Clebsch's Reign of Winter

Game Master Clebsch RoW

Lol. Will do

1d6 ⇒ 2 HP

4 HP it is, then! :)

HP: +4 (22 HP)
Stat Boost: Int +1
BAB +1
Will +1
No hex this level (winter witch)
+1 1st lvl spell
+1 2nd lvl spell
+1 bonus 1st lvl spell from Int 20
Skills: (8 ranks lvl 4 + 4 ranks from Int increase)

I think Erland gets one more skill rank to spend from being human unless that was replaced with an alternate racial trait.

Really? Thought I counted correctly, although I did do this at work.

2 from class
4 from Intelligence
1 from Human
1 from favored class
Then 4 from new intelligence boost
2 background skills (linguistics, alchemy)

If I get more, sure, I'll take something else!

Never mind. I'm not sure how I got that, but sounds like you've got it right.

1d10 ⇒ 3 so 1/2+1 =6
+1 BAB
+1 Fort/Reflex
+1 Dex

7 Skill points:
Climb
Heal
Knowledge Nature
Perception
Sense Motive
Stealth
Survival

Hunter’s bond (Companions)

Archtype gives up spellcasting, so no bonus spells.

I am Away for the week-end .
Have a good Christmas

My computer is still in the shop. I'm hoping it will be ready tomorrow, but if not, my posting will be limited until after the 25th. I can post with my iPad but I can't access my notes and long posts take a long time. Since its the holidays, let's take a short break.

Merry Christmas for those who celebrate, and a warm and happy winter's Monday for those who don't!

My wife and I had a quiet day, exchanged gifts, had some good food and drink, enjoyed some TV, read, worked on origami projects, and I topped the night off watching the Doctor Who Christmas special.

I hope everyone else is having a good holiday season, whatever holidays you celebrate.

Belated Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! I got to travel to my in-laws in Michigan where the low was -1 degrees Fahrenheit, but we stayed warm indoors playing Pinochle.

Gotta love this California weather.

Ugh...it's 16 here in NY right now. Up from the 11 it was this morning.

I was looking into going to Cornell and did a campus tour in January. Not the best decision I've ever made. I think it was 67 today.

I lived in LA and Pasadena for about ten years. The weather is nice, but ultimately I missed the change of seasons.

I was raised in Indiana and went to undergrad at Purdue, but when I was considering grad schools, it came down to Brown University and USC. The NE and Midwest had a blizzard in January when I was pondering this decision, much like the one that just happened. I saw a picture in the paper of a street in Providence, RI, where Brown is, and there were no cars, just a series of places where the snow was a little deeper. When I realized the bumps in the snow were cars, it made me decide to go to USC.

Now I live in Virginia, which has seasons, but the winters aren't so harsh. (27 F this morning).

In other news, I should get my computer back today, so I hope no more delays in my posting.

Hooray for fixed computers!

On a weather note:

It was about 5F this morning (-15C) in CT, and we're supposed to get some snow. Not much, I hope, prediction is calling for around 1" (2.2cm).

Yeah, I'm around Sacramento so there are actual seasons here unlike down south but nothing too severe usually.

Thoughts on what to do next?

Options:
1) level up without recovering spells and other things that must refresh with rest such as panache. If your new level allows more spells per day then you could prepare a new spell or gain access to new spells, but what has been used already this day won't refresh unless the party arranges to rest.

2) Continue at present level and clear the level by exploring all rooms. Decide what to do after that.

Feel free to discuss this here or in character in the gameplay thread.

I endorse leveling up now! Just been busy so haven't had the mental clarity to realize you were waiting on a response.

Leveling is fine now or after resting. Eland has only used 1 spell, and a couple of hexes, so he's nearly at full magical strength.

What i gain isn't super vital though bonuses are always welcome. I'm fine with either.

I'm gonna finish leveling up tonight anyhow so I endorse doing that now.

Erland is all leveled up, with new spells considered "spent" and the additional HP not added in to his total.

HPs: 1d8 ⇒ 8

+1 in acrobatics, bluff, disable device, knowledge arcana/religion/planes, linguistics, perception, sense motive.

Rogue talent: One of those faces: disguise self as an SLA for 10 minutes/level per day.

Spells learned: Cat's Grace, Silence.

One point of Dexterity

+1 reflex/will

Like Erland it's all on my sheet but Khristov doesn't have any spells or SLAs available today and HP is as it was at level 3.

I did not get a chance to post yesterday. I'll try to have something up soon, after my class ends.

