Ok. This is the official discussion thread for the Campaign. Any OOC questions should go in here just to try to keep the board as clean as possible. If you have any suggestions for the campain, GM tools to advise, etc post them here. I don't have a map for the campaign, I was thinking of Roll20, but still looking that over.
This campaign setting is still a work in progress, so if you have suggestions to ease up creation of the world for me, by all means let me know. Or suggestions for additions or such.
Huzzah! Hello everyone, nice to meet you. Apparently I'm the party's cleric so treat me well and keep me hydrated! :D
I think I'll stick with my base background: washed up on the shores of wherever the campaign is.
My Ioun Stone list has been drastically reduced, waving it off as them being scattered by the currents so I only have a few left.
Hope we all have fun. =]
GM, for maps I hear good things about Maptools and really like the end product from what I've seen. Haven't tried it out myself so I don't know how easy it is to use or learn, but it's open source so it's free.
There's also the usual PBP conventions:
Spoilers for hiding things that need rolls, directing things that are meant only for some people, post an action meant for an earlier time because you were late, or post a future action based on an event if you're going to be gone for a while:
Out of Character comments in , character speech is in bold and character thoughts would be in italics.
Also the usual dice rolls, but whether or not you separate the bonuses or explain them is up to the GM. Like:
versus
There's also how you'll handle combat and initiative. The usual I see is:
Everyone rolls their own initiative and acts accordingly OR player group and enemy group rolls initiative and are averaged, whoever has higher goes first.
For a round, everyone posts what they'll do, no matter when their turn is.
GM sums up what happens in that round.
Did I miss anything?
Honestly sir I believe you have covered it all. I hope nobody minds the occasional hand holding, but I'll be keeping my eyes on the rules, and reading a bunch of helpful things to ease the GM experience.
EDIT: I'll be sending Pm's when I wake up to invite players who haven't into discussion then we'll start gameplay.
Checking in. I have a bit of updating to do before Zhang is ready for the game, but I'll try and have it done ASAP.
Sir Simon reporting in.
Would any of our characters know each other before the adventure?
Simon is a nobleman and a professional monster hunter, backed by a house with a broad informational network. As such he is widely traveled. It would be reasonable that a few characters would be old friends he contacted to help deal with whatever the latest threat is.
Zhan is a hunter as well, specializing in necromancers and the undead. It's likely they'd have met each other, and perhaps even worked a case or two together at some point in the past.
Hey people.
@Simon: Only way you'd probably know Silent is through buying armor or knowing of a poor tempered blacksmith that likes to keep to himself and wonders around quite a bit.
"Good day all." A young human girl with long straight black hair and tan skin greets the gathering, her glasses framing her delicate features. She bows politely. "I hope we all enjoy this little adventure." A playful smile crosses her lips as a twinkle of mischief shines from behind her glasses.
OOC: Hello everyone. Just checking in. Only question I have right now is how did you guys get that info under your name?
Silent the Armorer 4 hours, 17 minutes ago | FLAG | LIST | REPLY
M Duergar 5 Fighter(Armor Master) <==?
Ooh, hi spacefurry! Glad to see you.
As to your question, go to your profile and then click 'Edit My Profile'. The information that shows up under your name are these fields, in order:
Gender
Race
Classes/Levels
Put whatever you want there to make that pop up.
Ah, I see. Thank you once again. Someday I will figure out all the little tidbits of this forum. *chuckle*
I will have to play around with it a bit and see what fits best up there for me.
Also, @ GM Silverbane, I think I'm finished buying equipment. But I wanted to ask if we should have bought mounts of our own?
@Kiwyn: You can if you want to, but I won't leave you without one if you decide not to.
We are only missing our Tiefling Musket Master. I'll PM him in a minute. But let me give you all an idea of what's going on. On the eastern shore of the Shadow Lands, there lies a tiered port trade city known as Eastwall. Built against the side of the Arching Mountains, Eastwall lies next to the Shore of the Gleaming Sea. Eastwall is a big importer of food, and exotic goods. There is a Noble house, church, a gambling arena, many shops and homes. During the day the city is bustling and happy. But at night, the gates close, the torches go out, and the guard is deployed.
When night falls, the Howling woods come alive. There have been many tales of werewolves, zombies, boneclaws, witches, ghouls and more. But the most terrifying of these tales, is the huntsman. A man who is no longer a man, but something else. Legend tells that his bow has slain many travelers, many creatures, and many innocents. Each time his bow kills, he transforms, taking traits of the creature he's just slain.
Simon and Zhan will start having met each other. Simon, you recieved word from the church that children were being taken from Eastwall. They don't know who or what has been taking them, but they found fur at two of the abduction locations, and fear the worst. Zhan informed the church of his previous exploits with you (I'll let you two decide what it was) and suggested your expertise for the case. You two will start in the street, headed towards the tavern to plan your search.
Silent. You are already in town, working at the forge. Because Eastwall takes in a lot of shipments, they sell weapons and armor across the Shadow Lands, and the forge master has found a particular liking for your craftsmanship. You are there at the start.
Robert. You will be washed up on the shore, I have something planned for you.
