DM Carbide's Giantslayer

Game Master John Woodford

Happy New Year, all!

Happy New Year to you as well, DM C, and to all!

As to our blindness situation, I vote that we go to Vigil. It looks like we can just follow the river, right? It's a back-track, and it will take a few weeks, but we aren't on a tight timeline as far as I can remember. Am I forgetting something?

Meta-wise, we can recruit a new party member there as well.

Good point re the recruitment. The only timetable you're pressed under is making sure that the Twisted Hearts alliance won't come after Trunau again, so you should have some time.

Speaking of replacing Svarog, have any of you come up with someone who might be interested?

I can ask in my CotCT game- they post pretty well.

Thanks for checking, Trianne.

Jarrek, did you ever ask about this? We're at a point where adding a new PC would be an easy lift.

I'm about to go post there, I'll do it right now.

I am one of the players in Jarrek's game and might be interested. I do love playing martials. I was in another Giantslayer game that seems to have fizzled out (no posts from the GM in 3 months).

Two questions on that cool Gorum sword -
1) Would it be okay to make a character to make use of such an item?
2) If I did, what would I do for WBL?

It looks like Jarrek and The Stone Fist are melee fighters, so you might do well with a martial who can help those around them (possibly a cavalier, maybe a Drill Sergeant fighter - teamwork feats can be very good).

Welcome, and thanks for your interest! Re the sword, I'd say if you want to use it drop your starting money to 4500 gp (that is, knock off about half the sword's price). Does that sound reasonable?

Nice to meet you, Aldizog! As the resident squishy I would never turn down another front-liner, but I always say play what you enjoy first. If Gorum's Thorn tickles your fancy, build around it to suit. We were just going to hawk it for maximum gain. Certainly don't feel pressured to though, if you want to buy/build in another direction.

We're a pretty flexible bunch. :)

Speaking of hawking, DMC. Can Castle Firrine absorb any of the heavier loot we may be lugging?

Okay, a couple of questions on character creation.
I see this earlier:
20 point build
Background skills
Fractional BAB & save bonuses
Summoners and rogues have to be unchained
Monks and barbarians can be unchained
No 3PP material
2 traits, with one a campaign trait
No drawbacks
Some feat condensations:
Power Attack, Weapon Finesse, Piranha Strike, and Combat Expertise can be used by anyone who meets the prerequisites.
Dodge & Mobility are combined into a single feat (+1 dodge bonus to AC at all times, increasing to +4 vs. AoOs when moving).
Feat chains collapsed; e.g., Two-Weapon Fighting increases in benefit to Improved Two-Weapon Fighting when the prerequisites of the latter feat are met. Ask if you're not sure.

But then The Stone Fist has Power Attack taken as a feat - maybe he doesn't need it and has a free feat to take? Or is the feat still needed as a prerequisite?

Wondering if I were to take Improved Trip (for Gorum's Thorn) if I would need Combat Expertise, 13 Int, or both. It is certainly doable in any case.

You'd have to ask him, but when I've played characters with similar feat condensations (Elephant in the Room, e.g.) I've listed Power Attack on my profile as a bonus feat. Haftor/The Stone Fist may have done that.

Here's a first draft.
It's a Solo Tactics build (using the Fighter's Tactics option from Advanced Weapon Training also also the Auspicious Birth-Conjunction feat).
When adjacent to allies, he would gain significant bonuses to saves and AC (and would take more teamwork feats later). He can also share out the Shake it Off feat and would increase the bonus he provides.

So his rather poor Will save of +2 (+1 base, +1 Wis, no cloak) would go up to +7 if adjacent to 4 allies, or up to +12 against evil foes.

He has a base AC (before Teamwork feats) of 26, or 28 against giants, and that is with using a Greatsword (+10 for 2d6+14 with Power Attack).

Any thoughts?
If I dropped Dual Talent, I could shift around feats to get Barroom Brawler, which I do like for getting situational feats like Blind-Fight, Rat Catcher, Ghostslayer, and Pureblade.

It looks reasonable on a first read, though I'd like to get everyone else's take as well.

I like it, and the Pathfinder angle softens the devoted of Gorum angle nicely :D

HP for Ftr are 1d5+5, correct?
So for a Ftr5 with 14 Con that is 10 (1st) +4d5+20 (levels 2-5) +10 (Con) = 40+4d5
I had just put the average in the stat sheet as a placeholder, being 3 per die for a 52.

Rolling:
HP: 4d5 ⇒ (5, 5, 5, 5) = 20
Well, I can't complain there. Total of 60.

Correct on the HP. That worked out really well for you!

