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Maybe I'll do two tables of Godsmouth Heresy. I have not played that one in a while and it was pretty entertaining. When I played 'Murder on the Throaty Mermaid' it went so far off the rails we had to take a 15 minute break so the GM could come up with a conclusion.
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@GM re Spoiler. O.O Wow, those are some interesting players... Were there some alignment infraction consequences, I wonder? Is an imprisoned character removed from play? Why would you set your own ship on fire, especially while far out at sea? So many questions, lol.
I'd be good with the Godsmouth Heresy, too. I haven't played any of the modules except 1-3 of Thornkeep.
@The party, I guess the only real question is whether to have some people searching another room if a small or medium room is 'maxed out'. I kind of hate to 'split the party' in case something happens.
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Obligatory Indiana Jones moving wall reference.
That may have been a bit incorrectly worded.
By the same token, my reaction was surely influenced by years of gaming under a GM from the "wish perversion" camp who seems to delight in saying, "Well you didn't say you were _________!" :o)
I just don't really feel like taking 10 days of real time to open a few doors that may or may not have anything dangerous behind them.
I understand and support that completely! It's simply that your original statement was you were going to open a door, "glance" inside, lather, rinse, repeat. With the rest of the party "behind" you, implying you were hitting them on your own, fairly rapidly. With no mention of checking for traps (excluding the divot art), listening at the doors, taking any precautions at all. See earlier comments. I'm pretty confident his most honorable Kyshkumen isn't that kind of GM but as I said: ingrained habits. :o) And better to have such things explicitly stated.
Plus I liked the mental image of Tuich panicking and tackling you to the ground (particularly if for no valid reason).
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So it looks like they changed the paizo site so I can no longer post from my phone. I had this awesome post about the spike walls and a clip from The Venture Bros. that was spiked walls themed . That was to keep you entertained till I could get home an post from the scenario. Anyway if you still want to see the link you can check it out here. Also is it weird that I can kind of see a number in the colorblind test?
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Yeah, the forum's been switching around for days now. At one point it wasn't respecting [ooc] and everything was coming out in black text. And today, "FOCUS" isn't even sticky.
Wayfinder hasn't worked since the first time the board went super-slow and the font got all scrunched together. I can only ever get one game in its directory anymore. I'm about ready to give up on it anyway, I provided a detailed list of several bugs with example links and instructions on how to reproduce them, and nothing's ever been touched.
Speaking of The Venture Brothers, my DDO characters are members of The Guild of Calamitous Intent... :o)
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Wayfinder is an Android app with the token cost of $1. One limitation is that there is no "Preview" button. Another is that there is no way to bring up your character sheet.
I was also using the Firefox browser on my phone but is didn't really handle the web pages very well, so that I would have to continually magnify the page and scroll around and such. (I'm the kind of person who isn't really that sure what their phone is so there is probably a better way...)
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That's odd. I've run into the occasional button that ignores my Wacom tablet and I have to plug in a USB mouse to click it, but always programs, never on a Web page. When I get home tonight I'll see if I can click it with Chrome from my smartphone. (Have you tried a different browser?)
Vincent, while looking for Wayfinder alternatives I did find a couple of keyboard apps that support macros -- my thinking was to set up a key for bold+quote and so on to mimic what Wayfinder does. I didn't follow through on that (didn't want to give up Swype, I was hoping to find just a macro "module" I could use with any keyboard), but maybe search the Play store to see if there's something that would help you?
Vyk, I researched keyboards a while ago looking for something small like a foldable. The impression I got was that USB keyboards work okay with the newer phones (like yours). I don't recall seeing any problem reports on bluetooth keyboards at all except issues when trying to run both a keyboard and mouse over bluetooth.
My situation's really funky. I got reassigned to a new location that's very remote with no cell service at all (well, if I go stand in the parking lot I sometimes get ONE bar, but inside? Fuggedaboutit). I can use WiFi over the corporate network, but Paizo's partially locked out: I can read just fine, but I'm blocked from posting and from any parts of the site that are secured (https). The only solution I've found so far is to remote in to my machine at home and post from there! So I threw in the towel and took my laptop to work. I was using Wayfinder to check for/read posts (which is no longer possible) and hauling out the laptop if I needed to do a lengthy post (which is how I'm writing this). I can remote in from my Android phone too, but I only do that for very short posts because of the clunkiness.
Anyway, maybe all that will spark an idea for somebody.
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Except for the solution by a Perception roll, I wonder how many people get the autostereogram, since the Magic Eye craze was back in the '90s (had to look that up as my sense of time for such things is poor).
It would have been an interesting one for a handout, even though I was never good at the Magic Eye images. Doing a quick search on 'stereogram generator' seems to indicate free, online utilities are available, although I don't know how easy it would be to do with a relatively small number of holes and in black and white.
