Frostbite is personal, so it can't be cast on another for him to use in attacks. It is cast and then the caster makes a touch attack to deliver it. And I misread it earlier; she can only affect one target per casting. As she gains level, she'll get one attack per level.
Yes Frostbite is Personal. But I am pretty sure you can cast personal spells on your animal companion, right? Or do you gain that ability at higher levels. Been a while since I played a druid.
Frostbite is also poorly written in that it really has no duration. You could cast it and hold it for hours as long as you did not cast another spell before you used it.
I am good with moving to morning. We need to pick starting places and decide who will try to close the gate. It is a single standard action to close the gate? If so and Beorn can be in total cover near enough the gate he can walk out of cover and close the gate his first round as he calls for the enemy to drop their weapons. But if such cover can not be found or put in place then maybe someone better at hiding can be the gate closer?
Doors are normally a move action, but I don't know about a big gait (which will probably need to be barred/locked somehow too).
What's the gate mechanism look like? Slots for a big log or what?
Did some research on Medieval wooden gates, seems to be the common theme was a slot for a log to block the gate from opening.
there are two doors so presumably two people would have to be in hiding, one to close each door. As each door is 15 feet in length.
Maybe just open one gate? 15' is pretty wide to let in even a wagon. That might have been the practice in general. Why expose yourself more than you have to?
I guess we will open gates like they have been opened in the past. No need to do anything that might alarm the bandits prematurely.
Hama is too physically weak to close a massive gate I would imagine, but her ox could probably do it on command.
Oops I saw these discussion posts after I posted, having only one gate open is too alarming I'd say.
stock currently consists of a suit of leather armor, a heavy wooden shield, two hand axes, five javelins, a longbow, two dozen arrows, a scythe, two spears, two vials of antitoxin, six torches, two weeks of trail rations, a number of animal furs worth a total of 120 gp.
However that is also his store of items that he has for sale, he can lend one or two out for the fight but not to keep, it is called "Oleg's Trading Post" after all.
Beorn will borrow the longbow and a dozen arrows in case he needs to shoot at someone from a distance. I doubt he will fire a single arrow. If someone else can get more use from it please claim it.
Sure, we'll just stick the 7 hp sorcerer in a small room with no way out. lol. Here's hoping they DON'T come in here to get us. :P
Seems to me the casters should be up high out of reach, with the melee martials on the ground ready to close the gate.
I am sure you could start wherever you wanted to start. And when arrows start flying there about one arrow difference between 7 hp and 13 hp. :)
Its true, I wasn't sure where to put everyone so I just stuck ya guys somewhere. Luckily they don't seem too interested in the stables, they bee-lined for the store room.
besides, like everyone has around 10 hp, its level one.
I suppose it doesn't matter. I got a plan of action now.
I'm just hoping that everyone on the wall is checking to make sure that there are no bandits still waiting outside. It'd be a damned shame if one got away just because we never knew he was there.
Rosetta doesn't see any other people, I guess they just need 6 horses to carry everything, 4 for them to ride and then two pack horses.
So Beorn, if the next round doesn't turn immediately into a furball scrap, I'm going to try to peel away a bandit with Charm Person and use free action speech to signal our side NOT to attack that one if he seems to fall for it. Otherwise, I'll get Kas a-drawing his glaive and see if I can't pop off a Bless for everyone's benefit (I'll need to look at the current tactical map to see what 50' radius gives us).
Hehe so don't go super grrrr-charge quite yet if you can help it, as I'd like to get a little spell-work in if possible.
EDIT: So I looked at the map and made a command-decision that Kas would have hid on the other opened gate, essentially doing on the right side what Beorn did on the left side. I moved Kas to where the gate would be closed, assuming I'm pretty much next to Beorn when he ran his action.
A Bless would aid everyone except for Hama it appears, so when feasible I'll see if I can do that.
Sounds good, so far no one has done anything too threatening, just Rosetta who is stealthed but ready to fire if it comes to that.
