GMG's From the Tome of Righteous Repose [3-4] (Inactive)

Game Master Magabeus

Welcome all, this is an invitation game where I will attempt to document everything I do as a GM.

I always open with something like the below first to have my expectations clear. I copy paste this from an earlier game and adjust where needed. Everything that is in there also goes for this game ;-)

Welcome to this game of From the Tome of Righteous Repose! This game will be played following the Standard PFS rules and at tier 3-4

I first want to get my 'house rules' out of the way so we have a common understanding. I assume you will have read this.

Please give me the following information:

1. Player/Forum Name
2. Character's Name
3. Class and level
4. PFS# (and dash)
5. Faction
6. Day job Roll (if any)
7: Whether you have played/ran this scenario before and what arc(s) you followed ( you can see this on your chronicle(s), it is either Bones, Scales, Scoundrels or Tusks) I will attempt to offer a new challenge to all players.

Please take notice of the following:

I expect you to fill your initiative modifier, perception modifier and preferred place in the marching order on the map (this is a link). If you do not fill these you get to act last in initiative and fail all perception checks automatically that I make for you. I will place you last in marching order.

I handle initiative in posting order.

I expect you to use the appropriate lines (Race, Classes / Levels and Gender) to give me vital information (AC, Saves etc) about your character. You can take a look at my aliases for an example.

I attempt to post at least once a day during weekdays and at least once during the weekend. When I do not post: I have not forgotten about you, there were other things to do with my time that took priority.

And most important: this is a game and I expect us all to have fun while playing! If something causes you not to have fun: please address it (either here or in a PM) and I will do my utmost to get you back to having fun again.

The map

For the map links I make sure that the link goes to the first slide. This is always the slide that is the most important for the current encounter. Normally the shared link is something like this: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NjQYdMaZbscVZrw-VOv9qd2Ew-uPS4av4-R l3T_3KxA/edit?usp=sharing but you want the last bit to be /edit#slide=1

I always put a link to the map in my status bar AND in the campaign information, so players can easily find it. It is good practice to check both links.

Holiday
I will be mostly offline until December 29. After that I will start preparing for this game, with preparing starting in earnest on Wednesday January 10th.

GMG, I do not know yet which character I will be playing, because I'm waiting to see who will be free. I am dotting in as me rather than a character, and I will provide the information you requested as soon as I know.

The two characters I have which I am hoping at least one will be free are a L3 grippli ecclesitheurge of Sarenrae or a L4 arcanist.

Thanks for running for us! I look forward to watching the process. This is Barbo, my Samsaran wizard. He'll be Level 3 by the time we start. (I'll be the GM for a F2F game next week.)

I’m here too. As you know I’m new to PbF on Paizo (but not overall) so I have no idea how to do things here.

For example, how do I adopt an alias for use in this campaign?

Finally, when do you think we will be starting? I will need to get a character updated and uploaded to work on Paizo. Best way to do this?

Cheers.

Edit: sorry, I somehow missed the dates in the holiday section on my first read through.

Hey, Woodenman, I'd be happy to walk you through getting your character set up. Since you've already done this on another site, I'll be brief, but please let me know if you need more specific directions on part of it.

The first step is to pick which character you're going to use, and make sure they are registered on Paizo's website. I see that you have several registered characters, so hopefully this part is already done.

The next thing is to make sure that your character sheet for that character is up to date, either on paper or in software if you use that.

Now, if you use software, you can export a stat block from your software. If you use PCgen, one of the export options is 'paizo forums'. Go into your list of aliases, and click on the name of the character you want to edit. Then, select edit character. Copy the text from your export and paste it into the big box 'about <character name>.'

If you don't use software, Hmm's GM kit contains a character template you can use.

That's most of the work. The only things other than that are creating your header (it's easiest if you look at one of my characters to see how that's done) and picking an avatar.

If you have questions, let me know. You can ask here, by PM, or in the VO chats we have going right now.

Ive picked an avatar but presumably I can setup different avatars for each character? How do I choose which alias I use when I post? Can I set a default option for different places? Ie can I set a different default option for each campaign?

1. Player/Forum Name CariMac
2. Character's Name Einn Sparkbearer
3. Class and level Sorcerer 4
4. PFS# (and dash) 110249-7
5. Faction Grand Lodge
6. Day job Roll (if any) None
7: Whether you have played/ran this scenario before and what arc(s) you followed ( you can see this on your chronicle(s), it is either Bones, Scales, Scoundrels or Tusks) I will attempt to offer a new challenge to all players. - I have played this and GMed this. I believe I did Scoundrels but it's not marked on the chronicle sheet.

Thank you for running this. I'm excited to learn from you all.

Woodenman, just to the left to the preview, cancel and submit buttons should be “Post as Woodenman”. That “Woodenman” is a dropdown menu where you can select the alias you want to use for your post.

