GM/Lictor Lane's Who Needs Parenting? = CoT Team 1 IC Thread (Inactive)

Game Master michaelane

Welcome to a GM/Lictor Lane Nightmare

Thanks all for applying and congrats on your acceptance. This should be a great, fun group. I especially look forward to the havoc Jo will wreak and the challenge the rest of you have keeping him in line, especially in some of the more social parts of this AP.

A couple things before we kick off in character. Use this thread for any planned absences, concerns about how things are going, references to OOC materials, etc. I probably won't be quite as diligent about checking it as the IC thread so if it seems like I haven't heard you, just give me a nudge IC.

Second, as I mentioned in the selection post, I will be using Google Docs for some of this AP. Particularly, I will be using it for the Westcrown Guide and thus, I would like to close it to only the two groups running the AP. For this reason, please send me your Google ID or an email where I can invite you. You can either post it here or send it to me at michaelane at gmail dot com. Once you have done that, feel free to check out the Westcrown Guide here:

Westcrown Guide

If any of you are inspired by the guide to create more NPCs or locations, go ahead and post them here and I will add them.

This group has one main thing to work out before we get started - establishing which of you already knows Jo.

I've got a lot going on today so I will try to have the IC thread up by this evening. Failing that, I should have it up tomorrow morning.

Thanks all for joining the experience, I'm really looking forward to it.

I have arrived

[b]I have arrived[b]

Damn backslash :)

Welcome

dotto!

Ilthad, you should be in now.

"Jo is here" says Jo as he plods up in muddy boots and rubbing a nasty looking bee sting on his nose.

Your right GM - This IS going to be fun.

Ok, you should be in Jo.

Ready!

I am here

Now that I think about it, Alarra might be a decent candidate for Jo's mentor. She has street smarts and enough of a nest egg saved up that she can afford to hire people, as well as a need for informants of her own. I could easily envision her meeting Jo outside The Loft or in The Drunken Devil (or anywhere else, really) and paying him to tell her if he sees or hears anything suspicious.

How does that sound?

I would not count on Jo hearing or seeing much. He has no ranks in Perception. Plus he is easily distracted outside of combat.

But Jo would take to protecting a woman on the hash streets of Westcrown.

"I likes pretty lady", Jo says with a crooked tooth smile.

GM - Check your section in the Westcrown guide regarding the Dottari - I think there are some knowledge check info for your eyes only.

Hey, I thought you couldn't read ;)

Lictor- sent you a message with my email.

Mondark's first impressions of the line-up:

She might feel comradery or even have an innocent crush on Satinel especially when she learned of his relationship with his famliy.

She would be hard pressed to find anything good about a young Thrune.

She would mistrust Alarra whether from sensing a connection to the Dottari or just because she was a beautiful female rival with an inhuman if not infernal taint.

Jo could be harmless or very dangerous- definitely a wild card.

Wow! Nice job on the Wescrown Guide.

And, we're off. In-character thread is now up.

IC Thread

Good luck everyone, I'm looking forward to a great time.

p.s. if anyone from team 2 is lurking, I should have IC up in the morning.

The Westcrown guide is incredible! Thanks for collating all that material!

@Moondark: No problem on that swap.

I'm really having a blast with this, especially with the initial reactions from everybody.

GM/Lictor Lane (along with my fellow players) I do have a question on my fellow nobles. How much would I know of them? I'm assuming that Moondark's family is most likely hiding the information that their daughter is missing, and Satinal's father might have hid the existance of him from outside of the house.

I realize this goes both ways, and they would know about me; so how much have the nobility heard of one another and how much do they want to share?

I'm having a great time too. This is a great group with a lot of potential. You all are off to a great start. I'm really looking forward to playing out some of these hooks. They work really well with this AP.

I think your fellows should fill in some of those details, but I think you need to play out how connected Ilthad is too. Given the families disgrace, they might not be as connected to the gossip. But, given Ilthad's social talents (and the fact that he is more than he appears), perhaps he has learned a few things on his own.

I am having fun too.

I hope no one takes offense to anything Jo says. He does not mean it. He really is a nice guy but just lacks charisma and social graces.

Jo is brilliant. I wouldn't have him any other way. I have laughed out loud at several of your posts already.

Jo is great, I've cracked up several times. As for background - maybe something like this:

Knowledge: Nobility:

Knowledge: Local:

Using Diplomacy to Gather Information works at the same DC for either knowledge. Of course, attempting the check while at Miratanza grants a +2 competence bonus to the check and if actual at the Tilted Keel, and checks take have the amount of time.

Those looks perfect. Very well done.

Quick heads up for anyone checking the OOC thread. We're in the midst of a family move and headed to Gen Con Wednesday night. Yes, very well timed. Anyway, I still expect to post over the weekend, but if it slows at all, you'll know why.

nice. i wanted to make Paizocon this year, but not enough $$ for the trip :( i'll also be unplugged fri-sun; going camping now that the forest fires have settled down.