LOL! Dicebot is such a malicious siren. "Here, your first roll's free."

I think Kronug looks solid. I do like the versatility of Barroom Brawler but don't know if it's enough to swap out your current build.  Could it work into your CL6 plan or do you have other goodness in store?

I'll also be interested to see what motivates him to sign on with a less disciplined unit. :)

I have something in mind for motivation....

The sword! You found the sword so it's a sign that Gorum favors you and there will be epic battles coming your way.

Honestly he is a pretty "beer and pretzels gaming" kind of PC so does not need a ton of motivation. He wants to challenge himself and fight worthy foes, and he's Good-ish enough to want to smash faces for a good cause.

Low-drama CG Gorumite.

No worries. I just see Drill Sergeant and my mind goes right to Full Metal Jacket. :)

Glad to have you aboard!

Welcome aboard, Aldizog. I think Kronug looks good. Haftor (the Stone Fist) is a melee guy, but he also likes to move around a bit for healing / other casting, so a third front-liner fills the bill nicely.

As to the Power Attack feat choice, I claim ignorance. I thought I needed it for Cleave (and eventually, my glorious ascension to Giant Killer at 15th level).

Nope--you can swap that for another feat.

Ready!

Nope--you can swap that for another feat.

Huzzah!

As I am posting for Kronug, I am getting a bit of a Titus Pullo vibe (from HBO's Rome).

"Is he a good man?"
"...define 'good'."

Haven't watched Rome here, but you can quote Conan anytime.

Long day at and after work; I'll try to catch up tomorrow. (There was one thing I'd wanted to add to what Feldhan said, but after the fourth or fifth new post I figured events had overtaken it.)

OK, so the way I envision the Lastwall military working is that the paladins can trust each other implicitly. They're not entirely sure about anyone else, though. They can detect evil people, but petty venality doesn't show up (even though it can be extremely damaging to operational security.) So they might tell if someone is planning to turn their coat and flee to the enemy, but they can't spot someone who'll trade a bit of information about troop movements for a little bit of coin.

On the other hand, the non-paladin officer corps who are loyal to Lastwall know that sometimes they have to do things paladins wouldn't or couldn't--usually things like lying, or working closely with less than LG individuals. What the loyal ones do, then, is 1) keep the paladins out of the loop on those things, but 2) let a paladin officer cast zone of truth on them, voluntarily accept the spell, and swear that their actions are in the best interests of Lastwall "and don't ask for more details than that." Further, they'll do this often--whenever a paladin asks, or when they volunteer to. This way, the paladins know who they can trust, and the non-paladin officers know that they can trust the motivation of anyone else who's been through that. I've dropped a few hints about that in the conversation.

The point of this is that for Kronug to get his promotion he's going to have to let Feldhan cast the spell, and then repeat about what he said to Trianne about why he fights. No other questions than that.

So--does this make sense, and would Kronug accept that? (He's never been formally told about this, but he may well suspect it. I'll leave that up to the player to decide.)

Kronug would be absolutely on board with that, and have no "Don't you trust me??" resentment.

He knows that spies are good at getting people to trust them, and having the hubris to think that you are good enough to sniff out spies just from gut instinct is a good way to get played.

So the paladins using magical backup doesn't bother him at all. It is prudent and sensible.

All of the above reasoning is sound, and I have no problem with any of it.

That being said, I often find the paladin's detect evil ability to be one of the most contentious/house-ruled abilities in the system. Having to quantify 'what constitutes evil' and 'when does alignment shift' for those who walk a moral tightrope is SUCH a gray area and slippery slope.

Never cared for it. Rarely use it on my paladins. Ymmv.

It's a leftover from OD&D that makes about as much sense as anything else that EGG thought was a good idea to give players who rolled really well on their stats*. If I was designing it from scratch under 3.x, I'd probably make it two abilities: a bonus to Sense Motive, and a nondirectional sensitivity to supernatural evil.

*To qualify for paladinhood in OD&D required a 17 CHA. Rolled on 3d6. Gygax's idea of game balance was to put the really tough stuff behind minimum stat requirements; rangers, monks, bards, and paladins were ridiculously OP compared to the standard classes, but instead of balancing them EGG thought that gatekeeping with stat minimums was enough.

Truth. Playing an Elf as your whole character...lmao.

I love Classic D&D... and when I moved to 2E, most people playing Elves went Ftr/Wiz anyway, so I had no problem with the B/X Elf.

Never got to play B/X; I went from OD&D to 1e (with detours into a couple of homebrew variants).

