Discussion thread placeholder.
Alrighty, finally here we are!! I'm still wrapping up preparations. Since I really want this to go well and last, I want to make sure I am over-prepared rather than under.
Some housekeeping:
I went ahead and bought a PDF of the Pathfinder version because I didn't want to add in the extra effort of converting stuff. Below are the Campaign Traits from the Pathfinder version - at a glance, they appear the same but with little updates like dumping Gather Information, etc. I didn't check PCs to see what was used, but feel free to reference this and use it. If there is a significant difference with the old (and I'm not sure there is), and you prefer it, let me know and we will figure it out.
If you want to completely change traits, that's fine. Just let me know because they tie into how things start.
Pathfinder Campaign Traits
- Hungry for Revenge: +1 damage with melee attack vs flat-footed
- Reformed Criminal: +1 Diplomacy and is class skill
- Addicted Friend: +1 Knowledge (local) and is class skill
- Personal Addiction: +1 Fortitude saves
- Dropout: +1 Spellcraft and is class skill
- Family Honor: +1 Bluff and is class skill
- All Alone: +1 Intimidate and is class skill
- Orphaned: +1 Survival and is class skill
- Missing Sibling: +1 Sense Motive and is class skill
- Missing Son or Daughter: +1 Will saves
- Religious: +2 Concentration and Con checks to stabilize
- Tortured: +1 Reflex saves
Feat Taxes - We will stick with DM Waz Up's creation guidelines with this.
Group Initiative - Everyone rolls initiative, then I average them and compare them against NPC/Monster average initiative. Then either ALL players go first then all enemies or vice versa. Face to face, I like the back and forth, but PbP I think goes smoother with all PCs going as a group and then all GM-controlled rather than waiting.
The old schooler in me likes the "ok, everyone roll for initiative" feeling to switch over to combat mindset, but depending on how this goes, I might wind up doing DM rolled initiative to speed things up. At the very least, I will have initiative calls typically be a "Push Post" (see below) needing a response in 24 hours or I will roll for you.
I'm not going to be a strict "1 post per day" or anything like that since I'm even bad at it sometimes. However, losing momentum seems to be one of the top PbP killers. So, if you get busy and can't post for a few days or whatever, no hard feelings as long as you have no hard feelings if I bot you some if necessary. It happens, no worries at all.
"Me too", "I agree", "I follow along", etc. ARE useful responses. In normal messageboard conversations, I really dislike "me too" (almost as much as "meh", but that's another issue). :) However, in PbP, it is easy to think that if you have nothing to add, there's not much point in posting - but then everyone else is waiting to see if you have anything to add. I've been guilty of it, too. So, please, if you agree with the course of action or whatever, go ahead and post a quick message that you agree, even if it's only 2 or 3 words. Better to know you are on board than to lose momentum waiting.
Push Posts - In another PbP game I'm in, the GM sometimes used posts that he clearly labeled "Push Posts" as important ones that need everyone to respond within 24 hours (or your response is botted). What do people think about that? I don't want to create pressure to post, but I have to admit that it was one of the smoother running PbP games I have been in and the first to actually finish an adventure (even if it was a short one)! So I wanted to try it, both to keep player momentum, but also to force myself to not slip and procrastinate.
My posting rate drops over weekends, so if it was a Friday, it would actually be a 72 hour Push Post until Monday. Also same with major U.S. holidays (and if any of you are non-U.S., I'm fine with your holidays, too, I'm just an ignorant American and probably don't know them). ;)
Obviously the real action will be here. However, this being a big, complicated adventure path, I thought some extras might be handy.
Roll20
As I briefly mentioned in the original recruitment, I want to use Roll20 for combat a lot of the time. No particular times, just log in when you can and check the map and/or move your character. You *should* be able to control your character (if I get it set up right, my first time DMing in Roll20). I am just more familiar with it and find it easier than Google Slides or quick sketches. For simple combats, I won't necessarily use it, but for some more complex ones and exploration, I think it would be handy.
There is nothing there at the moment, but this should be the Roll20 campaign for us. I will get the character images uploaded and the first map up sometime this weekend.
Obsidian Portal
Also, since it is such a long adventure but with the benefit of being largely in one city, I thought it would be useful to create an Obsidian Portal site for the campaign. This is 100% optional, but especially given the pace of PbP, it's easy to forget who that NPC was or the name of that district, etc. Right now I have most of the flavor stuff from the Player's Guide entered in. I will keep adding more as we go, hopefully even (brief) adventure summaries. If you don't want to reference it, that's fine. If you want to be all gung ho and add your own summaries or in-character journal, awesome, just let me know! This is as much for my benefit as yours in keeping track of everything since it's a lot for me to remember!
