GM Kate's Ruins of Azlant (closed) (Inactive)

Game Master Kate Baker

I do think I want to change out my 3rd level focus power. Augury for mental focus isn't as interesting as I thought it'd be, especially when I could pick it up as a spell and probably use it just as frequently.

Kate, I know you'd mentioned being alright with retraining and stuff—maybe when we hit 4th level I could switch it out for something else?

Absolutely!

Ok, so, what do you all want to happen here? You're suggesting to take them back to the village, but is that what you're going to do?

That's what Cedar is planning to do. I think he feels they're of clear enough mind and they seem willing to come along. He doesn't want to fight them. He hopes they can get help in the village.

Silt wants to find out what else is happening here and why their minds are being influenced.

Also, if they have to stay constantly wet, getting them to the village might be quite difficult and present some logistical challenges. We probably can't just up and leave without addressing that first.

Yeah, take them back to the colony. I assume Joli can prepare create water which we could use to repeatedly douse folks, though that’d make the going slow.

They’re acting weird, but not so weird that I think we should get aggressive or make them stay here.

Though there is the pile of ex-person downstairs.. maybe Purpose Creche WOULD be suspicious; it’s been a little hard to keep track of and parse all the weird stuff here, and formulate that in the present PbP moment in a way I can write out as questions.
Then again, they keep saying their minds are all foggy and they don’t remember anything... Stuff’s complicated!

I’ll also be GMing/writing for most of the day, so probably won’t be checking the thread for a while.

Silt can also conjure up water. Honestly Joli is worried that there is another dominated creature that could come join a fight. He wants to incapacitate these folks so we can disenchant them.

I doubt that 'need to keep wet' means they'll die within minutes, or even hours. If things did get bad, the shore is quite close.

Silt can also conjure up water. Honestly Joli is worried that there is another dominated creature that could come join a fight. He wants to incapacitate these folks so we can disenchant them.

I doubt that 'need to keep wet' means they'll die within minutes, or even hours. If things did get bad, the shore is quite close.

Agreed. Maybe there's a way to block the door so the elemental can't get out?

Maybe one of can block the door, or try to shim it shut while we're not quite in combat yet?

Chucked stuff on the loot sheet. It's getting a little unwieldy, so I might remove items that other folks are wearing, then split things up over tabs into stuff like consumables, stuff we'll probably sell, and bigger ticket items.

Happy to hear ideas, too - it's tough to keep this stuff organized when we can't just sit at a table and talk through who has what!

Do you want help managing the sheet, Andrew? Happy to chip in and help if you want.

Perhaps we can split the worksheets into weapons, armor, wondrous items, alchemical items, and mundane items.

Then we can distribute as needed, moving claimed items used to a "worn/carried" worksheet and then moving sell items to a "sell" sheet. This should keep the incoming loot sheets a little more manageable.

Thoughts?

I'm fine continuing to work on it, but if you want to add stuff if you see I haven't, then sure!
I was more trying to think of a way to better organize stuff, which you've helpfully provided! I'll start swapping things to that format in the near future.

Also, this is the end of Book 1! We'll probably spend a few days on roleplay here to conclude this part of the adventure, and then I'll explain what happens before the next part.

A few important questions though! Is everybody having fun? Does everybody want to keep going? Is everybody happy with their character? (You're free to make minor tweaks, but if anyone wants to change to a totally new PC, in between books is probably the best time.)

I am having fun and happy to continue GMing!

Yay! Book 2. I assume level 4 as well, right?

I'm loving my character and all of the other characters. At some point I might want to phase out the level of rogue as Joli comes more fully into his shamanic power.

Definitely having fun.

I'd go into mourning if we didn't continue.

Yes, level 4!

Exciting! I’m loving the AP and my character and we’ve got such a fun group! I think I’m going to go more of a natural attack build with Cedar using his claws, as I feel he struggles to contribute once his summons arrive. But I don’t think I need to make any tweaks.

I’m glad you’re happy to continue as GM Kate!

Of course!

One thing I'd like to do is work on the town a bit. I think we should be helping the community prepare or respond to these threats. Maybe building some basic defense, or setting a watch, building a lighthouse, etc.

Another thing I want to do: Karl can also be quite beneficial to the farmers by aerating the soil and providing valuable nutrients for crops. (We should totally compost some goblins. It's the druid thing to do.)

Having fun! Want to keep going! Happy with my and other characters! Happy with the GM!

I really like this group, and this AP's full of cool stuff and good character moments :D

Levelup thoughts 'n vignettes:

I'm not quite sure which 2nd level spells to take, so some other input would help! I'm thinking:
Divination: locate object or see invisibility; I think the latter might get more consistent use?
Transmutation: enter image or knock; my main thought with enter image is to carve coins with Purpose Creche's face, or make little mini busts, then sprinkle them around town as a kind of "neighborhood watch" enabler. Also could throw 'em under doors or things if we're doing sneaky dungeon stuff. Knock scales well, but I dunno what locked stuff we'll come across.
@Kate: would I need a point in Craft (woodworking) to make realistic enough likenesses of my face?

Vignettes!

If you’re looking for an opinion on spells, I love the flavor of enter image and the use Purpose can put it to for the town. It’s such a fun and flavorful spell.

You can even make a collar for Karl with your image on it, and a necklace for silt when he shapeshifts to scout around and whatnot.

Anything spell that helps protect our minds is a good idea! Especially Toby’s. :-p

I don't have any mindshield options :( The occultist spell list is a weird one, you get so few choices but there are also so few consistently useful spells.

