So divine favour, duration 1 minute, is out?
Ooh, also, can I use the nightmare? I've got an Icon picked out and everything.
@Johan
Divive favour only on surprise hound.
Nightmare? yes, you can use it. Check it's status on campaign tab.
@Agrippa
Noted, I'm not sure where I got this idead about partnership.
Cool! I've moved Johan's starting position on the map, and I'll cast Shield of Faith instead of divine favour pre-battle. I've got something else planned for the surprise round. Do you want us to post that action or wait for a cue from you?
Wait a bit, I'll give some hours to Sidious catch up, before moving the game forward.
@GM, you can post the Devil's Infernal eye stuff in the meantime =)
Cant. Sleep time and then university. Ill be back in about 9 hours.
-Posted with Wayfinder
OK - Here are some responses that I am late on:
1) Glyphs of Blindness will guard the two higher entrances. I do not true the Frog Men to not randomly set of our glyphs.
2) False information I am trying:
Week 1: No need for the people of Farhold to do anything about any goings on in the Briarwood. The king is sending in a force to deal with it soon enough.
Week 2: The Baron has an iron grip on the happenings in the Briar and will take care of any problems there.
3) Week 3 - The Frame up: Some priest of Mitra in Farhold has been sKimming the tithes for illicit/sinful purposes. The goal would be to encourage locals not to give as much to the church and to begin to distance the people from the church of Mitra.
4) Cohort: While Inquisitor is tempting, we have Johan already and he is hard to beat. How about a straight martial type. LE fighter who is totally devoted to Asmodeus. I'd build a high AC shield bashing defender type.
Working on the undead now.
Casting of Animate Dead - 14 hd per casting
Casting 1: Animates the 6hd Minotaur as a Fast Zombie and 8 Burning skeletons.
Casting 2: Animates 14 bloody skeletons
I think set the burning skeletons go guard the forge room or some other place where their fire will not be a problem. The other skeletons and the Minotaur could go anywhere but I am thinking that having them guard the way to the second level makes good sense. Thoughts?
@Eldred
Yep, check the previous messages and the map.
@Agrippa
I’ll move the ‘evil eye’ for after the battle.
@Sidious
I’ll think about a cohort, but I don’t think I’ll be able to finish before weekend. Please be patient with me.
@Johan
So, surprises, eh? I have one or two as well…. *Evil laugh* MWUAHAHAHAH
Casting of Animate Dead - 14 hd per casting
Casting 1: Animates the 6hd Minotaur as a Fast Zombie and 8 Burning skeletons.
Casting 2: Animates 14 bloody skeletons
Okay, let me make some corrections here:
Official Variants
The bloody and burning skeleton variants are created using the animate dead spell, but count as twice their normal number of Hit Dice per casting. Once controlled, they count normally against the controller's limit.
Financing update: we've burned through about 13,000 of our 19,000 budget so
150 gp black onyx
25 gp black onyx X18
So, the prime point: Bloody and burning skeletons count as 2HD to be created, if you are using from the poll of bones in the cave. (Boggards have 3hd, the Hound archon has 6hd).
To, you have only 18 onyx, which means only: 9 burning or bloody.
Decide which ones you are creating.
I edited the map a little, added another imp and recolored them. Purple is Agrippa's imp, Purple because that is the color of nobility =)
Although, Agrippa's imp won't do much...maybe just use that wand he has.
So, the prime point: Bloody and burning skeletons count as 2HD to be created, if you are using from the poll of bones in the cave. (Boggards have 3hd, the Hound archon has 6hd).To, you have only 18 onyx, which means only: 9 burning or bloody.
Decide which ones you are creating.
So that means the fast zombie Minotaur is out? variant would cost 12 hd no?
Probably for the best overall though - the next batch we create will benefit from the Eye bonuses.
@Johan
No, Zombie variant have other requirements, such as casting another spell with animate dead and so on. They don't count as more HD when creating.
Edit:
I'll update gameplay in some minutes.
Sigh. It really seems that every time I post to close some late action I get one or two more actions to clear up. Seems like I am at work. :)
So, the fast zombie was fine? I am happy to go with the regular skeletons for now. Later, if the material components are available I'll be pleased to animate more advanced undead from those Boggards and Hound archon skeletons. That Hound archon skeleton has particular appeal.
@Sidious
I'm off to sleep, but if you can, post your round one action as well. Once Johan post his, I'll wrap it up and pass to Aggripa and Eldred, after the wannabe heroes actions.
Their actions shoudl be "Fall over dead" =)
Agrippa, I actually like how you did the rolls, but the spell specifies that you only roll once for the entire spell effect each round. I am good either way of course, but thought you might want to know.
Sidious' round 1 action is a little dependent of the results of the spells cast and saves and what his teammates do in their surprise round. Assuming that not all of them are held in the tentacles and that some of his team advances in the surprise round Sidous will advance a move and cast Hold Person (DC15 Will save) on a non-caster. If the non-casters are all grabbed he will double move.
