Lukas Kains |
Welcome Tyranius, DM Panic and Caro! Glad to have some new blood in this game! I didn't think I had played with any of you before, but then I recognized Quillen among DM Panic's aliases - we explored an Infernal Vault a couple of years ago together (I was Mohok), nice to play with you again.
Has there been any discussion about party composition with the new arrivals? The characters at the table are Lukas (an earnest unchained monk, likes to trip things), Celes, (angry halfling barbarian), and Jeb (an only slightly less angry halfling oracle of heavens). Having lost Falzeal, we're lacking in arcane casting. And we've generally been short on buffing, ranged combat and skills (enough so that the monk is our go-to on Disable Device, though he's not completely terrible at it, but kobolds = lots of traps).
Obviously, play what seems fun to you, but I thought this info might be useful in planning.
DMBS - when you have a moment (and probably after everyone has dotted in gameplay with their new PCs), maybe you could tidy up the character tab by marking a bunch of them inactive?
Caro Cogitatus |
I'm thinking Unchained Rogue, or possibly Wizard or Arcanist if someone else is set on the Skill Monkey role.
I'll start working on him or her today. Are there any racial restrictions? Any third party sources allowed?
-Posted with Wayfinder
Tyranius |
I have a frost mage I have been toying around with. She was killed on her first mission with the society. Can reskin her for this.
DM Panic |
Hi guys! Glad to be invited along to another of Bold Strider's excellent (and likely deadly) games.
I just finished my first double-slot in-person gameday in several months, so I'm decompressing a bit still tonight, but will absolutely have something created ASAP.
I wouldn't object to a summary of the "current party" so I can find the right puzzle piece to craft (both in terms of crunch, and current fluff)!
Jebediah Lillywag |
Welcome aboard folks!
Celes Rose: Halfling Barbarian not using unchained however.
Lukas Cains: Unchained Monk who has tipped his toes into trap finding for us.
Jebediah Lillywag: Halfling Oracle of Heavens and current party face. He can heal but he's more about debuffing the opposition but is a bit one dimensional as he has little to offer vs. foes with good saves or immunities. He also currently functions as the party face. This might change due to falling out with Lukas and lying to the Baroness.
Our combat prowess has been extremely poor up until here as both front liners are extremely fluffy (mainly low AC) and have repeatedly been KOed after a few rounds of combat with the Oracle lacking the healing power to compensate and we have only narrowly dodged a TPK on two occasions. Particularly foes with high DR or immunity to magic have been really tough on us.
The group also lacks a bit in the trap finding and disabling department.
Lukas Kains |
Panic - my previous post above had a bit of a party breakdown, which Jeb expanded on.
In case you haven't seen it, here is Lukas' background:
The son of a poor Taldan sailor, Lukas spent his days watching the shipping come and go on Cassomir’s great harbor, helping out with unloading cargo when they’d allow a mere slip of a boy to do so, and looking for his father’s ship to come home. The many halfling sailors and dockhands took to him, and taught him a thing or two, mostly about how to watch out for himself the way a small person has to – get an opponent off balance, then take off or take him out. Folk around the harbor even joked that he had some halfling blood, short as he was – and he hasn’t grown a great deal since then.
Having heard all about the joys of a life at sea from his halfling friends, and his father on his brief stays at home, Lukas was dead set on life as a sailor. But when he snuck aboard a merchant ship at sixteen, he got so sea-sick he couldn’t eat, drink or even stand and would likely have died if he hadn’t been found out and set ashore out of the captain’s pity. He made his way home overland, scrounging to survive, but when he got home the only life for him was unskilled labor in Cassomir’s shipyards. He stuck it out for a couple of years, but the wish to see the world was still strong in him. He bid goodbye to his family and his halfling friends, now a bit smaller than Lukas, and set out to see the world, travelling by foot and eager to see what lay around the next curve in the road.
More recently, he and Jeb have gotten a bit sideways, as Lukas is a law-abiding type and Jeb had a strong desire to hold onto stuff that Lukas felt should be turned in to the baroness. But a piece of that was really just me expressing myself poorly, as Lukas wasn't trying to throw anyone under the bus wagon.
