DM Harpwizard’s Heroes of Elsir Vale (Inactive)

Game Master GM Harpwizard

You definitely need to get those pants of harp playing +5 they got goin on.

I can see the next doublemint gum commercial now...

I could say more, but I'd get in trouble with the wife ;)

Stop looking at the pants and make your Perception check! ;)

Ok folks, I will be heading out to dinner with Tirion soon, so the both of us will be out until pretty late. I will try to make a post around 11 pm EST before going to bed. Enjoy the evening.

Enjoy. Hopefully he will put out =P

Well, we had a fantastic night and now I am full! You should know that buying your DM dinner always wins bonus points. Flattery, food, treats, and bribery will always get you far in my game. Hmm, I'm curious how this next battle goes? ;) Actually, I am going to get to bed. I don't have enough posts to update yet. I will continue the adventure in the morning.

I am going to be spending the majority of the day helping my parents fix up a house that they will be moving into sometime next year, so I will not be able to post until possibly later this evening. Please do not hesitate to move Mantooth in battle once the duration of the stink cloud is determined.

I suppose that Bofus' success vs. the minotaur could be partially attributed to the dinner in Bedford not too long ago? Or was that purely grit and preparation well executed, and my brownie points reward is forthcoming??? :-)

I think it's reasonable that Mantooth would ready an action to slice open the first hobby that enters his threatened area--or better yet, that gets flanked by him and Bofus!! I'll formally propose that as a post in teh game thread.

Food and Flattery will get you everywhere! ;)

I am not sure how you all feel about this, but I am just thinking out loud. On a table top game initiative works well, where we move combat in a sequential order. Obviously this makes sense. However, I am not sure I like the way in pbp people wait to find out what happened before they post their actions. I guess this may have to be, but in battles like this, it does slow everything down. I sometimes wish everybody could simply post their actions simultaneously but we resolve in order. I keep thinking of the scene in Dorkness Rising where they are battling the goblins and they each take a turn one at a time to attack while everybody else waits. Then the next one attacks while everybody waits for that person. It is really funny in the movie, but sometimes the battles feel exactly that way to me. Obviously we needs rules to resolve combat in a sequential order. However, when a round is only 6 seconds, the characters really should not have the luxury of waiting to see what happens elsewhere. I guess, I would prefer to see a post with conditional statements that says something like, "I ready my weapon and if a hobgoblin comes running out of the tower I will strike it, otherwise I will wait until the Stinking Cloud is dismissed and then move into the tower." I guess I prefer to see what a character is thinking in the heat of the battle, and if the round ends up being wasted through inaction, then that may be more realistic. Another idea that I think about for combat is for me to keep all of the enemy attacks clustered at the same time just like I did in the last battle. When I intersperse the monsters between some of the player's attacks in the initiative sequence, it seems to cause delays while people wait to see what the monster did. I am not saying we have to do anything differently, but please let me know your thoughts. I suggest this only in the interest of making combat even more efficient so we can spent more time role playing and experiencing the story.

I think the way Tark does it is to average the party's init rolls and the monster's init rolls and then have them just attack as two groups. That way it is tough to meta game like you are mentioning. The only thing this would alter is when a person wants to wait for someone else to do something. For instance Mantooth holding his action until after Zanith casts Enlarge so that he gets the befit on round 1.

Thus, we can metagame out actions among ourselves, but would not be able to react to their actions in the 6 seconds as you noted. If someone wanted to delay until after a monster went, this would essentially just shift them to the next round. But you could make a game rule that if you delay, you must state what your delayed action will be before the delay, or else you are considered to have just skipped that round. For instance - I delay my action and ready an attack or something of that sort.

As you have noted, when these battles are large and you have to figure the actions of 5 or 10 monsters, it can take a lot of time. So if this makes it easier for you as a DM, without question, propose and try the new technique. If it does not work after a battle or two, then try something new or switch back. I have no doubt with the players you have here, we will not hesitate to tell you if something is off.

There are a lot of instances where Play by Post can interfere with how Pathfinder is played out. There are quite a few things that can be exploited by knowing the outcome of your roll before you finalize your actions. Just as I pointed out earlier between my familiar's perception and Zanith's - I could have switched those rolls and the familiar would have succeeded. I could also use power attack and virtually a number of different things to decrease my 'to hit' and add damage once I know my roll is sufficiently high enough. There is no end to what troubles the boards bring. Instead of fighting each instance with a different rule or way to play, I think, as adults, we should combat it with a respectable play style that doesn't exploit the way the game is played.

