GM Kiora's Wrath of the Righteous

Game Master Kiora Atua

I thought 'Maria just got ganked' when we went down to the water, and she was gone. I was expecting to come back and find her dead there.

I was also expecting what we found in the box.

I did not at all suspect them to be so linked.

I suspected she'd been a ghost from the beginning when she didn't follow us down to Gaedren's lair, and was certain of it when the bandages showed up. I figured that she'd died when she went off earlier, and what came back was a ghost, but obviously she died *long* before that if she's in an advanced state of decay :)

But definitely didn't expect a head, not at all

It was super spooky! I loved it :) Great horror.

Makes me glad Sigrid is unconscious. She's been through enough without having to also see a rotting severed head D:

Alright, first of the ideas: Don't make it about the mass battles. Battles are won and lost on morale moreso than anything. Wars are won on supply lines and resources, certainly... but battles are about morale.

So, the ideal way to do it, is to focus on the morale. If you put specific people in charge on both sides, and focus on taking down -their- leaders, while keeping yours safe, you simulate this pretty well. Like... if you take out the Demon King Azavabel, and he's in charge of 200 quasits, taking him out dumps their morale and allows your crusaders to win there.

Then it becomes more about strategically taking out the largest threats first, with normal pathfinder combat rules to do so. So the mass battle is a minigame rather than the main thing.

Yeah, that's basically what I was saying.

I intend to run the mass combat during a normal pathfinder combat - so that the heroes will be taking care of the Big Bad(s) while also shouting out commands and things.

But I also do care about quantifying losses. You do not have unlimited men to fight in the army, so it should be a resource. So fights will not just boil down to whether or not the opposing generals die. The PCs should also have to make tactical decisions as to the placement/actions of the army also.

Re: Maria: Actually... if you sneaky-snuck into my spoilers when I was talking to Markus, the idea was that Ila's mother had confronted Gaedren over the ring, and push came to shove. Ila wasn't even asked to identify the body... she just found out from the people she worked with. Consumed by grief, she performed a ritual, merging her mother's theorems on resurrections with her father's ritual for binding a familiar... and it worked.

Then, I found spiritualist (or one of you suggested it!) and I fell in love.

Now, here's the spooky thing. Markus threw me a curve ball. He suggested we change up the story a bit. But... most of the story was the same, in the end. The only difference was... Ila didn't know until now.

Re: Mass Combat: I agree with that. Like I said, the battle isn't about the resources, but the war is. I'd probably place neat NPCs in charge of various groups, which would allow you to qaulify the quantities lost, by giving them a real face that was gone for good when they lost them. That character is gone. They won't be providing benefits, sleepovers, or hot cocoa anymore. Also... their children are now orphans. -but-... without the PCs, these other six guys would be dead. Also the woman. And her daughter.

Personally I'd enjoy the strategic aspect of the mass combat system. Too abstracted would definitely take some of the planning and clever tactics you could pull to try and get the most out of your units. And definitely need to quantify losses then for that to work.

I'd probably still recommend a base set of actions that the characters could do to aid things, but then reward them for being clever as well. Can give them an idea of the sorts of things they could try to do to make a difference for if they have trouble coming up with something right off the bat.

I think if I gave all 6 of you the opportunity to buff combat every round in a mass combat battle, it'd be too powerful.

So, I will probably limit it somehow. Maybe 2 per round or something.

But I do intend to reward creativity. And of course, for spending your resources ;)

It seems like your average mass combat only lasts a few rounds anyway so.

EDIT: Also, that would help reflect that you are all good at different things, and therefore are better at certain points in the battle.

Like Ehren would probably be more useful after combat, triaging healing.

Isilme would be more useful bolstering morale at the beginning of combat.

Valaria more useful in the thick of it.

Etc. To use your PCs :P

I don't know exactly how the battle will work, so I'm not certain if the heroes will accompany one army, or multiple armies.

If there were multiple armies available, concentrating all the group's power in one spot should be a significant advantage, but on the other hand that leaves a lot of other armies without any kind of support. On the other hand, if they're all accompanying one group, then it's probably better to limit what they can do, since the battle isn't balanced based on the expectation that multiple armies will be getting benefits at crucial points in the battle.

I definitely like that each person would contribute uniquely, and some things might be useful for fighting specific enemy types.

