Curse of the Old Ones (Inactive)

Game Master Shanosuke

I'm not feeling well so I am going to bed early. i will post again tomorrow afternoon/

Bleh okay, this is my only post for the day. Still not well and very tired but I will put up your post.

I am getting the impression that nobody is leading the party. The two cats are following and the druid offered advice to Thanquol but I have yet to see any forward movement.

I will wait a bit longer but if I see no direction, the party will be attacked, mercilessly. Progression is in your hands, not mine.

Seeing as 3/4 of the party are leaning towards retreat, I'm guessing that's going to be our plan. Should we roll Stealth/Survival/Know. nature?

What you need to do is decide to continue to follow the trail.

Heed Rishkarri's advice and try and make for an open plain somewhere,

Or stand and fight the monster.

Survival and Knowledge Geography would be your best bets here.

I do not approve of your "if pulling if looking" rolls. You guys need to RP assign yourselves or others to a role and roll one.

Now, I will not accept any of the rolls any of you have just made. Pick one and roll it please.

Thank you.

I sent a PM to Rishkarri. If she does not respond I will have to drop her from the game as I definitely do not like botting druids

Fexlian and I will be gone for this weekend. Magic convention!

How does everyone want to do the potion distribution? 2 each, or what?

Everybody gets two to heal up except Thanqoul and Rishkarri. Thanqoul only gets one, and Rishkarri gets three as she also needs to heal her companion.

EDIT: Also if you don't use up all of your potions then keep them for a later date.

Works for me. :-)

Sounds good. That was a pretty rough match.

Does Razorclaw only receive half of the healing? I know if you pour a potion into someones mouth they only receive half, so was just curious.

I honestly don't know, actually. I'll leave that up to the GM. A cat wouldn't be able to manipulate the potion flask on its own, so either way, the animal companion needs help drinking it. If the GM decides he only gets half healing from it, I'll go with that and change it accordingly.

Shilara's swamped with school at the moment and is trying to avoid working herself to death. I'll keep her updated, but she probably won't be able to post regularly except on weekends.

So Shanosuke how many rolls do you want from the pullers, and the scouts? We did 3 last time, but I think we're closer to the village now, so do you want less rolls, or the same amount as before?

Actually at this point rolls are inconsiquental. It was mostly to determine fatigue for the encounter.

There are no more encounters from this point on and you will all be fatigued upon reaching the town just from dragging all day.

Okay you guys have leveled

Hp is handled as a choice.

You can take Half + 1
Or you can roll. You get one free reroll if you roll a one but the second result stands.

Also, I got the new bestiary 4 and it has some new dinos in it *Grin* also, the velociraptor is in it now and its different than what you just fought so from this point on, do not expect the same kind of raptors when you encounter them again. Bestiary fours raptors are a bit nastier.

Anyways, get your selves leveled up and let me know when you are ready.

P.S. Would you like to know what you missed along the way to the town? You guys bypassed three profitable encounters.

I'm curious as to what we missed. :-) It'll give us an idea as to the risk/reward ratio of encounters.

By the way, any objection to my taking a level of Cleric? It'll give us some much-needed healing capabilities, and since Gozreh doesn't require much formal worship, it shouldn't be too difficult to explain story-wise.

EDIT: or Erastil, for that matter.

I won't be able to level until I'm back at my computer,which will be in about 36 hours. May not be able to post until then either, but we'll see how we go.

I know some GM's like a rundown of what happens to the character after they level so here is mine.

Lvl 3
HP goes from 16 to 22
Fort, and Reflex saves go up by 1
Gain first 2nd level spell slot.
Gain two more spells of 2nd level or lower.
Spells Chosen:
Limp Lash
Knock
8 (2 class, 4 Int, 1 Skilled, 1 Favored Class Bonus) Skill points gained
Skills:
Bluff: +1 rank
Knowledge Arcana +1 rank
Knowledge Local +1 rank
Linguistics +1 rank
Profession (Herbalist) +1 rank
Stealth +1 rank
Survival +1 rank
Spellcraft +1 rank

Just tell me if you need me to change anything.

Hp you need to roll or take half +1

Took half Plus 1, so 4 +2 Con

Oh right. Wizard HD is 6 not 8. I forgot.

Also, would you like to hear what you missed too?

Sure.

Done! Here's what's changed.

