Hi guys, looking over other PCs characters, it seems like most of yours have some experience in fighting etc. In contrast, Rosanna has never been out of her small villiage and has never seen anyone purposfully killed, much less done so herself. This being the case, she's evolving in my mind to feel a bit younger than 22. If its OK i'll drop her down a few years to 20 and (only just adult - equivalent of human 15 year old) and exagerate her lack of experience a bit during play. Since witches are squishy anyway i think this should work OK, if others are willing to look after her a bit :)
P.S. Think i'm all done and ready to roll.
P.P.S. All good with the posting guidelines except i tend not to go in for the interior monalogue. - I'll prob use italics for "talking" to my familier (if that's ok)
If you appear to be rather young and experienced, Iovanna may decide that you may need looking after in more places than just a battlefield. She may go big sister on you and also keep strange males from trying to become too friendly with you.
She may go big sister on you and also keep strange males from trying to become too friendly with you.
Bah, spoilsport... :P
If you appear to be rather young and experienced, Iovanna may decide that you may need looking after in more places than just a battlefield. She may go big sister on you and also keep strange males from trying to become too friendly with you.
Works for me, Don't know what Roasanna'll think of it though.
Eh, at times she may appreciate it and at other times she may just get annoyed like any little sister does. Iovanna comes from a large extended family though and paladins are known for protecting people so she really can't help herself.
I'm working on the first campaign post, but I thought I'd make quick mention of how I am planning to handle combat.
Initiative
I will call for initiative rolls, at which point, I will give everybody a chance to roll and declare how their character prepares for combat. Note that some preparations, such as drawing a weapon, still require you to spend an action on your first turn. After everybody has rolled or 24 hours have passed, whichever comes first, I will post the initiative order (I'll work late posters into the initiative order as they arrive), and then we will proceed to take turns, in order.
I'm a little concerned about this process drawing out combat, but I'd like to avoid too much . Some of that is always okay, but actions in combat can be very conditional, so I'd like to move through it one step at a time. If this hurts the pace of the game, I may reconsider it. I'm always open to feedback.
Battlefield Placement
I not planning on using combat maps in this game. I really do enjoy the tactical element of the game, but while moving miniatures around on a battle mat at a table rarely spoils immersion, I'm less keen on . With that said, I will continue to look at combat map programs, and if it feels like they would improve the game, I will consider incorporating them at a later time.
I will say that since there are maps included in the Carrion Crown AP, I will have a specific layout (measured in 5 foot squares) in mind for most encounters. Rather than have you dictate your specific position on a grid, I'd rather have players tell me what their character does in combat and I will move them accordingly. I will keep tactical movement in mind, and will never have you walk into a position where you are flanked, or have you provoke attacks of opportunity, unless you specify otherwise (i.e. I really need to get behind the wight. I'll move past him and risk the attack of opportunity).
These rules may be different from other play-by-post games you've been a part of, but I would like to follow them as discussed above, at least to start. It's possible that much of my DMing knowhow will translate to the play-by-post world less than gracefully, and I am always prepared to receive criticism and adjust things accordingly.
If you wish to give feedback, this thread is the best place to do so.
I'll have the first campaign post up soon.
My own experience is that it speeds things up if the DM rolls everyone's initiative at the start- people still get their characters bonus for higher initiative.
I approve of the step by step combats. It can be much slower than everyone declares an action and DM resolves, but its much more satisfying and usually means less awkward retcon.
If you do eventually look into maps I recommend Maptools.
Just my thoughts as I read through ^
We are eager to begin :)
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The only change I suggest is for non combat rolls (init,skills) use a 12 hour limit and combat roll at 24. In my other games it slows stuff down a lot waiting for some one to roll init or sence motive roll that doesn't really impact the game a lot. On the weekends you can change both to 24. It is just a suggestion other than that I am good with everything else.
Those are great ideas, actually. I think I may implement them immediately. But for now...
Just thought that I would check in to see if you are ok with handling any romance rp if it comes it up?
I am definitely okay with romance roleplaying.
I'm going to talk briefly about experience. Thanks to some great social rolls, you guys avoided combat with the locals. It still counts as a defeated encounter, so you are due some XP.
