Doug M's Way of the Wicked (Inactive)

Game Master Douglas Muir 406

i mean you will be once my action goes off next round :)

And dot forget your inspire courage folks

he is a good bad guy. I liked him. It just blows that you are rolling insanely well

I think the drinking came to the forefront because it was something Xenfal learned with his two Nat 20's talking with the crew at the very beginning. So we all assumed it must be important

I haven't been forgetting it! Love those buffs, so much.

Can't recall, do you heal from 0 in Pathfinder or heal from whatever you were at? Jax has either 5 or 12 hit points. Not sure if he should go all out and try to hit the Captain again or try to back out..not really thinking a lot of more healing will help versus him, so probably best to try and bring him down hard.

you heal from where you are so you will be at 5

So what are everyone's thoughts on using obscuring mist? It would give us a round to re-group, ish. Or at least give Jax a round to avoid getting downed again..hopefully. Unless those tentacle thingies hit hard and ignore concealement.

Speaking of tentacle thingies..
1d20 + 7 ⇒ (8) + 7 = 15 Know (arcane) The f$~@ are they?

If Jax goes down, what would be best to add to the party? I would prefer to play classes that can cast still. If we need another melee then another magus, synthesist summoner, melee druid, battle oracle or a cleric could work.

Maybe some ranged damage with an archer bard, archer cleric or archer inquisitor?

Perhaps a wildshape focused druid who, in all his wisdom, decided to violently return several portions of the kingdom to nature..by burning all of the homes and raising a rebellion of wild elves against the encroachment of civilization.

moved it here cause it is ooc

chill touch for example can be held for days if you don't expend the charges

also it is a shame zimu didn't have a second ray yet that way dmdm could have used up another of his bad rolls

ooo dmdm judge said he hasted grumble instead of ragnar so can he swing again?

chill touch for example can be held for days if you don't expend the charges

Just don't shake hands with anyone. Or pick your nose.

Or engage in self gratification

Huh..I feel that casting a touch spell pre-immediate upcoming combat is now a good buff idea.

Jax (or any Magus) could pre-cast a touch spell then use it in conjunction with spell combat to get TWO casts of it off in the same round! Spell combat lets you attack then cast or cast then attack. So he could, theoretically, five foot step, attack with shocking grasp with his normal attack, cast shocking grasp, and then use the free action attack to attack with the new shocking grasp.

Wicked. Now all he needs is a rod of quicken and a way to add spell-storing to his weapon for 4 shocking grasps in one turn.

I'm thinking you can't do this, but we can check with our friends at Rules.

Ok, finally had time to figure out Morsum. I took Dodge as his feat and then dropped Increase Damage and Climb evolutions, and instead took Ability Increase(Strength).

My intention is to take Mobility, Spring Attack and then Whirlwind attack as I think that these will mesh well with the Trip and/or Grab evolutions. Any thoughts are welcome. I can change evolutions at every level, but have to keep the same Feats, so this path seems like a good choice moving forward.

I think spring attack would have limited utility for Morsum since he can get reach when he's larger. The whirlwind attack + trip/grab idea sounds awesome though.

hmm going to have to be careful with Nimpy have to kill him in his sleep i think.

also Zimu you might need to learn make whole

Well..I was not expecting Jax to live through this, but I think he will pull through! Hurrah!

I think we should hold off on attacking Nimpy until later, when we may get a surprise jump on him. Cimu and Jax can prepare glitterdust and use it before he goes invisible to prevent him from being able to turn invisible.

Or..maybe we can let him go? Jax is kinda liking him.

your girlfriend told us not to

Nimpy must die, he knows too much about us...he could endanger the mission.
I believe we will be making Jax do the killing blow, he is getting soft.

Hey, he did start out as Neutral :D. Now he's neutral evil as the desire for wealth slowly..further corrupts him.

日本からのご挨拶！

That's greetings from Japan!

Did you guys miss me?

Sorry no real internet and when I had it I lost connection in the backpacking through Thailand, but I should be good here in Tokyo. I'm still on other peoples schedules but should get two posts a day until Friday then I fly back to the US, sleeeeep, and resume regular posting by Monday next week.