Out of curiosity, would mythic augmented sleep knock out entire armies? :o

I think I would take that spell just for the shot to use the super-sleep variant once in WotR :)

Mythic Baleful Polymorph! :p

Well, they'd get a save at it :o but sure!

You guys aren't super badass now, but I do intend for much later to have some... more abstract... mass combat fights where I try to see what kind of AoE damage/effects you guys can pull off.

Just cause that seems mythic :o

But that's much later!

Anyway, you'll get 1 army "unit" that you're explicitly in charge of.

Ary would be so amazing... if she had a larger range on her reroll. 'So, yeah. You're basically screwed by fate itself in this one.' :)

Yeesh, hadn't seen that Baleful polymorph had a 1 mile 8-HD augmented version. 4 MP, but good lord.

Night y'all!

On that note...

I'm following Isilme off to bed. :)

I remember when that came out, my friends were linking it back and forth for a while. I don't think anyone ever used it in a conversationt though :p

Hell, I still quote things all the time. I don't think that's a teenager-only thing ;)

On the very tangentially related subject of "silly things people do", I totally forgot to mention a story about the last F2F game I had. There's a point in Carrion Crown where you fight a pair of re-animated hands. My group got to them, and the cleric got attacked by them. The cleric got grappled, and then escaped, and at that point one of the guys told him "It looks like you finally got the upper hand!". From there forward it was something like 20 minutes of non-stop hand and grab puns: "I've gotta hand it to you", "I think I've got a good grasp on the situation" and so on. I wish I could remember more of them, it was pretty hilarious :)

In relation to 'don't just want a ton of rolls and comparing them to tables:

That's pretty much what it is. It's the DM and whoever is leading the army. If you know how to handle the battles they can be done quickly and then you can get back to the group adventures. Until you get to the city it's a quick mass battle then back to the small group. Even at the city we got the mass battles done quickly. What took the longest was planning the battles. Where do we go first, which direction do we approach from. It's quickest for the leader to know what he wants to do and then just do it. Some of those final battles the paladin army destroyed the demon army in one round. You could maybe suggest that the mass battles are handled during the week before through email or skype and then the DM could do a description of what happened. Otherwise it's one on one DM/Leader during the battles.

Actually I do want a ton of rolls and tables, but if its unfun or tedious I don't want to go through the effort. This whole game can be boiled down to rolling dice and looking at tables, most of the time :P

But I like that. ...It appeals to my personality, I guess.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback. Sounds like the DM had a poor experience. I'd say I'd rather just NOT do mass battles if the feeling is "do it quickly and then get back to the adventure" or "do it through email" (which is like the worst idea ever, why would I want to exclude 5 PCs from decisions that affect them?). The mass combat IS the adventure, it shouldn't be just an excursion. "In character", you're dealing with the lives of hundreds of living, breathing soldiers. The decisions you make with their lives should not be taken lightly.

But I also already knew setting out that I wouldn't run them straight RAW. Kind of like how I wasn't touching the Mythic ruleset if I had to run it straight RAW.

My primary concern was that- that the mass combat system as written, too much emphasis is placed on the commander. Ideally, the whole group comes up with a plan of action, and the commander simply executes it (so they roll the dice). But I know, just from personal experience of working in a variety of team-based settings, many people when given the opportunity to shove responsibility onto one person will simply let that one person deal with everything while they themselves tune the situation out. I do NOT think this would happen with you guys, you all tend to be very involved in what goes on, but my f2f table is a different group of people.

I will also be cranking the difficulty up so that failure is possible. The entire second book of the campaign is actually horribly under-tuned in general. I'm pretty sure an optimized, non-mythic party could handle it fine, let alone mythic heroes with lots of boons and buffs. So I'll be altering the battles and army statblocks the same way I alter statblocks and environments in regular encounters.

But I mean, you've played at my table for a few months now. The rules aren't the word of god, not for me, they're just guidelines to help resolve how a scene plays out. The AP isn't the word of god, it's just some nice suggestions as to how to run the setting.

Anyway, I think I've resolved myself to straight up re-writing the entire mass combat rules document myself using the paizo rules as a base-line and tweaks from 3pp/message boards/my brain here and there.

I will also be cranking the difficulty up so that failure is possible. The entire second book of the campaign is actually horribly under-tuned in general. I'm pretty sure an optimized, non-mythic party could handle it fine, let alone mythic heroes with lots of boons and buffs. So I'll be altering the battles and army statblocks the same way I alter statblocks and environments in regular encounters.