But before I hand any out, I wanted people to sound in on the topic. Generally speaking, when I GM, I forgo regular XP rewards and have the party advance at the same rate, depending on where they are in the adventure. My reasons for doing this are:
1) It keeps everybody even in level at all times. If somebody in the party is level 4, everybody is level 4. This helps me make sure that the challenges that the group encounters are all balanced around level rather than forcing me to account for the discrepancies in experience that can occur when somebody gets a particular reward and somebody else doesn't.
2) Very rarely do two parties solve the same problem the same way. If I've learned anything in my gears as a GM, it's that players will often find a solution I never even considered. I have run across some difficulty at times because XP rewards that were intended to advance the players were missed, or ignored in favor of something else entirely. In these cases, I can always scramble to get XP balanced and keep the party on track advancement-wise, but this problem is non-existent if the party advances based on adventure completion benchmarks rather than the sum of disconnected XP rewards.
My reasoning above is selfish, I will confess, because it's really designed to simplify my job. I have realized that all of my prior experience as a GM is in tabletop, and this is a different medium. Furthermore, you are new to me as players, I want to make sure that I don't screw you out of XP rewards if that's a part of the game you really enjoy. It can be fun to total it yourselves rather than just hear "You leveled up" at various points. I'd really like to run the kind of game that you, the players, keep coming back to. Do you have a preference for XP over uniform advancement?
I am fine with you just telling us when we all level up together. Of course that is partly because math was always my worst subject and I would most likely mess up my record keeping. I swear I must have some kind of dyslexia with numbers.
Yeah, I like telling us all to go up at the same time also. Like you say, with the different approaches that people take outside the scripted path it just makes things easier on us all.
Works for me.
No problems here i'm happy either way. Not fond of record keeping XP.
Great. We'll proceed that way.
Won't be able to post until Monday sorry. Bot if necessary.
That's no problem at all. I didn't address this in the recruitment or discussion threads, but as is the case with many other games on these boards, my hope for once-a-day posting from players doesn't extend to weekends. I should have specified that earlier.
I will do my best to post every day, but players can post as little or as much as they like on Saturdays and Sundays. I know that it can be a slow time in the play-by-post world.
Thanks for the heads up though, Hrolf.
A quick reminder: I mentioned at the beginning of this thread that I would be going out of town at the end of July. That trip starts tomorrow (Tuesday, July 26th). I am not entirely sure of my internet situation while traveling (my smartphone has been acting wonky), but I am still expecting to be able to post at least once a day. If for some reason I am not able to, it's not because I'm neglecting the game, but rather due to difficulty accessing internet. In any case, I'll be back on the 31st and should be able to resume regular posting activity at that time.
Have a nice trip, whether it's for business or pleasure. :)
I'm sure we can try to roleplay a bit between ourselves during the breaks between your posts.
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Hope your vaca is nice and we can manage is you can't post.
Thanks for the well-wishing! Great trip so far.
Fortunately, it turns out I have wi-fi where I am staying. My schedule is still pretty crammed, so things might still be a bit slower, but hopefully I can still squeeze in a few posts every day.
Cross posted for convenience.
Sorry for such an early unexplained abscence. I ended up leaving very spontaneously a couple of days ago and just got back- didn't even get time to post to my own games about the abscence.
Everythings ok it was just a very spontaneous two day trip to another town with limited internet access (and sleep). I just got home (5PM here) and have a family dinner to go to at 7PM- once i'm back from that at 11 or so my games will get updates- and then i'm off to Southampton tomorrow to visit my friend James (EngineHouse here on the forums) and go to a friends birthday.
I'm not normally this busy. More frequent posting should resume monday.
Glad we didn't lose ya.
No problem. Spontaneous happens!
AK is right. Your Fortitude save and your point buy are a little off, Jaxus. I'm not sure how I missed that as I looked over everybody's character sheets carefully both during recruitment and in the discussion thread before we started. I remember noticing that you had dipped Charisma to 9 for an extra point to stick into Wisdom, and I decided that that was fine since the "No Stats Under Ten" requirement I posted in the recruitment thread never specified if that meant before or after racial modifiers. With points spent as I had thought, however, that would have had your Constitution at 8 instead of 10. I completely missed that your Fortitude save wasn't accurate. Everybody overlooks things from time to time, I suppose.
Anyway, it would be great if you could fix that at your convenience. Let me be definitive on the "No Stats Under Ten" thing: This will apply after racial modifiers. That means if you want to bring your unmodified Charisma to 8 (so it would become 10 after you applied the +2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Con racial modifiers), you can. Conversely, it also means you need to bump your unmodified Constitution at least to 12 (so it would become 10). Next time I start a game, I'll be sure to specify that during recruitment and not weeks in!
