute, growing, healthy and occasionally well behaved, can’t ask for much more than that.

Between the baby and the five year old it is pretty hard to get out and about all that much (and the weather has not encouraged it), but we managed to get the kids baby-sat two Friday nights in a row last month, went out for a nice dinner and caught up with some friends respectively. I’ve been managing to make it to my Friday night Pathfinder game pretty regularly (dinner dates excepting) – we are playing a quite off the rails version of Curse of the Crimson Throne. Last session ended with three members of the party teleporting in to rescue a forth from a trap she’d stumbled into ... and looking down into the faces of three dragons, an anti paladin, a high level wizard and their undead and devilish minions. Tomorrow night’s session picks up with that battle, good times.

Got the Ultimate Combat, I'm bouncing around my own idea for a homebrew....Cowboys and C'thulhus or something along those lines.

Awesome!

Oh yeah, Ultimate Combat hard copy and Jade Regent 1 just turned up today too, so that is good.

How are you going Aubrey?

I'm OK. The job has largely settled down into a routine and while I don't like it much it pays well. James turned 1 this month - already a year! - and home life generally is very good.

I had a health check at work last week and was told I had high cholesterol, high blood pressure and was obese (officially). But I played with my real-life group and one of them said to me, "But hey! You're not morbidly obese." So there's a ray of sunshine there. Anyway, I'm on a bit of a health kick now - walking to the station in the morning and back in the evening instead of driving, avoiding snacks, and generally trying to reduce my cholesterol. Anyway, I feel fine and the various indicators seem to be going the right way, so I'm not too bothered.

It's OK. I'm putting in a lot of hours at work - the good news is that the job has gone from being a summer job to a permanent position, while the bad news is that it's a pretty meh job. Still, the main thing is to have a job, as Erin and Emma are arriving in a month and a half. Next on the list is finding an affordable apartment.

Possible division of spoils:

Cloak of Resistance +1 – Rod, LB or Ez
Amulet of Natural Armour +1 - Runzyl
Breastplate +1 – Runzyl (trades in +1 chain shirt)
Sword +1 - ? (what type of sword; long, short, bastard, etc.) [sell]
Big Crossbow = Great Crossbow +1 plus sights - Bor
Studded Leather +1 - ? [sell]
Shaft's Leather Coat = Studded Leather +1 - ? [sell]
Ring of Protection +1 – Bor (everybody has ring of protection now)
Spiked Chain +1 - ? [sell]
Chain Shirt +1 - ? (2 chain shirts w/Runzyl's) [sell]
Rapier +1 - Gil
Eye Lens = Eyes of the Eagle - Janosz