Clebsch's Reign of Winter

Game Master Clebsch RoW

Welcome back! Hope you feeling better.

Just to add to what Clebsch said in the game thread, don't fail your save against this Insanity gaze, and seriously, all of you should just shut your eyes next round (except Erland who's going to make his save. Dom resisted the gaze so he's immune and the creature seems to be near death.

Note: the spells that remove it are 7th level or higher. If someone is affected, I'll provide a scroll or other items that can provide the cure as part of the treasure the Barrow Wight is guarding.

WooHoo

Regarding a new player--I would say we're fine with just 5. Only thing we lack is trap disabling, but we're in an icy wildnerness at the moment. And it sounds like Clebsch can give us an NPC where we might need that sort of thing. So I don't think it's necessary to recruit.

That said, if there's anyone you know who really wants to get into a RoW game, would be happy to open up that spot to make it happen.

That's fine with me - either way is OK.

Cleric 5
+7 hit points (5 class + 2 Con bonus)

3rd level spells, yay

New feat: Shield Focus

Skills: +1 each of: Diplomacy, Heal, Knowledge (religion), Sense Motive, Spellcraft; Knowledge (history), Profession (herbalist)

I do know of someone in one of my other games who was looking for if any game needed a player. I'll wait on consensus before saying anything though.

5 or 6 players , either are good for me

If Ingrit approves, that's good enough for me.

If Ingrit's player can vouch for the player as reliable and a good role player, then go ahead and mention the opportunity and encourage the player to post in the discussion thread.

Meanwhile you should discuss if you want the player to develop a particular type of character. I think a person with the ability to deal with traps would be a first priority. If you know of any other elements to consider either in terms of class features or skills, speak up. Or if there is anything you don't want to see, let everyone know.

I'd prefer no evil alignments, but otherwise I'm open to anything.

I should have a post in gameplay soon. I've worked out most of what I want to put in the cave in terms of treasure. After that, it'll be back to the village with your goodies, level up, and then we'll work back into the main plot of the AP, moving things along to the point you reach the outskirts of Whitethrone.

They've been solid and reliable so far, good balance of RP and solid gameplay. I'll let them know

Hey folks, thanks for the invite (and thanks for vouching for me, Ingrit.) I see you're looking for someone who can deal with traps - that shouldn't be a problem. Any more guidance would be welcome, as I'm happy to play anything and would love to integrate with the party seamlessly. Cheers!

Welcome EJC! I think we are crowded in terms of full arcane casters but anything else is fair game. Plenty of tricks for getting Disable Device on almost any class.

A bard or rogue with trap finding and knowledges would be keen. A bard could really boost our fighters damage, while a rogue would synch well with Domitian.

Plenty of opportunities for those kind of skills, tbh.

Welcome. I'm pressed for time, but to get you started, the original campaign was started by someone else and I assumed GM duties near the end of the first book. The original character rules were a 20 point buy and standard wealth. The character should be 5th level and will have standard wealth for average advancement. There is a players guide so I'd recommend a look at that and take one of the campaign traits. I think everyone got the standard 2 traits.

If you are looking for suggestions for background, the book on Irrisen is good and the player's guide should help. The character should either be a native Irrisen or an adventurer in the area for some reason. The character will start in Whitethrone, where the PCs are headed. There is a group of aristocrats called stilyagi who are nobles who imitate the clothing styles of other cultures and sometimes encourage or hire adventurers from outside Irrisen to the city. Or he could be a member of a group associated with Milani to overthrow the rulers or at least make things hard for them.

There is no required alignment but nothing evil, please. The quest everyone is on is sort of neutral in nature, so it might be easier to stay away from LG to reduce the number of moral dilemmas.

I'll make other suggestions once you have some ideas or questions.

There's no rush as the players will be wrapping up some things before they will be ready to receive a new player.

I'd like to introduce Andarien Elrynduil, an Archaeologist Bard who is as adept at disarming and avoiding traps as she is firing off arrows at the enemy. She can help out the group with timely applications of Gallant Inspiration and Heroism, and has a wide array of high level skills, ranging from Diplomacy to Bluff to a variety of Knowledges.

Her background is spoilered for the GM at the bottom of the sheet, though anybody can take a look if they'd like to know her secrets OOC. It includes her reason to be in Whitethrone as well as how she's connected to a few key figures therein.

