Crypt of the Everflame (Inactive)

Game Master Darius Silvermere

Hello and welcome to the Crypt of the Everflame :)

Post any further questions here and introductions about yourself if you like.

It's not necessary to buy adventuring equipment, because you will receive a backpack from the town before leaving on your journey with rations, tent, blanket, waterskin and some additional stuff like rope, torches, grappling hook, tinder and twig. Be sure to have bought all your armor and weapons. The journey to the tomb is about 2 days from the town.

After I reviewed more in detail all characters I will open the gameplay section with an introduction.

About myself: I live in Belgium, I am 44 years old, male (human), currently without a proper job, just doing some volunteer work. The last years I spent most of my adventuring time reading about many game systems with some play by post sessions once in a while.

Hi there. :)

I'm a 43-year-old married guy in Houston, about to head to my 8-to-5 gig. Just recently got back into RPGs as I once played 1st Edition a long time ago. Mostly was Encounters with my son on Wednesday nights but then discovered PFS and got into PbP recently.

I live in New York, 28 year old grad student.

This will be my first pbp, but I'm looking forward to getting started. I use to play a lot of tabletop games but haven't gotten the chance to game in a year because of the school workload. The pbp format will allow me to stay involved without having to spend 8 hours of my Saturday like with a normal game.

Hello all, I'm a student attending the College of Charleston. Never done a play by post before but I have read several good ones in preparation. I'm currently DM'ing a game with my roommates set in the Warcraft universe using the 4e system. Played in a campaign a while back. Looking forward to it =)

Regarding Brimlii, I put points in Craft Armor&Weapons, are you going to allow making skill checks to earn extra coin when the party is in town with enough downtime for dedicated work?

The adventure consists of going to a tomb, retrieve an object, get back to town and join the celebration. So it means there's no downtime until after the end of the story. Crypt of the Everflame is the first in a series of three, so I could turn this into a longer campaign, but I haven't decided on that yet.

You can still change your skill points if you want, because during this adventure I don't see how you will have time for crafting.

Hello hello, I'm a student at Rose Hulman right now. I've been in quite a few tabletop games as well as PBP's, including DM'ing quite a few games

Changed skills to have Appraise and Sense Motive.

Hello. 38 yo 9 to 5 guy. Well, more like 6:30 - 5, but that's not really important. I live in Hawaii, so I'll be one of the last to post every day. I just happen to be awake super early this morning.

This is my first time doing pbp as a player, but I was GMing a group on another site. I've played the Pathfinder table-top for a couple of years now.

Looking forward to this!

Can't wait to flank me some monster with Griswald. That's gonna be sweet.

BTW, Brimlii, how do you get all that useful info into your alias's subtitle? Seems like I'm missing something.

And I just want to test this: I attack my training dummy in my backyard 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (11) + 4 = 15

I made some adjustments for Griswald, all the updates are on my character's alias.

Testing the dice mechanic: Griswald chops a tree with his great axe.
1d20 + 3 ⇒ (14) + 3 = 17 , 1d12 + 7 ⇒ (11) + 7 = 18 damage

...this is going to be fun

My schedule is sporadic, but I have a lot of down time and full Internet access so I should be able to post fairly frequently

Basically just add want you want in the class/level section of profile.

I like your style Brimlii.

Don Saint- are you going to do an intro on why we are heading to the crypt and do our characters know each other? I'm not familiar with this adventure so I don't know what I'm suppose to know

Yes I will post a long intro soon after I reviewed all characters.

Because you are living in the same small town, you all know each other more or less.

The ritual of retrieving the flame (done each year) has an important symbolical meaning for the town and through the years you gathered some knowledge about it, which I will post in the intro.

I should be able to finish reviewing characters today, after which I will post my comments in spoilers for everyone.

I see quite an interesting relationship between Griswald and I, we both get animalistic shapeshifting powers. Nivel is another half elf so he probably has an interesting opinion of a half drow elf. Brimlii seems like an honest man Firyin wouldn't mind talking with. As for Merkava, I can't really get a feel for your character. All your background really tells me is you can beat stuff up lol

Just to aid in reading Brimlii's dialogues or thoughts, I will be attempting somewhat of a scottish dialect. So if there are unknown words, they should be easy to look up.

As far as personality, Brimlii is a straight forward speaker, who never intends to hurt feelings with his bluntness, but often does. He loves to show off, but not through his actions. Rather, he takes to witty insults and cunning remarks. In other words, Firyin, Griswald and Nivel will probably get some slander for being "mutts" (of course no offense is meant ~_^)

Ok here is my character review. Please let me know what you think.

I opened the gameplay thread. I suggest writing speech in bold, thoughts in italic and OOC in coded blue as explained in the "how to format your text" spoiler below. Good luck :)

Hmm, I thought you said something about being able to take a third trait, I'm sure I misunderstood. Everything I did was right from Hero Lab, I went ahead and bought the APG and some other bundle thingy to help out. Maybe I'll do a fresh sheet and repost it all, that way we'll see if I get the same stuff. I'm pretty sure I took the bonus skill and took rogue as favored. The anti-hero option... that's new to me but I'll look for it.

Maybe an armor penalty is in those skills, though I thought I took a light armor to avoid it. Let me work on it, I want to be on the up-ad-up. :)

@Nivel, I couldn't find the antihero option in hero labs, just ended up adding an additional one and ignored the error.

Ah OK, so I get a bonus feat, not trait. I think. I'll post a new stat block below, I started over with the new downloads securely in place, with a couple tweaks.

I'll update the acrobatics and switch the beserker of society trait to deft dodger.

