CrazyHedgehog's Serpent Skull

Game Master CrazyHedgehog

Zaghigoth: Go ahead with the jungle druid archetype and retool your character. I just got Ultimate Campaign over the weekend, and I'm inclined to suggest using the retraining rules from that book. The downside is, you lot are in the jungle (and a dungeon) effectively alone, and the guide suggests you spend 5 days of downtime and invest 200gp in training as you convert your standard abilities to those of the archetype (fortunately a pretty straightforward swap). Why don't you make the changes now, signifying that Zag is adapting to the jungle environment. Once you finish exploring the underground temple, spend the downtime and gold piece cost if you have it.

BTW, also got Animal Archive, I'm keen to make animal companions, familiars and such a more active part of my games and my posts. Would you suggest one or two personality traits for Shiv? Or, would you prefer I surprise you? :)

I'm keen to pick up the game too, I also ran afoul of the Great Golem overload. I think I need to pick up my other games first, then will come back to this one, soon!

Sounds good to me. I've made the changes, getting Jungle Guardian (+1/2 level to Climb, Knowledge (Geography), Perception, Stealth, Survival, and Initiative in jungle terrain) and Torrid Resistance (Ignore effects of hot climates as if under endure elements, +4 on saves against disease and the exceptional abilities of animals and magical beasts) abilities and losing Trackless Step (though I can still be untrackable in jungle terrain only).

As far as Shiv goes, you can surprise me if you'd like, though I suppose he is a bit defensive and perhaps quick to lose his calm (when struck or missing an attack, for example). And now that he is medium size and boasting a strength score of 20, likely a bit arrogant, haha.

Welcome back Cat!

Ditto - welcome back Cat! And new and improved, great you've been able to level up.

Just looking ahead for when it comes to playing the second adventure in the Serpent's Skull series, if anyone is interested in incorporating the Faction Guide's rules for joining an organization, just let me know.

Among other organizations you might want to consider, the Pathfinder Society, Aspis Consortium, the Red Mantis Assassins, and the Shackles Pirates will all feature in your futures.

I think for Yeks the only one that would make sense would be the Pathfinders and only if he made an acquaintance who really inspired him in that direction. Aspis is too much at odds with his own background. I could see the Red Mantis if he wasn't NG. And I don't really see an obvious reason for him to ally with the Shackles Pirates. But, open to ideas depending on what everyone else sees in those groups.

Hey guys, CHH mentioned you are on the lookout for a couple new players. I don't remember much at all about this AP, other than thinking the first adventure was really well done.

It looks like the party has an archer, a Druid, and a rogue, if I see correctly.

Could the AP and/or the group support taking a paladin on? Seems a front liner who could heal a bit might be useful to the team.

Yeah, I think a pally would be a great addition!

It'll take me a few days to get it together. Until New Years is kinda hectic for me right now.

I think we're all running a bit slow right now. I'll keep checking in, but don't expect things to take off too much till the new year.

IIRC, we roll for HP after first level. This is the skeleton build for my paladin.

Hp 3d10 ⇒ (1, 10, 9) = 20

Edit: I assume one's get re rolled. If not, let me know.

HP 1d10 ⇒ 9

How much gold do the characters have at 4th level? Standard, or different?

Like I said, I don't recall much about this adventure, so could someone kind of give me a quick primer as to where the group is now, and how I might come in?

Welcome, welcome. Hope everyone had a good holiday.

Basically we were on a ship which got shipwrecked on a cannibal and undead-infested island due to the efforts of a reclusive scholar enchanting the captain into changing course for it. Turns out that the island was also some olden center for the worship of some serpentine demon gods. We've been roaming about the island for a while and are now in a once-submerged temple trying to put a stop to whatever plots are afoot to interact with said dark forces.

I think the best options for you to come in are either shipwreck or rescue ship. Or maybe a warrior of old who was somehow stuck in stasis for ages in this temple...

Yeah, considering we drained the lake to get into the temple via strange rituals that can be seen for miles, that might contest with the ol' "Oh, hi, I am also an adventurer in this same dungeon/location." Granted, DM handwaves trump all.

Also, as to the organizations, I feel like the Pathfinders would also be the only one that might lure Zag in, giving his wont to explore new wilderness. He would probably only join if others in the party do, though. He does want to belong to something, but I suppose right now he feels that the party is his organization/the tribe he's been looking for.