Unfortunately it is not possibe to set different standard aliases for each campaign. Luckily the most recent used alias in a campaign are resorts to the top of the list, so it is relatively easy to manage. A Firefox plugin is available that manages that if you use that browser. If you search for pathfinder or Paizo in the add-in manager you should be able to find it (I have no access to a PC until the 29th).

^This plugin in THE BEST. Download the Firefox App for your phone, then search the plug ins for the Pathfinder app.

For your computer, that plugin is on Chrome and Firefox. For Chrome, the Extension is called "Paizo Campaign Tools"

It highlights the campaigns which have new posts and auto selects the correct alias/character for each campaign. (Also you can use it to diminish certain people's posts. Helpful if there are people whose playstyle doesn't jive with yours.

1. Player/Forum Name = Nomadical
2. Character's Name = Bala Seafar
3. Class and level = Monk (Unchained) 3 / Ninja 2
4. PFS# (and dash) = 151562-8
5. Faction = Scarab Sages
6. Day job Roll (if any) none
7: Whether you have played/ran this scenario before and what arc(s) you followed. I've played this three times: Bones once, Scales twice

You know, PFS often leads to some strange party composition depending entirely on who shows up to the table. I've often commented on this, and regularly phrase it as the lead-in to a bad joke: "Three sorcerers and a ninja show up to the mission briefing...." So far we've got a sorcerer, wizard, arcanist, and a ninja. About par for the course. (Not a complaint at all, just a humorous observation.)

Sorry, folks, the Lady Vanessa won't be joining us for this one. You didn't really think she went mucking about in dungeons, did you, daahlings? Unless we really want to try the All Full Caster Party....

Risking an all wizard party would be worth it to play with Vanessa again! Though, I'm sure your ninja will be fun as well!

1. Player/Forum Name : EwokBanshee
2. Character's Name : Barbo Beezle
3. Class and level : Wizard 3
4. PFS# (and dash) : 240237-7
5. Faction : Scarab Sages
6. Day job Roll (if any) Craft (Alchemy): 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (13) + 14 = 27
7: Whether you have played/ran this scenario before : Nope!

I placed myself as the 5th in line, but I could move to 3rd as well, depending on composition.

I have a Level 3 Arcanist I could bring if we wanted to go all full caster. Alternatively, I have a level 4 kineticist and a level 5 swashbuckler free.

But I mostly wanted to play my level 4 occultist who is melee based so it seems like a decent option. He is in game right now but Hmm assures me we ar at the final encounter.

My suggestion of an All Full Caster Party was mostly in jest. Though I'm humbled that you enjoyed playing with her so much. Thanks!

But I've got some other scenarios that I'd like to put her in (can you imagine her walking thru The Disappeared?) And most importantly I prefer that people get to play a character that's whom they most want to play. Personal pet-peeve of mine. I felt somewhat bad when Ewok & Redalia had to play pregens last game because we were so lacking in melee.

Tell you what, Ewok, next time I'm home (tho that won't be until early Feb), I'll come up to Everett and play her there. Extra points if you're willing to run (or find a GM to run) The Disappeared for her.

Hmmm... time to go read that scenario! I own it.

Also, I agree! Play what you want! The scenarios are fairly forgiving.

Yes play what you want. Road trip to Everett Nomadical?

Hey all. How do I change the avatar on one of my characters?

Go to 'my account'. In the screen that brings up, find the section Organized Play, then make changes. Then hit the 'edit' button right next to the character you want to edit. (this assumes its a PFS character you want to edit, not a messageboard alias)

Hey team,

Finished Feast of Ravenmoor, leveled up & moved to Paizo.

Please check this profile and make sure I'm not missing anything important.

1. Player/Forum Name: Woodenman
2. Character's Name: Aryxis
3. Class and level: Occultist 4
4. PFS# (and dash): 127693-6
5. Faction: Dark Archive
6. Day Job Roll: Nil
7: Have not played this scenario before

I've added him to first in line for the order of march but if someone should change their mind and show up with heavy armor and/or a shield (ie better AC), Aryxis will move back from the front.

I am suffering from a severe headache, will start prepping as soon as I can

Feel better soon!

Ok, I am still not at 100% (who ever is?), but I opened the scenario.

What I normally do while prepping is to post the introduction to the scenario, so I can get a feel for the players and they can introduce themselves, so I also did that here. That is a simple copy-paste from the scenario with a few minor changes:

- put {b} bold marks around speech and close all " " parts
- remove the hard line breaks at the end of each sentence
- add some additional section breaks, to make things easier to read

How long do you expect the prep to take? It will impact which character I can bring.