Sorry not acceptable! Having too much fun with Jo!

Have a blast at Gen Con. Wish I could get to one of those one day.

I expect some good stories when you get back!

Sorry guys. I have resumed things in the IC thread and should not have an extended break. I definitely underestimated how much time herding two teens and a tween around the con would require. We weren't back to the hotel until after midnight every night and a couple times I had to help level them up as they advanced.

I do have a few good stories.

The Flying Crocodile
My 12-year old plays a dwarf mountain druid with a crocodile animal companion. It advanced to large size the first day of the con. The next day, we had an adventure where we had to enter an abandoned cathedral of Aroden...through the belfry. Big discussion about just how much a large crocodile weighs followed by rigging a harness to lift him up into the church. Great fun.

Quivering Piles of Goo
The kids wore out Saturday night so I found myself at a table with two battle oracles (myself and one other), two rogues (one the dreadful Merisel pre-gen), a wizard (the Ezren pre-gen), and a fighter (the Valeros pre-gen). It doesn't sound too bad, but was far from an optimized party. In the second combat encounter, we hit a chaos beast. Within a couple rounds, the entire party except the wizard had been turned to goo. Fortunately, he was able to finish it off leaving the rest of us to face what must have been a half hour of saving throws to try to pull ourselves back to normal. Fortunately everyone made it, a couple by the skin of their teeth. We closed the hall that night. Last table done.

Fire!
If there is one PFS scenario you have to run this year it is Frostfur Captives. Absolutely brilliant. You get to escort members of a goblin tribe from northern Irrisen to Trollheim. You can only imagine. My battle oracle was able to mostly keep them in line by alternatively intimidating them (a +14 Intimidate at Level 5) and lighting his heavy flail on fire, but the best scene was the goblins attempting to ride Jojo the crocodile in the middle of one of the battles.

A great time and thanks again for the patience. Let's get this going again.

No worries. Sounds like a GREAT time!

huzzah. we survived. i'm traveling for work. may not be able to post until fri night.

Will level up Ithad late tonight when I get home, will be going into wizard (yeah second 1st level!) Is there anything I should keep in mind?

No, that should all be good. It is good we're keeping you on the arcane side of things (in fact more arcane now!) to help balance things out. Your choice on hp to take average rounded up (for example, a d8 would be 5 hp) or to roll here. Also, favored class bonuses from the APG are in effect. I think that's it.

Also, Franco, I'm hoping you'll check in and want to continue, but otherwise, I'm going to park you and Satinal shortly. You'll see shortly that there is an easy way for me to keep you guys connected to the campaign in case you eventually want to return.

Also, advance warning that I'm going to be on a business trip to China from Sunday afternoon through a week from Friday. I have no idea how that's going to go from a connectivity standpoint, plus I'm going to be way out of synch with most if not all of you time wise, so things could slow a little.

I'll do my best to keep things going because we have great momentum. A chance here for some roleplay before we head out for more high adventure.

Great more wizardry to make Jo crazy!!! LOL

GM - Leveled up. Please check stats incase I missed or messedup something. Thanks.

So, in China for almost two weeks? Wow. Have fun and good luck.

Jo, I think you're close. A few things I wanted to check on:
1. Where are you putting your favored class bonus for each level? You have a choice of hit point, skill point, 1/2 trap sense, or 1/3 superstitious. If you're putting it into superstitious, that explains things since it wouldn't show up until 3rd level.
2. I think you have two more skill ranks available. Suspect the one you're forgetting is the Human "skilled" racial trait (unless you replaced that with different racial trait (perhaps Heart of the Fields or Heart of the Streets?)
3. I think your AC should be 15. Scale mail is +5 and I don't think you have another +1 but I might be forgetting something. You might also consider lighter armor at some point to take advantage of your full speed and to lessen the armor check penalty - see #6.
4. I think for the Brutal Pugilist archetype your Uncanny Dodge is replaced by Savage Grapple. You might want to make a note of what that does for you - grapples provoke AOOs and you halve grapple penalties.
5. You might want to make a note of your saving throws in your stat block (unless I'm just not seeing them tonight). We can streamline combat a bit if I don't need to call for saves.
6. Your Escape Artist gets knocked down to -3 due to the armor check penalty with the scale mail. Stealth also gets dropped -4. Might want to make a note of that. I think I've forgotten about applying the armor check a couple times and stealth comes up a lot. Climb also gets knocked down to +5.
7. You might also want to note what Superstitious does for you - +2 save vs magic when raging but must also save versus allies spells

I am going to go Oracle Level 2 I will post the updates a little Later Today, Have fun in China.