But I mean, you've played at my table for a few months now. The rules aren't the word of god, not for me, they're just guidelines to help resolve how a scene plays out. The AP isn't the word of god, it's just some nice suggestions as to how to run the setting.

I'm sure you've been on them at least a bit, but James Jacobs had some very interesting things to say on this very topic on the Wrath boards. Several players pointed out how absurdly easy some parts of the AP are and James clarified that the expected party is 4 players, 15-point buy, and 'moderately experienced'. And he finally explained that Paizo's idea of 'moderately experienced' is a group that's played together for six months or so and has done 1 campaign in that time. Meaning the average Paizo message board user is likely more experienced than Paizo expects the players of their APs to be.

Do share as you go, I'd like to see how it comes together (assuming absence of spoilers), and I'm always happy to offer opinions/suggestions on it (probably too happy to offer opinions sometimes :P)

I enjoy cooking stuff up though, which should be painfully obvious if you've had a look at that last google docs link I sent ya ;)

Val: I didn't realize their idea of an average party had a system mastery that low. Six months to a year isn't all too many games. For my oldest F2F group that might be a dozen sessions during the summer, half that during the winter.

Yeah, I'm aware, but I still have to disagree that WotR in particular is even balanced for 4 mythic players, 15-point-buy, 'moderately experienced'. The mythic rules, as written, have deep flaws - and most of them have to do with the core path abilities and other CORE parts of the ruleset... so experience doesn't even play a role when you have hardcore broken stuff like Wild Arcana as default options.

But that's not so much an issue with the writers of WoTR as it is with the writers of Mythic Adventures.

For other APs, I think they're balanced appropriately for the kind of "normal" Pathfinder audience Paizo expects to sell books to. I think it's silly when I see threads pop up about how underpowered APs are... there's too much variability in this game for a one-size-fits-all approach to ever work out. That's where the GM comes in, imo.

Yup. Average system mastery is roughly having done 1 full, but not overly long, campaign before. Kind of makes a lot more sense why experienced players find APs easy as written. To say nothing of how mythic changes the game. That just kicks balance out the window if not handled properly.

That being said, I feel the need to chime in and thank Kioralady for putting so much work into actually making this challenging for us. This last encounter has actually felt more hectic that some F2F games I've played in. And the fact that it's been stretched out over days just makes it crazier that you pulled that off so well.

And I'm very glad that you're one of the GMs that's willing to make the changes to an AP to make it an actual challenge for your players. I think the complaints come from too many people not considering that changing the AP is a viable option, so they complain that it's not hard enough as written without taking the time to make the adjustments and raise the difficulty themselves.

I think starting with a lower tuning really makes sense from a "people starting to play" standpoint. If you handed a campaign balanced for our group here to a bunch of players who'd not played before, they'd probably have all died horribly. The AP should be able to be picked up by a new GM and played by new players without having to tweak too many nobs.

It would be really interesting if they released a book that walked through tweaking a couple of the AP's for harder difficulties, discussing tricks for balancing encounters, adjusting challenges to account for group strengths/weaknesses and so forth. Running Carrion Crown for two separate groups recently taught me a lot about adjusting things for a party, but it would've been nice to know that before hand, as one of the two parties suffered pretty badly because they had no clerics/paladins/inquisitors, and the first book is pretty much balanced around the assumption they'll have one.

It's interesting, because the clericless group had higher system mastery on average, but also just wanted to play whatever concepts they found interesting. The other group had lower pathfinder system mastery, but is very much a hack-and-slash group, and chose their classes based on filling out traditional party roles. The latter group breezed through it, while the former was nearly wiping on encounter after encounter.

Edit: For fun, here are the groups I GM'd for:

Group 1:
Human Wizard
Half-Orc Menhir Savant Druid
Dhampir Gunslinger
Halfling Monk

Group 2:
Human Cleric
Human Inquisitor
Human Fighter/Magic-user (hybrid I built for one of my players who just wants a 2E fighter/magic-user instead of anything like a magus. I *really* tried to talk him into a magus, but he was totally uninterested in having any class features besides 'hit it with a sword' and 'cast a spell at it')
Dwarf Slayer

Do share as you go, I'd like to see how it comes together (assuming absence of spoilers), and I'm always happy to offer opinions/suggestions on it (probably too happy to offer opinions sometimes :P)

Yeah, absolutely ;)

We won't be getting into it this weekend - they still have the last fights of the interim material to run through - but next weekend we'll probably start. I'll probably have at least 1 "easy" fight with no opposing BBEG (so the combat will be only mass combat) to introduce the ruleset, then dive in.