Normally I prep while I run, but for this scenario I need to do two things:

1) prepare the story in the scenario
2) prepare the encounters

The first part needs to be done before we can actually start, the second part I will do while running.

For the first part I will need several hours, but with the documentation included I prefer to take at least a couple of days, which might run into a week. I am also not sure where in my schedule I can find those several hours.

What I mean with "prepping while run" is that I normally make sure I thorougly understand the story I am meant to tell, but I do not prepare maps, tokens and tactics in advance for each encounter.

To be fair: the downside of this approach is that I often have a short lag when I need to set up the next encounter because I did not do so in advance, but setting everything up in advance would make GMing PBP games more of a chore than a hobby, so that is why I do it this way.

So, reading through the information you have given me I see people who have played or ran bones, dragons or scoundrels. Since there is a fourth option that has not been mentioned I will do that one: tusks (or Orc troop)

It will be low tier as we already decided. Looking through the locations one immediately jumps to be chosen: Belkzen. When one says orcs, one says Belkzen!

So I have my subtier, encounter arc and location. I have no clue what the main and linked threats might be and opt to randomize:

1d6 ⇒ 4

Next on the list is to read up on this threat and then think about the additional threats. But that is something that will need to wait for another day.

1. Player/Forum Name: Redelia
2. Character's Name: playing pregen, credit to Tulara
3. Class and level: will be level 4 pregen; Tulara is currently a GM and pregen credit bundle with chronicles waiting at levels 2 and 4
4. PFS#:184425-7
5. Faction: Scarab Sages
6. Day job Roll (if any):none
7: Whether you have played/ran this scenario before: no

I'll probably bring Seltyiel, since he's my favorite melee capable pregen.

edit: Nomadical, no need to feel guilt about me playing a pregen, last time or this one. I have a few pregens who 'feel' like my own character, and as long as I can bring one of them, I have plenty of fun.

Hey everyone, my home is expecting a nasty winter storm and I may lose power and be unable to post. We already had the power blink off this morning before the nasty stuff arrived.

Be safe Redelia!

1. Player/Forum Name Michael Hallet
2. Character's Name 小青蛙 - Xiǎo Qīngwā ("Little Frog")
3. Class and level - Brawler 1/Ninja 3
4. PFS# (and dash) - 2608-16
5. Faction - Dark Archive
6. Day job Roll (if any) - None
7: Whether you have played/ran this scenario before and what arc(s) you followed ( you can see this on your chronicle(s), it is either Bones, Scales, Scoundrels or Tusks) I will attempt to offer a new challenge to all players.

Played all but Scoundrels.

Here's my (Redelia's) pregen alias. I'll get it set up and the requested stuff on your slides later today, GMG. Can you please remove my normal user from the character list?

Barbo is all Levelled up and ready for action!

I think I am starting by showing you what not to do....

I have been struggling with getting to the prep because it was very busy at work and I am also doing some maintenance in the house. That left little time to really start on the prep. Each day I thought: I will get to it tomorrow.

I should have let you know that I could not find the time yet. Communication is everything in PBP. Most players do not mind to have to wait for a bit, but they do mind if they are not informed about delays or if the GM is away for a bit.

My apologies. I think I will have time tomorrow evening to do at least a part of the preparation tomorrow evening.

So, I got some more prep done this evening.

I copied the map to the slide show and rotated it 90 degrees. That works better for play by post as screens are landscape based while the scenarios are based on print in portrait layout.

As a major threat we have a orc plus two accompanying orcs.
Linked threat is another orc.

For our secondary threats I see a lot of things that do not make sense in an orc invested dungeon, so I will change the background a bit to make the orc explorers like you are. They have heard of the sacred katana and are also on the prowl. Who will get there first?

That means I have some more freedom in the secondary encounters, let's see what dicebot gives me.

2d10 ⇒ (6, 8) = 14 an assassin vine for one encounter and the other is a slithering tracker plus an amoeba swarm. I can make that work!

Finally I need an environmental threat
dicebot?: 1d10 ⇒ 3 mnemonic crystals, hmmm, that is a tough one. I would like to replace it as I think it does not really give me something I can incorporate into my dungeon.

But when I look further I notice this one is CR3 and all the other environmental threats are at least CR4, running up to CR6. Since I rolled something for CR3 I will pick something that is at most CR4. The bad air hazard is something that could very well be located in a dungeon, so I will go with that.

Satisfied that I have my building blocks complete I decide to brush my teeth and get some sleep!

Where to place everything?

The linked threat (single orc) will lurk near the entrance. He was left as a backguard (nr 1 on map).

The environmental threat is likely to be in a lower part of the dungeon, going through it I spot a good place for that (nr 2)

If possible I want to place the assassin vine near some plants. There are three possibilities on the map:

1) near the entrance: not good because the orcs have passed before you, why didn't they get attacked?
2) top left: not good because that room already contains a hazard.
3) bottom left, this is it! (3)

That leaves the primary threat plus a slithering tracker / swarm.