I've already discussed this a little, and perhaps it goes without saying, but my reasoning for "No Stats Under Ten" is primarily for the sake of roleplaying. I have seen people roleplay 7 Int very memorably, but I wanted to discourage flat-out optimization, so I made a blanket rule. It's also because this AP has a fair amount of encounters with ability damage/drain, and even in the case of replacement encounters, ability damage/drain is common among the monsters I like to use (we are following the AP very closely, but those familiar with it may have noticed that I've already changed up a few things here and there). I didn't want characters be especially susceptible to those attacks.
Fort save is adjusted, but I think your point buy is still a little off.
Required points for your current stats:
Strength 16 (10 Points)
Dexterity 16 (10 Points, +2 racial to make it an 18)
Constitution 12 (2 Points, -2 racial to make it a 10)
Intelligence 10 (0 Points)
Wisdom 13 (3 Points)
Charisma 9 (-1 Points, +2 racial to make it an 11)
10 + 10 + 2 + 3 - 1 = 24
So still 2 points over-budget.
I'll be making a change regarding mass Perception rolls, as per AK's suggestion. I'm always reluctant to take a dice roll away from players, but I can't pretend like it doesn't slow things down to require one from everybody, particularly when I call for them in a post right before I go to bed (thus leaving you to wonder what you perceived for several hours).
I still want to use the built in dice expressions on these boards, however, as I don't like the feeling of rolling physical dice alone at home. I don't have any issue with other GM's doing that, but for me personally, it feels somehow disconnected from the online PbP game I'm running. I will include "secret" rolls in a spoiler, entitled:
Hayashi -
Hrolf -
Jaxus -
The above example (you can click on it...no actual game rolls going on under there) isn't meant to emulate a particular check.
The GM Screen spoilers are mostly for my reference, but including them is also a means to assure you that I'm not just making rolls up. Even though I would rather you didn't click on them in the campaign thread, they are still there to back up my narrative with dice.
NOTE: As with every aspect of my GMing, I am open to criticism of this idea. I'll admit I'm not entirely decided on whether or not I will like the mechanic (and won't be decided until I try it for a while). Thanks for your patience, all. I am and ever shall be making adjustments.
I have lost internet at my flat over the last couple of days, and i'm not sure when i'll have regular access again. Right now i'm staying at my fathers for the next five days or so so i'm ok for now. Regardless i'll find places and ways to get online and post, I might just be a little slow occasionally so I don't mind in the slightest if you bot Hrolf in combat.
Absolute worst case scenario i'll have reliable internet again on the 12th of september when I move to Ukraine.
No criticism here. Your pacing seems fine and average for the PbPs I've seem so far. But you can only go as fast as everyone else will post and it seems like some have just been having internet issues. (I do wonder where Jaxus has gotten to though.) I've just had a busy weekend and haven't had a lot of time to post.
I think its going well. All pbp's have points where things slow down and, as the DM, they always seem to take ages to get to the good stuff YOU know is waiting for the party,.. but then it takes a few days of discussion before anyone gets around to anything... I'm really liking the Ap so far and esp. the very evocative language and mood so far.
As the PbP vet i'll assure you weekends tend to be very slow. Your doing a great job running the game don't worry.
My net access is good at the moment as i'm staying at my fathers while he and his family are away. Not sure what it will be like in a week or so.
Well, I feel silly. I truly hope that I didn't sound annoyed in that post; I was simply curious if something was up. My concern was perhaps heightened by the fact that two games I have been playing in (a tabetop RotRL and a play-by-post Kingmaker on these boards) seem to have dried up recently, though in the latter case, it was due to the GM's real life emergency and I begrudge him nothing.
Hymenopterix has it though. I am excited for the really cool stuff that I know is coming, and not just in The Haunting of Harrowstone. I love every chapter of this AP, and I am committed to running through all six. Perhaps I am overeager. I suppose it just goes to show how green I am at GMing a play-by-post. It's wonderful to learn amidst great roleplayers, though, and I thank you all again for your input and patience.
Before I started playing on these boards back in June, every play-by-post and play-by-mail in which I was involved consisted of me and a few gaming buddies I've known for nearly ten years. Playing on the Paizo messageboards has been a blast, but definitely different than what I'm used to, so there is much that I'm still figuring out. I do love it though. It's exhilarating and refreshing.