Jo, I think you're close. A few things I wanted to check on:

1. Where are you putting your favored class bonus for each level? You have a choice of hit point, skill point, 1/2 trap sense, or 1/3 superstitious. If you're putting it into superstitious, that explains things since it wouldn't show up until 3rd level.

Ok - You'll have to forgive me as I am new to Pathfinder/D&D (but not RPGs). I have only been using these rules since Jan 2011 and there is soooooo much to take in to account.

I want to put the favored class to HPs. So I bumped them to 20. The Superstitious comes from the selection of my first Rage Power. I did not see a level restriction on that. Is there one?

2. I think you have two more skill ranks available. Suspect the one you're forgetting is the Human "skilled" racial trait (unless you replaced that with different racial trait (perhaps Heart of the Fields or Heart of the Streets?)

Can you explain further the Human Skilled Racial Trait. I don't understand that. Don't forget that I have low intelligence which knocks my skill ranks down by two.

3. I think your AC should be 15. Scale mail is +5 and I don't think you have another +1 but I might be forgetting something. You might also consider lighter armor at some point to take advantage of your full speed and to lessen the armor check penalty - see #6.

Your right - was adding one for uncanny dodge for some strange reason. I want to buy new armor when we get a change. That and an Earth Breaker. LOL

4. I think for the Brutal Pugilist archetype your Uncanny Dodge is replaced by Savage Grapple. You might want to make a note of what that does for you - grapples provoke AOOs and you halve grapple penalties.

Cool - did not have my APG with me when I leveled up. I made the changes and will look at the APG see what that does for me.

5. You might want to make a note of your saving throws in your stat block (unless I'm just not seeing them tonight). We can streamline combat a bit if I don't need to call for saves.

Done.

6. Your Escape Artist gets knocked down to -3 due to the armor check penalty with the scale mail. Stealth also gets dropped -4. Might want to make a note of that. I think I've forgotten about applying the armor check a couple times and stealth comes up a lot. Climb also gets knocked down to +5.

Adjustments made -You really don't expect 7' 350lb. Jo to be stealthy do you? haha - Does armor check penalty affect CMB/CMD?

7. You might also want to note what Superstitious does for you - +2 save vs magic when raging but must also save versus allies spells

Yes - it fits nicely with Jo's fear of magic being cast on him and his low IQ! ;-)

Jo, I think you're close. A few things I wanted to check on:

1. Where are you putting your favored class bonus for each level? You have a choice of hit point, skill point, 1/2 trap sense, or 1/3 superstitious. If you're putting it into superstitious, that explains things since it wouldn't show up until 3rd level.

Ok - You'll have to forgive me as I am new to Pathfinder/D&D (but not RPGs). I have only been using these rules since Jan 2011 and there is soooooo much to take in to account.

No worries. I'm still learning myself and with rules errata and new core books coming regularly, there is always more to learn. I'm using Hero Lab to check your totals, so that helps me pick up some things, but there can be errors there too.

I want to put the favored class to HPs. So I bumped them to 20. The Superstitious comes from the selection of my first Rage Power. I did not see a level restriction on that. Is there one?

Actually, you get a favored class bonus for both 1st level and 2nd level. The standard choice is that you may pick one hit point or one skill point. But, the APG introduced additional options based on your race. For humans, that's on page 23. As a human barbarian, you have two other places you can place your bonus. We'll ignore the first option (trap sense) because as a brutal pugilist, you replace trap sense with Pit Fighter (very appropriate for Jo). The second option is that you can put 1/3 of a point into improving your Superstitious rage power. So, while you get your +2 to saves against magic while raging at level 2, at level three (assuming you picked that option all three times), you would increase your bonus to +3. That is in addition to the scaling within the Superstitious rage power itself. So you'd eventually have crazy saves versus magic while raging, though your allies won't be able to buff you very well either. Putting it all into hit points is a good choice for a front-liner too, so its your call.

2. I think you have two more skill ranks available. Suspect the one you're forgetting is the Human "skilled" racial trait (unless you replaced that with different racial trait (perhaps Heart of the Fields or Heart of the Streets?)

Can you explain further the Human Skilled Racial Trait. I don't understand that. Don't forget that I have low intelligence which knocks my skill ranks down by two.

Yes, even with the low Intelligence, you've shorted yourself a couple skill points. Humans get an extra skill point at every level (just like they get the bonus feat at first level. But there are also human racial traits that give some interesting bonuses and replace that extra skill point. Heart of the Fields gives you a bonus to a Craft or Profession skill and also lets you ignore an effect once a day that would cause you to become fatigued or exhausted (handy for a barbarian even if the usual flavor text doesn't apply to Jo, I would have no problem saying that your time in the pits gave you a similar experience). Heart of the Streets and Heart of Wilderness also provide some interesting bonuses. If you have the APG, check them out on page 23. Since barbarians aren't usually skill monkeys, I think those are all traits you might want to consider and I have no issue rebuilding your character to take them into account.

