Just a reminder that Jim's second and third saves (after the disastrous first) were a 23 and a 16, respectively.
Oracles don't get Lesser Restoration automatically, and since the Groom had it covered as well as the Heal skill I didn't pick it up.
One might say it's a wee hole...
Dingus still hasn't passed a save yet...
Just a reminder that Jim's second and third saves (after the disastrous first) were a 23 and a 16, respectively.
yep, you'll recover. Dingus is a bit more worrisome though there's some good times ahead when his sanity slips : )
Oracles don't get Lesser Restoration automatically, and since the Groom had it covered as well as the Heal skill I didn't pick it up.
One might say it's a wee hole...
and of course you have all totally ignored your loot once again...
We get loot?
We get loot?
occasionally, only to be immediately forgotten. Some recent examples:
Biggets drags the other tug downstairs to his companion and finds that they both wear chain shirts and are armed with saps. They have a bit of coin, shiny rings and a beaten gold bracelet of Mwangi design. All in all, he figures about 50 Sails in value. Most of the potions have no supernatural properties, but Wu Fang finds four that look promising.
and
Pocketing the sepia bottled liquid in his sporran for later investigation Dibbets stumps after the others.
:P - identifying items is Wu Fang's schtick... Dibbets ain't even properly equipped.
another example among many-
There's honestly not much loot for all the trouble. Smollet's little fingers turn up a rather cheap cutlass, sap and ruined leathers with a purse of 4 gold and 7 silver coins on the burned merc. Ned's corpse holds a little better: a pair of masterwork daggers, one magical potion and a small vial of poison maybe.
Someone really should be the designated loot tallier. I always thought Groom would be good for that seeing as Besmara would have wanted all the riches divvied proper. He did seem to do a better job than anyone else. Seeing as he's gone though- I nominate Dibbs if only because he hasn't updated the gear on his character sheet for something like 2 yrs...
:P - identifying items is Wu Fang's schtick... Dibbets ain't even properly equipped.
yeah, except Wu Fang is craaaaazy! with only little windows of clarity. tiny, tiny windows. more like peepholes.
Fine... and I think 2 years might be an understatement... considering it still has a 500gp downpayment on a musket there ;)
I'll get on it sharpish-ish.
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Right - I've gone over posts 7001 to present day and have:
2 x chain shirt
2 x sap
50 Sails in coin and gold.
Most of the potions have no supernatural properties, but Wu Fang finds four that look promising.
Lighthouse Desk
2 x little vials of sepia fluid
2nd Floor Lighthouse
Expertly balanced masterwork dagger
Bloodcove Getaway
Cheap cutlass
Sap
4 gp 7 sp
2 x masterwork daggers
One magical potion
Small vial of maybe poison
Call dibs on what you want and I'll party loot the rest.
I'll take one of the masterwork daggers.
We should give the wee fella (the other wee fella) one of the MW daggers too?
Kaul might want a potion depending on what they is...
Otherwise loot the lot.
Well iffin ye want the potions ID'd you'll have to convince Wu Fang... at present he thinks it's tea...
And aye - in thread I was proposing we give him a chain shirt and one of the MW daggers.
Right I checked back to when we departed Freeport for Bloodcove on the loot situation.
Immediately prior to Bloodcove
4,050 gp each - which we each spent.
I'll remind everyone that Dibbets is now a technically competent tattoo artist that can make magical tattoos. He's got 2k in makings, so if anyone is interested speak up. When t'was discussed with Cap'n he was also ok with the tattoos (non-Tulita) in Razor Coast as well as the ones in Inner Sea Magic.
The tattoo is a silent, spell completion item that only the bearer can activate. It vanishes when activated. A spell tattoo must be visible to the bearer and must be touched as part of its activation. These magical tattoos are not normally placed on the head, neck, or back as a result, since most creatures would require mirrors to activate them. A spell tattoo’s aura and caster level varies as per the scroll it emulates. A spell tattoo has a market price four times as much as an equivalent scroll.
And your resident lookout follows up his natural 1 of the night before with a stellar 5... grumble...
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nothing gets by- hey, your glasses are on your head.
Cap'n - can Dibbs stump to the Cap'n in a single move action with his anemic move rate?
Cap'n - can Dibbs stump to the Cap'n in a single move action with his anemic move rate?
Dibbets is kind of torn between two options:
1) Off Faruq now, and then take over as Estabo's crew.
2) Hogtie Dingus until we get back to near-civilization.
I'm not sure that we're suitably equipped to either diagnose or treat his mind-boggling, and the only thing that comes to mind is straight up tossing the dagger and seeing if that changes anything. None of us have Heal trained, and Dingus was going nuts in Freeport even before he got the brain fog. Realistically outside of tying him up and gagging him every night - what options do we have?
