DM Puppet Master's Humble Bundle Welcome Campaign (Inactive)

Game Master Anon A Mouse

Would anybody be interesting in joining a Discord chat for this group? I have Discord rooms for most of my games, and I find that it helps a) keep games moving, and 2) figure out complicated plans such as this one. Bit easier to figure out what we want to do when we can all chat about it.

If anyone is interested, I can create a room for us and post the link here.

@Marzela: I was thinking that over the next couple years we'll still be taking odd jobs, in and around the city; Lily never goes back to Kyonin because she feels deeply ashamed and unwelcome there. For her it's usually a subsistence existence, doing Pathfinder Society jobs to make ends meet. While her talents continue to develop magically she still has the bifurcation experienced during the nightmare scenario, of revulsion at what she might become if she ever gives in to the wrong impulses.

If you give up the truth ring, this might stretch things a bit; if Marzela becomes a pathological liar it would damage Lily's relations with her.

Lily,

That makes sense. I don't want to mess up the relationship with Lily (since any relationship that Lily has seems pretty tenuous already... don't want to damage that further.) I prefer the idea of Jaed backing down on this one (but don't want to dictate that to Jaed if it isn't what Jaed would do), and I don't think Marzela should become a pathological liar again. I was just throwing out possibilities, but I think you make an excellent point that it wouldn't be a good idea.

Learning to stand on her own without the ring could also be good character development for her though. Maybe she keeps it and wears it around her neck instead, or... the Jaed keeping the ring thing is cool too, but it will trigger her drawback, which would be totally worth it for the story, but I think it is some permanent negatives on will saves and some skills or something, which would be unfortunate.

Another possibility is that Marzela has gotten a taste of freedom with adventuring, and living and working at the temple starts to gnaw at her. She wants more adventure in her life... so she goes and finds Lily and asks if she wants to team up to do "odd jobs" on the side, or even (gasp) actually leave the temple and worship and serve in other ways.

Carrakas,

I would join the discord if you made it, but likely wouldn't have any additional time to devote, so I'm neutral on the idea. I do feel strongly that it shouldn't be compulsory, and that any core information that anyone needs to know should be here. Did you have ideas about what your character would do with a history gap between adventures?

Also, DM, was wondering if we do this new 8th level game, could I switch out one of my traits? It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I don't think that I've ever used it.

That's fine.

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Other than removing the curse from Jaed and then Marzela, was there anything else y'all wanted to play out? Or is it pretty much just figuring out what you wanted your characters to be doing in the downtime before the next adventure? In addition to leveling up to 8th, you all also get an additional 17,000 gp during your downtime to spend.

Are we allowed to spend all of it on one item, or are there limitations? ... I really haven't thought about what to buy yet, but just figured I would ask up front so I don't get my heart set on something I can't have. :)

I don't have anything else we need to play out... just wanted to see what we wanted to do with the downtime between.

Going to start leveling, since I think the rest is just story, so it won't be affected by changes in skills, etc.

If anyone is interested - https://discord.gg/yPwpbJy

As for downtime, I could see myself galavanting around with Marzela and Lily. I would see it as my duty to protect the two of you, moreso than Jaed and Finnrick; also, I feel like I would have bonded with Marzela more than the others, given the fact that we came on board together (and she did hit me with that nat-20 diplo roll earlier too!).

If that didn't work out, and I went my own way, I would probably just continue doing PFS jobs and generally merc-ing myself out. I don't really have any grand plans or ambitions, beyond simple self-improvement and the adventuring life.

Question for the DM - if I want to upgrade a magic item, say my belt of mighty constitution +2 to a +4, would I sell the old item at 50% (so make 2,000gp) and then buy the new item at full price (16,000gp, for a net cost of 14,000gp), or would I just pay the difference in full price between the two items (12,000gp)? Only official ruling I could find was for PFS, where you just pay the difference in full price, but wasn't sure that would apply here.

I'm in with Carrakas-Lily-Marzela adventures during our downtime if Lily is.

Jaed and Finnrick, what are you guys planning for downtime? Going to the island again, or taking the amulet back to your hometown?