I'm surprised we made it through that fight with everyone intact. I bet the axe is magical, just covered in a thin coating of lead.

Welcome back! How was Thailand?

We can always pay to have the axe magicked. It is adamantine which is not cheap and allows it to overcome some tough DR.

Welcome back Cy.

I LOVE Thailand! Beaches and people alike!

And honestly lived like a princess for about $27 a day plus room expenses.

Japan on the other hand is looking to be expensive, up to $400 on the first day alone.

How's the moving Judge?

I am sure there is a magical axe and trident in the captain's cabin.

Move is going. We unloaded the moving van yesterday, now I have a house full of out of place furniture and tons of boxes.
_________

DMDM - did the Judge cast his second Haste? I think that the Captain went down before my turn in Round 4, but I am not sure. Just want to know so that I know whether I have a second level spell left of not.

Zimu I just fell in love with you! quoting shakespeare! *tear*

Pfftt! You have your girl/squid/prawn from the outer great beyond to keep you warm at nights.

I would join but I don't want crabs.

;)

The phrase 'mile high club' is from Shakespeare? Huh.

Cute.

dude can we just eat ragnar he cant hit the ocean if he fell off the frost hammer

Made me laugh. Awwww nice doogie! Don't go to Thailand though because they will eat him in peanut sauce.

DM I would llike to retcon a little and run past the two mooks and eat the AOO's from them. This lets Jax stand safely if they do not have combat reflexes.

I would say the party owes Jax a drink, and Jax's owes Xen a drink.

I had dog in the Philippines, years ago. It tasted... kind of like how you'd expect a dog to taste, actually. But pretty good.

Xenfal wrote:

DM I would llike to retcon a little and run past the two mooks and eat the AOO's from them. This lets Jax stand safely if they do not have combat reflexes.

I would say the party owes Jax a drink, and Jax's owes Xen a drink.

Sure, then he can spike it and steal that hat.

In the original module, Captain Odenkirk was a relatively minor obstacle. I liked the character so I built him into a boss.

The Captain was mostly straightforward, but there were subtleties. I made him cruel, domineering, paranoid, violent and greedy.

Displaying his character to you was a mix of "show" (his constant brutality towards his sailors) and "tell" (the kraken backstory with him sacrificing a shipload of refugees, Nimpy's story, the first mate).

The Captain's drinking was almost a throwaway line -- he goes onshore sometimes and drinks, but not on the ship because it makes him ill tempered. (As opposed to his normal kindly mild-mannered self.) You guys somehow got the idea of a drinking contest. That's a common fantasy trope, it's true, but not in this case. The Captain is not a social drinker! Quite the opposite.

I wanted him to be a fairly well realized NPC; and then I wanted you guys to be wary of him, if not outright frightened by him. You can tell me how well that worked or not.

First off thanks for sharing this, while don't mind learning the rules I actually am not overly fond of the rules aspect of the game but somehow you actually make reading your reasoning for building your character (even one as wicked and unlovable as the captain) very interesting. You made it so we could easily loath this prick.

Nicely done. I like that you back the rules with a thought through story.

And yes, it was quite easy, and probably intelligent, to be afraid of him. When he cut up the attackers and played chicken with the Mountain that Swims (and won) I found it hard not to take him seriously.

Secondly, I am happy that after about four hard fought attempts to convince the party we need a plan to get him ashore using a forged letter we went with the 'gold for a job' route. I felt I was a little stonewalled by the Judge on my first attempts. As our leader he was entitled to that of course. DM the drinking on the shore bait would not have worked then?

I am writing this in OOC because I mentioned this plan before and I do not want the bard to overhear this now, even with Message up. I mentioned this a few weeks ago so please consider this a reminder.

Taking on the crew, my suggestion.

Cуровую will cast Alter Self followed by Disguise Self and pretend to be the captain.

We board the Frosthammer and go below decks. As the captain I will bellow out in anger for the loss of the halfling and blame those on watch.