Currently it is set to public, but I will be turning it to private in a week since it will include a lot of cut-n-paste Paizo content and I don't want to give their stuff away publicly for free. (I like Paizo too much, they work hard for our entertainment.)
I think that covers what I can think of right now, although I'm sure I forgot something. Feel free to ask questions, chat, dot the gameplay thread, whatever. I have a couple more things I need to finish up, but my goal is getting things moving August 1. *crosses fingers*
Welcome!!
P.S. Also, it should go without saying, but I will say it anyway - we are here to have fun and thwart bad guys. So be kind to fellow players, and focus your attacks and viciousness at the enemies. The more you try to help others have fun, the more fun it will be for everyone. Thanks!
You can find an updated player's guide Here
Greetings! I'm here to be a semi-competent warrior for the team. :D
Dot, will read housekeeping above and edit my submission as necessary later on tonight. Thanks again GM Ken, been trying to play this AP for some time!
Greetings, working on the alias
And done
CyberMephit here with the crunch, I have the main background points in my head and will add them to the profile tomorrow. Thanks for having me!
FYI - Heard back from one more that they are still interested, so since we haven't started yet, Bellis Aleste will be joining us! That means 2 alchemists, but I think both of you are going in somewhat different directions, and it's always interesting to see what different areas of a class people focus on.
Still wrapping up my prep, but I should have more to say tomorrow.
Thanks for the patience!
Hello, everybody!
Hello, everyone! A couple bits of business and we can get started pretty soon.
1) Pick (or roll) a number between 1 and 9. Just make sure it's a number someone else hasn’t picked yet.
2) It might not really come up, but with a lot of the campaign based in a single city, I'd like to integrate the characters as much as possible. Having a particular home, whether you have a business other than adventuring, other family/friends in the city, etc. Might be fun to ground things a little more.
So, for one thing, it's optional, but I'm curious where your character lives. For example, do they still live with family? Are they on their own? Do they rent an apartment or studio, own an apartment or house? Live in an orphanage or in a mansion? Homeless living on the street? New arrival/return and temporarily renting a room at an inn? Are you wealthy? Poor? In between? Just general vague ideas are fine, but specifics are fine, too. :)
If you have other details like family or friends in the city or how you currently make a living, I'd love to work some of that in, as well. But at the very least, it could be useful to get a feel for where people currently live even if it might change.
Thanks!
2. Is in Samantha's fluff
8
In the background, an apartment in Old Town.
1)
2) As listed on her character page, Bellis lives in Magnimar with five siblings(one a twin sister). She was here mostly on business at first, until it became personal.
Vedika's family has a modest home in Korvosa, though she rarely remains home these days.
Wenzeslaus is a recent arrival, currently squatting in a modest house in escrow, that was previously occupied by the framed and exiled Brother of the Esoteric Order. He has some measure of funds supplied by the Order but it's not much, so more on the poorer side. He makes clockwork toys and sells them to local curio and toy shops for a small side profit, as his search for Lamm takes longer than expected and he started to fear that his allowance will run out.
Rarin' to go!
Me too!
Me too! ;)
Thanks for the patience, first post will be up tomorrow morning (or later this evening if time cooperates).
First gameplay is UP!!
Let's do this! :)
I'll post tomorrow! Looking forward to this one! :-)
Wow, totally crap rolls throughout. Let's hope that it's out of my system now.
I'll post tomorrow morning before I head to work, my brain is just fried right now...
...and the string of single digits continues.
...and the string of single digits continues.
Yowza! I guess just think about it as balancing your future luck. :)
...and the string of single digits continues.
I appear to be stealing all of your good fortune! Of course, if you'd seen some of the atrocious rolls this Avatar has had in prior incarnations I'd just call it the universe righting itself again...
Oh man that was an intense shift, pretty cool!
Thanks! With the adventure as written this reveal was supposed to be later, but with how well you all were playing it, it seemed to work even better here. As usual, unexpected stuff from players makes an even more interesting story. :)
Sorry, gang, I didn't quite get my post ready in time before work but will get an update posted by Monday morning. In the meantime, here's homework for you all so that we can jump into the next part quickly:
1) Think about what you want to do before heading to the Old Fishery that Gaedren Lamm is at (assuming you actually want to follow that lead, of course). Do you want to go straight there? Any preparations, planning, or research first? Go during the day or at night? (It's just after sunset now, fyi.) Feel free to discuss with each other if you like or just be ready when we transition Monday.