I liked the idea of Jaed leaving ashamed about what he has done. Not really because of the "betrayal" to his companions but more because he realizes that he is not as strong, smart and cool as he thought he was. So he will probably accompany Finnrick back to Kassen to take back the fragments to the tomb (if Finnrick is going) and then he will part ways.

Jaed will probably enroll in one or more mercenary groups (I have to look up which ones exist in the Pathfinder universe). There he will learn discipline, which he has none, the hard way. He will also learn to work with others, what he actually had never done before starting adventuring and was one of his weakness. This will allow me to change his character a bit. From a naive youngster to a more mature and pragmatic individual. I could even make him kind of an adrenaline freak always wanting to go into the fights first (although I don't know if that would be good for his longevity :) In summary, as I have been playing Jaed more or less the same for the last two years I feel it is time for a change.

Of course, when the group reunites Jaed will assume what he did and ask for forgiveness. I hope the apology and the time that passed in between would be good enough for you characters (specially Marzela) to forgive him. If not, let me know and I would think about something else.

@Carrakas: I will join the discord group but, as Marzela, I'm usually pretty busy at work during the day and the only time I have to write is during the evening so I don't know how responsive I can be there.

@DM: Do you have a rough idea of when will we start the next adventure? You said that you would need at least a week which would be fine for me as it usually takes me some time to level up Jaed. So one or two weeks would be good for me.

Marzela will have zero problem with Jaed if the amulet gets returned to where it should be... even if he doesn't apologize. Doing the right thing matters, even if your ego gets in the way. It isn't like she is perfect, and she doesn't expect that from others either.

Yeah, I am kind of tweaking my character too, and in the process changing out some of the things that I was carrying that were party items. So, feel free to sell these to add to the party money (or someone else can claim them):

Masterwork Light Crossbow
+1 Cold Iron Heavy Mace

That all sounds good, I'm in.

With the help of Carrakas and Marzela, Lily would get a little more self-confidence and develop her wizarding skills in more utility directions, since being a talented necromancer doesn't prevent her from being able to do other, wonderful things with arcane magic.

Are we allowed to spend all of it on one item, or are there limitations? ... I really haven't thought about what to buy yet, but just figured I would ask up front so I don't get my heart set on something I can't have. :)

Eh, I don't really care, so feel free to spend it all on one item if you want.

Question for the DM - if I want to upgrade a magic item, say my belt of mighty constitution +2 to a +4, would I sell the old item at 50% (so make 2,000gp) and then buy the new item at full price (16,000gp, for a net cost of 14,000gp), or would I just pay the difference in full price between the two items (12,000gp)? Only official ruling I could find was for PFS, where you just pay the difference in full price, but wasn't sure that would apply here.

Just pay the difference in full price between the two items. Selling at half price and then buying a new one seems silly to me.

@DM: Do you have a rough idea of when will we start the next adventure? You said that you would need at least a week which would be fine for me as it usually takes me some time to level up Jaed. So one or two weeks would be good for me.

My hope is to read over it, extract the maps from the pdfs, and at least get the first one set up to my liking this weekend. If I'm lucky, the pdf is set up in such a way that the maps will be ready to go almost as is (some pdfs do not work well with map image extraction for one reason or another). So my goal is to get started Sunday or Monday, though I'm fine with pushing that back if y'all need more time. That being said, I don't think you'll immediately need updated characters. There will be some role playing of just meeting back up as a group, and the start of the module takes place during a local festival, so there will be some interacting with that. The festival might have some optional challenges you can partake in, but it's fine if your character isn't completely up to date for those.

The main thing I would need from y'all to get started is a rough idea of how everyone left things, what kind of thing you did in the downtime, and maybe a rough idea of how much time has passed (though that one we can kind of handwave). And it sounds like most of that has been somewhat decided on (Marzela/Carrakas/Lily adventuring, Jaed/Finnrick returning the amulet, Jaed then doing merc work) except for what Finnrick was doing once Jaed went to join a mercenary group. Mostly just for figuring out how to get everyone in the correct area and at what point you'd meet up. Though if you prefer, you can all come up with reasons yourselves.

Also, just to be clear, is the intention to move our characters up so that we are at wealth-by-level, or just the +17,000?