3. I think your AC should be 15. Scale mail is +5 and I don't think you have another +1 but I might be forgetting something. You might also consider lighter armor at some point to take advantage of your full speed and to lessen the armor check penalty - see #6.

Your right - was adding one for uncanny dodge for some strange reason. I want to buy new armor when we get a change. That and an Earth Breaker. LOL

Both of those should be no problem soon.

4. I think for the Brutal Pugilist archetype your Uncanny Dodge is replaced by Savage Grapple. You might want to make a note of what that does for you - grapples provoke AOOs and you halve grapple penalties.

Cool - did not have my APG with me when I leveled up. I made the changes and will look at the APG see what that does for me.

Ok. I'm going to need to be brushing up on my grapple knowledge too since your archetype makes heavy use of it.

5. You might want to make a note of your saving throws in your stat block (unless I'm just not seeing them tonight). We can streamline combat a bit if I don't need to call for saves.

Done.

Ok

6. Your Escape Artist gets knocked down to -3 due to the armor check penalty with the scale mail. Stealth also gets dropped -4. Might want to make a note of that. I think I've forgotten about applying the armor check a couple times and stealth comes up a lot. Climb also gets knocked down to +5.

Adjustments made -You really don't expect 7' 350lb. Jo to be stealthy do you? haha - Does armor check penalty affect CMB/CMD?

Ha, no, not really. It does not affect CMB/CMD.

7. You might also want to note what Superstitious does for you - +2 save vs magic when raging but must also save versus allies spells

Yes - it fits nicely with Jo's fear of magic being cast on him and his low IQ! ;-)

It does indeed.

I will tentatively plan on a post tonight to pick things up again. Don't worry if you are not completely leveled yet because it won't have a big impact for a little bit. I do have a big pitch tomorrow so if it turns into a late night, I'll post Friday instead.

Sorry for the delayed posting - things have been hectic.

I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think it makes sense for Alarra to start advancing as a sorceress rather than as a rogue. Characterwise, she is a changeling (and would have the accursed bloodline from her hag lineage), and I would like to play up that fact in this game.

I realize that this is a big change from my initial desired role in the party, so let me know if this isn't okay, in which case I'll keep her a rogue (probably with the minor magic talent).

ha, I think we've pretty similar concepts. Moondark was going to dip into her infernal heritage for a level of sorcerer, but she's mainly staying with rogue-spy. so if Alarra is mainly sorcerer i don't think we overlap as much.

Yeah, the overlap between Moondark and Alarra is a big part of my reasoning here. Alarra already has the charisma to be a decent sorceress, so assuming no wrath of DM descends she'll probably stick with sorcerer levels from here on out (unless some juicy prestige class catches my eye, but that stuff is way down the road).

Good gravy, you guys are really looking to tweek Jo with all this Magic going on....

First Ithad and now Alarra and Ari will be casting??

Lots of Jo Role-Playing coming. ;-)

Well if either Alarra or Ari is dipping into sorcerer, I won't feel so bad in picking up a bard level every now and again. Of course I haven't found any prestige class that jumps out at me for Ithad so there is still a limit there. And I also apologize with lack of posting, my home computer has been acting not right and have been trying to get it fixed.

How does Jo feel about divine magic or are his issues only with the arcane. If he has problems with Divine it will make healing him all sorts of fun.

Jo is apprehensive about all kinds of magic. This is due to his being tricked by his stepdad and his resulting size.

In addition, he has no religion and that makes him even more paranoid.

I am playing it like Conan the Barbarian and his superstitious nature concerning magic.

If Jo cant see it than it is ok. So using magic weapons will not matter to him as long as they are not flaming or visibly magic. But using a wand is out of the question.

As for healing potions. He is okay with them as his step dad used them all the time on him from his fighting days. To him they are not magic. I know - conviently weird.

Yes - casting healing on him will be tough as Ithad learned in after the first encounter.

I'm fine with the thoughts for both Alarra and Moondark. It will be good fun with Jo. If I think of any prestige classes to steer you toward, I'll let you know. If I find the time, I may even consider some custom ones, especially with my desire to integrate factions.

No problem on the posting either. Mine will pick back up again when I'm back home. All in all, I think we're doing great. I've been spending a little time integrating your backstories with the rest of the AP. It will really start to kick in when we hit books 2 and 3, but I've got a few hooks to start sooner.

Alarra - one thing I did want to clarify for you is that your maternal uncle is an adopted maternal uncle, correct? Otherwise, you have a very strange family tree :)

Haha, yes, Alarra's uncle is an adoptive one.

I think I'll take average hit points from my new hit die (d6, so 3 hp).

EDIT: Alarra's profile should be fully updated now. I'll double check it tomorrow and post in.

Alarra, you can round up. d6=4, d8=5, d10=6, etc.