GM Mezegis The Begger's Pearl (Inactive)

Game Master Mezegis

Hey, Ebon - Take care!

No worries here, Family > game. I thought you were just slowing it down so Calanthe felt better :D

Family always trumps fantasy, my friend. Best of luck.

Hey guys,

I've been in contact with an old college (or University, for Alice!) friend of mine lately about playing Pathfinder. Back when we were undergrads we were roommates and developed a campaign setting together.

He's since moved across the pond to England, and I've recently convinced him to give Pathfinder a try. I am planning to begin running a small campaign (or maybe a big one?) set in our world. I still have many details to work out, but once I'm ready I will post a recruitment thread. If anyone's interested in a homebrew, I'd be glad to consider you.

I intend the setting to be a bit lower-fantasy than Golarion, but higher-fantasy (more magic) than WhtKnt/Brandon's, which you may have checked out.

And Brandon, how did you get that site where you kept track of races, deities, etc.?

Thanks!

Derek

Obsidian Portal is great for keeping track of that sort of thing. It has a wiki-based interface so it's super user-friendly. It's free, although the advanced membership (something like $40/year if I recall) gives you more control and extra functions.

I may be interested, but I'd like to hear more details, of course! :)

sounds interesting...please keep me posted!!

As Alice noted, Obsidian Portal is how I keep track of everything. And I would love to be considered for your homebrew, pending more details.

This just happened at the end of the last scenario I was in!

I asked there whether a Continual Flame (such as on Naurin's and Norine's holy symbols) would raise the light level or not (assuming it is equivalent to the Darkness spell, as the other turned out to be). Perhaps not, since the Sor/Wiz level of both spells is 2, although the Cleric level of Continual Flame is 3. So, could a Continual Flame cast by a Cleric raise the light level? And could you pay more to have the Cleric cast the spell on a doohickey instead of a Sor/Wiz?

(The GM there allowed the light level to be raised, greatly simplifying the combat, but I don't know if I would make the same call or not.)

It's always considered the lowest possible level, and therefore continual flame is level 2, and not greater than the level 2 Darkness, thereby having no effect. Anyone with Darkvision can function normally, everyone else is effectively blind.

My rational is this: ambient light is dim, light spell and continual flame bring it to normal light. Darkness negates your spells, thus bringing it down to Dim, and then darkness lowers it one level, to "Dark"

Sounds good, based on what rules there are.

However, the rules could probably be better: it doesn't seem to make much sense as to why the 'ambient light' is treated completely differently than the light sources one carries since, or course, the sources of the ambient light are either going to be non-magical or magical, probably level 2 or less. For example, a regular torch or an everburning torch on the wall would seem to be part of the overall light level, while one in hand won't be treated as such. Anyway...

It brings up another question: How do you fight opponents in the darkness? :-P Having darkvision, Darkness, and a reach weapon would seem a very formidable combination.

It is. You hope you have dwarves or tie flings that can see in darkness just fine, or that you roll well on the 50% miss chance. I've seen darkness stonewall a party that wasn't prepared for it and a relatively simple encounter nearly turn into a TPK because they missed like 9 attacks that would have killed off an NPC.

So, Calanthe can be our front line fighter now, right? ;-)

If he stays put for a few rounds, I could also use True Strike and void the miss chance, although I think you at least have to have the right square to attack. Granted, 1d3 isn't likely to take him out.

TPK inc, waaahhhhhh!

lol

Please have mercy ;_;

Side note: WAY too many PFS modules have freaking Darkness in them. Even at lower tiers when players have pretty much no way of dealing with it. I've seen DEEPER Darkness used in a 1-2 subtier game, even! It's just frustrating.

Yeah, there's one scenario I won't touch with a 10-foot pole.

That said, potion of darkvision = 300 GP; oil of daylight = 750 GP or 2 PP. Buy both and you can even beat deeper darkness every time. Now we just have to survive this fight...

300 GP (or 750GP!) is a lot of money to throw down at early tiers...

Also, I've played that scenario you allude to. Utterly ridiculous. If not for the fact that we had two summoners in that game that sacrificed their eidolons and numerous summoned dogs/etc., it would've quite possibly been a TPK.