I think the best solution is to role play our characters rather than roll play them. Do what your character would have done at the moment his turn came around. The character doesn't have the foresight to know what has happened into the future even though you may have that in front of you.

It's tough at times, but I think it can be worth it. Sometimes the most memorable and fun experiences come from failure. In other words I think we all realize that we shouldn't be in the habit of meta-gaming or exploiting the system so that we don't have failure. I think the best solution is to bring it up when it happens, address it, and move on instead of making large changes to the game.

It is one of those issues you see a lot in management. If there is a problem, then there must be a problem with the system and management. So the solution turns into a lot of restructuring and managerial changes. Whereas 90% of the time the problem has nothing to do with the system and how it is managed.

Let me play Devil's Advocate here . . .well, not really, I'm just taking the other side.

I don't necessarily see "tactics" as "metagaming." For example, Bofus isn't particularly effective in stand-up combat unless he's flanking or has some other advantage (like a huge disembodied whip). He's not going to "rush in and act accordingly," he's going to read the situation and put himself in an advantageous position.

Yes, 6 seconds is very fast. But if you've got any combat training, you'll realize that, in a hand-to-hand fight, 6 seconds can be an eternity. If you've got the training (Improved Initiative feat) and the reflexes (high dexterity), you can read the situation quickly and get to a good position beofre nayone else (high initiative roll). Then, you can see what everyone else does--or at least see the results of it (who dies, who ends up standing where), and go from there. Remember that, by definition (and tyipically by virtue of both higher than average ability scores, and the ability to gain character levels), adventurers are a cut above the norm. You question an adventurer's ability to view a battlefield and make informed tactical decisions, but you dno't question stinking clouds, acidic hands, evil smites, and halflings causing lethal wounds with a butter-knife sized rapier?!

So, I'd like to draw a distinction between using good tactics/teamwork and metagaming/roll playing. Only a fool will not use a flank when it's available, for example.

If the game designers thought that everyone stating their actions simultaneously led to better combat, they'd have built that into teh system. I believe they did not think this, and I agree with them. If everyone all just went at once, we'd be 5 individual characters rather than a team/group.

Personally, I'm fine with battles being a little slower in order to play the game the way it was designed. Once you go tweaking major game constructs like initiative, you're begging for trouble as there are interdependencies we may not be aware of.

Let me play Devil's Advocate here . . .well, not really, I'm just taking the other side...

...Personally, I'm fine with battles being a little slower in order to play the game the way it was designed. Once you go tweaking major game constructs like initiative, you're begging for trouble as there are interdependencies we may not be aware of.

...Interdependencies...trouble...aware...

Don't worry, Bofus. I am not eager to change too much of the way we play the game, especially with combat. However, I do like the suggestion Tirion made (from Tark's campaign) in regards to grouping all the enemies into one slot, so we can resolve all of the players at once and then all of the monsters at once. It is simply a slight fudging of the rules.

I have not seen this as a problem, but in terms of choosing what order to place your dice rolls in, I will leave that up to you. If you are in serious trouble, I am happy to let you try to squeak out of the situation with some minor fudging. However, I do discourage obvious checks that are inserted to always make everything turn out right for you. Let's put it this way, if it is not that crucial, then simply let the dice do their job. Please remember what Zanith said, sometimes more fun can be had if a character fails his check.

Bofus, I think you reinforced my argument. You have come to the conclusion that since your character has improved initiative and an awesome dexterity that he would be able to act quickly to the situation and adjust accordingly. Other characters may not have that luxury - thus the low initiative.

I'm not a fan of lumping players together unless they have the same initiative modifier. I'm fine with lumping players and monsters with the same init together and I think it makes more sense, but not the entire group. This can lead to truly bad things later on down the road as spells and attacks become more and more powerful. I also believes it really diminishes some of the tactical play of the game, which I enjoy.

This is helpful to hear all of your thoughts. It sounds like you all prefer to have creatures all attacking on their individual initiative roll. In general I have done one initiative roll for the hobgoblins and one roll for the big cheese. Is this ok, or do you prefer a separate roll for each individual hobgoblin? What do you think of one roll for the baddies but they all keep their own modifier. Well, I'll still be thinking about this as well.

Well, my friends, I am on the last day of school before break and down to the last five minutes before the kids go home! Woohoo! I will still be checking my posts several times a day during vacation, but sometimes I may be out good parts of the day. I will be at my in laws for Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I believe we will be returning the following day. While I am up there, posting may be light for me, but I imagine we will all be busy with our families.