Ranger 2 --> Ranger 2/Cleric 1
HP 26 --> 33 (d8+1 +2con)
Fort/Will saves +2
Gain Channel Positive Energy 3/day (1d6)
Gain Orisons 3/day and First Level spells 2/day + domain
Gained Enlarge 4/day (Plant/growth subdomain power)
Gained Powerful Bond 4/day (Good/friendship subdomain power)
Gained 2 skill points (Acrobatics/Perception increased)

I picked Precise Strike for my Level 3 feat. If Nyx doesn't want to go the teamwork feat route, I'll change it to something else.

Let me know if everything looks okay. Will I be able to purchase an Erastil holy symbol?

@Thanquol: what feat did you pick?

Good Question...... The answer is....... Spell Focus Greater (Necromancy)

Here is my run down, just have to input it all now.

Hit Points : 7 (1/2 of D8 + 1 Con + Favoured Class)
Skills : All skills increased by 1 rank.
Saves : Fortitude and Will increased by 1.
Feat : Precise Strike.
Sneak Attack : Increase to 2D6.
Abilities : Daring (+1 Acrobatics and Fear Saving Throws)

Definitely going with the Teamwork route Felixian, was the whole design after all and once we are able to start implementing the feats and traits in each battle our chances of surviving should increase significantly. Means when we are flanking my Attack bonus goes up to 9, my Damage goes up to 1D6+1 + 2D6+1 + 1D6! That is for a single hit, I get 2 attacks each round :D

Still at my partner's, but I managed to get my tablet connected to the wi-fi. Much better than using a smartphone.

I'll be home later tonight, and will level Rishkarri then. Shanosuke, did you have a ruling on Razorclaw and healing potions? As Nyx pointed out, a person only receives half the healing if someone pours the potion into their mouth, but a leopard doesn't have opposable thumbs, so there's no way he'd be able to manipulate the potion himself.

Made it home, and levelled Rishkarri in HeroLab. I'll update the profile, but here's the lowdown:

HP: +8 (1/2 D8 + 1 + 2 Con + 1 favoured class)
Skills: +2 Handle Animal, +1 Knowledge (nature), +1 Perception, +1 Stealth, +1 Survival
Spells: Gain two 2nd-level spells per day - after sleeping, she'll prepare Aspect of the Bear and Soften Earth and Stone; when we leave town, she'll begin preparing Cure Light Wounds in her first-level slots.
Feats: Took Power Attack as her new feat, in anticipation of Wild Shape.
Animal Companion: Chose Flank as Razorclaw's new bonus trick.

Leveling now.

HP=6 Total=28

Alright, it looks like you guys have an opportunity to double back on one of the elements you missed and at least hear about a second.

In the wagons with the stegs you guys left behind about 6000gp worth of goods.

If you had investigated the elves it could have resulted in curatives and a place to stay much sooner. There was next to no risk involved with this encounter.

And the third thing you missed you may actually encounter anyways so I will hold off on divulging that one.

When you guys come across an encounter that may have potential reward, the reward will most commonly be worth while. However, death is also very likely in these scenarios. Skills are better than fighting ability to survive most of these encounters and to get something out of them.

Okay time to move on.

I want to apologize. Black Friday is coming up and I work in retail. I have another project going on right now that needs my attention as well. So I won't be posting as much for the next two weeks. I will try to get posts in where I can but all the work has left me incredibly worn out.

I hope to have things moving a little faster after Thanksgiving and the speed should pick up even more after Christmas. Until then I apologize again for the slow posting and I hope that you all continue to stick with me until then.

Not a problem. We'll still be here. Try not to get trampled by shoppers. :-)

Okay guys . Black Friday is today. I have been given off Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. I will be restored and back to posting normally this weekend. Thank you all for your patience.

That's alright, I look forward to see what happens next.

Glad to see you back, Shanosuke. =)

Felix I have been meaning to discuss the Cleric choice with you for a bit now. I've just been too busy to spend time on it. I need to know a few things.

Why Cleric?
How does Felix come to this conclusion?
Where did the training come from?
Was this in his backstory?
How does he know of Erastil?
Why Erastil?
Was Cleric an original goal of the character?

I'll be clear I am not a fan of the "Healer" role and the NEED of clerics. I specifically avoid them where I can and expect parties to rely on other means of healing. Wands and potions are always a good prospect, wands particularly and Druids and Rangers can use them without UMD.

If Cleric is part of your character's development and backstory, then I won't be as harsh but if it feels out of place, I am going to be very hard on it.

So before we go too far on, let's get this sorted out. Just answer the above questions to the best of your ability.

Also, I forgot to detail how I handle Multiclassing;

Multiclassing

In most cases Multiclassing is part of a character's goal and leads to some prestige class or combined talent. However, I have had games where players inexplicably take a class without a solid rhyme or reason. This throws me of when suddenly a character has skills and abilities they have never before practiced. A am a very immersive style GM and honestly don't like it when players take classes simply for the benefits alone. There's gotta be a theme too it.