Oh, I love the original iterations as well and wiled away many hours as a child min/maxing with vorpal swords all too often and crayon coloring in my dice. Groundbreaking at the time and a wonderfully comparative light to how far we've come.

I still have my blue paste d12, and some hand-colored dice (two different colors on the d20s, so I could tell the ones from the tens). You're right, though...we've come a very long way since then.

Am I amongst fellow greybeards? I started with the basic box in 1980.

Hahahah wow all. I really got in at second ed in 1990? Messed around with 1st ed a little bit.

Am I amongst fellow greybeards? I started with the basic box in 1980.

Somewhat. I started in 1977 with OD&D + Greyhawk/Blackmoor/Eldritch Wizardry; a friend of mine got the basic box in early 1978 IIRC, and I got the 1E Players' Handbook and Monster Manual at GenCon later that year. (I still have them.)

Very lucky if you still have your white box! I don't have my originals from childhood but have reacquired most of the early materials over time. I love leafing through the old modules. Have the Ghost Tower of Inverness on the night stand right now. Haven't found a white box yet, but I enjoy the hunt!

And let's maybe just say 'greying beards' instead... ;)

Hello fellow old people! I started with the red Basic box in... 86? 87? Something like that. Had all of those colorful box sets up through the one with rules for playing demigods. Unfortunately I don't have them anymore; I'm sure with the current resurgence in popularity they'd be pretty expensive to try to buy now.

I've collected a bunch of 1E books through the years but never really played it. I think the only 1E book I actually had back in the 80s was Oriental Adventures, which I still have (complete with a paper I was supposed to have my mom sign and send back to school tucked in the back).

PbemDM wrote:

Am I amongst fellow greybeards? I started with the basic box in 1980.

Somewhat. I started in 1977 with OD&D + Greyhawk/Blackmoor/Eldritch Wizardry; a friend of mine got the basic box in early 1978 IIRC, and I got the 1E Players' Handbook and Monster Manual at GenCon later that year. (I still have them.)

You went to GenCon in 1978? Damn. That's hard core.

Nah, I'm just old.

~GP value Sell value
1300 650 +1 ironwood breastplate
4000 2000 +1 flaming scimitar
800 400 10 +1 orc bane arrows
2282 1141 arrow of orc slaying
150 75 scroll barkskin
375 187.5 scroll call lightning
700 350 scroll summon nature's ally IV
810 405 wand flaming sphere, 9 charges
2700 1350 wand greater magic fang 12 charges
250 250 ironwood crown with a stylized thorn motif worth 250 gp
150 150 a ceremonial gem-encrusted cudgel worth 150 gp
30 3 pp
178 178 gp
60.5 605 sp
21.25 2125 cp

7248.25 ~Total available

Of the Vault loot, arrows and scimitar could probably find a home. Haftor do you want any of the divine casting items?

Trianne would be interested in anything that cures blindness and any arcane scrolls that might be on hand to potentially transcribe. Other than that, just conversion to craftable wealth is fine with her.

I realize I am new here, but many of those items look like they could be quite useful.

The orc-bane arrows and Arrow of Orc Slaying, if the orcs and giants are allies.

The scroll of SNA IV; a powerful option if anyone can make use of it. If nobody can reliably use it, then sell it.

The scroll of Barkskin likewise - Kronug doesn't have an Amulet of Natural Armor, and scrolls are cheaper than potions.

Haftor likey:

150 75 scroll barkskin
375 187.5 scroll call lightning

I'd hate to part with the scimitar. I'll carry it if nobody else wants it.

Sounds fine to me all across. Do we have any downtime here, or just shipboard? Mad alchemist gotta alchemist sometime!

I can craft Amulets of Natural Armor +1 for 1k and a day as needed. I can do +2's with slight risk, but they run 4k/4 days. Though I'm eyeballing a Pearl of Power too...

If there's a pricier item we want crafted, we just need to hammer that out with team resources. Whatever works for the greatest good!

Any chance that scimitar could be a falchion instead, DM? Jarrek's carrying a MW sword because no orcs seem to use orc weapons in this AP.

Jarrek can use the breastplate, too. He's just wearing a chain shirt right now. Or would it be better to keep the 2000gp and craft better armor?

Agree that we should keep the anti-orc arrows.

Nobody wants the Flaming Sphere wand? I'm a fan of a big ball of fire that takes up a square on its own and you can move around with a move action.

In the scimitar's defense, it was created by druids. ;)

The wand is a 50/50 shot for Trianne on activation, and I generally like better odds than that. Up to Haftor if he wants to carry a fire stick.

Armor craft takes time and a forge. If you want to wear the BP now, that's fine. We could offload it later if need be.