Defense of Brookside

Game Master caster4life

I like Fyrtor, but it's your character, you can name him whatever you want.

Fyrtor it is then. Sorry about that guys. I'll have it right from now on.

I like "Fyrtor."

Same.

All: This is a tough decision but I want to keep us moving so I'm going to clarify what's at stake a little bit.

Go to Helm first: Whatever is going on at Kazad Gravr progresses further, making your job harder there.

Go to Kazad Gravr first: The Bishopric's maritime situation deteriorates further, making your next quest harder.

So do you want this quest to be a little harder and deadlier or the next one? :)

I think my vote is Helm first, but I'm the low man on the totem pole.

Level 1: 8+1

Every level after 1: (5+1)x6
Total: 45 even with no favored class bonuses put into hp.

Huh. I think I know where I made the mistake; forgot to max my first hitdie and round up on the others.

Kazador makes a good point, how long will it take us to get to Kazad Gravr?

Moved post here because it's all OOC.

The Series is really, fundamentally, structurally beaten up. Not sure what would manage it...

In Skulls and Shackles it was specified that make whole affected ships as if they were constructs; this isn't Skulls and Shackles, but it's why I remember repairing destroyed ships with the spell. Just going by how the spell is written in the Core Rulebook, the Serpent is probably too big for me to affect at my caster level anyway. The whole thing is moot anyway, since I can't mantain Spirit Dance long enough to cast the spell (10 minute casting time) and none of the druids can help me make a spell completion item to do it with.

Merry early Christmas everyone!

Yup. That ship isn't going anywhere.

I know it's still a bit early, but Merry Christmas everyone :)

Likwise. :-)

Same!

Merry Xmas!

Merry Christmas!!

On a note totally unrelated to everything else, my brother introduced me to this game:

Seedship

It's text based and plays pretty quick -- you're the AI on a ship full of frozen colonists fleeing the smoking remains of the earth. You have to find a suitable planet for humanity to make a new home -- before your systems fail. Mildly addictive. Works well on mobile devices.

Awesome, Mel! Checking it out now.

All: No rush on Christmas Day. But to keep us moving, I'll employ the rule of two. If two of us voice, in gameplay, their desire to follow a path, I'll assumr the party goes in that direction.

Mel, this game is pretty fun.

As far as the division goes in going to abstain from deciding. My character would be pretty submissive to the desired of the others.

Totally reasonable, Fyrtor.

Yeah it is. My colonists were enslaved on my first try. XD I think that means my original 4500 is pretty bad. I got 6500 the next two tries so I'm thinking I need to be pickier and risk more space travel before settling.

A heads up. I’m accepting a commission for the US Army Jag Corp. I’ll have training start in October. It’s a ways off but these are multi-year campaigns, so it’s best to give advance warning.

Congrats :)

Congrats, Kazador! Thanks for letting us know.

Congrats, Kazador!

My top score on Seedship to date is just over 11,000; I've had a few over 10K. I average somewhere 8,000 but have had some doozies where everything went horribly wrong.

The wife is, of course, far luckier than me. Her second time playing her second planet was incredibly good and she scored 10k... My best is now 9k after 10 attempts or so.

She also makes a big deal out of the fact that her colonists are always very well behaved, establishing wonderful societies because they know the AI will throw them into space if they're mean to each other. She didn't hesitate for a second to jettison the dictator. XD

The outcomes are not always the same -- sometimes, jettisoning that dictator is a fine. Other times, things work out ... badly.

Huh. Interesting. I've seen different outcomes for some but never the dictator one.

Seedship is a fun game! My average score is over 9,000 - I must be vastly superior to the rest of you.

Either that or I have a smaller sample size to average. Naaaaaaah, it must be the superiority thing.

My highest score is almost eleven thousand (achieved cosmic enlightenment, had zero casualties. They built a monument to me and me alone.). My favorite score is a little less than eight thousand. The first planet I came across on my second play through was so extraordinarily awful (mostly red, some yellow) that I decided to start a colony there without sending a landing probe first. (I wanted to see what a really lousy colony would look like, after accidentally making a feudal monarchy frozen in a medieval stasis on my first play through.) But the colonists found some alien ruins to loot, and fashioned themself a post scarcity technological utopia on the featureless, corrosive, frigid, arid plains of "Dearth". (Thus named because of it's pronounced lack of resources.)

Grumbaki! Congratulations! Put those ranks in Profession: Barrister to good use, eh?

First attempt of the day: Just got over 11K for the first time. Woot. Now I've beaten the wife's high score so I can show my face around the house. She is SUCH a trash-talker...

Somebody second Mel's proposal or propose something else and we'll be off in gameplay, now that it's after Christmas. But understandable if we're slow for a while longer. I'll be pretty much unable to post at all Dec. 28 and 29.