Pretty sure it is the latter, and I think I went overboard because I upgraded things and then totaled my entire list rather than only counting the new things, and then subtracted from wealth by level (33,000), so I thought I had more money than we were actually given. When I realized that I had spent well over 17,000 upgrading my weapons and buying a couple of other things, I went back and took off the Phylactery of Positive Channeling, which I think evens things out and gets the new things under control, but I honestly don't remember what my original gold total was before this... really sorry about that. I seriously wasn't trying to get greedy. Maybe when everyone else is done, if I have more stuff wealth-wise than they do, I could take some other things off?

[17,000 gold is super-generous, please don't misunderstand. I don't think it is inadequate. I just screwed up, because I was thinking WBL at first.]

The goal was to set you at WBL (I basically just gave you the diff between WBL 6 and 8) without forcing you to calculate the total value of everything you have. If, however, it's easier to calculate the total value of everything you have and compare it to WBL, that's fine, just be careful about single-use items. Just don't game the system and pick whichever method is more adventageous. ;-)

DM - are you OK with retraining a class feature during downtime? I would like to swap out Pushing Infusion with Magnetic Infusion. Willing to pay gold to do so, per retraining rules.

Lily - if you learn Haste, I will love you forever, just sayin' :)

@Carrakas: Part of my 17k gold is going into many, many new spells. (Though I already have haste; we just never got to use it.)

Lily's level up in the meantime:

Wizard 8
+1 Intelligence

+1 BAB
+1 Will saves

Skills: +2 each of: Heal, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (nature), Knowledge (planes), Perception, Spellcraft; Craft (alchemy), Profession (mortician)
+1 each of: Knowledge (engineering), Knowledge (nobility)
+10 ranks of: Survival

New spells learned: 4th—bestow curse, black tentacles, boneshatter, fear

Spending money!
Blessed book - 12,500 gp (allows me to sell back old spell book for 777 gp 5 sp; now it never costs me money to scribe scrolls, and I am unlikely to run out of pages)
Purchased scrolls of new spells and scribed:
4th—remove curse
3rd—dispel magic
2nd—blindness/deafness, pilfering hand, see invisibility
1st—detect secret doors, expeditious construction, heightened awareness, unseen servant

Haven't decided on 7th level feat yet. Probably Scribe Scroll. If so, may make a passel of spell scrolls for the upcoming mod.

DM - are you OK with retraining a class feature during downtime? I would like to swap out Pushing Infusion with Magnetic Infusion. Willing to pay gold to do so, per retraining rules.

Retraining is fine. As long as you're not going overboard with it, I'm fine with waving the monetary requirements for it.

I want to go back and calculate my wealth, I don't think that I was anywhere near what a level 6 druid would have, but I could be wrong. I've also come a long way in my organization skills since we first started so I'll probably re-do most if not all of Finnricks sheet to make it easier to read and access the things I need. I think that will help me with my posting rate.

As for downtime I think Finnrick would probably head back to his home and spend most of the time alone or with Millsy and Olmira learning to be a better druid.

Sorry I didn't break everything down, but the major things are I switched out a trait for heirloom weapon, then prepared Masterwork Transformation, cast it, and got it enchanted, so now I am proficient with that particular longbow and it is magic so I can use my strength bonus with it, so I will feel much less useless at range.

Put my 8th level bonus into Charisma, which gives me one extra channel a day, and found a cool item (Phylactery of Positive Channeling) that gives me an extra 2d6 when I channel, so more healing, more often.

Got one cool ability (Nimbus of Light) and one useless one (Gift of Life). (The useless one brings someone back to life if they died in the last 10 rounds. They stay alive for 8 rounds... then they die again. You can't do anything to stop the second death apparently, so it ends up being useless unless you just need them to be alive a tiny bit longer, or you also have something that really brings them back to life.)

Don't remember what I put skill points into, but the ones that she has maxed out are Diplomacy, Knowledge Religion, Perception, Sense Motive, and Spellcraft.

Added Flaming to my Scimitar.
Got a Lens of Detection (moved my base perception up to +21)

I am a bit busy this week so I will update Jaed during the weekend because I should also check where he is in terms of wealth.

@Finnrick: If you'd like, Jaed and Finnrick can go adventuring together during the downtime. It is not a requisite that Jaed goes alone. Finnrick could join him and maybe be teach him some good judgment. Up to you. Just wanted to leave that option open just in case.