I totally understand the difficulty of busy weekends and the importance of family time, and I have no desire to encroach on your real lives. I do hope I have not given that impression. That stuff is always more important than a game, and you should never feel obligated to put it aside to post.
Anyway, glad to hear reassurances. Thank you. I'll stop worrying. Back to the game!
DM Hamied
I was initially very skeptical about Jade Regent. I'm a big fan of Legend of the Five Rings, and I was dubious that Pathfinder could do as good of a job with a Japan-style setting as AEG has (for the same reason, I'm skeptical about Skull and Shackles...pirates are for 7th Sea!). I love the caravan concept and rules however, and I'll be very interested to visit the Crown of the World in Chapter 3.
I've avoided going into too much detail on the research section presented in The Haunting of Harrowstone for fear of defining your investigation strictly by mechanics (I really like the way the group is roleplaying it so far). I have been overly vague, however, as there are specifics that I'm using but have not made entirely known. That's my fault. Anyway, I will attempt to clear up the confusion without resorting too heavily to the meta game.
There are a few different research topics that can help you in your search for answers. One of those is more specific and is, in a sense, out of your reach until you've succeeded somewhat on another. The two topics most worth you attention are the ones you have been looking into already: The Whispering Way and Harrowstone Prison. Until now, you haven't found a reference to Harrowstone, so you've yet to make a check on that topic.
As I understand the rules, you are able to make a research check once per day on a given topic. Hrolf and Rosanna have already expended their daily check to learn more about the Whispering Way. The books you just found, however, pertain to different topics, and so you are allowed another check.
There is some inconsistency with time here, unfortunately. Research takes hours...sometimes all day. What I don't want to have happen, however, is to have one half of the party immersed in back and forth roleplaying while the other half just makes a single roll and learns something (or not). While that might work fine in a table top setting, I fear it could easily alienate the players researching in a play-by-post because the back and forth roleplaying of Group A could go on for days whereas the Knowledge check of Group B is a very small exchange. At the same time, I want the party to have the freedom to split if that's prudent (and during investigation, it often is).
I'm rambling, but ultimately what I'm saying is that I'm truncating research time, and that the "once per day" rule actually means "once per day per topic".
Hey guys, I am going to have to withdraw from this game. I have one too many going and honestly I am having a really hard time getting into this character. I think that I am just holding things up rather than contributing in a productive and enjoyable manner. Have a blast and maybe I'll play with some of againn in the future. Thanks!
Sorry to see you go, Bilbo. I'm sad. I like Hayashi.
Thanks for heads up, AK. I totally missed this until you pointed it out. I'll figure out how I want to find a replacement in the next day or two. For now, we'll continue with four.
Hi all, I hope you all divided mundane loot as I divvied it up some posts back(look through Hrolf's post to find it if necessary.
We gave Hayashi all the arrows, meaning we lost most of our treasure wealth. We still have the following left to divide-
- Two scrolls of hide from undead
- Five potions of cure light wounds
- Two potions of lesser restoration
- Two seemingly different scrolls (ask kendra to identify?)
You can use Kendra to identify items. For now, she has gone back to the house.
In other news, I've invited Sir Jolt to the game, but I haven't seen a response yet.
You're an experienced Play-by-Post GM. What do you think?
I think extra players will be fine, it might invigorate the game somewhat. I'd have max of 6 though.
This is a very difficult AP to run over PbP, as many things are not clear and it requires a lot of proactivity from the players. Lots of Carrion Crown games on this forum seem to be stalling. I would give the others more nudges I think, or possibly some NPC direction- at least until we're pushing into Harrowstone.
I'm pleased to welcome Hu5tru to the game. She will be playing a half-elf inquisitor of Sarenrae.
She and I will work on a reason for her to be at the Ravengro town meeting, but this might be a good opportunity to introduce the two new characters since Hearthmount called for volunteers (Sir Jolt is making a character for this game as well).
Hallo, hallo everyone. Cathran's name and origin are not novel, I assume, but I needed to specify for Paizo to allow me the name. I'll be your somewhat sneaky inquisitor of Sarenrae and probably as close to a tank as you're likely to get with AC 19 at first level.
Taken the Glory (Heroism) domain, which allows me to supercharge diplomacy rolls and at level 8 myself and the paladin (who I suppose will work together like a flank train when applicable) will be covered in an aura of Heroism, which is pretty neat!
Anything else folk need to know?