The swarm is amphibious and the tracker likes to pretend to be a pool, so the obvious places is near water. Unfortunately the writer has decided to place a hazard in both rooms with water...

Going over the map I decide to place the tracker plus swarm at location 4.

I want to have the primary threat in a bigger room, so there is some room to maneuver. I also don't want you to immediately walk into the main threat. That does not give me many options and I finally decide on location 5. There is a clear path from location 1 to 5 which does not encounter anything dangerous, which makes sense storywise.

Next step: treasure packages!

Thank you for sharing what you are thinking here. I don't know that we have a lot to say right now, but I didn't want you feeling like you're talking to an empty room!

Thanks Redelia, I hope there is something useful in my ramblings.

Today I have marked the rooms that have a hazard in them, so I know that these are also special. I simply note down the number of the room, no need to do anything else right now.

I have also posted the poem you find in the gameplay thread. I feel comfortable that I can now start the game in earnest.

The next post is the post for knowledge check. I have nested the spoilers, note that you can not put a label to the second layer of spoilers, but this is easily solved by putting an OOC tag before the spoiler. I choose to seperate these two posts to get the information to you in an easier way, I also would not loose as much if the forums would have gone done in the meantime.

When I write long GM posts I tend to submit in between and put a big "WORK IN PROGRESS, PLEASE WAIT WITH POSTING UNTIL THIS HAS DISAPPEARED" at the top of my post, so any player that would come in while I am editing knows he/she needs to wait a bit.

to be done
- Place treasure packages
- Make tokens for the encounters
- Add fog of war to the map

That note is a super smart idea. I have had the problem before of having speedy players beat me before an edit.

I also tend to copy long posts, just in case the forum goblins interfere.

CTRL-A and CTRL-C on a windows machine before pressing that submit button are indeed life savers.

Barbo, I think you misunderstand how mystic past life works.

You can add spells from another spellcasting class to the spell list of your current spellcasting class. You add a number of spells equal to 1 + your spellcasting class’s key ability score bonus (Wisdom for clerics, and so on). The spells must be the same type (arcane or divine) as the spellcasting class you’re adding them to. For example, you could add divine power to your druid class spell list, but not to your wizard class spell list because divine power is a divine spell. These spells do not have to be spells you can cast as a 1st-level character. The number of spells granted by this ability is set at 1st level. Changes to your ability score do not change the number of spells gained. This racial trait replaces shards of the past.

So I don't think you can choose cleric as your past life class for a wizard since one is arcane and the other divine. I'm not sure there is an arcane spellcasting class that has all of those spells on it.

cure spells at least can be taken from bard, though. Lesser restoration is not on any arcane list, except for alchemist, which is 'not a spellcaster' (eye-roll).

For this scenario, protection from evil is on the wizard list.

My apologies, I should have clarified. Bard is my "character sheet" Past Life class. I saw no harm in RPing it as a cleric.

I didn't notice that Lesser Restoration wasn't on their list, so I'll have to go change that.

Thanks for clarifying Barbo, I also see no harm in RPing it as a cleric.

Technically Aryxis has Disable Device but he is not great at it because of ACP issues. He is still just short of purchasing his mithril breastplate - will likely be my next purchase as soon as we finish this scenario.

Anything he can T20 will probably be ok (doors and such). Traps may require removing armor or perhaps someone solution.

Bala has +11 to Disable Device, but looking over his stats here, it appears he may not have any thieves tools. I'll be home late tomorrow (for the first time in 2 months), so I'll check his chronicles and purchases then.

He'll have a set, it'll just depend on what level of quality based on how much cash he has available.

We will continue tomorrow, had some tough days (and a game yesterday) which prevented me from posting.

FYI: I will be out of internet this weekend.

As for the treasure packages: there are 3.

We have:
- Alchemical supplies
- Ceremonial Orc Weapon
- Magical Stash.

It is easy: the orc weapon should go in the orc shrine.

The magical stash I put in one of the many refuse piles and I decide to place the alchemical supplies in the center room, because it needs something.

to be done
- Add fog of war to the map
- Make tokens for the encounters

Just noticed the party healing wand is cure moderate wounds (not clw) - did Barbo take that spell with MPL as well?

Ooh, I did not! Good catch. The unseen servant has it at the moment, anybody can take it.

But you are correct, Barbo cannot use a CMW wand.

I can use it in a pinch, but I only have a 50% chance of activating it.

Aryxis can activate it too with a reasonable chance (+12 UMD)

Aryxis, sounds like you're the winner of the wand!

I've heard this scenario plays pretty fast. Is this true? I am hoping we will still finish by Outpost, in five weeks.