Wow. I read the spoilers because I really don't have any desire to play that scenario!

Me either...I would have thought they would have balanced it out better, or maybe warned you what was coming so you could be ready...

Hahah, no.

Out of nowhere (;-), Sleight of Hand gets used quite a bit in PFS scenarios for various faction missions, it seems, but no one seems to make the classical rogue/thief who would have the skill. And it certainly isn't like you can count on such a rogue being one of the four+ characters present.

I just got access to my GM gameday boon and now I have a choice between boon A, the chance to make an ifrit character someday, or boon B, three +4 before/+2 after luck bonuses to rolls.

I'm not sure which to choose. Any thoughts?

Oddly, too, boon A requires it to be the first Chronicle for the character, but the boon form asks which character the GM boon should be applied to... If I haven't made and registered the character yet then I won't have that information to provide. Hmm.

Take the Ifrit one!!! Racial boons are awesome! You can also trade them in the boon trading thread if you'd prefer a different boon.

(Man, I hope I can get a racial boon... I'd LOVE to play a kitsune...)

Oh, yeah! Definitely the racial boon. How often do you get a chance to play something not normally permitted by PFS?

OK, I requested the racial boon. For now, I just made up a new PFS character to receive the boon. I can work on names and other details at any time, although the first thing I thought of was Mercuria (too predictable?).

With all attacks in this darkness that have a miss chance, 1-50 is a miss, and please roll the 1-100 after your attack.

I'm confused. So if Calanthe told me which square to shoot at, why would I shoot with a greater than -8 penalty, or a greater than 50% miss chance? And what's a d42?

A d42 is a dice with 42 sides, obviously. :) Given that there are six of us, that means... oh, crap.

The OOC comments were just me laughing over the situation. She did direct you were to fire. The shot missed. The random roll was to help me decide what happened to the miss. I rolled a 1, and decided that the arrow bounced off Torvic.

The mechanical results are the same, the shot missed, I'm just having a bit of fun with where the missed attacks go. I'm sorry if that misled you.

Oh, that's cool. I just didn't understand. A 14 being a miss isn't too much of a surprise!

Well, I now can definitely see the advantage of an aasimar's standard ability to generate daylight once per day, even with darkvision of their own.

Yep, and why I will never play a human rogue. So many times I catch people with the "I go off and sneak around in the darkness. OK, how do you see?" snafu.

It is too bad that they don't allow deep/stout halflings in PF; a deep halfling rogue was a favorite character of mine. :(

I had thought about a 'deep' gnome with darkvision as something of a replacement. I suppose, though, that tieflings are the way to go with such rogues? Int, Dex, and other bonuses seem too good to pass up for that kind of trap-finding, skill-monkey rogue. But, I don't really know that much about character design.

(Well, actually, it doesn't seem that anyone is taking that kind of rogue/thief in PF, with a perceived inferiority of the class, a smaller emphasis on traditional trap-filled dungeons, the emphasis on optimization and DPR...)

There's just very little reason to play a rogue in my opinion. Even if you ignore the whole DPR context, what does a rogue do that an alchemist or ninja or ranger doesn't do just as well, if not better? And they also cast spells (well- sorta, in the case of ninjas).

There's an alternate racial feature for gnomes that lets you pick up Darkvision, btw.

In Brandon's case, it was a role-playing choice. Back in the days of 2E, he was a halfling thief with the Investigator kit. He was so much fun to play that I was inspired to recreate him for Pathfinder. I might even develop Brandywine, his fighter girlfriend (and the second half of the B&B Detective Agency (Brandon and Brandywine)).

So yeah, he doesn't have the ability to see in the dark, but for his role, he doesn't need it. He's not a "go off by myself and scout ahead" kind of rogue. He's an "it takes one to know one" kind of rogue.

I love the sound of the Brandon and Brandywine detective agency. It's too bad you can't play more than one character in PFS play... You really need to get your wife to start playing!

Hey Norine, how did your boon show up? I've reported both my games and haven't seen mine...