Anadrien first comes across as a charming, witty interlocutor, but any extended period of time with her reveals a fiery personality beneath her polished exterior. It's only Whitethrone's perils that keeps her temper in check, for one mistep in the jadwiga's capital will surely see her hung - or worse.

Welcome to the madness!

Anadrien looks good in general. My only suggestion is to consider a different melee focus than archery. Ingrit has much the same set of feats and does a good job with ranged attacks. But there are only two characters that can qualify as front line fighters, so I would suggest adjusting her fighting skills to cover melee and make sure her AC is sufficient to go toe to toe in melee combat.

I have had a lot of success with a bard who made good use of a whip by taking the Whip Mastery feat and related feats that use it as a prerequisite. This is her 5th level profile if you want to consider it (Shasta Lux). In fact, I was prepared to introduce her as an NPC if we did not add another player. If you get her an enchanted whip, she can do reasonable damage with her whip but also use it to trip or disarm.

If it matters, I have a house rule I'd use for any character with Whip Mastery: the benefit of not provoking attacks of opportunity with the whip extends to situations where the whip is used to make trip and disarm and dirty tricks combat maneuver attacks. Doesn't make sense to me that you can make some kinds of attacks with the whip without provoking AOOs but not Combat Maneuvers.

These are just suggestions.

For everyone else: I'm a bit busy, so I'll try to get a post on the treasure in the cave later tonight or tomorrow at the latest. Sorry for the delay.

Hmm. A Bard front line fighter will take some rethinking and a decent amount of sheet editing. I'm not a big fan of whips or combat maneuvers. I'll mull it over.

To be contrarian, I am curious if we should try this out. We can make it a conscious strategy to out-range our opponents. If you'll allow it, I would even propose swapping my Bodyguard feat for Toughness. Dom was always intended to be a guard character and it would be interesting to see if he can defend his cadre of spellcasters and archers long enough for them to blow up the enemy.

Interesting idea. We should have at least one person who can stand-up fight for emergencies, though.

As we gain levels Rurik will be spending more of his actions casting and fewer swinging his morningstar (the returns on making an attack or two with a melee weapon vs. casting a high-level spell are just too great a difference). So it doesn't make too much difference to me.

Melee bards can work, you just Finesse fight. Chain shirt + heavy darkwood shield = AC 16 to start, so you're AC 20 with an 18 Dex, plus you can get bonuses from magicking up your armor, Dodge feat, Shield Focus feat, ring of protection, etc., so that's not completely terrible. (Use a mithral chain shirt if you don't want an armor check penalty - it's cheap). With a masterwork (or magical) heavy darkwood shield you have no shield Armor Check Penalty on your finesse fighting so you can finesse a shortsword or rapier or whatnot to hit. Take Arcane Strike to get some bonus damage, as you won't have any Strength bonus going on, and use your Archeologist's Luck and whatever buff spells you or the party use to boost your damage output. If you're non-good, take a trait like Harvester that lets you use poisons and poison your weapon. If you have Acrobatics you can almost always get into position for a flank and get the bonus there to help improve your attack rolls. If you have a spare feat, going into a teamwork feat tree might also help: If we all wind up with Precise Strike you can get some nice bonus damage from that.

Ultimately happy with whatever - we will just try to make it work as a team!

I think melee bards are hard. They have the same endgame as clerics, where you are just better off casting a spell. The archer holds up better thanks to archaeologists bardic performance and multiple attacks per round.

Although there's something to be said for building Indiana Jones with an archaeologist Bard!

I agree that melee focus for a Bard is difficult. The dual archer thing could be very interesting. The one difficulty is that with all the penalties imposed on ranged combat (snow/dark/distance/ concealment due to clustering) all of which have been pretty heavily implemented up to now, expect to be using all your available feats on countering this.

Other than that I'm intrigued by the two shooter concept as well. If someone always has a Bear's Endurance or Heroism ready so that we can keep Dom on his feet, it could be interesting. There are feats that stop people from getting past you.

It's ultimately up to you all, but I'd suggest a rogue (unchained is okay). The party already has two arcane casters and a divine caster. A rogue can be a very effective front line fighter, plus, of course, an excellent disabler of devices. There might be a rogue archetype that could shade toward the archaeologist, if that's what you really like about the archaeologist bard.