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Well I suspect I don't have a vessel it will consider "suitable" anyway. But I question if it's "theft" when we're talking about a sentient force that wants to come with us.
My bigger concern would be it being a potential red flag that someone's been down here. That is to say, Pathfinders. (As I just noticed Garedon has already observed.)
Magical entity or not, being a friend of Ashava, any sort of disembodied spirit/essence is going to pull at Tuich's heart, and I have to play her true.
Feel free to tackle her if you feel it's warranted. :o)
EDIT: Ah crap, I just realized "suitable vessel" might refer to a body. And Tuichy is right there and probably -- from its point of view -- practically volunteering. :o(
Anyone here do exorcisms?
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I'm all for first getting an overview of what all the different rooms are, before searching.
Last time we spent a lot of time with four people searching two room, while two were standing by. If we have more rooms to search, we search one room with four, while the other two start on the next room. We have plenty of people with high skills.
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"Well, we've found some information in these books. Are we to copy it all down? These logbooks are quite extensive, and we have limited time. We can't very well take the books out of here, right? I'm unsure if a summary will suffice."
I wondered the same thing. If we were going to have to take it, my plan was to go back up a level, find a book with a very similar appearance, bring it back down here, and swap it in for the logbook so the theft wouldn't be immediately obvious. But what I got from the GM's comment (see the game thread) was that time was built in for the assumed necessary transcription. (And I don't think it's good to be stealing stuff anyway.)
Unless I misinterpreted?
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It appears the other group has a Garedon as well. I'm copying this from their discussion thread.
So I'm a bit of a computer geek, a decent programmer and have a slightly more than passing knowledge of cryptography, and over the weekend I had a look at that cipher in the clue 'Taldan cipher 2'.
It's a terrible cipher. It may sound halfway clever on paper, but it commits the one unforgivable cardinal sin of substitution ciphers in that multiple characters encode to the same cipher character
Plaintext character set is:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Cipher set is:
YEFGCIJKGMNOPQMSTUVWSYZAWCThis means that in an encoded text it's no longer possible to differentiate between 'A' and 'V', 'D' and 'I', 'E' and 'Z', 'J' and 'O', 'P' and 'U', and 'T' and 'Y'.
In a more practical sense, the message 'THE ORKS ARE ATTACKING' would cipher into 'WKC MUNV YUC YWWYFNGQJ' which can come back as 'THZ JRKS VRZ VTTVCKDNG', at which point you have to hope and pray that the person reading the message will try moving each possible both ways. This is relatively easy to do with a computer on hand, but especially out in the field where clarity can be the deciding factor between life and death, it's a bad idea.
The cipher used in the clue Taldan Cipher 3 is in fact an accurate substitution cipher, and with the considerately provided crib I've written up a quick encoder/decoder: linky
As ciphers go, substitution's still pretty weak, especially since compared to Vigenère ciphers you're relying on a string that's almost invariably impossible to memorize, so the substitution code would have to be written down somewhere whereas a word or a phrase can be memorized...
... Although I suppose in a world where death doesn't necessarily mean you can't answer questions anymore, "if you're about to be caught, burn or destroy the document containing the code" may in fact be a more secure precaution than "try not to be taken alive, or failing that, die under torture rather than reveal the code"... Hmm...
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Wow, yeah, except for the first 'y', where I put in a 'v' instead of an 'a', it seems that I picked the right letter of the two possible letters. But, it is pretty bad when 9 letters in a 21 letter cypher can be interpreted two different ways.
The certain parts are:
H-STH-B-LL-F-B-I--NC-
I still get only 'obeidence', though, so I think there is still another error with the cryptogram.
In 'obeidence',
- j could replace the o
- f could replace the e's, and
- i could replace the d,
but none of those make more sense.
The rest seems good, since the 'e' in 'bell' could also be 'f', but that doesn't work. Replacing the 'o' in 'of' with a 'j' also doesn't work, so it wouldn't be part of the 'obeidence' word.
Ironically, my guess based on letter frequencies in English that the c's in the cypher would translate to e's turned out to be correct, even though it is really too short of a text for the rules of letter frequencies to be reliable.
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You know, I have to say that I'm a bit uncomfortable taking anything in this scenario. The orders are very clear about not stealing or leaving any evidence of your passing. I actually think that's a bigger concern for the adventure than the clue-finding and cypher issues. Raiding a dungeon is one thing, but stealing from a library just feels so...unheroic.
Bear in mind, GM, it's nothing against your running of the scenario at all. Just an overall criticism of the adventure itself.
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Agreed. My other PFS PC's party had the same view in Mists of Mwangi, passing up a lot of stuff because "it just didn't feel right" to steal from a museum. And we weren't even told not to in that scenario.