Damiano is updated to fourth level

Rondolero Swashbuckler 4
+9 HP
+1 BAB
+1 Ref
Bonus Feat: Blind Fight
+1/4 Panache (favored class bonus)
Skills: Intimidate, Knowledge (nobility), Perception, Sense Motive x2, Sleight of Hand

A couple of changes:
Adding +1 Dex.
Bonus Feat: Bodyguard, instead of Blind Fight.

I've got a touch of the flu. Might not get a post up until tomorrow or Thursday.

Hope you feel better.

I'm feeling better, but I'm also behind at work and may need another day to get caught up. Plus the preview button has not been working, which I use a lot when I'm preparing my GM posts.

Take your time . We will be there when you come back

Thanks. My posting should be back to normal for a while, I hope. I'll try to post quickly after Ingrit posts to get the rest of the players into the fight as soon as possible.

Boom! Pathfinder Second Edition playtest.

Is it just me or does that seem oddly video-gamey?

It's not just you. 5th Ed D&D is very video gamey.

Hnn. I found 4e very video gamey (it's all about maximizing your array of bonuses) while 5e was quite a step back from it (there are heavy limits to ways that you can stack bonuses, so it encourages you to look for interesting resolutions that aren't reliant on just stacking bonuses from your class and your shopping trips).

I haven't tried 5e, but agree 4e was video-gamey. Rurik's complaint sounds right to me. It was somewhat like World of Warcraft or some other MMO with the classes broken down into different combat roles. All the classes that fit a certain roll blurred together into a very similar set of powers (e.g., power that does X damage and gives Y debuff) that just happen to have different names. Multiclassing was not easy so characters were more regimented. I think the result was more tactics but less flavor.

I did like that some amount of healing could be done by all classes so you weren't stuck with needing a healbot. I also liked the fact that the average fighter has more choices to make other than "attack," but I didn't like how there were all these different "encounter" and "daily" powers for every class. I think there's some internal contradiction in that last complaint, but maybe it's as simple as letting a fighter do multiple cool things without caps. Or letting the fighter draw from some flexible resource pool (e.g. combat stamina).

Without getting too much into edition wars...

My fundamental design disagreement with 4e was that it made the game almost solely about your optimization choices, and hitting peak optimization was a serious computational exercise, but unlike an MMO there was no computer to do the heavy lifting. Additionally, they went out of their way to remove design asymmetry - as Dom mentioned above, in 4e you have roles like Controller and Leader and it doesn't really matter if you are a Fighter or a Wizard or a Cleric; if you take the class or subclass associated with a given role, then you get a suite of powers at the same level breaks with the same modifiers that just happen to run off of a different stat (Strength if you're a Fighter, Intelligence if you're a Wizard, etc.).
The combination of these two means that your characters all wound up feeling very similar - when your ability to interact with the game ultimately boils down to "How high is your best stat?", regardless of which stat and class you have, then your choice of whether you're playing a Warlock or a Rogue is almost purely cosmetic.

Dunno much about the WoTC games - i got out of the D&D brand when PF came around.

Listening to the Glasscannonpodcast.com playtest sessions, it doesn't sound "video gamey" to me.

Everyone gets 3 actions & a reaction, rather than Move/Standard/Swift/Immediate, and certain things take more than one action. I.E: somatic & verbal components of 1 spell = two actions. Attack once = 1 action.

If they follow the design aesthetic and art aesthetic from Starfinder, I am sure it will be a quicker to pick up and (hopefully) quicker to resolve in gameplay game.

My concern is that now comes a whole new set of books to buy. That's good marketing for Paizo, but I'm not sure I'm ready to spend hundreds of dollars to keep up to date. The new system will have to be a significant improvement before I'm going to want to invest heavily in it.

The new action economy with 3 actions and a reaction is pretty exciting to me. My favorite type of character is a gish, and the way I understand it you can spend an action to attack and spend two actions to cast your average spell in the same turn. Though I can't help but think that with so many actions, winning initiative becomes even more important since the bad guys can do similar things.

I feel like the move/standard/swift economy was pretty elegant, I'm not sure this kind of genericization with yet more counting of bits and bobs is superior; but the game is Mathfinder, after all, anyone who can't keep a zillion numbers in their head at the same time was scared off long ago.

Just curious, has anyone played through the next encounter in another game? I've made a few changes to the book, partly to make it more challenging for a party of 6. I think it will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

Nope, never play RoW personally.

Read the book long ago, when it first came out, but have no recollection of the particulars.

This is all new to me!

Ditto.

Me as well. Based on the last encounter I'm kinda thinking maybe we have all the challenge we need.

I have once, but with a ridiculously unorthodox group that had a knack for completely bypassing, conning or steamrolling challenges so I barely remember that part other the samurai ending up with a revolution and LD girlfriend

Jesus I love this game.