I'm all for people playing what they enjoy. Being forced to play a class you'd rather not is the fast track to burnout and losing a player at some point.

This trait makes it so absolutely anyone can disable devices:
Trap Finder
Forgotten dungeons and ancient tombs have always held an appeal for you, and you’ve never been able to resist the urge to delve into these lost sites in search of knowledge, treasure, or both. You may not have received any formal training in the roguish arts, but you’ve nonetheless become skilled at spotting and disabling hidden traps. The tombs of of the necropolis, just opened for exploration, seem like the perfect place to put your skills to the test.
Benefit(s): You gain a +1 trait bonus on Disable Device checks, and that skill is always a class skill for you. In addition, you can use Disable Device to disarm magic traps, like a rogue.

I have a witch who's our party's trapfinder with that trait. Just because it isn't Ingrit's chosen style, I can still hold my own in melee when absolutely necessary, being a full BAB character. If there's such a need for more of a melee presence...well I'm pretty sure we've all totally neglected my Hunter's Bond (share bonus with allies) ability, pretty sure it hasn't been used once. If needed I'll swap it for an animal companion, which will be rather helpful in a fight.

Yep, I agree with Ingrit on this. Let people play what they want!

Ingrit's talk of Hunter's Bond reminds me (assuming Ingrit agrees), can we please, please let Ingrit have the Megaloceros as her animal companion? That elk just fell into her lap in the storyline, and deserves to continue on with us!

^I approve this message!

If you want a half-caster half-rogue, try the eldritch scoundrel rogue archetype, which gives you bard-level spellcasting from the wizard list, 4 skill ranks per level, and a slower progression of sneak attack.

Ultimately if you wanna play a bard though, you just have to get out there and SING. ;)

My suggestions are just that. Ultimately the important thing is playing a character concept that you will enjoy and can grow with as the character levels up. This AP was written for a party of 4, so there shouldn't be anything inherently problematic, as long as the character's background fits and the character has the motivation to join with the others and continue their quest. Once the PC is settled on, I may run a parallel set of posts for her that will perhaps create a plausible motivation to join with the PCs once encountered.

Not that this is vital, but it might provide a shared purpose.

I've worked out the treasure for the caves and a bit of a backstory. I'm still in the midst of a busy week, so I'll post some things that will get the party moving in the right direction and add some details yet to be worked out later.

To be honest, I'm quite excited to play Anadrien. I've put some thought and energy into creating her, and would love to see how she fares. Unless anyone objects, I'll keep her as is.

Question, and I forgot how we're handling this--are we bumping up the difficulty a little since we have a party of 6? Like having more mooks, etc?

I will typically throw in an extra low level to up the difficulty. In other cases, if the opponent is a relatively high level NPC, I may add a level to the character or provide a second creature of modest level. So yes, I try to keep the encounters from being so easy, they don't make you break a sweat. Lately, I've been designing every aspect of the encounter in place of other scenarios provided by the AP. I also try to throw in some extra treasure to keep everyone getting something useful.

Erland Witch (Winter Witch) 5:

HD: 1d6 ⇒ 1

BAB: +0

Saves: +0

Skills: +1 to Craft (Alchemy), Fly, Intimidate, Kn: Arcana, Kn: Local, Kn: History, Kn: Planes, Spellcraft, Stealth, Use Magic Device

Feat: Spell Focus (Conjuration)

New Spells:

3rd: Lightning Bolt, Fly

2nd: Web

Fiske gains:
+1 Nat Armor
+1 Int
Speak w/ Master

I'm going to drop another idea here--if we need meat to protect the party, we can always have our casters summon it! Erland taking Spell Focus (Conjuration) reminded me of that.

Also, I just realized I forgot to deduct HP for taking off the Belt of Constitution +2, which we gave to Khristov. Would it be possible to get that back? I siphoned off a substantial portion of the party's funds to buy that darn thing (and still owe for that).

Will post my level 5 soon.

Oh Damiano, absolutely nothing personal. Ingrit a a neutral survivalist that thinks moral questions about using a dead persons stuff to survive is pointless. She perfectly fine with moral grey areas if it's overall beneficial. That and she's got the whole northerner "southlanders are for the most part soft" bias.