So, I have devised a multiclassing pattern. Ways to multiclass immersively. Use one of the methods below:

1st. My most accepted method, part of the backstory. Simply put the player has mentioned in the backstory and has even played out their previous training for the class they desire. They are at the cusp of completing their training but need that extra nudge. Thus they start with all the knowledge and ideas of the class they just haven't been able to get it working, once they level, taking the class is essentially them completing the final step. All story driven and the most painless method of multiclassing. This can also be built up in game as well of a period of several levels where the character expresses some kind of plot device that leads him to his desired class. Has to have time to develop though. Basically a couple of levels, not just the next level choice.

2nd The retraining method. I use the Retraining Synergies table to determine if a player can learn a new class out of the blue. This takes a week of study and training to complete.

3rd Formal training. The class is completely new to the character and they must seek out a teacher to train them. The training process takes a month to complete but they get all the perks and are good to go.

4th Self study. This is a slow and painful method of training where you take the class, you gain all the save, hd, bab, bonuses of the class but any class abilities have to be worked for and you need to have appropriate knowledge of class features.

Example of the fourth method is the barbarian. I will make you have to Roll a check every time you wish to rage. This will persist for a set time depending on your current level. Fail the check and you fail to enter a rage.

to fully explain this I will use the above example once more. A level four Sorcerer decides at level five he wants to take a level of barbarian. Without a proper training or explanation, he won't be able to make use of any of the classes abilities simply because he doesn't know what they are.

@Felix: To help you with this, while Erastil is not a completely uncommon god in these parts, there just aren't as many followers of him spread across the lands. The jungle folk tend to favor more chaotic deities than the lawful types. Bigger cities, of which are quite far from this area, are more likely to house lawful deities. There aren't many places you would have even seen a holy symbol of Erastil and it's design is very specific, any old longbow carving will not do.

I apologize for being rough on this but I'm not feeling this drive for a cleric unless it was intended from the start.

Ookay, my apologies in advance in case this is a long post. :-) I'll go ahead and explain my (the player's) reasoning and then go ahead and answer the questions you posted.

Like you, I'm not a fan of the "party healbot" and don't think it's necessary to have a dedicated healer. However, I do think it's important to have people with healing capabilities - especially in a dangerous survival-esque campaign such as this one. Aside from consumables, we have two PCs who can heal (me and Shilara took archetypes that trade out casting ability). I figured that someone should take some of that load off of Thanquol/Rishkarri's shoulders so they could use those spell slots for other purposes. I hadn't mentioned this until now, but I'd planned on keeping the spellcasting as unobtrusive as possible - to the point of reflavoring everything as jungle remedies (herbs, poultices, etc). I'm a big fan of reskinning things (my Ninjas never wear black pajamas, for example). :-) This also means that I don't pay any attention to the names of classes/abilities/etc, as I change the flavor to fit my needs (my barbarian enters a calm, focused 'battle trance,' for example). Unrelated question that occurred to me as I was typing this: in regards to the training thing, what would you rule if someone wanted to dip Oracle? ;-)

Why Cleric? From an OOC perspective, it's the easiest way to add a little out-of-combat healing capacity to the party. A couple 1d6 bursts and a few CLWs. Nothing too huge, but might keep the party alive a little longer.

How does Felix come to this conclusion? He and his companions have survived a lot during the last few days. It's pretty obvious that a deity's looking after them. Plus, there are no atheists in foxholes. :-)

Where did the training come from? Training? Every experienced woodsman knows that certain herbs and berries can temporarily enhance the body's natural healing abilities.

Was this in his backstory? No

How does he know of Erastil? I (the player) didn't realize that he wasn't commonly known in this part of the world. As one of the original major deities, I'd assumed that everyone had heard of him.

Why Erastil? Golarion Clerics are required to worship a deity, and he was one of the only nature-themed ones. Gozreh was another option, but he's more focused on the sea and sky. Erastil's the hunting god - Felixian's a jungle guide/hunter/ranger.

Was Cleric an original goal of the character? No. It kind of happened organically.

In my defense, I first mentioned dipping Cleric at the end of September, and then reiterated it last month before I leveled. Nobody said anything, so I assumed it was okay. Still, if it's going to cause a problem, I'll go ahead and stay straight Ranger. Whatever you're comfortable with. :-) I'm not meaning to cause a problem.