2) If you don't already have one, please sign up for an account at Roll20.net and PM me the email address you used so that I can add you to the game. I find using maps on there to be easier especially if combat gets complex. If you could do that by Tuesday or so, that'd be great.
Thank you!
Samantha would prepare her extracts, otherwise she is ready to go.
Doing DM updates tonight, I'll get to this tomorrow GM Ken!
Hey all, I'm going to be tied up this week preparing for GenCon. I'm running two PFS scenarios throughout the con and I haven't really looked them over yet. I'll be running Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM and from 2:00 PM to 7:00 PM all three days.
Feel free to stop by and say hello, if you're free .
Hope to see you there.
Mike
I'll get an update in I/C tomorrow.
I was wondering if Gen Con or other summer travels pulled in others. :)
Remember to get me your Roll20 logins! A couple of you did and I’ll get you access soon.
To give Nicolai a chance to get back, as well as the fact that I’m traveling the next few days, go ahead and talk amongst yourselves getting acquainted and making preparations. I will have intermittent access, so can answer questions. Otherwise, I want to know what your plan is and what preparations you have made by Tuesday night and I will pick things up Wednesday.
Thanks!
I'm in the path of the hurricane, so I could be out for a few days or more after tomorrow, depending on a bunch of factors.
I'm in the path of the hurricane, so I could be out for a few days or more after tomorrow, depending on a bunch of factors.
Yikes! Be safe!
To the rest of you, I had hoped for an update today, but my brain is still jelly from an insane amount of driving and not getting home until 2am, then still needing to get up to work a full day. Blarg! Will get things rolling in the morning.
At least you are safe so that's good news!
[dice=Perception]1d20+4
Wenzeslaus winces as he tries to peer into the pitch black darkness inside. He decides to stand outside for now, touching the little alchemist's shoulder instead. "May the Eye guide you in the darkness", he mutters quietly.
He then gets his crossbow ready.
[dice=Init]1d20+1
What's the big idea stealing my rolls?
Hey everyone, just wanted to apologize for not being very active for the past couple of days. I've been busy with things at work trying to get ready for an upcoming work convention in Las Vegas next week.
I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon and won't be back until Friday night. I'll try to keep up with things as best as I can but during the day I'm going to be in the convention center and at night,...well it's Vegas.
Go ahead and bot me if you need to and try not to get Nicolai killed.
Hey everyone, just wanted to apologize for not being very active for the past couple of days. I've been busy with things at work trying to get ready for an upcoming work convention in Las Vegas next week.
I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon and won't be back until Friday night. I'll try to keep up with things as best as I can but during the day I'm going to be in the convention center and at night,...well it's Vegas.
Go ahead and bot me if you need to and try not to get Nicolai killed.
Thanks for the heads up! I got buried a bit between work and some computer issues, but I should be able to update on Sunday and hopefully get through a couple rounds this week.
Safe travels and have fun in Vegas! (Well, not TOO much fun.) ;)
My Father in Law passed away quietly at his home Wednesday afternoon. I appreciate everyone's patience and understanding during these trying times. I will be out of town from today until Wednesday attending the services and other personal matters, please 'bot me if there is anything that needs to be done.
Thank you all,
Mike.
Sorry to hear that :-(
My condolences, man.
My condolences as well. Take care and be with your family.
We kind of hit a lull with planning anyway. So how about the remaining PCs discuss and make decision on a plan by Monday or Tuesday. Then I'll post a response on Wednesday to get rolling with this next bit.
Nicolai, jump back in whenever you can. Take what time you need.
Sorry, I’ve been sick and I PMed Wenzeslaus since we haven’t heard from him in a while. But no word yet, so I’ll bot him and should be feeling better enough to get this moving tonight or early tomorrow morning at the latest.
Ooo, hope you're back to full strength soon!
Wanting to wish all of our American players a Happy, and safe, Thanksgiving.
Wishing You and Yours Peace, Love, and Joy this Holiday season and throughout the year to come.
Mike.
Sorry I had to emergency fill in for teaching a couple classes after another professor had a sudden conflict. So prep over the holidays and beginning of the term kicked my butt hard. But I should have things all set and running smoother in the next day or two and will definitely get back to this. Sorry for not posting earlier and leaving you all hanging. Even if I have occasional lags, I won't ditch you all (unless hit by a bus or something, of course, but let's hope not.)
So in the next day or two I will get things going again. Thanks!
Thanks for the update!