@ Jaed yeah, definitely. I've been going back and calculating my wealth by going through every page. I'm about half way done, but what I did notice was Finnrick was so much happier before adventuring. He was skipping around and having a grand Ole time. Maybe some adventuring with Jaed will do him some good

@GM How could I pick up craft wonderous items for my level 7 feat and If so are there any restrictions you would place on it, or ways that you would want me to go about crafting. I've made most of my other changes and should have him up to par by this weekend.

Oh and what is the worth of the seal that we got from completing the crypt? The one that gives us a one time bonus.

@GM How could I pick up craft wonderous items for my level 7 feat and If so are there any restrictions you would place on it, or ways that you would want me to go about crafting. I've made most of my other changes and should have him up to par by this weekend.

You have to be able to hit any required skill check DCs by taking 10. If there are any spells you need to cast while creating the item that you yourself can't cast, you would need to hire someone to cast them for you. And since you'd be picking it up at 7th level, I'll say you can only spend at most 9,500 gold on crafting (the difference between 7th level WBL and 8th level).

Oh and what is the worth of the seal that we got from completing the crypt? The one that gives us a one time bonus.

It's a unique item and has no monetary value.

So, I am toying around with an idea, and I wanted to ask some questions to make sure it works. I am considering investing a good chunk of my new wealth in two magic items - a Folding Plate and a Ring of Force Shield. Folding Plate lets me armor up with a move action, ring lets me shield up with a free action, letting me go from casual street clothes to battle ready with a move action. I'm not planning anything goofy with it, like blinking the shield up and down repeatedly in a single round to game extra hands - it would most likely remain activated most of the time. It is largely for style (because who doesn't want to play with Tony Stark armor?), and giving me the ability to cut out armor penalties out of combat (acrobatics checks won't be so scary, move/climb speed can be 30ft out of combat, that sort of thing).

My questions are:

1) Does Ring of Force Shield fulfill my class requirements for Kinetic Knight? The Kinetic Knight requires me to wield a light or heavy shield in order to get the benefit of my elemental defense, and the ring "generates a shield-sized (and shield-shaped) wall of force that stays with the ring and can be wielded by the wearer as if it were a heavy shield (+2 AC)".

2) Would you potentially allow me, if we continue down the road a little ways, to enhance either of these items so that they can continue to scale with the game?

3) Can I shield bash with the force shield? If so, can I shield bash intangible folks with it, since the shield is a force effect?

4) Do you have any concerns with these items, or have any rulings regarding them I should know about?

I'm not completely sold on this plan yet, it just sounds like fun so thought I would explore it.

I have finished leveling up Jaed:

+1 to reflex save
Constitution +1
+1/+1 BAB
Sneak attack +4d6
Improved uncanny dodge: Can no longer be flanked.
Fav class bonus: HP x2

Skills, +2 to:
Acrobatics
Perception
Stealth
Disable Device
Bluff
Sense Motive
Escape artist

Skills, +1 to:
Knowledge (local)
Knowledge (nature)
Escape artist
Heal
Climb
Use magic device

Background skills, +1 to:
Sleight of hand (x2)
Appraise
Knowledge (geography)

New Feat:
Toughness: +8 HP

New rogue talent:
Trap spotter: Whenever you come within 10 feet of a trap, you receive an immediate Perception skill check to notice the trap. This check should be made in secret by the GM.

Now I have some question regarding wealth and equipment:

- According to this, a level 6 character should have a wealth of 16,000 gp. If my calculations are correct Jaed has a wealth of 7,118 gp which is not even half of that. His most valuable possession is the bag of holding (2,500 gp). So, should I aim to have a wealth of 33,000 gp after leveling to lvl 8 or do I just spend those 17,000 gp?

- I'm looking into upgrading Jaed's two swords. I'm thinking of giving one the flaming special ability and the other the frost special ability (which would be also fun to role play). The cost according to this would be 10 (for the sword) + 300 (for the masterwork) + 2,000 (for the +1 bonus) + 2,000 (for the special ability) = 4,310 gp for each sword. Does that sound right?