Here we go, Dom's level up when we get there:

Swashbuckler 5
+1 BAB
+12 HP (thanks to Toughness)
+1 Panache (favored class bonus cashing in)
Swashbuckler Weapon Training (+1 atk/dmg, improved critical)
Feat: Toughness
Skills: Acrobatics x2, Intimidate, Perception, Sleight of Hand, Knowledge Nobility
Feat retraining? I'd like to retrain Bodyguard to Blind Fight--I feel like concealment has been coming up every other combat.

Also, we're getting close to the part of my character development where I need to ask for a ruling. In theory, Dom's character is destined to take the Ulfen Guard prestige class and follow the footsteps of his father. My question is if he goes down this path, can Dom still use Panache while raging?

Rage says, "While in rage, a barbarian cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (except Acrobatics, Fly, Intimidate, and Ride) or any ability that requires patience or concentration." My argument is that Panache is not a Charisma-based skill and is about reflex and intuition, not concentration. So he shouldn't lose those Swashbuckler abilities (any more than a fighter loses the ability to fight as a fighter while raging). But I am asking since I think it's ambiguous.

So while I'm leveling, can I swap the bond we aren't using for Animal companion? The answer might also affect what Hunter's Trick I take first from the Skirmisher archetype.

I'm celebrating my wife's birthday yesterday and today, so I'll get more details up later.

I'm trying to post some more details about the items found, but Paizo has been down off and on since last night. If everyone has leveled up, things will move along toward the next part of the adventure which is getting into Whitethrone, where Baba Yaga's hut is located.

I'm still waiting on a response about the class features. It affects my leveling.

I'm still waiting on a response about the class features. It affects my leveling.

Sorry. I was so focused on getting a post to take that I failed to notice it.

I'm okay with the swap. Presumably, the animal will show up while you are traveling toward Whitethrone. You can narrate how that happens, unless you'd prefer me to work it into an encounter.

Nice. Gotta read up on how to "write" spells from spellbook to Fiske. Once I've done that we can probably safely sell the book.

Also, since I'm dumb and have been without a feat for 3rd lvl, I can now use Feral Speech to speak with our friendly megaloceros. That should help with the whole "make friends with critters" portion, Ingrit.

Thanks! My goal was to have the megaloceros become my animal companion. The only snag is the companion version doesn't hit large until 7th. Unless we just pretend he's not quite as big as we thought.

Either that or he wandered off when we were in the cave and I befriend another on the way back, having been softened up to animals now.

Maybe you met the elk's younger brother? :P

Really, I think we just pretend it's the same megaloceros. The difference between "medium" and "large" looks massive on a combat map, but it's really supposed to be a continuum.

How about this? Take the feat "Boon Companion," which adds 4 to your effective druid level for the level of the animal companion. Technically, this level can't be higher than your character level, but we can tweak the stats a bit. At 7th level, then it would shift to the normal stats for 7th level. The stats will shift a bit anyway when it goes from being a normal critter of its type to being an animal companion.

I'm good with that!

+1 BAB
2nd Favored Enemy
Hunter's Tricks 1
4x/day Bolster Companion (Ex): The Ranger can use this trick as an immediate action when his animal companion is hit with an attack or a combat maneuver. The companion’s AC and combat maneuver defense increase by +4 for the purposes of that attack. If the attack still hits, the animal companion only takes half damage (if any). The animal companion must be able to see and hear the Ranger to benefit from this trick.
Feat: Boon Companion
Megaloceros
STARTING STATISTICS
Size Large; Speed 50 ft.; AC +5 natural armor, Attack gore (2d6) 2 hooves (1d4)*; Ability Scores Str 20, Dex 15, Con 18, Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 5; Special Abilities low-light vision, scent. Special Qualities powerful charge (2d6).

hp: 1d10 ⇒ 8

Re: spellbook. Sorry Damiano, forgot you were a wizard. My bad.

As to the witch spells and Fiske learning them, it goes like this:

From the spellbook, Damiano will have to scribe a scroll. I then have to decipher (or read magic) the scroll, burn it in a ritual and feed it to the familiar. Make a Spellcraft check (DC 15+spell level) and if successful, Fiske knows it.

So, there's that, at least.

Does Erland need to scribe the scroll or could someone else do it? There should be people in town who could scribe the scroll if no one in the party can.

No need for me to do so. Just need the scroll, 1 hr/spell level, and the Spellcraft test.

Damiano should be more than able to scribe any of those spells, if he wishes, assuming we have a few hours of downtime per night. At least for the lower level spells.