Gerald welcome to the group, and your paladin will be a welcome addition as well. We'll have Aebliss coming over from my Skulls & Shackles group, I think you are all acquainted with each other from that game already, so that should round out the party nicely.

Ugh, have just spent my lunch break typing out a response to your questions, but it looks like it has been eaten. Annoying, because I had copied it before posting as a precaution, but when it went up I nixed that to copy over some additional information for you, it looks like the original reply has been lost.

I'll post again tonight, have run out of time now, but basically I'll get in touch with you about joining play, I was thinking to ask you to hold fire until the group is ready to start Part 2 of the adventure path, but just seeing Yekskya's post that raises some intriguing possibilities. I'll be in touch soon, probably via PM.

Thanks, everybody!

So, I recently acquired part 1 of Reign of Winter and read through it and found it to be pretty cool. I'm thinking about maybe trying it out on the boards. I generally don't run book-adventures (or campaigns set in published worlds, for that matter; I'm a homebrewer mostly...like to put more emphasis on character development and stuff rather than strict plot points), but I think this one would be fun to run. I haven't run anything on these boards before (and it's been some time since I've run anything online at all), but I'll probably give it a shot. If anyone here is interested in playing I wouldn't at all mind building the group out of people I'm already familiar with.

Zag, I'd be up for it. I haven't tried Reign of Winter yet, but it sounds like an incredible adventure.

Zag, RoW is the other AP I haven't played in at all. I'd love to jump in an RoW game, if you felt up to running it.

If you have space for one more, I'd love to join in to play. I agree homebrew games are great fun, I find them difficult to run on message board games, I prefer to run them with in-person groups. Reign of Winter sounds like great fun.

I'm just going out now for the day, but will get the game running again later tonight.

Fair point. I just think that when I run published worlds i don't know everything I should I suppose, whereas with my own world I know every detail all of the time. But I guess for a focused adventure path that doesn't matter of much. And of course CH you are welcome to join! If we go with you three that's a good stat and I'll see about pulling 1 more person. There's a possible/likely NPC that could join the party as well depending on how things go. I'll work to get a thread set up on the weekend. In the meantime, feel free to check out the Player's Guide for the adventure path and brew up some character ideas. The adventure starts in a tiny village in Taldor but obviously moves into arctic climes, taking the group to Irrisen and beyond. Witchcraft plays a big part in the campaign so classes, feats, and archetypes that deal with witchcraft and arcane magic in general would fit fine (the player's guide offers the winter witch archetype and winter witch prestige class as options). Survival and wilderness are also present themes.

Also, does anyone have any pointers for creating/updating tactical maps for combat? Any programs you guys use, or just look for fitting ones and edit the icons on?

Zag I would love to take part in one of your homebrew worlds if you ever run one online. For my maps, I'm pretty low-tech - I use the snipping tool on my computer to cut and paste maps onto Word, then paste over icons. When I'm ready to post the map up for players, I take another snapshot and load that up to ImageShack. There might be better ways out there, but this method seems to have worked so far, using the software I had already.

If you get a few minutes, DM, and can try again on those questions I had before, I'll get to working on finishing my pally...

CH I will certainly let you know. I am actually working on one (have been for sometime) that I was originally going to run for some local friends a year or two back, but two of them moved to New York and another has been summering in France or Germany so it never materialized. I've been working on it as a PbP, though I hadn't decided whether to host it here or on its own forum. I've been chronicling it up on Obsidian Portal mainly for the wiki feature; as a DM for my homebrew worlds I'm prone to detailing out a ridiculous amount of things, particularly the history of peoples and places (History major, go figure). This particular campaign is loosely based off of Egyptian and Middle Eastern (and a little African) culture and geography, taking place in a huge desert land along a Nile-like river and the Twelve Kingdoms in its floodplain as well as the surrounding areas. It is primarily going to be a free-form city-based game which I think will work better on PbP anyway since the characters will be free to do as they wish without having to always be together. As I said before I like to make my campaigns character-focused where the players can really integrate their characters in the world and such. I will definitely let you know when I finally get it in motion.