As Jeb says, it is in fact the case that if Lukas and Celes don't take out a baddie pretty quickly, one or both of us end up on the floor, so buffs in the form of healing or protection (a nice cat's grace would work wonders for Lukas) would be quite helpful. A bit more melee or ranged damage wouldn't go amiss either.
panicswitch |
OK here's the expanded summary with the other 2 folks check-ins or leanings:
Celes Rose: Halfling Barbarian not using unchained however.
Lukas Cains: Unchained Monk who has tipped his toes into trap finding for us.
Jebediah Lillywag: Halfling Oracle of Heavens and current party face.
Tessa Fireband: Elven sorceress/wizard
(Caro): Unchained rogue
(Panic): TBD
I'm excited to see a pair of halflings in the party. I'll be noodling on ideas while I work today and will check in this evening with my thoughts.
DM Khel |
I'm excited to see a pair of halflings in the party. I'll be noodling on ideas while I work today and will check in this evening with my thoughts.
Lukas actually started out as an old-school human monk with Racial Heritage: Halfling and the Underfoot Adept archetype, since he grew up with halflings on the docks in Cassomir. So when we started out, we basically had three halflings, one of them just was a bit taller than the others. I decided to switch him to Unchained Monk and lost the trait and archetype in the process, but personality-wise, he's still very pro-halfling.
Karu the Kobold Strider |
Put it with Thief.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Sarasha |
Presented for your approval, Sarasha.
Fluff is in the works, but likely involves searching for her sister here on the Material plane, and hiding from the Master who will not be pleased that both of them are missing.
GM Bold Strider |
For newcomers, the point buy is actually 15, not 20.
Additionally, Fetchlings will have the Shadow Blending ability removed for the purposes of this module. A 17 RP race mixed with humans and halflings is a bit high and that seems like a decent compromise. (It would also be the Shadow Walk, but you won't get that in this module.)
Sarasha |
Noted. Will adjust accordingly.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Sarasha |
Now at 15 point buy and removed Shadow Blending.
Added some rather generic fluff, but I'm not feeling inspired today. If I come up with something better before we start, I'll modify accordingly.
I think personality wise she'll start off treading lightly as a newbie member of the group, but gradually regain the sharp tongue that gained her some level of trust with the Master.
Anything else?
panicswitch |
My notes:
3 chars who employ little prepared/spont spells (barb, monk, rogue)
3 melee chars with light or no armor (barb, monk, rogue)
2 chars who will use dex (monk, rogue)
1 char who will use str (barb)
2 char who will use cha (oracle, sorc)
2 halflings, 1 fetchling, 1 elf, 1 human
This gave me some good places to start by process of elimination. I know "perfect parties" aren't required, but it helps me narrow down options versus having the entire gamespace to consider.
There's no:
Wisdom or Int based PCs
Heavy armor PCs
There's little:
Ranged
Area damage
I'm reading through the full thread now (400 posts in) and have a couple personalities I'm considering. I'll likely go with human just since the party only has one, and I tend to favor slightly humanocentric groups.
I'm looking at Wisdom-based divine hybrids to round things out at the moment. Standard fare here would be a warpriest or inquisitor. Possibly a slayer or ranger. There's always a shot at the paladin, too.
.. combat prowess has been extremely poor up until here as both front liners are extremely fluffy (mainly low AC) and have repeatedly been KOed after a few rounds of combat with the Oracle lacking the healing power to compensate and we have only narrowly dodged a TPK on two occasions. Particularly foes with high DR or immunity to magic have been really tough on us...
Melee is tempting because of the house rules, but I think with Celes, Lucas and Sarasha in melee, this group could use someone with a ranged or reach weapon to be most effective.
Likely I'll have a Wisdom-based divine switch-hitter all ready by tomorrow.
Cobb |
I think this group has enough folks in melee with 3, so I'm trying to focus on someone who can contribute from behind the front lines - aka the typical "ranger switch-hitter trope".
Cobb's ready for roleplay while I tackle finalizing purchases and such during breaks today.