Ya'll need to start hitting or this speedbump encounter is going to get steeper and steeper!

Oh, she plays, just not PFS. She's not much for role-playing but enjoys rolling the dice and killing things.

Derek,

I got a link in a PM. (The link was broken by the sending process, but I fixed it and let them know.) I selected my boon, although it will be awhile until I receive it from what they said.

~~ Matt

Take the Ifrit one!!! Racial boons are awesome! You can also trade them in the boon trading thread if you'd prefer a different boon.

(Man, I hope I can get a racial boon... I'd LOVE to play a kitsune...)

Hey, if we do do the Dragon's Demand in "campaign mode", it seems that we don't have to follow PFS rules like 20-build, etc., but still end up getting PFS credit for other characters. You could then, potentially, get a lot of play time with your kitsune character (or whatever PFS doesn't normally allow), perhaps even keeping it for another campaign mode scenario at a higher level.

Thaaaat would be awesome! :D

Since Calanthe isn't the type to yell, I'm going to do this OOC.

Guys, please!

We're running off into territory unknown after a guy that literally only I can see (and he conveniently makes everyone else in a 20 ft. radius invisible as well). We already know they get tonnes of sneak attack in the darkness and we also already know this place is filled with traps. Not to mention the party is currently split.

Can we STOP for a minute? Please?

You're right, of course. Sorry, Brandon got caught up in the desire to kill whatever is creating that darkness.

But I like getting 3d6 SA damage a round! Dont listen to Calanthe! Run blindly to your deaths!

It is an almost impossible situation, but the alternative isn't really so clear cut.

If a 'dungeon' was run realistically, the one escapee could well warn and gather just about all of the opponents against us for a massed assault. (A general pitfall with the whole concept of dungeon adventures, IMO.)

My last 3.5 game could easily been a TPK as the entire dungeon was mobilized against the party (my character died and another died making time for others to escape). It is one thing to happen upon 3-5 goblins at a time here and there, and another to have 50 coming from all directions with their leaders.

I guess we'll have to hope that this one darkness spell is the only one we will encounter in the whole dungeon or the whole dungeon will also have the cover of darkness when they do come.

(Unless these guys just come after us now, instead, that is...)

Edit: That said, I guess we can see how fast Ebon can drag a body (faster than the darkness can move?).

I am 99% sure that PFS tactics would not include "And the entire dungeon mobilises against you", because that would be dumb and an instant TPK.

And in any case, walking into darkness constantly to be one-shot by sneak attack is probably worse than seeing an army of goblins coming our way. Because at least we can see in that case.

Already, though, he has run away and brought in some fresh recruits, it seems.

It's true that it seems pretty bad, although one possibility would be to have Torvic lead the fight, with me backing him up with healing and Bit of Luck and you providing other support. That would, at least, keep away the flat-footed damage.

What, though, is going to change for the better when we stop the attack and withdraw? I suppose the darkness will run out, but we don't know whether he (or another like him) can cast it again. It also seems likely that he is going to find a way to come back healed, erasing our progress.

That all assumes that we can effectively withdraw, dragging Todric, and that we have opponents who won't press their clear advantage.

But, either way, Norine will go whichever way the party goes.

A PC died in my live game tonight. First PC I "killed". We had a party of 4, APL exactly 2.5 playing the 3-4 subtier. The party faced a troll. The troll full-attacked a level 2 paladin with 10 CON. Even rolling 1's on two damage dice it dropped her to -11 HP.

Here's the rub. She seemed OK with it, but she's part of a group that stopped playing at our FLGS for awhile due to a TPK. I also realized that I don't have NPC's attack helpless PC's when live targets are available. The troll's bite and first claw would have dropped her unconscious, but I rolled the damage for both claws, and didn't realize I hadn't separated them until after I left.

I haven't reported the game yet. Any thoughts?

It's a bit weird to ret-con a death after a game.

And besides - it makes total sense for a troll to rend a target to death. Is it really going to pause midway through raising its claw and be like "Hmm. It's not moving. Better stop attacking."