Yup. Average system mastery is roughly having done 1 full, but not overly long, campaign before. Kind of makes a lot more sense why experienced players find APs easy as written. To say nothing of how mythic changes the game. That just kicks balance out the window if not handled properly.

That being said, I feel the need to chime in and thank Kioralady for putting so much work into actually making this challenging for us. This last encounter has actually felt more hectic that some F2F games I've played in. And the fact that it's been stretched out over days just makes it crazier that you pulled that off so well.

And I'm very glad that you're one of the GMs that's willing to make the changes to an AP to make it an actual challenge for your players. I think the complaints come from too many people not considering that changing the AP is a viable option, so they complain that it's not hard enough as written without taking the time to make the adjustments and raise the difficulty themselves.

Aw, thanks! I try. I've been pretty happy with the encounters in both games, though, I'm always tweaking. I usually don't have an encounter totally finalized until you guys are riiiight there.

I have sympathy for the frustrated GMs though. I think the big appeal of APs is the idea that you can run a campaign with little prep-work. And if you run the APs just as they come, this is true.

So... buying the campaign expecting it to work out of the box with no work, and then finding it DOESNT work for your group and you're gonna have to do a bunch of work and spend a bunch of time (that you were trying to avoid)... I get it! That sucks.

But unfortunately to run a fun, balanced, customized game there's still a lot of GM work involved. But maybe that's just me.

It would be really interesting if they released a book that walked through tweaking a couple of the AP's for harder difficulties, discussing tricks for balancing encounters, adjusting challenges to account for group strengths/weaknesses and so forth. Running Carrion Crown for two separate groups recently taught me a lot about adjusting things for a party, but it would've been nice to know that before hand, as one of the two parties suffered pretty badly because they had no clerics/paladins/inquisitors, and the first book is pretty much balanced around the assumption they'll have one.

Someone suggested this too and James liked the idea, but mentioned that they don't have a lot of time for something like that. I still hold out hope that it happens though. It would be an excellent DM tool and something I'd happily hand out to a GM that's starting to get more experienced and needs the help tweaking difficulty.

And good lord Carrion Crown. With a cleric/paladin/inquisitor, it's not too bad. Without it... good luck. Mediums could actually be really good too, come to think of it, since I believe they can disable haunts too.

So... buying the campaign expecting it to work out of the box with no work, and then finding it DOESNT work for your group and you're gonna have to do a bunch of work and spend a bunch of time (that you were trying to avoid)... I get it! That sucks.

But unfortunately to run a fun, balanced, customized game there's still a lot of GM work involved. But maybe that's just me.

Yeah, I understand that feeling. I run APs for mostly the same reason, but I have enough free time that I don't mind making some alterations, so I think I have a little bit of a biased perspective. That and I'm more interesting in using the AP's story than exact mechanics most of the time.

Someone suggested this too and James liked the idea, but mentioned that they don't have a lot of time for something like that. I still hold out hope that it happens though. It would be an excellent DM tool and something I'd happily hand out to a GM that's starting to get more experienced and needs the help tweaking difficulty.

And good lord Carrion Crown. With a cleric/paladin/inquisitor, it's not too bad. Without it... good luck. Mediums could actually be really good too, come to think of it, since I believe they can disable haunts too.

Sounds like a good candidate for some 3PP company to crank out then. I'm a whole lot more open to 3pp now than I was six months ago :)

And, yeah, I ended up allowing holy water to do quite a bit of the heavy lifting for the first group (applied the same changes to the second group too, but they really didn't need it). Group one *really* didn't like using consumables though. I think they thought that if you have to use consumables to get through something, you're doing it wrong.

I also made changes to make the pace of the first book more exciting. As written, the big bad stuff that happens if you drag your feet is almost impossible to have happen unless your group just decides to go on vacation for a month. On a much shorter timeline the consequences for failure become a real motivation once they figure out what's going on.

Edit: Some day I might try running it on PBP. I really wanted to flesh out the town more and have good NPC's, but I'm not sure I did a great job. I made maps for all the buildings in town, and tokens for all of them dammit, and *NEITHER* group even went shopping ONCE. I think they both stopped by the temple and that was it.