Purpose-faced Karl collar!!!!!!! Holy s### what an idea.

You'll have about six weeks until Book 2 starts (in-game!), so we'll talk about downtime activities for sure! I would like to resolve things with Rayland and Eliza before we get too deep into that though.

Knowing how this mind control works will have some impact on Joli’s downtime.

I'll save Purpose Creche's level-up vignette 'til after our (gentle!) interrogation, then.

That's fine, Joli, and we can have a little bit of a time loop without trouble, since I'm going to have the six weeks count as one chunk of downtime. There are also NPCs you could talk to.

How's everyone feeling about our current state of healing ability? Looking at my utility wild talent options for 4th level, I could take Kinetic Healer, which lets me heal folks an amount of damage equal to my blast at the cost of either me or the recipient taking a point of burn (1 NL damage/hit die that can't be healed until you sleep). Something to think about as we level up. My other options are watery disguise self, or watery grease, essentially.

I think we're probably fine on healing between items and Joli. Kinetic Healer always felt like a dissatisfying option to me, so that probably colors my opinion. Then again, I do recall a dearth of interesting elemental or universal utility talents in general at lower levels :-\

Silt will be able to heal some too by prepping spells when he levels up more and attains more versatility (also of note: druids get cure spells at a higher level than other classes; cure mod is level 3, cure serious 4, etc).

We discussed letting him spontaneously cast heal spells but I honestly think that's a big step up in power for a goliath druid and wanted to back off from that — especially with a 5th PC and others who can also chip in on heals.

Joli will probably never be a strong healer. I'm still considering whether I have him prep Life for his wandering spirit on a regular basis. It's cool but I think it'd be more interesting to tailor his choice to events and setting.

Bernie, do you want to do a scene where we try to talk to the dominating entity directly? Or do you just want to skip misinformation to Rayland and Eliza before the domination wears off? Cedar has a good bluff. He’s down to help.

Ooh! Could be like BOY I SURE HOPE NO ONE COMES THROUGH THE WELL AT NIGHT; WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH PEOPLE TO TAKE WATCH POSITIONS THAT AREN'T ON THE WALLS, AND THAT ROUTE WOULD REALLY TAKE US BY SURPRISE

except not that obvious! and then we wait to beat up bad dudes who come out of the well

I think we can play it by ear, but getting a bit on the same page. Happy to do the planning in character briefly. I'm not sure we want to provoke an attack before we have more information about the foe. :-p

We can go ahead and do that, if you’d like. It’s getting confusing to go back and forth.

Since it’s getting complicated and the scenes have moved on, maybe we just do a flashback in summary, rather than in a scene with dialogue and a lot of back and forth. If you’d like to summarize what you’d like to do Bernie, Cedar can assist with bluff checks. He has a +10 bluff, so he can auto aid, or take the lead. I see Joli only has a +6.

Sorry guys, I've had a lot of Kubla stuff to get done this week on to of too much gaming. I should have some time to chime in tomorrow, I'm hoping.

Either is fine, but let's pick one scene and do that, and then do the other!

Yeah, that’s why I suggested holding off a bit. I think the earlier interrogation will inform thee latter.

I don’t think you’ll get much of an interrogation out of either while they’re still dominated. Ramona’s pretty smart, so a psychic caster will be not only restrained but sedated, and you won’t get much conversation from Rayland. You can totally try to plant false information though!

Ah, well. I thought you might enjoy an opportunity to roleplay the sinister puppetmaster behind the scenes. Don't mean to belabor it.

I totally get the appeal of a Hannibal Lector scene, and I really don’t want to discourage people from fun ideas! I just don’t want to undercut the capability of the dominating entity in a way that leaves me plot issues later on.

All right, I feel like I shut down the game. Bernie, why don't you lay out Joli's misinformation attempt, and anyone who wants to can pitch in. We'll resolve that, then move back to Rayland's post-domination interrogation.

I don’t think you shut anything down! I was mostly just waiting on Rayland’s answer to then ask follow up questions:

Now

"I believe you, Rayland. But tell me, what did she want the colony to do? What plans did she have?" He says a prayer and a fine mist fills the room.

[dice=Sense Motive just because]d20 + 12

I didn't feel like it was shut down. Silt would like to ask a couple qustions (namely what did she let out and where is/was it).

Mostly, I am hesitant to jump in because Silt doesn't do these interrogations well and I didn't want to add to any of the meta-game confusion here with him being a weirdo and asking nonsense questions.

As an aside, we all know you are working on writing in addition to your full-time job — the time and care and attention put into GMing here in addition to all that other stuff is amazing & appreciated!

I trust you as a GM to push things along when you feel like it, or if it's best for the story.

Ditto all that! I've just been slow to post because I'm pooped from a long week. I think I have about 1/5 your stamina!

Sorry guys Andi got her vaccinations yesterday (3 shots in the legs!). She did great (I was traumatized) but she had a really fussy evening. It took 4 tries just to put her to bed.

Finally done entering Kubla games into their awful database (five fields to fill, three drop-downs and about ten clicks for each of the 130ish games on our schedule, with no good way to duplicate). I'll get Toby leveled and get something posted shortly.

That sounds horrible. Is anyone helping you!?

That sounds horrible. Is anyone helping you!?

Yeah. Al was kind enough to do all of the Warhorn data entry for me, and John and Wendy-Ann have been helping, too.