As long as Faruq is living he's going to be hating on both Kaul and Dibbets - which makes it difficult to do anything as he's been given a postiion of power over us. It's like the first volume of Skulls and Shackles... except in this case I'd wager that us four are more powerful than he is. Given that we're amoral scallywags with a penchant for drink and a disrespect for authority... I don't see why we should be putting up with the crap we're getting. With us manning the steamer and the Cap'n and Rafe in the engines it's not like we need the dandy.
Thoughts?
Sorry lads - had a course sprung on me yesterday and wasn't back until late Scotia time.
Will get up to speed on the game thread and post my thoughts accordingly :)
Just lampshading round Dibbets' in game actions - think a toddler in a bad mood that had his favorite toy taken away... then make said toddler drunk.
It'll pass, but he's just feeling a bit hurt and useless given the fact that Faruq's arse-holery t'wards him got validated and accepted.
Awww Dibbs... It ain't been accepted matey... Kauly's flagging up in as many ways as possible that he reckons leaving this tub without bloodying our hands further is a big mistake.
Faruq's been an arse tae us all - me most o' all... but he is but one and we are many lol. Bear in mind that all Kaul's talk about leaving him be is bullsh1te... am hoping we can lull the dandy into thinking he's got us cowed.
We hit docks and it'll be a trumped up charge against Dingus and the rest o' us. Faruq will gain some back-up too. I say dump em all in the murk and sell the junker to the fella who wanted the ship earlier... Worst case we blame Dingus and his murderous dwam lol for it all.
And now we're locked in a box...
Just posted and deleted said post... feck
Well I know how Kauly will respond to the lock-in-box...
Batten down the hatches lads...
Sorry for the rush Cap'n - tis 1 AM here in KL and I wanted to get the post down afore I went tae bed ;)
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fair enough. I think I pushed on a bit too quickly as well. It seemed you might at least wait until the night before the insurrection, but this'll be fun.
Jim got left behind, but hidden daggers and reasoned actions will have to wait.
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Only in Straya NSFW due to potty mouth.
Scran - where about in the UK are ye headed mate? Heading North o' the border at any point??
Scran - where about in the UK are ye headed mate? Heading North o' the border at any point??
Probably just London... But you never know.
2 x sap
50 Sails in coin and gold.
Most of the potions have no supernatural properties, but Wu Fang finds
2 x little vials of sepia fluid
Sap
4 gp 7 sp
One magical potion
Small vial of maybe poison
8 silver chelish shields
half dozen ornate bits of coral
key
MW falchion
MW composite longbow (Str rating?)
Cap'n - I really don't mean to grumble, and I know it seems like I grumble each and every time... and there's no point in backtracking... but:
1) Given the quantity of arrows we've been stuck with - that's likely 6-8 figures? I know that the spoiler said shapes (plural), but an idea of actual numbers (few, couple, dozen) would've been nice.
2) Did Dibbets not notice the armament that they were carrying? - knowing that the figures were carrying bows would've played into Dibbets consideration of actions.
I was umming and aahing around using obscuring mist to give cover as my surprise round action - but the description:
Tall, lean humanoid shadows
is a far cry from
A half dozen tall lean humanoid shadows with drawn bows
I may very well have laid down the obscuring mist as a surprise round action if I knew there were that many and they had bows.
Secondly - the initiative chain, and giving the raiders a surprise round should've meant that Dibbets went after their surprise round volley in the surprise round? - which would've secondly given Dibbs a chance to lay down the mist before getting pummeled with the round 1 volley?
They could be using ManyShot? Would put them in a powerful bracket though...
Am thinking of the Man Who Would Be King gambit... Subjigating these primitive foes with the Great Tum-BoBo!
Gods Holy Trousers!
They could be using ManyShot? Would put them in a powerful bracket though...
Am thinking of the Man Who Would Be King gambit... Subjugating these primitive foes with the Great Tum-BoBo!
Gods Holy Trousers!
Cap'n - ...grumble... grumble... but:
1) Given the quantity of arrows we've been stuck with - that's likely 6-8 figures? I know that the spoiler said shapes (plural), but an idea of actual numbers (few, couple, dozen) would've been nice.
2) Did Dibbets not notice the armament that they were carrying? - knowing that the figures were carrying bows would've played into Dibbets consideration of actions.
alright, alright complaints duly noted. In my defense, I was on half a bottle of saki and thought I was giving you a break by letting you go first, but since Dibbs' AC still sucks (should prioritize getting that up a bit) we can modify a little.
Could you identify weaponry at first sight? I'm going to say no. These guys have a big camo bonus in dense cover and it's pretty dark though lowlight vision cancels that out... Could you tell how many? yeah, OK- many. like 20+.