Yeah and @Saniana, if you feel like you wouldn't be hiding in the stables you can move yourself, I just wanted to get everyone placed figured we could figure it out from there!
So GM Cody, just so I'm clear on how you want to run combats and combat stat blocks and such...do you have any specifics? I've been in PbP where the player has more knowledge on enemy saves and AC's for their posts, and I've been in games where we just run our actions without knowing results and the GM puts it all together in a round recap summary. How do you like to run the combats?
Also, I tend to do up a combat stat block in my posts to keep track of current HP, conditions/spell effects, number of powers remaining, etc. Is that fine for your needs?
I tend to do recaps, especially for surprise rounds like this. I like to think every player's action goes off at once and then the bad guys respond to a surprise round.
For combat and AC I'll try and give good indicators of how close an attack was to hitting such as something like this:
"the creature couldn't dodge the blade in time but its natural toughness deflected the blade none the less"
However I also will come in and make a post appraising the situation after one or two people post in a combat, say if a big creature is killed on the first post of the round, I won't wait until everyone has posted before saying it was killed on the first attack.
Here is an example of a combat I ran for a PFS scenario a week or so back.
Okay I looked that over and that's cool - so mainly I just need to be in the habit of posting a combat action for the round, but not writing it with any assumptions of success or failure (with hits, enemy saves, how bad the enemy may be affected). I can do that!
So Beorn, if the next round doesn't turn immediately into a furball scrap, I'm going to try to peel away a bandit with Charm Person and use free action speech to signal our side NOT to attack that one if he seems to fall for it. Otherwise, I'll get Kas a-drawing his glaive and see if I can't pop off a Bless for everyone's benefit (I'll need to look at the current tactical map to see what 50' radius gives us).
Hehe so don't go super grrrr-charge quite yet if you can help it, as I'd like to get a little spell-work in if possible.
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Did you miss the part where I am a Paladin? :P
also forgot to roll for weather at the start of the day.
Its a cold morning, still feels a bit like Winter doesn't want to let go.
The bandits didn't do anything?
They are waiting to see what their boss wants them to do, they aren't really capable of independent thought.
They drew their short swords though, so they are baring steel.
Basically its a stand off right now, so they don't want to make the first move because who knows maybe you guys are bluffing and they can get out without fighting.
right now it looks like just two guys, so they outnumber Kas and Beorn 2 to 1.
And I wanted to give Kas a chance to use his Charm Person, I mean who knows, maybe it'll work!
I am sure Happs will have something to add to the discussion though. Likely with an arrow shaft or two. I hope Beorn is still standing after
He will most likely have his boys teach ya guys a lesson, it was unfortunate that the leader went second in initiative.
Also Saniana, if its okay with you I usually just have the animal companion go on the handlers turn, if thats okay with you.
also forgot to roll for weather at the start of the day.
[Roll omitted.] Its a cold morning, still feels a bit like Winter doesn't want to let go.
I'm glad you are stating the weather. Most GMs and modules I've played with never mention the weather or even the time of year. It's like it's perpetually clear, sunny, and comfortably warm but not too hot.
It will also give me a reason to cast Read Weather every day or two.
I love the weather rules, I'd definitely expect to see more weather as we explore the greenbelt.
I agree, adventuring shouldn't be all sunshines and rainbows, sometimes its slogging through a swamp in a thunderstorm with rain battering you every which way as the wind threatens to knock you down just as the muck tries to pull your boots off with every step!
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Also Saniana, if its okay with you I usually just have the animal companion go on the handlers turn, if thats okay with you.
That's fine and also normally what other GMs do. For what it's worth, I don't intend on Dax being a regular fighter in combat, at least not at 1st level. Badgers can be good fighters but he will mostly protect Saniana and only fight if she is attacked.
Do you have a procedure in mind if Saniana gives her animal companion an order such as to attack or defend? Does she need to make a handle animal roll? Or if the animal has learned the appropriate trick, is the command assumed to be automatically obeyed?