I like individual rolls, but as I mentioned, I don't mind a single roll for the same modifier. For example, if both Bofus and I had a +8 Initiative, we could both go off of the same roll. Same thing for enemies. I'm fairly certain the bugbears are cookie cutter so they can use the same roll, and same initiative since their Init is probably the same.

I will also be away from posting for the next 3 days. I can't say that I can post, but I can't also say that I can't. I'll have to see how the trip goes and what kind of downtime I will have.

The problem with all the monsters going off on a single roll is that if you roll a 20, all the slow skeletons go first whereas if you roll a 1, the speedy quicklings with +10 init modifiers, (not sure if they even have these in PF), would go last. If you are going to do all the monsters on a single init roll, then my vote would be to roll once for each monster (10x for 10 hobgoblins) and then take the average, mean, medium, or whatever averaging basis you want to use. Essentially, this would result in the monsters tending toward an average roll as the number of monsters increases, and the PCs going before or after the monsters depending on their rolls.

If you want to have 1 or two leaders, as you do now, roll separately, that is fine, but I would avoid more then 2 or 3 groups of monsters as it does make timing a headache for the DM.

I'm accustomed to "bad guys" going on the same initiative--I'm not sure how my tabletop DM handles a mixutre of init mods for monsters.

But at the end of the day, after the first round, it doesn't matter who goes first anymore. It really only matters that no one's turn is skipped! that's my $0.02 anyway.

Thank you, Bofus! That is exactly what I was thinking. In fact I was thinking if there are any players that come in after the monsters in the initiative sequence that I am simply going to move them to the beginning of the following round round and just let the monsters wrap up every round.

Well, my friends, please feel free to post as little or as much as you like for Christmas weekend and we will just play it by ear. Let your family be your most important focus this weekend, but if you have some free time and you are curious what is happening in the Elsir Vale, then go ahead and post.

Well, this morning I played my Silhouette in the school's performing arts center. The sound system was wicked! I had such an great time! The kids were floored and gave me a lot of high fives! I continued to play throughout the day in my classes. This was a good run through in preparation for First Night to give me a feel for what performance will be like with it. I think one friend recorded it on his phone. If it ends up getting posted I will send you the link.

speaking of that . . .perhaps I need to record some of MY playing to remind you how cool percussion is (like you need reminding) and a little nudge to get together with me. Just sayin.

I'll be in and out on teh internet throughout the weekend (probably little to none on Sunday though) and next week. I'm taking Thursdya (among other days) off, so our bi-weekly tabletop game can start at 1 PM and go 'til 10!! Just like the old days . . .

Edit: some clarification on my last opinion post. When I say "it doesn't matter who goes first," that doesn't mean that I think the order doesn't matter. What I meant was, once everyone has had a turn, no more flat-footedness (barring craziness) happens, so going early in teh round isn't that relevant. But the order DOES matter for spell effects, flanking, stuff like that. So going in the designated order is important (otherwise there wouldn't be any need for a "delay" or "readied" action).

My additional $0.02 :-)

Well - the round does make some difference, for instance most of our party only gets 1 AoO. If Tirion trips monsters, then it is important to know whether the person has an AoO in that round or the next so that attacks can be determined when the monsters try to get up.

Nonetheless, I say have all the monsters roll init and then use some method to average them, then set the order from there.

One of my friends at school recorded and posted one of my pieces from this morning's performance. I think this link should work. This is one of my latest compositions called 'Have in Hand'. The video and the sound were recorded on a cell phone and are not great, but it is a little sneak preview of what is to come. Enjoy.

Have in Hand

On my phone. Please go ahead with my prepared action. :)

Zanith, I would happily execute the Ray of Enfeeblement, except for the fact that you are at the bottom of the stairs unable to see your opponent, while Mantooth is just reaching the top of the stairs. What makes this battle difficult will be the fact that you are in tight quarters climbing up narrow stairs in single file.

Sorry. Its a pain on the phone. Delay, move in, and fire if possible? Same plan, just moving after the group. Bear with me for this night pls.

Things have slowed down anyway, I am only on for a few minutes in the morning and evening at present and DMHW is off for the holidays for a few, so I would not expect a lot of posting for the next few days.

I have been around, checking frequently, but I am also enjoying a nice day at home. This afternoon, my son and I are going out to see the new Tintin movie. Did you guys all ready those books when you were kids? I sure did!

I just saw Tintin with my son. That was an awesome movie! We both absolutely loved it! Steven Spielberg directed it, Peter Jackson produced it, and John Williams wrote the music. If you guys want to take your kids, it will be a blast!