- The Ring of Force Shield may also be interesting for Jaed. But, would he be able to use it while attacking with both swords? I found this discussion that may indicate that he can't but it is also left to the DM ruling. The alternative would be a Ring of Protection.

Unfortunately, because you are stacking the special ability on to an enhancement bonus, it costs more. See the table HERE called "Weapon Pricing by Bonus." You pay 2000 for that +1, but to add another +1 ability on to that, the weapon has the equivalent of a +2 enhancement, so you have to pay the difference between the +1 and the +2 cost. In this case, $6,000. So, the total value of a sword with one ability would actually be $8,310, not $4,310.

Also, DM already answered the first question... said that we can aim for the 33,000 total, but to be careful and keep in mind single-use things like potions and other stuff we may have consumed. For instance, the healing wand that we all contributed to. We need to deduct the cost of that from our totals (I don't remember how much it was though... do you?).

EDIT: I had to look up the cost of some potions I was carrying anyway, so I looked up a wand of Cure Light. 750 gold total, which is 150 gold each. No idea if anything is left of that wand actually, and I think we just glossed over some of it when we were exhausted from the forced march, so we might want to just call it spent (?).

Yep, I was taking the costs from that table. But I was following the "+1 Weapon Special Abilities" table which has ha column named "Base Price
Modifier". As it is referring to the "base price" I was interpreting that the price for a "+1 bonus" (2,000 gp) is added to the base price of the weapon. The same way the "+2 Weapon Special Abilities" would add 8,000 gp to the base price of the weapon. Of course, what you say of adding the bonuses before calculating the cost also makes a lot of sense :\

I scanned the last posts too quickly and I missed the answer for the first question, sorry. I think I can approximate the total wealth to 10,000 gp to count for the single-use items. Apart from a couple of CLW potions a some shared wands I don't recall using any other items.

1) Does Ring of Force Shield fulfill my class requirements for Kinetic Knight?

Only while the ring is activated/in shield form.

2) Would you potentially allow me, if we continue down the road a little ways, to enhance either of these items so that they can continue to scale with the game?

I would, but I'd have to think more about pricing. Since you seem to want it mostly for style, I'm leaning towards pricing it similarly to upgrading a normal ghost touch (armor) shield since they're pretty close in price range.

3) Can I shield bash with the force shield? If so, can I shield bash intangible folks with it, since the shield is a force effect?

Yes, you can shield bash with it. I'm going to go with that it doesn't help you shield bash incorporeal creatures though since a ghost touch armor enhancement doesn't make it a ghost touch weapon enhancement.

4) Do you have any concerns with these items, or have any rulings regarding them I should know about?

The main thing that comes to mind is that I'll want to know what your typical MO is for if it's activated or not for if something unexpected happens that is affected by AC/armor check/speed modifiers.

- The Ring of Force Shield may also be interesting for Jaed. But, would he be able to use it while attacking with both swords? I found this discussion that may indicate that he can't but it is also left to the DM ruling. The alternative would be a Ring of Protection.

Marzela answered your first two questions. Your link didn't actually work for me, but I've think I've probably seen similar argument threads while researching Carrakas' questions. I'm going to go with the buckler-like argument that says you don't get the AC bonus if you used your off-hand for attacking. So you could switch off between TWF and getting the AC bonus from one round to the next, but you would not be able to TWF AND get the AC bonus in a single round.

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Got my maps and finished reading over the adventure. I want to see if I can't flesh out the festival at the beginning a little more, but hopefully I'll have a post tomorrow.

Awesome, that all sounds perfectly fair. As for my MO, I'll likely be switching the armor/shield off after combat, switching it on at the beginning of combat, unless I know we are in imminent danger. I will always strive to make perfectly clear in text when it comes on or off. That may change if I get hit by an unexpected thing or three, but that is the general plan.

OK, so, HP is roll or half+1, whichever is highest, right?

HP: 1d8 ⇒ 7
HP: 1d8 ⇒ 2 So 5 for this

Finished leveling, I have lots o' changes:

I want to try a couple of things differently for Cult of the Ebon Destroyers. Namely

1) Maps will be in Google Slides. I hear they work better for if you want to update from a mobile device. This also means all maps will use the same link, so I'll just drag the current map up to the top. This also means I have some slides that y'all shouldn't look at yet, so just stay away from anything after the "Future" slide.