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Also Saniana, if its okay with you I usually just have the animal companion go on the handlers turn, if thats okay with you.That's fine and also normally what other GMs do. For what it's worth, I don't intend on Dax being a regular fighter in combat, at least not at 1st level. Badgers can be good fighters but he will mostly protect Saniana and only fight if she is attacked.
Do you have a procedure in mind if Saniana gives her animal companion an order such as to attack or defend? Does she need to make a handle animal roll? Or if the animal has learned the appropriate trick, is the command assumed to be automatically obeyed?
Yeah I tend not to bother too much with handling your own animal, I'd like to think the bond is more magical in nature anyways. While it still needs to know the trick to do the trick, I don't want you constantly rolling handle animal checks every single turn, ya know?
Its okay to assume if you aren't pushing it in combat I don't need a handle animal roll.
I will need handle animal rolls for when you train it off course or if you train other animals.
Is that agreeable?
Weather: The first GM I had in this AP made weather a major factor. We started in early spring and dealt with serious snow storms, attacked bandit camps in blinding rain, etc. We nearly froze to death at one point. No ranger or druid in the party - we hired a tracker guide type who was a great NPC.
Yeah log me as a fan of weather rules as well! Actually I'd like to know your resource on how to generate it with some decent/consistent results - is there a spreadsheet or online resource you use to do that? Whenever I would try it the "old fashioned way" it just seemed like a thousand % rolls with blizzards and hurricanes showing up in the same set :)
I haven't said anything about it but the notes and npcs link in the description can be viewed by you guys as well. There is a table there for the weather chart I use. I'm also just gonna make it up depending on the season our game is in.
Currently it is March in our Kingmaker game, March 11th to be exact or Pharast 11th.
There are a couple of things hidden there as well for me, just to make it easier for me to post from work when I don't have all my resources available. Pretty self explanatory but don't remove my gray boxes from the slides that have them.
Working on my post here shortly so as to not hold up the action...just getting a working template of my combat stat block going for Kas
No worries, you're good!
We are moving along pretty quickly compared to some play-by-posts I've been in.
Cool. Okay posted and figure moved on the map - so Skorn I had to move Kas forward from Beorn in order to get range on the Charm Person, but depending on how this all goes down I'll try to get back behind you if/when combat occurs.
No problem. I should have thought of the range thing myself.
Its okay, Beorn looks like more a threat, all shining armor and bold proclamations of justice.
I fail to see how you would have lured them into the barn even with a successful charm spell, Kas. Wouldn't his friends be keenly aware that you just cast a spell in front of them?
If you want to cast spells discreetly you need abilities or feats such as Cunning Caster.
I love the weather rules, I'd definitely expect to see more weather as we explore the greenbelt.
I agree, adventuring shouldn't be all sunshines and rainbows, sometimes its slogging through a swamp in a thunderstorm with rain battering you every which way as the wind threatens to knock you down just as the muck tries to pull your boots off with every step!
Yes! People don't use the stuff in the environment chapter near enough. Those little things make a HUGE difference.
Guess I shouldn't be surprised. Sometimes it is HARD work.
For example, have you ever had a fight in a dense forest? I doubt it. You would probably remember it. Have you even tried to roll one up as a GM? I imagine most don't ever bother, and instead just describe a clearing.
Every square has to be determined randomly! It takes FOREVER to roll them all on any decent-sized map, and serves to make the fight TEN TIMES more difficult for anyone relying on something silly like mobility. Here's a map of one that I made myself once. Every square has trees, massive trees, light and heavy undergrowth all of which impact the battle quite heavily, and all of which must be rolled randomly.
God bless any GM who goes through that level of trouble to make a dense forest actually seem like a dense forest.
While the other guys would have likely be confused as to where their friend was going, the guy charmed would probably have gone into the build, no problem.