So it does! Which makes way more sense... I guess we use the first roll then?
@Sid I've found that posting if/then statements like you just did makes things much easier for the GM and keeps the game moving. Good on you.
@Sidious
In cases such as this one, do as Agrippa suggested and post IF/Then statments.
@GM, Why not take Sidious's actions posted in discussion...he did give two actions he would take[/ooc]
Yeah, you are right again.
Man, I need to sleep.
My computer crawled this morning. Sending this from my phone on a work break. I don't want to hold everybody up so if Aku wants to roll for Johan this round I'm good with that. Nightmare will full attack Hallak. If he dies Johan will try to drag Marta away with a maneuver. Otherwise he will attack hallak with bane powered whip
I am at a work thing this weekend and we barely have cell signal. Working til 9:00 tonight and no down time. Might not have reliable internet til Sunday late.
I'm working out of town this week starting Sunday and don't know what kind of internet access/free time I'll have available to me, so posting may be a little spotty for the next 7 days.
Ill no have to update until late night today. I apologize.
-Posted with Wayfinder
The newest of my spawn was born yesterday at 308PM, I've been keeping up with things from my chromebook using the hospital wifi but the first week home with a new baby is taxing. I'll try and stay current but if I'm out of the loop, you know why.
Wow! Congrats to you and your family!
Congratulations mate!
I'm off to China until the 25th but will try to maintain a posting rate of once a day.
Congrats AGrippa! Happy for you
Congratz, enjoy your new spawn. :)
Thanks! Mom and baby are home and happy. His name is Finn Christopher Romero and thank Asmodeus he sleeps most of the night! My daughter did not and it was Will Save inducing experience.
+1 longsword
+1 heavy wooden shield
breastplate
composite shortbow (+3 Str) with 20 arrows
dagger
3 back-pack
2 50’ rope
5 weeks rations
bedroll
tinderbox
5 potion of cure light wounds
2 light crossbow with 20 bolts
traveller’s garb
69 gp
+1 chainmail
heavy steel shield
masterwork longsword
nun’s habit (worn over chainmail)
silver holy symbol of Mitra
masterwork lute
mithral chain shirt
rapier
+1 large warhammer
masterwork studded leather
masterwork thieves tools
flask of decent whiskey
lets just save the loot for resale later - Of all of this I only really want the arrows and possible some potions of CLW.
Gameplay Delete: I posted in gameplay by mistake. Just copy pasted it here in discussion.
It was, however, since you didn’t actually posted the action, just described it, it makes less appealing for me to expand the narrative.
Seeing the dwarf standing Sidious chides him for bringing his friends here to die and for being so unprepared that they really had no chance of victory.
This is cool and fine, but why not put some more color to it? It only makes the game more enjoyable.
Seeing the dwarf standing Sidious chides him for bringing his friends here to die and for being so unprepared that they really had no chance of victory. ”It was your foolishness that killed every one of your friends dwarf. The mighty Asmodeus knows your heart and by his mercy, you should feel for their lost lives, before burning in hell with them!” the priest proclaims, casting his spell at the dwarf.
--
See? This gives me the opportunity to ‘answer’ whether the dwarfs passes his test or not. :)
Once more Sidious scolded me. >.<
I apologize for the above message, it wasn't meant to be scolding, but just an example how to be more descriptive and give the DM opportunity to make the game more interesting, because If I have some hooks, I can make the players actions have more meaning, and it ends being more fun for everyone.
This is a well run game, and the work Aku puts into it is very obvious. but…
The fact is that I was very hesitant to join an evil game which I expressed to DM Aku before joining. I do not really enjoy that aspect of the game and now that Aku is pushing for more descriptive posting (which in other settings I would welcome and applaud) I am finding that I do not enjoy or look forward to the game. I had a long post written up for the desecration of the Knight's temple but was concerned about posting it from my work computer - it was that graphic. Then I thought "What am I doing? This is not who I am." I want my gaming time to be spent playing heroes and doing heroic things. And I want to work in a team of people who help and encourage each other.
I do not see myself becoming less busy in the next year. In fact I was asked to increase the over time I work yesterday to 8 more hours per week and I am already working overtime. I am in a number of games (both table top and PBP) and find myself over-committed in life in general. Combine that with the fact that Aku and I seem to clash and I think the best thing for me to do is to bow out and let someone who will enjoy this game more, and have more time to give the game join you.
I would greatly enjoy playing with each of you in another game in the future. Good gaming.
@Sidious Happy gaming.
@Everyone
I very much enjoy this game, and Agrippa is my second favorite character I've played on these boards. When I was thinking of him I got inspiration from a couple of sources firstly that of Vincent Price (Masque of the Red Death, Tomb of Ligeia) and secondly that of Asmodeus himself (Book of the Damned Vol 1).
Re: Sidious Leaving
We haven't had much luck recruiting openly, GM would you rather we just find people we know in games that would fit with our infernal band.