You open to Advanced Class Guide playtest for RoW or should we stick to more traditional fare? Thinking of trying an Arcane Bloodrager with either an Ulfen or Kellid background, but I might consider a barbarian if you'd rather go with something more mundane. This would also seem like a good one for an arcane caster.

If you have the PDF of the AP, you can export the images from there for use as maps. I think the more recent APs also have the smart maps in the PDFs (where you can turn on/off some of the contents). It might be easier to screengrab from those. I haven't tried seeing how to export from those yet.

I have a couple GMs using Google Docs for maps and that seems to work really well. You can even allow us to move our own icons around the map which nicely lessens the load on you as a GM. We just need to make sure we stick to our own since we can move any of them :)

I'm fine with filling whatever role the party needs for RoW. I usually throw in a claim for the arcane caster, so if someone else wants that spot, please speak up and call it. I'm happy to be a gap filler as needed.

Also, I am strongly feeling a weird desire to make my paladin a gnome for some weird reason, so don't be surprised if Gerard Abrigone vanishes from this thread, and a new gnome pops up.

Say goodbye to Gerard, and say hello to Krolmnite the Brave!

Hello everybody, just thought I would pop in and introduce myself. I'm one of the new players that Crazyhedgehog is bringing in, we know each other from a PFS game.

Anyways, a little about myself. I'm a college kid going for engineering, spend too much time watching dramas and drinking mountain dew, and I'm about as tall as a keebler elf.

I've started into D&D a few years ago when my girlfriend got me into it (I know right?) then gravitated towards pathfinder since I liked how they did things better. I play about everything out there, but my specialty is wizard's and I'm going to take the new ACG arcanist for a spin.

That being said, I wanted to ask you guys for some thoughts and help making an interconnected backstory. All I know about my character right now is he's going to be a male aasimar who's not a people person, his introverted nature making him stick out from other aasimar's.

I'm fine with Advanced Class Guide stuff. Some of the things in there look really cool and I am eager to try them out myself, so feel free. Races I'm pretty open to as well...any core is fine, and I'm generally good with more monstrous races because I like playing unconventional races myself, so long as they aren't too out there. I feel like a big thing with monster-esque races is that people see the abilities or mods they want and pick the race but then just play them the same way they'd play a human or whatever. If you are going to play a gnoll or something, best to play a gnoll! The only thing I might limit is playing races with innate cold resistance..makes sense for the AP but I feel that with climate-specific campaigns where survival and temperature and stuff is a big part of the experience it is a bit counter-intuitive to play something resistant or immune to those effects.

Thanks for the tips Yekskya I will look into those options and play around with exporting.

Greetings Tiasar, and welcome. Sounds like an interesting character. Were you trying to make a backstory connected to one of the existing party members? I am Shawn, by the way, 26 with a history degree I can't do anything with. Other than gaming I read history books and listen to a lot of ambient folk and atmospheric black metal.

And Gerard, a gnome paladin sounds just silly enough to work.

Small size paladins are hilarious.

This is Tiasar with the bare bones of the aasimar arcanist. He's going to take the Burnished Skin trait, which is going to play into how anti-social he is (I love the avatar pic I found for it). I myself am quite a suspect when it comes to playing non-core races, especially one like an Aasimar which is so obviously more powerful than most other races. But don't worry, his heritage will be very prevalent in the roleplaying. Also if it makes the DM happier, I can take an alternate racial trait to eliminate the cold resistance.

Not sure what I'm drawing up yet beyond some sort of fire accident that was probably caused by his raw arcane ability. I'm spitballing right now, so just random thoughts and ideas are appreciated, I can make a lot out of them.

Atmospheric black metal...I'm having trouble imagining that. Care to link a song you like?

Wolves in the Throne Room - I Will Lay Down My Bones Among the Rocks and Roots

Health beyond level 1: 3d6 ⇒ (3, 5, 6) = 14

Beautiful, I'll take it!

DM, what is your stance on taking a drawback?

I put a little meat on the bones of my character, all of it is under his profile. Always love to hear thoughts and feedback. One thing I definitely want to do is more recent history; the current one written is going to be quite a few years in his past.

Maudrill,

I don't think you need to worry about the energy resistances in CHH's Serpent's Skull. We've a bit of a side conversation going here about Zag starting up a Reign of Winter game and that's the one where he wants to be wary of the energy resistances (at least cold).