While the other guys would have likely be confused as to where their friend was going, the guy charmed would probably have gone into the build, no problem.
What about the spell's manifestations? Even laymen would know Kas was casting a spell, if not exactly what he was trying to do with it. Nevertheless, if a spellcaster casts a spell in front of someone else, and their friend goes all weird all of a sudden, and at the same time, it's a safe bet most people would put together what's happening pretty quick.
I don't mean to make waves or anything, the only reason I bring it up at all is that ignoring that rule cheapens my character and her abilities substantially.
Lord knows, Hama was persecuted as a witch back in Ustalav for far lesser things than what Kas just tried to pull. :P
Oh no I realize that the other guys would be like "Hey that guy just bewitched Tim, kill him!"
but Tim would be none the wiser.
I think I'm doing that right, right?
Yeah, I think that's exactly the point with my own expectations on the spell. My use of the wording in Kasimyr's post was for story flavor and to add something contextual to why a successful charm would have the bandit peeling off to go check out the other building. As opposed to going "heebly jeebly mumbly jumbly" in some sort of incantation. That's just how I see Kasimyr's clerical spell working in this case.
Certainly if I had charmed the guy, and he starts wandering off from Happs and the rest (with Happs realizing Kas just did something to him), it could have meant an AoO on their own guy, or them trying to go after him and stop him or to try and convince him out of it. Which, of course, translates to lost action economy by the bad guys, even if the charm doesn't last for long.
Not to seem defensive about it, but I'm not understanding why this is a thing really. There was no assumption by me that the other bandits wouldn't understand I was casting.
My problem with random weather charts is that they often are more chaotic than real weather. To get around that, I have a suggestion which I've used in a homebrew campaign years ago.
Pick a location in the United States that is close to the climate of the campaign. For example, I think the Stolen Lands are probably a lot like Minnesota. Then pick a similar time of year for some year in the past and look up specific weather data using a weather data archive.
I found one that provided daily highs and lows, wind speeds and directions, rain/snow amounts, etc. I downloaded a month's worth and just used the data to create realistic weather patterns.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/ has a search engine.
As for the handle animal rolls, that sounds fine to me.
I gotta support Kas here. I enjoyed the flavor and would have given him an extra chance to succeed because of it. His request was reasonable as well. Certainly more reasonable than Kill Happs or even Protect me from your friends. The only issue I had was whether or not to give the bandit +5 for the hostile situation.
Sure his friends would know something was up, but the charmed guy was not going to be attacking Kas, that is for sure.
So just had to say CONGRATS to Saniana Quickly on hitting page 2 in the gameplay tab! Woot!
That was an awesomely vicious set of hit/damage rolls there Skorn - eesh. I think between that, Rosetta's arrow and Hama's bolt, poor ole Happs is going to have a bad morning.
Hope so. I gotta wait to see if right bandit had a readied action to attack AND had the gonads to take the swing. If so Beorn might be hit as well and in need of some of your healing.
Yeahh this may be his last morning.
That is good advice Saniana, I had consulted similar data when choosing. Brevoy and the Stolen Lands are pretty north so I was comparing them to where I live in Washington. Its currently 8 degrees F.
I should note that I was intrigued by Hama's spellcasting and cunning casting ability.
It made me think of Jafar from Aladdin a little bit, being able to hide spellcasting and influence dignitaries without all the courts knowing.
But maybe more useful in court than the wilds of the greenbelt. Of course we will not always be in the wilds...
Not to seem defensive about it, but I'm not understanding why this is a thing really. There was no assumption by me that the other bandits wouldn't understand I was casting.
I've been burned on stealth casting before. Guess I'm just a little defensive about it as a result.
Cunning Caster will definitely come in handy later when Hama gets more spells such as disguise self and magic jar--then she can stealth cast while not even looking like a caster. Who would ever suspect the baker of summoning a monster in the city street? Or the prince of an enemy nation of dominating his father, the King? lol.