Kiwyn, you have just got into the city. The beginning sequence captures you as your horse is being taken to the stable.
I've got to get the musket master in here, then we can start. It'll be pretty straight forward and glossed over at first so as not to cut out players.
Sounds good. We could go with a classic werewolf story for our previous adventure together, me hunting a crazed man, Zahn hunting a dangerous beast, our paths converging as we figured out we were both tracking the same person.
Meridian reporting for duty, SAR!
Thank you for selecting me for this adventure! I am looking forward to it very much.
Meridian is very much the wanderer with a very unusual weapon. He makes a living and keeps himself in black powder by working as a gun for hire as well as an alchemist for hire. Given his obvious heritage, he tends not to stay in any one place for long and is nearly always on the move.
Meridian could have encountered literally any of the others at some point in his travels.
EDIT: I have a few items left to purchase, but that will not take me long and will be completed tonight.
Cool. I'm going out to get the Fam dinner soon. But here are a couple rules. My family will always come first, so if there's a pause in gameplay, don't worry. I won't ever flake without giving a heads up, and I won't just leave the game. If I can't think of how to continue, I'll ask for help. I am a new GM, and even though I am learning as I go, I want you as players to have and experience a full story.
I am a father to a beautiful three year old, and married to a wonderful woman, so if there's something in real life that prevents me from posting for a bit, I'll let you know. I'm your GM, so you're pretty much part of my life, so you'll all be aware of anything that's going on.
Aside from that, the only rule that I've worked into the setting is blood magic. I'll be using catastrophe rules from the Council of Thieves AP, but here's the rule on Blood Magic. Arcane casters only, require blood to prep or cast spells. If you can prep a spell when there's blood nearby, it can be used. Otherwise, you have to cut yourself dealing 1d2 points of non-lethal damage. The cut will last to prep all your spells at the beginning of the day, or 4 rounds if in a situation requiring rounds.
Initiative will be done in block format. All roll initiative, then we'll go with the highest of all rolls. The enemies will be done the same, so you'll post your action for the round, then I'll describe what happens before continuing to the next round. I think this'll make combat go faster.
I'm still debating over Maptools and Roll20 for maps, unless you all feel you can do this without maps, either way is ok with me.
@Meridian: You can start out overhearing Zhan and Simon. Will post the first thing shortly after I return.
Good to hear I've found a place to work!:P Looking forward to playing, interesting mix we have here.
Game thread started.
Thanks, GM!
Since I start out from the shore, I'll just wait until I'm given the go-ahead.
I'm hoping to have Zhan finished up tonight and posting in the game forum soon.
A few questions for the team, in terms of roles... we have:
A Cleric
A Fighter
A Fighter/Monk
A Gunslinger
A Wizard
An Inquisitor
This gives us a primary (cleric) and secondary (inquisitor) healer, plenty of fighting power, both ranged and melee, one arcanist, and probably leaves the wizard and inquisitor to cover the skill monkey roles. We don't have a rogue, but that is not essential. One thing we are missing is a face. I can potentially build to cover that; we'll see.
Any gaps obvious, and any character tweaking that should be done to shore up our group?
I can't spot anything missing aside from the Rogue roles of scout/trapfinder. A party face perhaps?
Cliks, I'm posting in the game thread, then feel free to post. Anybody can date their post for before cliks post, or after, either way. One of the characters with a high Charisma score would make a good face? Anybody interested in taking up interest?
A woman in the crowd commented on how ugly the creature was.
"You aren't that pretty yourself," Cliks says before lapsing back into unconsciousness.
I am definitely a defensive fighter. I make a great "dodge-tank" and will probably spend most of my time near the squishy folks defending them.
If we go by Charisma, I suppose that would make me the 'face'. But I would be lacking in the diplomacy skill seeing as how I have no ranks in it and it's not a class skill for me.. Zhan has the highest bonus to that with a +8, so I may be the 'face', but he may be the 'mouth'. :p
I can't get my Charisma up to anything appreciable without going MAD. I have some ideas for my Domain/Inquisition, but if I instead go with the Conversion Inquisition I can apply my Wisdom instead to Diplomacy, Bluff, and Intimidate. This would give me stellar bonuses as my Wisdom is my prime stat. Given that we have no face or mouth character, this might be the wise way to go I suppose. Thoughts?
Go with whatever is best for the character. We will deal with whatever shortcomings arise because of that.
I'm defiantly fighter tank. I can do some okay damage though. Although, party face isn't ever in my future. Nor would you want Silent talking to many people.
A question for Meridian, Zhan was imported from another game that died, as as such was originally intentioned to work with a different group. That group didn't have a gunslinger, so Zhan's using a gun didn't step on any toes. His main weapon is a revolver, an Advanced Firearm he acquired via complicated backstory.
I wanted to check with you if you felt this might diminish your character, since you are a gunslinger, and are using a traditional Early Firearm. I wouldn't want my character to steal any impact from yours, so I thought I'd ask and see. If you feel it would, I could likely change him to a longbow character.
Repeating crossbows are inquisitor weapons. They are flavorful and avoid the usual pitfalls of crossbows.