The only reason I'm comfy with the whole lion head thing (other than it not being literal "theft") is that it's baked into the scenario and the entity explicitly asked us to "rescue" it. My presumption as a player is that some mechanism exists to make freeing the entity a non-issue, like it casting a high-level magic mouth on the wall sculpture, or it arranging things to look like it escaped on its own, or whatever.
I acknowledge it might be a test of sorts: We were told not to take anything, so succumbing to the entity's request is a "failure." But given we're supposed to find a specific "suitable vessel," it seems a stretch for that kind of a puzzle/challenge being in place solely to trip up the players.
Plus I think setting things up such that we aren't allowed to rescue someone/something that wants/needs rescuing is contrary to "noble gaming," and that's not been the case with Pathfinder in my (admittedly limited) experience.
And: Yes to the game day question.
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So I've got a bit of a dilemma.
I really, really enjoy play-by-posts, but I just haven't been diggin' playing as Lady Adelaide. I'm not sure why that is. I have a couple of theories:
* not liking Pathfinder Society. I like the idea of being a Pathfinder, but the games seem designed for the players to blitz through and never actually explore the world or get to know NPCs. I know the rationale for this (they want the experience to be as similar for other groups as possible), but on the other hand, it feels like such a shallow experience comparatively. There's not really any time for just straight role-playing with other PCs, either, because the missions are so short and straight forward.
* Adelaide isn't useful in this particular group. She's not the most charismatic, she's not the strongest, she's not the smartest, she's not the most perceptive, she can't cast spells. She doesn't really have a niche other than "being Lawful Good," but there's not really a way to do that in PFS (given the above as well as the fact that you can't decide to not take a mission on moral grounds). I feel like the only way she can stand out is by being the kind of paladin everyone hates, and I don't want to do that.
* I haven't had enough interactions between Adelaide and others to really get how to play her. She was my first PFS character, so I didn't come up with a "schtik" for her other than being sweet and warm and kind and getting mad when people abuse their power. I feel like there's no way to actually figure out how she should act or react.
I don't want to sound like a whiny-butt. I want to figure out what I should do, because I didn't bring anything noteable to the table in this game or the last game, and I feel like if I can't get it together, I should drop and let someone else play. So... if you have ideas, I would appreciate it. I know I can completely remake the character before hitting 2nd level. I don't want to completely scrap her, but if it's what I should do, let me know.
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Adelaide,
There's more to a character than just their party role in the game or build. And I should know. I'm playing a Magus -- that's pretty much the epitome of low-level sucking.
And I assure you that there's nothing wrong with a character that just gets along with people. Some people really are just that friendly. Heck, my wife is like that.
And frankly I think you're playing a very good Paladin. But if it's irking you, there are options.
One thing you could consider is changing your character's class. You still have a chance to do that. Another is to make a brand new one.
Let's assume for a moment that you want to keep this character in name and spirit. And let's further assume you want to keep your deity. What is there to say about Sarenrae? Well, the Gods and Magic book has the following to say:
Her faith attracts those with kind hearts, but only those willing to harden them when kindness is a dangerous weakness. Religious art depicts the sun goddess as a strong woman with bronze skin and a mane of dancing flame. While one hand holds the light of the sun, the other grasps a scimitar, so that she might smite those who do not change their ways.
::Sigh:: Man, Paizo knows how to write a Goddess. See also Desna, Iomedae and Pharasma.
You could very easily become a fighter. It's hard to make a bad one. And there's few things as satisfying as putting down the hurting. As a worshiper of Sarenrae you could take Dervish Dance. Now that's a good strong feat with awesome flavor.
And if you want to be a little more skill-worthy, might I recommend the Tactician Archetype.
Of course, there are plenty of other ideas. But none of them matter if you don't think they'd be fun.
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Regarding the lion, I think Vyk and Tuich both have good points. Since our primary mission is to not leave even traces of our passing, it makes the most sense not to take the lion guardian, but rescuing it also seems important and heroic, even if taking anything from the library (or museum) normally wouldn't. It's an odd choice in the scenario's design, though.
Granted, it could be like The Confirmation, where there isn't a clear moral and strategic answer, which could be considered a mature style of gameplay - though it would then suck if you were punished for not coming to same moral conclusions as the authors.
BTW, I had thought we might use Magic Aura on the inactivated lion, which might make it seem that the divination magic was still going for a couple of days, even if it wasn't responsive - perhaps seeming to be obstinate or malfunctioning - but it turns out that that is from one of my prohibited schools, so I can't cast it through the bonded object. Oh well.
As for Lady Adelaide's situation, I feel kinda similar about my paladin, Otiophon (just turning level 2), who is a "sword and board" character. (Oddly, iconic but really tough to optimize into a viable PF fighter, ironically.) I still haven't really found his individual voice, either, but do enjoy just playing a plain paladin, at least as one of a number of characters, not my only one.