I should apologize if I came off a bit harsh. Reading my post again it seems as if I was being unreasonable. I'm not.

Now on my note on healing.

When seeing a party lacking in healing I tend to do a lot of in game favors. First of all I am not stingy with potions or NPCs able and willing to heal party members.

The elves you heard would have healed your group even before you assisted them and would have provided a few potions as well.

The hunters gave you potions, the town was going to give you more before you leave.

Basically I try and make up for healing absent party with easier to acquire consumables. This also means I have special discounts if you desire to buy more.

Now, on clerics,

Oracles, and Sorcerers are the only spellcasting classes I allow for spontaneously taking without reason and necessary training.

Clerics, in my book, require some form of formal training and just don't happen without absolute reason. I rule this for a lot of classes not just Clerics.

I didn't bring this up before now because it doesn't actually happen all that often.

In your favor I do see where your character is considering in. If in fact you really want to be a Cleric I will allow you to find a holy text of Erastil in town. This can substitute your training.

If you take a rank in knowledge religion, my minimum excuse for you knowing stuff, I won't impose any issues otherwise.

I will allow you the holy text to have a picture of the symbol in it and you can use that to show the woodcrafter.

Now a recap of my NEW requirements:

1st:
You want this. I want for this to be something you take because you want it, not because you NEED it. Don't be a Cleric for needs do it because you plan to enjoy it and it is want you wanted for you and your character.

2nd:
Study your holy text RP. You found it in the inn and you read up on it daily to basically represent your character gaining knowledge on how to do Cleric stuff. This only requires RP for about a week to two weeks in game.

3rd:
One point of knowledge religion. I won't have someone simply become a cleric of some god without knowing any reliqious details. Gods don't like it when you claim to serve them with no knowledge of them or other religions for that matter. I have always been strict on religious knowledge in my games and while most people may have heard the name of a god, they don't always know the practices or tenants of that god. That sort of thing.

Again I do apologize for being a stink on this, it really kills my motivation when I see stuff like this happen and I enjoy the excitement of immersive gaming.

I am not out to kill you guys, hard campaign as this may be I will try to make as survivable as possible. In no game I have ever run has there been a TPK. Players die yes but as long as they are trying to be smart about things, I won't kill the whole part off.

Thanks for being flexible; I completely understand where you're coming from. :-) I think I'll go ahead and keep the Cleric level. While I plan to stay primarily Ranger, I may pick up another level or two as the story dictates. For now, if you're okay with a one-level Cleric dip, that's the route I'd like to take.

From a RP standpoint, the Erastil holy text is going to remind Felixian of adages that his surrogate father, Nathan, told him while he and Nyx were growing up. It's obviously a sign that he and his friends are being looked after. While he'll never be a religious guru (he's not super bright), Felixian will definitely respect and worship the patron saint of hunters. :-) If it's okay, I'd like to flavor most of the magic as natural remedies. Augmented "backwoods healing" - as it were. The domain powers are obviously magical in nature, but I'll play them as his desperately praying for aid and being surprised when it's granted. :-) I'll wait for you to respond before I post anything in the gameplay thread. That way we won't have to retcon too much.

EDIT: I'll swap out a skill rank to meet the Know(religion) requirement. As I level, I'll make sure to allocate points there on occasion to represent his increased knowledge. :-)

Okay that will do.

So here is what we have. With the holy text you found in the inn you are able to show a picture to the craftsman and he is able to craft you a wooden Symbol.

With the holy text you are also able to perform all the standard Cleric tricks.

I feel better now so we can move on.

Awesome! :-)

Just a heads-up, everyone. Shilara's busy with finals and will be out for the next week or two. Go ahead and GMPC her as needed. :-)

Hey guys.

Because it is a very strong possibility I will fail chemistry despite my best efforts, I am studying my ass off. I am so sorry I have been gone for so long, but after next week, its up to the professor. Pray for me and send me good vibes, because I am sinking in a sea of stress.

Are we still doing this, or are we taking a break for the holidays?

FYI: the anxiously-awaited Whack/Katsune wedding is tomorrow. We'll then be honeymooning, so no contact with the outside world for several days. In other words, we'll be AFK until probably the 10th. Feel free to GMPC us as needed. :-)

Okay ladies and gentlemen. I apologize for the long wait but I am back. A lot has happened in the past month and much of it was without warning but I managed to get it all sorted and things have settled down.

Now, I have been away for some time so I am kind of worried some of you may have left. Hopefully you are all still here and we can continue.

I will post in the Gameplay thread but I would like everyone to post here letting me know your still good to play.

Thank you. Now, let's see if we can get back to this.