So given that you would actually go after the rain of fire, I'll allow the mist to go off for your surprise action-
OK, fogged out, but the dice aren't helping you. Just switch timing of obs mist and wind cloak sound fair, Dibbs?
Just a discontent check here about the railroadyness of the game recently. Note that a boat going up a river does in fact closely resemble a railroad. Gripes?
Seeing as there will likely be spots in the future where we will be on a boat for long stretches of time, what would be the best way to handle it? I see a couple options:
A. Wormwood method: take AM/PM actions for each day.
B. Fasten your seatbelts Method: just give a warning when I'm jumping ahead, i.e. "I'm moving up a week, any particular actions or precautions?"
C. Other suggestion?
Net total is a wash anyways - so let's sit with what's in there.
I'm not going to argue back and forth on any of the other points as I find it never really leads to much apart from a mutual sense of frowning eyebrows and similar feelings of discontent. Though I do appreciate the listening and enduring of a bah humbug grumbler.
I can't really get Dibbs AC up too much more than what it is. AC is a relatively respectable (for a pure support character) 17 with Air Barrier in place. Any higher than that needs spells (which we have a paucity of as spontaneous casters) or significant gold investment (which I’ve been putting into more flavorful / alcoholic pursuits... no-one's taken him up (not even himself) on the tattoos yet either).
As to the railroadyness - I agree that it's hard (I struggled with it when I tried running S&S myself). I'd favor method B - where there's a query of general actions and those are folded into a jump-gap yourself.
The railroadyness has been a bit of a gripe (to me more because Faruq removed Dibbets potential to actually be an engaged passenger / crew on the trip, rather than a target for abuse) but I completely understand the need for it.
Part of the issue for me has been a bit of a feeling of powerlessness - the dwarven engineer was torn apart in a round without any chance to change it, the ship plowed into the sandbank even though Dibbets tried to act on the implied risk (which was decided had zero chance of success), then we're ambushed by a much larger force with complete supremacy over us. If there's a narrative desire to put us into the jungle - it would've felt nicer to just have the engine irreparably break so we had to abandon the boat - as it is it's felt a bit more like we're being teased with a potential to change the plot... before that's snatched away by fiat rather than action (which I acknowledge may just be me bah-humbugging again).
My 2 runes worth is that I'd also favour Option B... Given that I go through spells where employment conspires to limit my time, then reacting to whatever you throw at us miscreants works better for mesel.
As for Dibb's improving his AC... Surely Iron Hide feat could be re-badged as Grimy Hide ;)
As for the ink - Kauly would be up for it, if not for the real fear that he ends up with something like THIS! lol
Ah, I don't mind a gripe if I'm being too overbearing.
As for the crew ignoring your valuable tattoo offer, Dibbs- welcome to my world: treasure, what treasure? Actually, thanks for keeping track of the recent haul. I do show that Jim and Kaul still have a large chunk of their 4050 in the Freeport Vault as shown on the campaign page.
and now where have i seen a halfling greeted with undeserved and unrelenting orcish antagonism? oh yeah, whatever happened to Half-hitch?
;) Faruq just had issues and Dibbs was too close to Kaul, the real target of his projected self-loathing.
Srsly though, crashing the Bon Temps wasn't a plan, but a series of unfortunate events. I do let the dice fall as they will. There were roll opportunities that went awry: fayjees were able to sneak up and totally critted Hurg (with just a few paltry levels of expert) fair and square. Wu Fang contracted jungle fever and all that entailed and orcish spite boiled over.
I suppose I could have given another round or two before the ship ran aground, but I did give a chance to convince the weak and rightfully paranoid Cap to open up with meh results. It'll be alright. This was just a riverboat anyway. You want a real ship and you want to be in charge from the start.
This adventure is really pretty sandboxey and I hope things will make more sense in hindsight. Until then, I'll slow down and announce any jumps to give you more opportunities to lead things. Cap'n's word!
I'm spoilering the bits below as I completely know this may be the cumulative effect of multiple 'bad beats' in a row or similar... but wanted to put it down regardless.
It also doesn't reflect a balanced view of enjoyment - as I'm still enjoying the game. Dibbets is a little puffball of indulgence, and he's always a nice headspace for me to get into posting wise. So nothing here implies any lack of enjoyment or similar.
In other words - he made his own bed... and his aggression was thoroughly deserved :P
It went: Notice, Scarper to Wheelhouse, Attempt to Convince, Fail and Immediately Run Aground
Rather than: [i]Notice, Scarper to Wheelhouse, Attempt to Convince, Fail, 1-2 rounds delay, Run Aground
Dibbets tried to convince him on Round 6, we ran aground on Round 7 - just six seconds later.