So, Thordak, have you made it home yet? So, is everybody getting ready for the big day? Tomorrow I will be heading up to the coast of Maine to stay with my wife's parents for Christmas. I will post best I can, but as I said, if you are all busy, no worries at all.

I'm off to coast of Maine, my friends. If I do not get a chance to say it later, have a very Merry Christmas! I wish you all a most glorious and wonderful day!

Likewise! I am home, yes, now some relaxing time! Whew!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Bofus, you will be happy to know that Santa got me a copy of Genesis, Chapter and Verse! Was Santa good to all of you?

Tomorrow is the return trip home. Hopefully by tomorrow night I will be back to posting as normal.

Ooooohhhh--does it have the ever-elusive Firth of Fifth?!?!

Actually it is a written biography of the band. There is no sheet music in it. It looks pretty extensive. I look forward to having a read of it.

I've gotten any number of pieces of Genesis history, between videoes and album inserts (their "archives" albums are really good for that). It's an interesting bit of musical history, really.

Genesis never opened for any other band in the USA (and their first American show was at Brandeis University in Boston).

Oh, and did I tell you I found that book of sheet music?!?! I'd set it aside in a closet and totaly forgot where, until I stumbled acxross is again. Heh. Next time one of us is in the other's area (and we KNOW that'll be "you're in my area") . . .

I saw Genesis on their last tour about 2 years ago, they still put on a great show.

sho' nuff!! The drum duet was pretty awesome; I loved the whole "conversation between two stools" concept. (I believe their best duet was the Live at Wembly Stadium back in the '80's, might have been '86)

You can purchase any of their shows from that tour on CD. I got the one for the Boston show, but my voice did not end up on it despite my trying. (when Phil said they were going to play "some very old songs" I screamed out "IN THE CAAAAAGE!!" and despite the fact that that WAS the next song they played that didn't make it on the recording; then again when he apologized for the "disgusting, absolutely FILTHY nature" of the song Mama, I called out "that's alright!" but that didn't make it either. Bastards.)

I really dig that Tony Banks *always looks the same* (barring grey hair) on stage. He's this stoic presence, an implacable musical force of nature.

Latest items have been added to the Group Stuff in my profile. Please note I did *NOT* include the wand of magic missiles, as once someoen uses that, I'd muchprefer that THEY keep track of it.

We're up to almost 7000 gp for oru current undivided treasure. Buh-buh-buh-booyah!

Just so that you all know, I will be traveling tomorrow and will probably not be able to post much.

I hope I didn't say something to quiet down all discussion in Elsir Vale. I want discovering treasure to still have a thrill and excitement, and for some strange reason, I just don't want it taken for granted. However, I am also not sure I like holding up a whole day of good pbp playing for just a location of where to search. If you are waiting for an answer or waiting for a response from me, please just let me know. Although, I've been checking the message board throughout the day, I don't think I can stay up any longer. I will have to get to bed shortly since my eyes are starting to close.

I think everyone is on a bit of a weird schedule due to teh holidays/vacations. Don't tkae anything personally . . . I think we should expect very sporadic and sparse posting until the New Year is upon us.

No worries, Bofus. I realize that we are all quite busy around this time of year. In fact, today I had a fantastic day playing some table top pathfinder with none other than Thordak and Mantooth! We are in the Sunless Citadel and they persuaded the kobolds to attack the goblins. Furthermore, they insisted that Meepo bring his white dragon, Calcryx! It was really good fun! However, as always, we ran out of time!

I think that DMHW has started me on the Sunless Citadel like 4 times, we have never made it past the 2nd or 3rd room. -- And that is over about 8 years.

In our campaign (which went teh 20-level distance for me), we started with Sunless Citadel. We ended up befriending Meepo, who became an ally and our most notable NPC. "Greatest kobold ever!!" he helped us win a castle that became our home base at about 5th level. Very very cool. :-)

Meepo was certainly a big hit in that dungeon!

Well, I just had a blast playing the Silhouette for First Night! Mantooth and Thordak came and sold CDs for me! How cool! I had about three times as many people at my electric set than for my acoustic! This is a reassuring sign that the next album may have to be plugged in! We shall see!

Well, the year 2011 is nearly finished. Have a great new year everyone!

Hey, I was looking at the pictures of the NPCs, that Demetrios character looks awful suspicious, sure I have seen him on some 10 most wanted list or something.

Glad the First Night went well. Could you do sort of an A side and a B side to the album. 1/2 electric and 1/2 acoustic. That would be cool. Or go with an all electric, the only problem with that is you might scare away some of your regulars if it is too different from your past offering.