At the risk of triggering yet another spin off campaign, I would totally play a Carrion Crown game if you DMed it. Or anyone really. Carrion Crown has always been a pretty cool AP in my opinion, but until I got into PBP, I never really was a player in most APs.

Pity they didn't take the chance to get into the town. Ustlav is so cool, with all the grim gothic feelings.

Alrighty. :) I can understand wanting it to be a big deal.

Also, I tend to avoid decision making as a player. I'll voice my opinion, but I rarely become 'bossy'. So, when it came to mass combat, I'd probably leave a lot of it on other players.

I think Mass combat is one of those things that would typically almost need to be a one-person thing on forums. It might be less bad for our group, but our discussion page is going to explode while we determine what to do.

I'd play just about anything with you guys. I do have a hard time with evil, though, so I'd likely have issues with way of the wicked.

On that note, why is every Shackles game on here pretty much automated to be evil? I think I've seen one chaotic neutral party, and every other one has been pretty well evil. Is the AP set up such that you -could- be focusing on being the 'good pirates'?

@Isilme

I mean, Paizo was basically a 3pp publisher for D&D right? So I try to give other little publishers their fair shake. Ultimately, I've found that Paizo is about as likely to make a balancing gaffe as a reputable 3pp writer is, so no matter what the GM should carefully read whatever they allow into their campaign.

If you run APs, I cannot recommend Legendary Games enough. They publish auxillary material for specific APs -including Carrion Crown! - thats basically just enemy stat blocks, NPCs, magic items, thematic player options...

They also made the fantastic Mythic Heroes' Handbook that I shared with you guys :) I love it so much I have a hard copy!

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As far as pacing goes, that's a big area where I tweak. For example the writer of the AP says that the PCs should get several attempts at the Grey Garrison over several days! For one, it's not difficult enough to warrant that kind of safety net. For two, that totally kills the drama!

But as we've discussed before, I am very conscious about how time flows, and how it can be leveraged as a resource.

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And I know how it feels to flesh out a bunch of NPCs and not have the PCs bite. If I didn't have you guys, I might have gotten frustrated enough with my f2f group and how they handled the WotR NPCs to straight up drop the campaign. I'm serious.

if you can't tell, I've put a lot of work into them... at least the important ones :P

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Also, I'm afraid I don't have time to pick up any more PBP right now! My life is really, really busy right now. You guys probably can't tell because I spoil you with my awesome presence. But it is true.

I think I'm working something like 65 hrs this week? And I had sunday and monday off.

I can tell. :) The campaign has slowed a bit as a result. That's not a bad thing! If the game were running at full speed, I think I'd be bashing my head against a wall to keep up, this last week. :)

I can also tell cause you've said so, though. :p

I could not do thirteen hour days. At least not with this job. I get home with numb legs after the eight hour shifts.

I'd play just about anything with you guys. I do have a hard time with evil, though, so I'd likely have issues with way of the wicked.

On that note, why is every Shackles game on here pretty much automated to be evil? I think I've seen one chaotic neutral party, and every other one has been pretty well evil. Is the AP set up such that you -could- be focusing on being the 'good pirates'?

I don't really have that problem with evil characters, but I know what you mean with Skulls and Shackles. I GMed the entire AP for my sister once and the party was almost entirely CG or CN and they were more like freedom loving privateers than actual pirates, while still having a ton of fun on the AP. Maybe it's just the attitude on the forums. Since the AP is very hard to be lawful in, they just assume that it also means it's a great time to be evil.

At the risk of triggering yet another spin off campaign, I would totally play a Carrion Crown game if you DMed it. Or anyone really. Carrion Crown has always been a pretty cool AP in my opinion, but until I got into PBP, I never really was a player in most APs.

Pity they didn't take the chance to get into the town. Ustlav is so cool, with all the grim gothic feelings.

Also, I'm afraid I don't have time to pick up any more PBP right now! My life is really, really busy right now. You guys probably can't tell because I spoil you with my awesome presence. But it is true.

I think I'm working something like 65 hrs this week? And I had sunday and monday off.