A note about Griswald, he is still definitely half orcish but he is one generation removed so it isn't as obvious. He has slightly enlarged bottom tusks, slight gray skin and pointed ears. He wears his beard and hair in a way to try to hide his orcish heritage.

Griswald has the toothy racial trait but as a 'shapeshifter' I'd like this only to come into play when he rages to emphasize his bestial shift. He won't use his teeth in combat when he is unraged.

To get the bonus feat from the antihero option in Hero Lab, you switch on Advanced Player's Guide Hero Points and then right below Starting Cash on the Configure Your Hero screen, you will see a box with "Don't Use Hero Points". Click that and it gives you the extra feat.

I choose Fighter as favored class and took a hit point.

I took Survival as my 3rd skill

12 hp - Now 13 with favored class
AC 20, Touch 13, Flat 17 - for some reason my sheet shows flat as 14, it seems like it added the armor penalty, but I can't find anything in the rules for that, so 17 should be good
CMB +5, CMD 18/15 flat - My sheet shows CMD as 17 (10 + 1 (BAB) + 2 (Dex) + 4 (Str)). I'm not sure where you got 18.

Ah, found the anti-hero thing.

Are alternate racial traits allowed? I took Ancestrial Arms and I think that takes the place of Adaptability.

Thanks all. Characters are looking good now.

Just testing some rolls and stuff.

Brimlii swings his morningstar at a nearby goblin, "Cursed greenskins, I'll be the end of ye!"
Morningstar: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (17) + 3 = 20
Damage: 1d6 + 2 ⇒ (2) + 2 = 4
As he hits the goblin, it fades into dust. Realizing it was a dream he wakes up, ready to get back to work.

I chose rapier, which is what I carry.

Well the thing is that Rogue already has proficiency with rapier (and shortbow) because of the Feat Rogue Weapon Proficiencies. So you don't need the racial trait for that.

Oh, I thought I got a bonus or something. Hmm, I'll look at it again later tonight. Maybe I'll just skip the idea. Thanks for the help. I'm still quite the Pathfinder rules novice. :)

Yeah, screw it. I'll drop that and put the skill focus into Perception.

No problem. I am only good at this myself because of Hero Lab :)

My next gameplay post will be in 7 hours from now more or less.

Now that characters are complete and we are still in a somewhat safe zone (except for those with low CHA maybe hehe), I would like to discuss how to handle combat.

I want to go by the principle “Post when u want and act in order of initiative” and also try to make it feel more like real time action, instead of turn based strategy.

So how will this go.

You don’t have to wait for me to announce combat. As soon as a player rolls for initiative and states his actions, this will start the first round of combat.

You may post your combat round when you want but it should be within 24 hours after the start of the round.

During your combat post you should do the following.
Roll for initiative (each round!), roll for any attacks and potential damage. Explain everything you want to do as much as possible in terms of standard, move, full round and free actions.

After all players have posted their intended actions, I will resolve them and those from NPC’s together. If rolls for players are needed after they already posted their actions, I will do them myself (saves, attacks of opportunity). To conclude the round, I will then post a summary of what happened and an updated map. This way, a combat round should not last longer than more or less 1 day.

What I mean by adding realism is that I will not follow the strict turn based style in resolving actions. So for example, if two opponents want to charge each other, I will let them meet somewhere halfway (depending on their speed) with the highest initiative striking the other first, instead of the one with highest initiative completing his full move and attack first and then the other not having any possibility for a charge because of no distance anymore between them. Another example. Doing a move action before an attack will always be slower, even with higher initiative, than doing an attack right away. Free actions don’t count for slowing down.

To summarize. Higher initiative means you will be a bit faster in hitting an opponent or performing an action, but everything still happens more or less at the same time.

Sounds Good

I think this will be a good way to speed up combat

Sounds good, just as long as Merk doesn't miss out on things just because I can't post mid day. I'll do my best to present and if-then style of combat and "Mission-type orders" that describe my current combat intent for the GM to interpret.

Don, see proposition regarding Merk's CHA score in Gameplay. I'm only suggesting it because of the way I've started playing him, not to make up for any apparent party shortcomings.

I prefer no changes in abilities anymore. Under the pressure of circumstances, a modest person could suddenly experience a boost of confidence. He might feel a bit unsure afterwards, awkward about what he just did, but for that one important moment, it was all that was needed.

In case there's some concern about this, I want to clarify that I am not a killer GM. I will not do my best to kill players with unreasonable threats, but for the current encounter I just don't want to give spoilers, because you will hate me for it. Good luck!

OMG we are gonna diiieeee. I haven't even read the last 11 posts yet. LOL

I GOT DIS! lol

Is there a map of the encounter?

Yes I had a first map up (see this link) from before you all knew about the encounter and was going to give an update later when I have time, or just give a new map while concluding the round. Firyin, the enemies and the rest of the party have simply moved a bit closer to each other now compared to the first map, at the start of the first full combat round.

Dude. What's up with us wasting not one, but TWO, natural twenties on our initiative rolls?

haha this'll be fun explaining after the fight. Also Firyin has a feat that gives his unarmed strikes extra bleed damage, and the way it shows in combat is him making vicious ripping motions with his nails after he lands a hit

Awesome, this has quickly become my favorite of the four PbP games I'm in. I've only been at it a couple weeks but I've enjoyed this one the most.

Testing my new awesome subtitle..

Thanks :) Am glad also the combat seems to work fine as it is now.

I'm with Nivel. This is my first pop and this is a lot of fun. The combat format Don is using isn't awkward as well. Good stuff everybody.

Crap, I just noticed when reading back over the Gameplay thread about Fir's dagger issue. I forgot mine too, LOL.