Given the momentum of the vessel if the grounding was avoidable it just seemed that it should've taken a little longer to actually hit. It would've felt fine if instead he'd said:
"Non, ze halfling iz trying to trick me... go away" and he slumped back into bed.... then we ran aground a round or two later.
Again Dibbets made a really really hard Perception check to give some degree of advance warning of an attack... that meant nothing in the end, as the enemy still went before him and given that Hurg had been positioned in the doorway and three separate faygee had both sneaked on board and approached to murder range it felt like his death was a foregone conclusion here.
I suppose it's more an annoyance with the ruleset than anything - as making the Perception check to notice either of the two events did very little for the group, as Dibbets both has a low initiative and isn't really able to make decisive actions.
Heh for a game that's fair lasted the course, we do seem to be pretty rubbish on my counts... :S
For my part lads I'm going to try and get away from Kaul's default being simply to Lopp stuff... I've been trying to play up his lack of sanity marbles rolling in his noggin (believe him and Jimmer are actually more "insane" than Ding if that's possible... whose literally crazy as a bag o' snakes!!!!)
I've definitely got into the railroad mindset of "the Skipper will provide" with regards treasure and equipment... and like you've rightly pointed out Kaul's barely scraped his 4k nest egg (although in my defence I am frankly sh1te as a player - RL & virtual regards treasure and magic items etc... very much of the "meh" someone else can have it camp).
(On a side note this is a HUGE departure from the halcyon days of the Red Box when all I ever wanted to own was Gauntlets of Ogre Power lol)
I digress.
On Half-Hitch I'll say I'm also guilty (as a player) of taking undue and relatively unfounded dislike for some NPCs that we encounter. These could be potential benign allies who just rub me/Kaul up the wrong way. Obviously belligerent foils like Faruq are just red-rags lol.
Guess engagement in the campaign rather than just the game is something I need to do more, however I do love this craziness and do empathise with you Cap'n - must be like herding cats on speed sometimes trying to fathom the direction we'll take with things? Regardless its one that, like Mark said, is just fun to crazy fun to be a part of. But as always I'm open to notions or views on how Kauly could develop etc
Re the insanity, Jim was doing OK (down two or so) before the ghost in the lighthouse and the jungle fever; he's got Iron Will, though, which I figure helps a bit. Also, his particular flavor of madness is more OCD, which is actually in backstory how he got his nickname. (Although really the name started out with the historical John "Mad Jack" Percival, but I didn't want to have a character that shared my first name.)
Re the loot, he's saving his up for making his rapier keen.
Right now, Jim is also focused on finding Dallian and icing him, then getting the hell out of Dodge; everything else is a distraction. Which is why he was willing to let Faruq have his moment; Jim wanted to get healthy, and wasn't particularly worried about the party's reception at Whitebridge. But, you know, he also wasn't a special target for Faruq's venom, so it was easier for him to get over it.
Ah, I suppose when crazy is the norm it's crazy to not be crazy.... or something. Yes, Jim ironically is the voice of reason : )
I very much appreciate that this game hasn't just become killbots as my other seems to be leaning. getting a bit boring over there to be honest. Mid-levels are the best because you're competent enough to deal with most commoners and regulars, but can still get over your head easily. It hasn't become All Superheroes! I like a tad grittier.
Fair enough to Dibbs, I say. I guess I was really just seeing the crew of the Bon Ton as Red Shirts in the heart of darkness. Disposable if it comes to it.
maybe I'm watching too much Walking Dead, but I thought the fayjee's were awesome b/c pygmy ghouls! I enjoyed going from Who ate my Cheese? to Bastards! They ate Kenny! in a moment. prolly Hurg could have been healed up and saved for a couple rounds yet, but my god they were eating him!
As for the wreck of the bon ton- yeah, I should have given a couple more rounds for interference. I'm not sure what you would have done, break and enter to commandeer? mainly I was just thinking that Faruq would go down pretty quickly and what would make this more interesting and be something of a consequence of the aggression. Letting the tension play out longer would have been better, but I was just shooting from the hip. It will be better in the movie. :)
btw without saying too much, Faruq likely gets killed by the party in the module, but it's more of a mercy killing...
btw without saying too much, Faruq likely gets killed by the party in the module, but it's more of a mercy killing...
Captured by the elves and sentenced to death by unga-bunga?
The fayjees were awesome - and the pygmy zombies from Diablo II still plague my nightmares (especially the fire ones).
And there wouldn't have been much Dibbs could've done to break in, and the ship would've still run aground... but having that little time break would've maintained an illusion that if he had actually gotten in then he could have avoided the breakdown.
And Jimmer - Dibbs was sullenly content to go along with Faruq's work... until the anchor got put on the door. That was his (and Kauly's) breaking point.