GM Fanguar's Savage Tide (Inactive)

Game Master Fanguar

Stuck or no, I'll be away for an extended camping trip this week (my last one of the year, alas!) and there's no reception up yon mountain. I'll be heading out Thursday afternoon and won't be back or able to post again until sometime Monday.

Have fun! I camp all winter long. In fact its just getting cool enough to get me back into the woods.

I took us a week to complete a round of combat. Can we all commit to a little more regular posting?

Hello, everyone.

I am swamped at work right now. I am preparing a grant proposal single-handed this week (yes, they gave me a week to finish it) and my free time has disappeared. I'm sorry if I've been absent/slow in posting. I will be finished today, and catch up this weekend with posting. I am sorry for the interruption and thank you for being understanding.

Graythan, please forgive me if I overstep by bounds. I'd like to offer some class advice as inquisitors have the Monster Lore ability in which you know strength and weaknesses of the monster. This way you can communicate with other on how to defeat the creature.

The inquisitor adds her Wisdom modifier on Knowledge skill checks in addition to her Intelligence modifier, when making skill checks to identify the abilities and weaknesses of creatures.

Normally true, but I gave up monster lore with my archetype

Ah. My bad. didn't realize you took an achetype.

Dear Everyone,

I am posting this to all of my games. I'm sorry for my lack of communication. Life has been dumping on me.

My work load is still overwhelmingly heavy, and we had a major medical scare in my family. My son had a relatively simple case of strep throat, and we learned the hard way that he is allergic to penicillin. Very allergic. We've been dealing with medical issues for over a week now.

I will be going on inactive status for a short while. I need to get things in order and I barely have time in my daily schedule to eat dinner with my family let alone do any gaming. Between too much work, finishing my dissertation, and my son's health, I have too much on my plate.

If you feel the need to replace my character, I understand. I will reach out to you when things settle down to see if there is still an opening. Probably in a few weeks.

Thank you for all the fun! I hope this passes soon.

Sending prayers in your direction. RL comes first.
Happy Holidays.

Hey folks,

#1 I have two interested replacement players, one wanting to play a cleric the other a healing focused shaman. Both seem like they would fill the void we have. Both players have extensive posting histories, so I think either would be a good addition. If you could take a look and let me know which you prefer, that would be great.

#2: Moira, I was looking at your character and I think that you are missing a feat. You have weapon finesse listed as your 1st level feat, but you now get that for free as an unchained rogue.

PM sent

Sent one as well!

Fanguar, I must of overlooked that area when you allowed me to covert Moira to unchained rogue. I will update.

Hi all, Krila here.

There was a question about Krila being small sized. Note that while that's a +1 to hit and +1 AC, she also has almost no armor class to begin with, has to use small sized weapons (1d6 vs 1d8 and 1d8 vs 1d10), so I think that's a fair trade off? If it's a really huge deal, I can change it and take the higher damage on weapons, but I honestly don't think it'll matter that much in the long run.

Welcome, welcome mdt! Glad to have you aboard!

Welcome mdt!

First, Welcome. Since it seems our DM has shared my concerns with you I'll step up and explain them. And let me preface that with my choosing you to join us. You had my vote immediately.

While we do have a dhampir, the rest of us are from the core races. And all the races are of relative equal value when you look at the point buy for races, especially when you consider how much greater the point buy is for an aasimar. I would not have mentioned anything had you only wanted to play a human based assimar. But when you take it to the next level by combining much of the value of a halfling with that of an assimar for class that benefits from being small I felt like I had to say something out of my sense of game balance. Looking over your profile I am convinced that you are a clever and experienced player and know exactly what I am taking about here.

I'd prefer you choose one or the other race, and have no strong opinion for which. But I am not the DM and only offer this to explain my comment to the DM. And yes, I know I am sorta shooting myself in the foot as I would obviously benefit from a more powerful healer in the group, but that is where I come down. And should my character ever die, beware the ogre based aasimar that I will create. ;P

Eh, at this level I think any benefits from small-sized will be largely moot. Levels 1 & 2 might've been a bit of a bigger deal, but I doubt it at this stage of the game.

I do agree that any racial advantage is greater at lower level. But that does not change my desire for a level starting position for players. I guess its a thing for me.

I disagree that the core races are equal in power, but it's a kind of a moot point.

-Posted with Wayfinder

I'm not sure I consider it over powered, but if it bothers another player, I will change it. Consider Krila medium then. I was primarily using the small because she was originally a small tiefling, and got respec'd to be a healer, and I have a mental image of her being short.

I'll have to redo the character sheet. If you don't object, I'll try to do that this weekend if I have time. Until then, if you don't mind on the fly adjustments...

Thanks for making the adjustments. Really no rush on getting it done.

For my part, I think the size bonuses that you get are to offset the inherent strength penalties that normally come with it (as well as speed and weapons size)

Also, I think the whole advanced race guide was a mistake and RP values are super arbitrary.

On a somewhat related note. I came across the pathfinder unchained Automatic Bonus Progression rules. I kind of love the idea, and considering that this is an AP that wasn't written for pathfinder, I'm thinking using them. Take a look and let me know what you think. I'll probably end up using them in all future campaigns, but I won't force existing campaigns to swap over if players aren't interested.