BTW, as for personal background, I'm at the older end of the scale :) 46. Run the Chicago office for an ad agency. Originally educated as an engineer! Music tastes are indy and alt rock. Married. Two boys who both love Pathfinder. Been playing RPGs since sometime in the late 70s. I lead a PFS group in the Chicago west suburbs with something in the neighborhood of 60 players.

Hello, everyone.

I am (yet another) player invited by CrazyHedgehog to join the game. ^^ I'm using (a slightly retooled version of) a character I used in a previous version of Smuggler's Shiv. Feel free to have a look at my profile and tell me what you think.

I am looking forward to joining the game very much! :)

So we have a paladin, an arcanist, and a bard/sorcerer joining up, eh? Sounds like a nice combo.

Yes, in addition to Serpent's Skull out-of-character discussion on this thread just now, Woodsmoke (Zaghigoth) is planning to launch his own Reign of Winter game, so we've been having some discussion about that, we're pretty excited.

I think this will be a really strong group going forward, and the game's been great so far, it's been a great group. I think Rowena's player will be back after the holidays, and Grym's player keeps expecting to come back, so we may yet hear from him. I was just worried as I was GMPCing a few characters, that I was stealing the thunder from those still actively playing. Bringing on the new players I think will help balance this, and the scenario should be such that even if players need to take a break from the game that their characters can more easily fade into the background for a bit.

As for me, I'm from San Diego but currently reside near Edinburgh, Scotland where I work as a librarian - yes, you too can see the world and meet interesting people - join your local library! Especially worth considering, as I did a History degree as well and have found it very helpful. I have little Pathfinders too, which means I don't always have the opportunity to post as I intend to.

@Maudrill: Sure, drawbacks are fine, along with the extra trait. Though if you select one, expect it to come up regularly in the game!

@Zaghigoth: What I've also found to be really helpful is that I had Microsoft OneNote on the laptop and that has been great as a campaign journal. I've created separate tabs as needed for PCs and NPCs, and it means I can flip back and forth through bits of info easily while writing posts, without needing to follow up links or scroll through lots of pages. I think I'll also check out the Google Docs for maps, as Yekskya suggested.

Reign of Winter: I have so many character concepts I want to try I'm not sure where to start, so I'm happy to fill any gap as well. I was considering an arcanist or wizard, though if Gerald is planning an arcane character I'm equally drawn to playing an oracle or rogue. If the new character types from the Advanced Class Guide playtest are available, then I'd consider a hunter or slayer too. (A Good slayer. Mostly, Good.)

CCH, please claim the arcane role in RoW. I'm fine with that. I am perfectly happy to fill in for this group. I'm one of the first usually to claim a role, so this time, for balance, I'm going to wait and choose my character last. I'm the team guy this time, so to speak, so please play what you want. I'll find something good, I promise!

Oh, and I'm a 40 year old attorney in Kentucky. I've been playing some version of D&D since about 1985.

I'm glad everyone is excited about the reign of winter game! To the newcomers to this game I still have a slot available so if anyone would like to join crazyhedgehog, Gerald, and yekskya in a perilous journey to the arctic climes and witchcraft let me know. Ill be setting up the thread tonight or tomorrow and will post here when its up.

Sounds great, woodsmoke! Can't wait...

Took a drawback and a pretty cool trait

His Adopted (Carefully Hidden) and Survivor traits were gained from his childhood and having to deal with surviving in an environment hostile to aasimars. Burnished Skin and Overprotected were both gained from the fire that nearly killed Darius.

Gerald, it's no problem, after a bit more thought I think I've settled on playing an oracle, either a dwarf or Ulfen. Only, have a few ideas, haven't decided yet what type of oracle to play. With the waves mystery? Seer archetype? Or I was considering taking the possessed archetype and multiclassing as summoner - the possessing spirit could manifest and take form when the oracle calls on it for aid.

Mandrill, those traits and drawback are fine. Only where does the truth speaker variant come from? Blood of Angels?

I wouldn't know what book it is in. I got the alternate racial trait here, off their website.

The discussion thread is up for RoW, so feel free to continue hammering out characters there. Woodsmoke's Reign of Winter

Which sourcebook is the Arcanist from?

Advanced class guide. You can download it free from the paizo site.

Interesting...! Thanks for the info. ^^