2) Identifying creature knowledge checks. I stole this idea from GM Red (who I think got it from someone else), but the idea is you pick from one of these areas when you make a knowledge check, and that's the info you get. For every 5 points above the DC, you get to pick another area to get info on. This should allow you to get a bit more meta-info on enemies, give you more diverse info if multiple people make the check DC, and lets you pick what you think would be most helpful to know. It also means I don't have to try to figure out what info is most useful to put in knowledge spoilers and where the cut off is for higher DCs, which has thus far been kind of arbitrary. It does mean that you get slightly delayed info though.

So I have mostly updated Finnrick and Millsy, I'll put the updates up later, but I finished going through our posts and I found the value of everything on Finnrick and the consumables that he may have used I'll put a list of everything in a spoiler, but the total value of it all came out to 1724... He didn't really buy anything between adventures except for some bones to check the weather. The only other big ticket items are the +1 studded leather and the MWK rapier. I also divided the potions that Carrakas added up for us by 5. let me know If I missed anything.

Ok, so Jaed went shopping and bought the two swords (Flaming and Frost) and a Ring of Protection +2. After selling the old ones the actual value of all of his equipment is 30,784.71 gp. I think (specially after Finnrick calculations) that leaves enough room for the already consumed items.

On a different note, and before I forget, I am going on a trip from Friday to Monday so I may not be able to post during the weekend.

Just checking in on thoughts on pacing. Are y'all having fun with the various competitions? Do you want to keep doing them at about the pace we've been going at? Hand wave the rest of the festival? Something in between? I think between the two groups I've posted the rules for all the competitions except the food eating ones tomorrow (will be save-based) and the dance one the day after (will be more of a free-for-all/think up some way to entertain the crowd and if appropriate, make a roll).

I had a crazy weekend, but I am enjoying the festival. It's a fun way to get some roleplay in, and Finnrick was falling apart in my head towards the end of last module. This has helped.

I'm having a great time, but I'm happy to move on if others are bored.

I'm having fun with the competitions. Sometimes it's nice to roll for something that is not fighting related.

I don't know if the stones will be useful later (probably not) but I was trying to get one in each game. However, we can move on whenever you'd like. I'm fine keeping on with the roleplaying a bit longer or just fast forwarding.

Ok, sounds like we're going to keep at roughly this pace. Things might pick up slightly as the in-game days progress as most of the possible activities were front-loaded, though that depends on how much you all decide you want to do/participate in. If you do decide you want to fast-forward, let me know.

I'm going on a business trip from tomorrow until Friday night so I may not be able to post during the next days. I suppose that now that all the characters have met again we will explore the festival together. Jaed will just follow the others. I hope I won't miss anything too important :)

Just a heads up, my Grandma passed away this morning, so I will be hit or miss for the next week or so.

My condolences, Carrakas. Thanks for the heads up.

Very sorry to hear that, take care.

Ouch. :(

Sorry Carrakas.

I am not going to be able to get on consistently for several days either. I am in the middle of moving, and my posting is going to be spotty between now and the 15th. Packing up the truck early tomorrow, and should be in Utah and able to post again (hopefully) around then.

If you guys want to challenge me to games at the festival, you can count me in and just bot my rolls. Really sorry about not being able to check in consistently until then.

Sorry to hear that Carrakas. Take care.

I know we've got a couple of people dealing with RL issues, but just wanted to check in to see if there's anything people wanted to skip/fast-forward to. Options include going later in the day for drinking competitions (food competitions are already going on), the next day for dance competitions, or the day after to continue on to the main plot.

Last post from Carrakas hints that he would participate in the eating competition. We could role play that to make some time so people don't miss the beginning of the main plot or we could fast forward. I'm fine with both.

I'm curious to participate in the eating competitions, yeah. No personal interest in the dance competitions, so good to skip forward to plottiness after gorging ourselves.

Checking in... at the new place, still need to unpack. Should be able to play normally starting tomorrow. I'm fine to skip forward after whatever last competitions people want to be part of as well.

Sounds like Carrakas is done with competitions, so unless someone else speaks up with something they want to do, I'm going to skip forward and wrap up the festival tomorrow.

Fine with me.

Cool with me.