It's alright, I'm totally at my limit as well. I want to play with y'all, and I don't want to dilute the creative aspect I've been putting into Isilme. On top of that I'll probably be entering the 60+ hour phase of my new job here come November, and probably it will last at least six months before I'm settled in comfortably. Also, I may have no internet access from work because reasons :o

That said, when we finish one of the campaigns, or we all suddenly decide we have lots of free time and want another one, I would absolutely love to run Carrion Crown for you all. I hope when the time comes that I'll be half the GM Kiora is ;)

On-topic: I didn't get very far in Book 1 of Skulls and Shackles. That one could really use some modification for PbP. Pretty sure the party I was in would have been evil, at any rate. I do wonder whether it's possible to go all One Piece in the game. I'm not a huge fan of the pirate aesthetic, but with the right group it could be fun.

Isn't Hell's Revenge supposed to be an evil AP? Paizo's first, if I'm not wrong.

Off-topic: How starlit summonings look.

Pretty much all of the people you fight in Skulls are evil, despotic, murderous pirate warlords or pirate hunters. It's much easier to be neutral or good than most people think. It's also much easier to be evil than usual in an AP so... yeah.

And yes! Hell's Vengeance is supposed to be evil. You work for House Thrune I think.

I've not watched one piece. Pirates is also an aesthetic I'm not huge on. But ship travel and adventuring and such? Heck yes.

Bonus points if I get to be a stormy aasimar merfolk. :3

I was gonna run S&S instead of WotR actually, initially. I just picked it, because I am big on pirates - so mashing traditional fantasy stuff (elves and magic and s~@$) with pirates sounds awesome to me!

But then after realizing RotRL took up a year to run, I decided I didn't wanna just go pick how my players were going to spend their next year gaming-wise. I'd rather have them vote. So I made a document with all of the paizo APs on it (and some 3pp ones) with little two sentence descriptions to give an idea of the flavor, and they voted WotR.

Anyway on the subject of its evilness, from what I've read you can definitely be a good guy team... just not lawful.

I would definitely force my players to decide what kind of "flavor" of pirates they were going for BEFORE rolling characters though, if I ran it.

S&S was the first PBP game I got into on the boards here. I've always loved the "adventure on the high-seas" aspect, probably because it captures something that exists in Sci-Fi that's missing in most fantasy campaigns.

As far as pirates go, I had a game on my console back when I was younger called Pirates! (and later on the computer). I absolutely loved that game. You'd go around capturing ships, tracking down famous pirates and dueling them, building a small pirate armada, and eventually you could try crazy things like attacking the Spanish Treasure Fleet or raiding a major town for plunder. After a while you'd divide booty with your crew, and then you could pick up a new crew and keep going. You could even become a privateer for various nations, and get land and titles for appropriately harassing their enemies. My entire love of pirates comes from that game, and, of course, The Pirates of Penzance

Pirates of Penzance <-- The movie to watch if you've never had the pleasure :o

I am Pirate King, 'cause I can't resist :p

Ehren

Summoning magic is interesting in that it isn't targeted, so it works by line of effect rules. If you're interested, the rules are here:

Line of Effect: A line of effect is a straight, unblocked path that indicates what a spell can affect. A line of effect is canceled by a solid barrier. It's like line of sight for ranged weapons, except that it's not blocked by fog, darkness, and other factors that limit normal sight.

You must have a clear line of effect to any target that you cast a spell on or to any space in which you wish to create an effect. You must have a clear line of effect to the point of origin of any spell you cast.

Summoning: A summoning spell instantly brings a creature or object to a place you designate.

So, that means that Ehren can totally summon the badger anywhere within his spell range, without seeing where - he only needs to be able to "designate" where, and there cannot be any solid barriers in his way. So you can summon blind, as long as you have an idea of what you're trying to do. Aravashnial, for example, was able to summon creatures this way. He did so by designating things like "I summon the archon near the ceiling, in range of the cultists" without actually needing to see where the archon goes.

So with that in mind, I gave you a token on the map. Place him where you want :)

I'd want to run S&S like Firefly! We only care about FREEDOM and taking enough jobs to keep us afloat.

I kind of feel like some of the subplots about taking over the Shackles detract from the plot, though the bit about Thrune navies definitely do not.

Pirates of Penzance is very fun, as was the game Pirates!

I'm very glad y'all enjoyed that plot twist. I was giddy with excitement posting about it.

I'm very glad y'all enjoyed that plot twist. I was giddy with excitement posting about it.