I do think, however, that there are a lot of opportunities to role-play in PFS, at least in a PbP format where everyone can take as much time as they like without running up against a 4-hour time limit. I'm still learning how to do it and I don't think, generally, that I am as creative as most. It takes me a long time to find a character idea and a few scenarios to get the feel of them - to varying degrees of success, so far. I haven't strayed very far from "sweet and warm and kind", with even Garedon being that way, but just really bad at it.
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Audiovisual reference for the 'oh my field' song
(What I imagine the 'loud fanfare' to be like - I hope the soviet style music doesn't offend anyone.)
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Adelaide: my first impression of the character was actually of one that was quite balanced. Paladins are hard, because their behaviour is so dictated. I thought I sensed some of the "Paladin battling against prejudice" (Slightly regal air, but battling against the image of being uptight), which I quite liked. I was secretly hoping for a bit of religious fervour, since Miko has very special ideas when it comes to gods and religion. So please don't drop, we still have a long way to go.
My personal approach would be to have a bit of 'anti-hero' in the character. What are the flaws? When does she break down, freak out, behave strangely? How does she act when she freaks out? Stressed? Silent? Loud? Composed? Chaotic? Is this where she wants to be, or would she rather fight in the crusade? What's the reason, or circumstance, she is here? (I must admit, this character is the only one for which I even have a few of such answers, my other characters tend to be more of the 'murder hobo' kind).
The other option: 'big cheese'. Be the paladin. Be like that character from order of the stick whose name I can't remember. Be self-righteous and good and lawful, right in the rogue's face. Sometimes a stereotype can be really fun, and a good basis for a character. Flamboyant swashbuckler? Knowledge-hungry wizard? Bard that sings and dances a lot? Ranger that doesn't like to be in the city? Barbarian that will smash your face until no more teeth are there? All solid choices, in my opinion.
(Disclaimer: what do I know? Didn't mean to be lecturing, just hoping to increase the fun.)
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I'm up for taking the lion thing with us if we can. Vincent is neutral on the subject, though.
I've already talked to Adelaide in person about her character and my thoughts on the subject.
By the way, Miko... the character you're referring to is Miko Miyazaki. Should be an easy name for you to remember :p
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Ok now that I have some free time I can maybe give some helpful feed back for Adelaide.
PFS: It is not always the best fit for everyone, it can be rather ridged in rules compared to home games but more flexible on how and where you play. One of the strengths of PFS is being able to take your characters on the road and sit down and play with other people. Be that at a weekly local game another PbP or convention. As far as building relationships with NPC's and over all story you have to dig deeper into PFS to really start to see that. Unlike an AP that focuses on a few key events in a specific area PFS sends you all over the world for different reasons. As far as time to interact with your fellow adventurers I usually let that play out as much as everyone is into it. This adventure being the exception as the party is up against a clock.
As far as Adelaide being useless I don't see it. You don't always have to be the best at something to help or succeed at something, especially when it relies on a dice roll. The Paladin thing I get and it can feel confining, and they do struggle at lower levels. Though the warm, kind and sweet personality will always make you friends (probably has a lot to do with why everyone wants to keep you around and playing). If you'd like to keep the deity worshiping spell caster type that gets more skills you might look at the Inquisitor like Vincent. They have a lot more flexibility and resourcefulness.
You don't always have to have a schtik and some characters do better face to face and the rebuild was added to PFS for a reason. I'm just going to post a few things from a friends post that you might find helpful. Just sitting at the table with him a few times made me a better player and everytime I read his stuff again I'm learning or relearning stuff.
Embrace the depth of your backstory even if no one else will read it: In F2F, it can be hard and time consuming to explain how one's childhood and upbringing lead to the creation of the character before you. In PbP, you can explore those experiences and expound on them, drawing upon them when needed. Some of your players will read it, some won't...but that's neither here nor there. What matters is how much background and color you want to add. Stick your long history in spoiler or on your alias.
Be 'humanly' wrong sometimes: Be humanly imperfect (even if you're not playing a human). Imperfect characters draw in the reader and create a connection that is common amongst us all. Imperfection is relate-able and you can use those imperfections in your roleplaying. Be an elf chauvinist pig. Or a deeply narrow-minded religious yahoo. Or a salty sea elf. Take the gloves off and be something.
People aren't perfectly static: Neither are good characters. The PbP format is a perfect chance to establish a narrative that shows change over time. (You can go from good to bad or bad to good, but do something!)
Find motivation: Having 'real' motivation for your character is extremely important- the answer to the question: "Why are you here risking your life?" I want to play with characters who truly believe that they need to save the Princess/World/McGuffin based on strong motivations for wanting to do so...and they should be interesting and relevant.