They work great as long as none of your players are trying to use natural weapons. The system hoses natural weapon people all over the place. Also, depending on the GM, you may end up having issues with a Monk as well. Also, pet classes get hosed over too, as their animal companions generally have 2 to 3 natural attacks.

It's great for wizards and sorcerers and others who can't wear armor, they get it for free.

I have never used it. I would be ok with it but think I prefer the flexibility of just sticking to the normal system, even though I usually follow that progression in items pretty closely except fighter might ignore mental items until much later and caster might ignore physical ones until later. It is interesting.

I don't fully understand it, but I'm sure it will make sense in time.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Not sure what to make of it.

In summary it takes about half the gold you should be making and for that it gives you bonuses that you might likely buy with that gold. But it also removes the items that give such bonuses. So no more cloak of protection. No more stat boost items. No more +1 weapons.

I see it as a simplification but also as removing options from play.

I rather like it if for no other reason than it affords the use of now-unconventional magical items and enhancements over the static bonuses to stats, saves, and attack rolls. I've always wanted a cape of the montebank but always had to opt for a cloak of resistance instead just to keep my lowest save from being too abysmal.

I'm about to fire up a new Legacy of Fire campaign for some friends, I'm now strongly considering using this as well. Additional bonus (in my book at least): cutting wealth in half = cutting BOOKKEEPING in half. I dig that a lot too.

Yea, I've also always wanted a cape of the montebank. Good point. :)

Basically what Graythan said. Pathfinder adventures pretty much assume that you are optimizing, then they give you all these cool items that you just end up selling because you don't want to give up your strength bonus, or what have you.

From a DM standpoint, it makes life so much easier, since I don't have to customize loot as much. I mean, we have PCs that use a glave-guisarme, a heavy repeating crossbow and bladed scarves as weapons. Want to guess how many of those are written in as loot in this AP? I can never give you a magic item you can use, and you combat efficiency won't decrease. This is especially important in this AP, since we will not be back in a city of any size for a very long time.

That being said, it does slow the accumulation of power a little.

I'd be ok with it then, it sounds good. I'll have to look into how you adjust adventures to adapt to it.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Well, it sounds kind of fair and easy to implement. I'm will to be open and give it a shot.

No insult intended to Graythan OOC. A shaman of life really isn't keen on undeath is all. :)

none taken by the player, plenty taken by Graythan. He's a grumpy ol' half-dead curmudgeon, after all. He's oh so slowly warming up though. =D

To all my games :

You may have noticed I've been iffy responding since Thursday the 4th. My wife is having surgery (again) Wednesday. Her mother was supposed to fly in to help, but she had an emergency Thursday and ended up having a minor surgery Friday. So I've been canceling work trips, and generally doing all the stuff she was supposed to be here doing. I'll continue to be iffy this week. Sorry. Will hopefully be more consistent week after next.

Sorry to hear. Hope everything works out and speedy recovery.

I am traveling starting tomorrow morning for the next 8 days - Ski Trip. Please bot me if you need to to keep things running. I will check in as time and internet are available.

Nice! Enjoy the slopes, dude!

I am back. Not much for me to do at the moment. Lets get rolling. :)

I did not wish to bog us down. If no one has an adamantine weapon Justified will go at the wall with his +1 glaive-guisarme. He will take a test hit without power attacking first to see if this is going to damage his weapon. If it does not he will break a section out of the wall. Average Damage is 20.5 per hit with power attack. I am sure it will sound like we are ringing a loud bell.

You might want to take out the stone the wall is anchored too instead. Lower hardness, less noise.

Chisel the rock away. A small section big enough to crawl.

Sorry everyone, life's been hitting me hard recently, and I've had a severe lack of energy when I've not been working or travelling. Every other week I spend about 20 hours on planes or in airports (sunday and thursday, 9 hours up and 13 hours back). On top of that, all the family stuff has taken a toll. Plus, my wife is working from home now, so when I'm home, she's working 11 to 8 and I'm working 8 to 4:30, makes it very complicated. Nothing like seeing your wife 24 a day or 0 a day depending on the week to make things topsy turvy. I'm finally getting used to it though, and I hope to be back to normal posting going forward (with occasional lapses from exhaustion).

Just my feeling, but in general, if you're down only a cure light (less than 10 points), we should probably hold off on healing. She can do a channel first round of combat if needed, to bring everyone up if there's a fight. We really shouldn't use wands while she has healing, as those can be used when she's down to bring her back up.

Just my $0.02 worth.

Bron was down 11 at that point. Now at 3, and I agree that conservation is important - but it's a virgin wand, might as well break it in.

-Posted with Wayfinder

I do not agree with sending melee fighters into combat are wounded. That is how they die.

I agree. Meleers, if there is such a word, should be at max before any combat.

RE: take 10

The standard rules allow taking 10 on disable device the same way you would on anything else, as long as you're not in combat or distracted. Do you have a house rule about taking 10 that I've not noticed?

Nope you are correct, I am mistaken. No take 20 though, for traps at least.

All, I am on vacation and traveling starting tomorrow morning for 2 weeks. I hope to have some connectivity while traveling, especially during the first week of the trip, but please bot me when needed to move the game along. During that time my posts may be shorter as I may be posting from my phone.