Some straight up Sixth Sense s%!@ right there. Gave me chills!

I know the feels. I think I talked to my husband about Sana for a week straight, from the moment you found her to her reveal. I was so pumped about her.

He said it made me seem really evil! But I am clearly CE, so...

More mass battles!

@Mass Battles - What I usually do is split the party up, and put each of them in charge of a unit on the battlefield. Then they control the tactics of that unit.

Fight out the combat in their area. If it goes well, the main battle rolls get bonuses. If it goes badly, the main battle get's penalties. If it stalemates, the main battle rolls are unaffected.

I find this gives the PCs some feeling of control over the entire battle, but it also allows for them to 'win the battle and lose the war'. I find that using small unit combat works best (treat each group of soldiers as a 'swarm' that does damage and has hit points, and auto-hits). The PCs are individuals that auto-hit, but roll a 'average' dice of damage for them based on level.

Example, Fighter has 3 iterative attacks, each normally does 2d6+28. They get 4d6+49 (2d6+28 + 1d6+14 + 1d6+7) when they attack. Spellcasters roll area of effect damage on swarms normally, or do 1/4 damage with specific target spells (except for attacking a Hero, who takes full damage).

Can get very bloody very quickly for PCs (which given they are in the field of battle, is appropriate). Healing spells do 1/4 repair to a swarm unit, or full repair to a hero.

That's what my oldest DM had to say. :)

That sounds awesome!

I considered giving each PC a unit. But I decided against it because that doesn't make sense for all PCs. For example, I can't really see Hinagiku leading a group of soldiers into battle.

But eventually, when you are more hardcore, I might go that route.

I've also considered just using troop rules to let you guys participate individually in the battle... at least in a more quantitative fashion. I'm still debating this. I might make it an option for PCs like Valaria or Hinagiku, who ultimately are best suited to just wading in and kicking ass in a mass combat setting, over doing something flashy like AoE spells or boosting morale or healing or what have you.

Also, while simplifying it down to "one fight decides the course of the battle" is definitely an option I'm looking at, it is my last option.

Because I am really interested in looking at this from a macro context of how to position your troops, when to charge and when to withdraw, when to be reckless and when to be defensive etc. And not just the outcome of what YOUR individual PCs fight and kill. It's about the whole battalion.

Markus may end up leading soldiers. Certainly to have the opportunity to raise them. He'll be getting mass heals that would be useful and he'll have the Leadership and the Charisma to pull it off.

Yeah.

There's a lot of mass combat in the second book of the campaign and then it kinda disappears.

But I think I'll revisit it much later... and like ...99% of the reason why I want to revisit it at a higher lvl and tier is you guys can do stuff like have a literal army of undead, have Ehren summon hordes of elementals and AoE, etc.

At that point, I will likely have all of you function as commanders, and each have an army to lead. So the battles will be more epic also, much higher # of enemies.

Markus will be able to raise... I think...

20CL (Base) + 10 CL (Mythic Undead Master) + 4 CL (Undead Master) + 16 CL (Favored Class) = 50 CL = 200 HD of undead.

Nice. So that's two whole armies for Markus ;)

If you intend to do stuff with mass combat, you will have to have P.Soldier. While I will not require it to be a commander, you will be able to get bonus tactics (basically special commands you can use for your army) with a high enough P.Soldier score.

Also, if you have creative armies (like undead!) they can get special qualities that reflect being... non-human ;)

Why not give control of armies to each player except Hinagiku. I would definitely not mind. She could either try to counsel the least wise character or fight with others. In the later, she could help defend the soldiers, prevent some dying.

I like the macro look too. Interestingly, we could even mix the team decision making with the "each character leads an army". When the army is in one battle, we could decide together, when it has to separate into different but close fronts, each player could direct part of it.

Actually, in Hinagiku's case, she could act as counselor for a NPC... she is really wise. Or maybe I will start to put point in her profession soldier skill... based on readings. Actually, if she decides to study war, she could learn quite a bit about it (with the perfect yourself concept from Irori).

Anyway, this is me brainstorming.

We'll definitely have a lot of leadership to go around, since Isilme will be picking it up at 9 as well :)

I think revisiting it at a higher level is definitely a great idea. It's exactly the kind of way a mechanism like that should be used. First time around you dip your feet into it, and second time you get to do more with it. Having some truly epic army battles would be pretty exciting at high level I think.