Lukas Kains |
Looks like things are more or less ready to get going with the new gang! Do you want to do an intro post, DMBS, or should we just figure the new folks have been there all along?
Cobb |
Cobb had 516gp left after I did his starting purchases.
If GM Bold Strider is okay with it, he'd go in with folks on a wand of cure light wounds as standard adventuring fare prior to have headed out.
Sarasha |
I'm brand new. I can contribute a grand total of 1 gp to the cause.
Sarasha |
I'll be glad to pony up my fair share with whatever profits we come across.
Especially since I'm making the wand necessary all by myself. :-p
Lukas Kains |
All - I will be leaving on Sunday for two weeks of travel for work. I should still be able to post with some regularity, but my schedule will be busy and I'll be many time zones away, so likely won't be posting as much or on the same schedule.
Sarasha |
I'll be out most of tomorrow and unable to post. Feel free to bot me if you're waiting on me.
Lukas Kains |
Gang - if we want to try (again) to go with Sarasha's plan of fighting the thing in the next room, where we can surround it, Lukas may be able to help with that. The wights have not been hard to trip, and with Ki Throw Lukas could trip the last one and throw it into a square further from the door, so we can all try to get out of the room and back into our planned positions.
Downside is it may put us into area effect formation for whatever the BBEG might throw at us, and we're further from him if we need to get at him to fight.
We've done okay against the wights, but I want to avoid negative levels for all of us as much as possible.
Also, DMBS - did the blue wight go down after one or two punches from Lukas?
Karu the Kobold Strider |
@Lukas: 2
-Posted with Wayfinder
Lukas Kains |
I'll be leaving for PaizoCon on Friday morning, and returning Monday evening, and will likely have very little time to post while I'm there. If I'm holding things up, bot me.
Lukas Kains |
Can you give me the tl;dr of our mission? I gather it involves a reborn dragon, or perhaps the illusion of one. But what is time ticking away on?
A wizard died. We cleared out his trap-riddled manor and found stuff, including a book. A big, undead dragon wanted the book, and showed up saying he was going to destroy the town if we didn't give it to him. But we had hidden from the townsfolk (most notably the baroness) that we had it, so they couldn't give it to him.
We told the baroness we had the book, and said we'd deliver it to the dragon, but first she sent us to the crypt we're now in, in order to see if the big dragon scaring the town was the same one whose bones were curled around the tomb. The bones were still there (when we entered the crypt), so there's a different bony dragon running around.
So now we're looking for things in the tomb that might help us take on that dragon, should it come to that. The time-sensitive element is that the dragon is going to kill everyone if we don't bring him the book - though he did say we had two weeks, so I'm not sure if we have to go non-stop at this point or not.
Sarasha |
Thanks, Lukas. Very helpful.
At 2 levels drained I'm not feeling particularly cocky about sallying forth into more combat. Do we know how long it would take to get back to town?
Lukas Kains |
Sarasha - If you click on Bold Strider's map link, there's an area map on the top left of the map page. Nothing on the area map is more than a mile or so apart, so it wouldn't take long at all to get back to town.
From a meta viewpoint, I'm seriously hoping the wraith and wights were the boss fight, and we just need to check out the last chamber or something, where the dragon-killing-thingie is found.
DMBS - have I left anything out, that would drive us to greater urgency?
Karu the Kobold Strider |
Great recap! Everything is correct.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Lukas Kains |
Lukas has picked up some nice dropped items recently, I'm happy to spot Jeb 500 gp if there's a headband available.
Edit: we haven't updated the loot tracker since getting to the crypt, maybe longer, so Jeb may well have enough cash. I won't have time to do an update for a few days, but anyone should be able to edit it (it's linked in my stat line).
Lukas Kains |
Okay, so in spite of writing the summary of the adventure so far, I missed that we were supposed to give the dragon the books and a bunch of gold. Were we ever given a bunch of gold by the friendly baroness, or anything like that?
Or is the next phase of our journey when we go get the dragon's gold? Or do we just die now because we don't have it?
Lukas Kains |
I'll be camping Thursday through Sunday, with little to no signal. Bot me as needed.