Indeed they are, as are Longbows. I like the idea of a Repeating Crossbow, and I was likely going to use one as my backup/long range weapon even with the revolver. However, I was going for the pistol for flavour, even though a longbow would do more damage and cost far fewer feats. The Repeating crossbow has all the disadvantages of the revolver without the advantages of a firearm. If it doesn't work out, I'll probably go back to a bow. As well, Longbows are very cool. Usually, most groups have a longbow specialist already, so it would their toes that might get trampled on by my using the bow, but this is the reverse situation.
I'm a longbow user. :3
It may be a good idea to completely rework my crunch to become a back-up ranged fighter instead and focus on out-of-combat use. Even with the cleric's low amount of skill ranks, I should be able to get enough to be a face and focus more on the more cleric-y aspects of my character.
The last thing I want to do it set off a domino effect of character changes. Overlap is fine, I just don't want my character to outshine a guy at his specific thing. I've taken the conversion domain and Zhan will make a very good face as a result, so no worries there.
I generally just wanted to make sure I don't steal Meridian's thing. Meridian is a full BAB fighter, which Zhan is not, so I doubt it would be a true issue, but I just want to be sensitive to the possibility.
Gotcha.
@GM: I probably should have brought it up earlier, but the holy symbol I'm using is a custom one. It's a Coral Necklace so the material is different and it takes up a neck slot. Is that fine?
There's a third party <Coral> special material if you want to base the item statistics on that. I'm also assuming I still need to touch the necklace with a hand to channel energy and other such things that need a divine focus.
Coral is great. Wonderful thematic flavor. Touching it is fine, honestly there'd be no difference on that point than if it were a wooden or metal holy symbol.
A quick question concerning spells. One I probably should have thought to ask before.
I know it varies from GM to GM, but how do you do prepped spell / spells per day. By that, I mean for example. For her third level spells she can cast two per day. If she memorizes both Dispel Magic and Hold Person can she cast each one only once, or could she cast one twice if needed and the other not at all. Or would she need to memorize one of them twice in order to cast it twice.
Some GM's are strict about spell memorization, while others allow a little flexibility. I just wanted to ask before I made any assumptions.
There are GMs who let you mix and match from among the spells you've prepared? I've never heard of that. Wow.
I've never heard of it either, but it is an interesting idea.
Seems like it would sort of trample on spontaneous casters.
Seems like it would sort of trample on spontaneous casters.
Not as much as you may think.
At 5th, a sorcerer without high ability modifiers would be at:
know 6 cantrips
know 4 first level spells and able to cast them 6/day
know 2 second level spells and cast them 4/day
know 2 bloodline spells
At 5th, a wizard without modifiers would be at:
prep 4 cantrips
prep 3 first level spells and able cast them 3/day
prep 2 second level spells and able cast them 2/day
per 1 third level spell and able to cast it 1/day
Compared, per day thats:
Sorcerer: known 8 able to cast 10 + 6 cantrips
Wizard: prepped 6 able to cast 6 + 4 cantrips
The wizard just gets access to the next spell level one level ahead of the sorcerer and have the option to change prepped spells at the beginning of the day. In a sense, trading quantity for variety.
In the end, it is the GM's call and I will abide by it.
Huh. Didn't know about that. As it is now, I've just left an open slot in my first level spells in case of emergencies.
I usually have it set where you can memorize a spell more than once, but once cast, it's removed from prepared spells.
That's the standard convention, and I think I agree with Simon. Kiwyn's option gives the prepared casters more versatility than they were intended to have. The advantage of a spontaneous caster has always been to use their few spells as many times as they want. The advantage of the prepared casters is breadth of knowledge, and being able to prepare from a much larger list of known spells.
So how am I doing so far? Am I using perception and other check rolls properly? Is there too much description or not enough? Game going too slow? Too fast? I'm trying to keep the pace and style that I do when I GM the game for my wife (that's my only other experience).
@GM: Seems to be going fine. Each GM has their own style and this works. The rolls and spoilers are good as is the level of description. Of course, feel free to be more verbose. :P
The pacing right now good since it's helping to get everyone together.
Everything seems great so far, I agree with Cliks. Keep up the good work.
Agreed. Seeing as this is my first pbp here on the site, I have nothing to compare it to. But the pacing if fine so far, and the checks seem to be working too. I know I'm enjoying it. I just hope I do a good job myself. :p
GM, great job so far setting the scene.
The map isn't showing for me in the campaign tab. You may consider putting the link in the description section so that the link to the most recent map is always at the top of the page beneath the campaign name.
Another suggestion for the future- If we all put out Initiative modifiers in our header so they are easy for you to see, then you can roll initiative for us and create the list right when combat starts.
Thanks. I couldn't get the map uploaded. I tried using roll20.net, and maptools. Roll20 doesn't have an export feature unfortunately, and maptools is winning the productivity fight. So for now I'm still looking for a map. Will a description based fight be ok? For now anyways.
Cool. Pretty much just waiting for silent's roll to start combat. I think from here on out I'll do what Simon suggested to make combat faster.