OR: Agrippa still has a cohort, perhaps instead of the Devil, he can gain a 5th level cultist of Asmodeus instead.
Maybe there is a player out there that would enjoy running Grumblejack as a PC?
Do we get to keep the undead that Sidious created? Perhaps Sidious the character could become an NPC; take on an armchair role, maintaining the undead minions, executing the ritual, and generally supporting the knot outside of adventuring.
RE: Organizational Actions
I'm a bit peeved that the writers of this AP didn't think of any arcane/divine actions for the organization. All of the actions are things low level thugs or a criminal syndicate might do...did it not occur to them that there "might" be characters in the campaign that wanted to form a Cult dedicated to the very Deity responsible for the actions on Talingarde.
Proposed Action: Summoning
This action would be EXACTLY like the capture monsters action except it would be used to gather Outsiders. So, if on the Capture Monsters table it would be a CR3 monster, then the organization summons and gains the service of a CR3 outsider(s). It doesn't have to be a devil(Although those are Agrippa's specialty), it could be elementals, daemons, demons....there are tons of creatures with the outsider subtype that would work for an evil organization.
@Agrippa
That's cool, however summoning entails in more expenses that simply walking into a forest and capturing some wild monster. You can tell that by yourself: How much you invested to summon a CR3 devil? It does not seem appropriate to replace the entire overly complicated/expensive summoning/binding system with a simple organization roll.
I’ll give it some thought and see if I can find a ‘half-term’, because I liked the idea you proposed.
@Replacement
You guys want me to open recruitment or should we accept Agrippa suggestion and get a player indication?
@Johan
I don’t know, Grumblejack seems to be a hell of a powerful NPC to fall into a player’s hand. When I start to think about optimizing gear/feats/strategy it makes me feel like the ogre would outshine most of the party in melee combat. I try to put some not so intelligent or apt actions to balance the scale in this regard.
@Sidious as NPC
I liked Johan's idea about giving Sidious an armchair role: maintaining the undead minions, executing the ritual, and generally supporting the knot outside of adventuring. For that , I'm removing his leadership feat, since it's something for players, not NPC.
@GM Are those the first four weeks as labeled in the Horn Management sheet or are those Weeks 5-8? I added a Column to the Horn Management Weekly Log for you to add in events from your side. That way we can keep the timeline somewhat understandable, since we are all taking actions at different times.
@Johan and Eldred Do you guys want to update the Spreadsheet weekly log or would you rather that I update it as you post. If so, please let me know which Week events occur in...
@Agrippa
My counting is since the Ritual started. Meaning that since it started, one month passed and so far so good.
Re Action log: I can do both - post the action in game play and then update the spreadsheet. Of course, if i forget the spreadsheet, feel free to update it for me :>
Re leadership: So between the boggard actions and the nightmare I feel like I kinda have the leadership feat already without actually taking it. Aku, would you like me to strike out my level 7 feat and replace it with leadership? I think we have hit a case where the RP of the adventure has interacted weirdly with the rules of the game
@GM, ok so the Four weeks you posted in gameplay are a RECAP of the first four weeks! Got it.
@Johan
There's actually no need, because the Boggards actions are limited to ruthless actions only, and it's only one per week, you don't get more as you level up.
About the nightmare, well, let's say there's some black dragon mounts in store for you guys as well... (but it'll take a looooooooonng time....)
clarifying the calendar. Aku, you are numbering the weeks with week 1 being the week we started the ritual ( which Agrippa is calling week 5)?
So the three weeks leading up to the ritual would be (-1), (-2), (-3) on Aku's calendar and weeks 1, 2,3 on Agrippa's spreadsheet?
@Johan
Fixed the log based on your suggestion. The three preparation weeks turned into -1,-2,-3 (Pre-ritual) and started from 1 when the ritual begins.
Gather Information (skilled action): Your organization tries to gather three random rumors or tries to answer three questions that might be know about town. Roll a Connections Check.
Success: The questions are answered.
Failure: You receive 1 random rumor.
Natural 1: You learn nothing.
Natural 20: Success plus +1 to Connections.
@Agrippa
Do you want a random information or something about a specifit topic?
Err, Is there anything we need information about? Maybe the Baron's plans or perhaps who/what caused that murder(perhaps he can be recruited)
Updated the spreadsheet with Eldred's actions.
@Eldred Did you want to make a post about summoning the Mudmen? Or else I guess our NPC Sidious can do that.
@Everyone, did you guys put any thought to our recruitment of a Divine class? Did we want to invite someone we know or open recruit or have an NPC?
Alternatively, My Imp minion has a very high UMD score and can use wands of healing. And the Accuser Devil will be taking levels of cleric of Asmodeus once we level.....
@Eldred
To avoid confusioin:
The fourth week, they manage to capture a 1d10 ⇒ 10 Chupacabra
This means only one Chupacabra, not 10 of them. Sorry for the confusion.