Ok, so assuming we are going to helm about how long will that journey take?

Also a another question, can I use the retraining rules about learning extra languages? Can one of the party menebers qualify as a trainer? Would it still cost full price? I want to learn more of the elemental languages.

Sure at half price if one of the party members knows it. Aquan is the only one available, off the top of my head.

It will still take 700gp and 20 days, so one to work on for now would be fine.

Sure at half price if one of the party members knows it. Aquan is the only one available, off the top of my head.

Muse has max ranks in linguistics (of all things (for the occult skill unlock - I wanted to give the rules a try)) so the captain speaks all four of the elemental languages.

Sweet, depending on how long the journey is going to be them I'll decide between learning Aquan or Terran first.

I did discover another option for us. I can cast flotsam vessle with it we could journey up the river with a small crew.

I have 4 second level slots and 3 third level slots. Depending on how the "caster and 1 passenger per 2 levels" is interpreted there are 3 possibilities:

- I only take the party (if I have to be in the raft and direct it).

- If we interpret it as the caster is a free passanger, but only on the one he's on then the max if we travel only 6 hours a day is 3x7+1=22.

- If we say it's just 1 person (not necessarily the caster) plus 1 per 2 levels then the max we could travel with is 4x7=28.

Sorry I didn't think of it earlier. Originally I thought we would be doing open ocean sailing to Kazad Gravr and I wouldn't use this spell for open sailing except in an emergency.

GM which interpretation do you think we will use?

Mel thinks that's a great idea that mitigates most of the disadvantages of having lost the Serpent. I think we should have the Sonder drop the party at the river mouth and then head for Helm without us, then circle back to collect us at the same spot later.

The journey inland will no doubt be slower and riskier -- a makeshift raft is a much more tempting target than a full size sailing vessel. But the advantages outweigh the risk if you ask me.

Each raft can hold one person plus two per level. I don't see a reason why the caster needs to be magically light for the raft to hold or what not.

I would recommend you don't spend too many of your spells on rafts *ominous music*...

One person plus two per level? Surely you mean one person plus one per two levels? So with a caster level of 6 he could accomodate 4 people on a single casting -- himself and three others.

That would cover the four PCs, but leave the problem of Algric. Unless we count him has cargo, I guess.

Or I can make a couple of rafts...

Now that I look at it, that spell is badly worded. The Effect line says "raft large enough for caster and one passenger/2 levels". Which would be 4 at this caster level.

But the full description says "he smallest raft created by the spell is roughly 5 feet square, increasing by an additional 5 feet square for every 2 caster levels you possess. Each 5-foot section of the raft can carry two Medium passengers or 300 pounds of cargo."

So we'd wind up with 4 squares, and the description says each square can carry TWO medium passengers, which is double the capacity listed in the Effect line.

If it were up to me I'd rule that we could stick one person in the middle of the raft, but doing so would impose some penalties. I'd probably treat the one in the middle as if they were Squeezing (-4 attack, -4 AC) and the ones on the edges as partially squeezing (-2 attack, -2 AC).

Also of note it is a cleric spell as well. I don't understand how Captain Muse's build works completely, but maybe he could cast is with his spirit dance. It wouldn't be worth it if it is a permanent choice, but if he can be flexible with it, then he would have a higher caster level to do it with.

Yeah +1/2 levels. I did write it incorrectly.

I don't see why each 5 ft square can accommodate two people but I suppose you could squeeze.

If it weren't for Algric, the numbers would work perfectly. I mean ... he could catch a cold? :-Þ

He'd have to catch something a lot worse than a cold to miss out on returning to Kazad Gravr... ^_^

Ok, so I think 2 rafts each day traveling for 6 hours each day is a good safe bet. If we really want to go quickly then we can do 2 rafts a day for 12 hours (either all my level 2 slots or 3 and one of my level 3 slots).

It might be a good idea to wait a day or two though and I can make up some potions of touch of the sea for everyone in case we were to fall off the raft. I don't fancy the idea of dying due to a series of poor swim checks.

I doubt the dwarves will be ok with waiting a couple days for that but we'll see.

But I doubt they would want to take off their armor in case they went overboard either...

If we pay money for it I can make up to 4 per day 3 of which will be free. (At least that is how I believe the herbalism rules work, they are a bit murky).

Also I need to have slots available on the day we start out for making the rafts.

The rafts travel at 3 mph unless you're also paddling them.

And how fast do they move when we are paddling them?

It only makes sense to paddle. If we've got three characters per raft, we can have 2 paddling at any given time (one on each side) while the third takes a rest.

Well assuming you have paddle ssomehow, I'd say .1 mph added per strength score (not modifier) of paddler. That seems nice and mathematical. ;)