I will order the crew to tie up the three or four responsible and have the executed, most likely by Edmin, but maybe by the members of the crew themselves.

We then deal with the remaining crew members.

The drinking with Edmin would not have worked.

Edmin is not much of a social drinker anyway.

That plan sounds good, Cimu. But polymorph spells do not stack so why would you cast Alter and Disguise self?

Betting that the ring is a ring of swimming +10 or water breathing..Jax is willing to test both of those ideas in the nearest body of water.

Dren is pretty good at UMD, which is what you need to "test" a magic item without the command word...the DC is 25 otherwise the ring either way won't help you or activate since it isn't identified.

If its a ring of swimming, it has no activate. It just works or it doesn't. I'm not sure, but may be the same way with a ring of breathing underwater. You only need to activate an item that can be turned on/off.

So you test it by jumping in the water and swimming :D

Okay gang -- the day is approaching when I may need to start mapping stuff. It's probably still some weeks away but, since you survived and all, good chance it's going to happen.

I have only the vaguest idea how to do this, and I suspect someone may have to walk me through it. Any volunteers?

Two methods:

Excel spreadsheet with positions. This is the basic low level of complexity and can be done easily.

Maptools. This takes a lot more effort to set up and run. You need maps to start with...

Both the judge and I run PBP's with Maptools. Works well but takes more time. Either of us can help although I may have a little more time at the moment. Maptools is a free download. I would be willing to also get on a call with you to help walk you through some of the basics. I also have some maps I can share of woods/city etc. This will definitely help you. Maybe the judge has some as well.

I always felt maptools was easier to use than trying to do a grid on Excel, at least long term. All you have to do is click and drag tokens around instead of changing numbers all the time.

At least I think that's how you do it with excel..no idea.

Agreed. Once the map is set up it is easy to manage the harder part is linging up the map with the grid :).
I do like the finished work though.

The Judge and DM Bref use maps as well.

Nerd-on: Order of the Stick! Four major characters dead in the last 40 strips or so. Getting a little Red Wedding over there.

So, this "Maptools" you speak of. Is it a thing that I buy? And how do I show you part of a map?

Nerd-on: Order of the Stick! Four major characters dead in the last 40 strips or so. Getting a little Red Wedding over there.

Grrrrr! Bad bad DM! Spoilers please! I am traveling and so I am a few comics strips behind but when I went to the page it defaults to the most current page, I saw two characters arguing and because of your 'hint' guessed the outcome. Spoilers next time please.

That being said -

So, this "Maptools" you speak of. Is it a thing that I buy? And how do I show you part of a map?

I believe it is free and if not I will be happy to chip in to get it for you.

Maptools is free. You can import a pdf of the map you want to use into the program as a background. I have done this a few times, but since I am DMing a Pathfinderized version of the Temple of Elemental Evil, I don't have much in the way of fancy premade color maps to use.

When I first started using MapTools, I was trying to use the Vision Blocking to hide things that I did not want seen. Then I read part of the help files (the online community is quite helpful and there are a lot of good help to be found.)

The best way to "show" only part of the map is to use the Vision Blocking to hide the entire map, and then only make the part you want visible. This avoids leaving unwanted parts showing.

I will not try to claim to be the greatest MapTools user in the world, but have figured out how to use it to make pretty good maps. I then upload the maps to my Google Drive and share them for the party members. As I have use a few scans of maps I found on the net and did not know whether there was any possible IP issues, I limited the access to only the players. With most new APs, this will probably not be an issue.

Maptools is a free download, just google it. It's a small sized program.
To show us a map you need an imageshack or doc sharing account and you just upload the picture and share the link on a PBP. We can help you with the format.

dm I use google drive and just take a screenshot of the map and load it as a drawing. Then I save the avatars and load them as well. Click on the thing that says runelords and you can see, you can move the characters around easily as well. The one that is up os pretty big map so the chars are small vut that can be adjusted

dm I also post maps for another game. If you like you can email me a acan of the map you want and I can put it up online.