GM SpiderBeard's The Divine Delusion (Inactive)

Game Master Barvo Delancy

I won't be able to post much during Easter. Please bot me if needed.

I consider long weekends and holidays to be lazy mode and I'll keep up as much as the PCs care to post. So no worries and enjoy the holiday!

Hey everyone, I'm going over loot acquired. A few notes:

- Who took the masterwork chain shirt? I thought Irina did, but she was asking after studded leather later on.

- Who took the masterwork studded leather?

- Was the gold looted distributed? You've looted 1387.38 so far, which is 231.23 each.

- There was a clear potion looted and never identified. Who has that?

- There were two scrolls of CLW looted. Nilan has two scrolls in his inventory but I can't tell if he started with those or not.

- Finally, there's a bag of uncut gems nobody appraised or claimed. Who has that?

With all that sorted, I'll update the loot tracking sheet so we're all up to date.

Nilan isn't interested in any of the looted items.

I think Nilan used those Scrolls as they were once on my consumables sheet and disappeared, lets call them used.

Does/Did Nilan have time to make some scrolls? Because I'd like to do that now that he has some coin with which to buy the inks/materials neccesary.

Fingers would take either the chain shirt or the mwk studded leather (preferably), but didn't end up with either, that I recall.

He would be holding the gems and any loose coin that can be carried. He would not take any unknown magical items unless no one else dared carry them.

I'm taking only my share of the gold.

Hey that is right I did take the chain, never noted it or fixed my entry. SO Fingers take the studded! (Thread search functions are so helpful some times.)

I could go search the thread but I think Narciso took the unidentified potion for safekeeping. We can assume it lost or transferred to someone at the last minute? Assuming we have it I would say it should be in Koriko or Kumyo's possession to be identified and then we can decide...

I think Fingers gave us a breakdown on the coinage but we also said he was carrying it all if I recall so we could assume dispersing it now if that makes sense.

consider the loose coin distributed. AS GM Spiderbeard says above the per player share is 231.23.

Fingers will gladly take the MW Studded Leather. Thanks!

Suggest we each pitch in 125 gp for a fully charged wand of CLW at 750gp. Any objections?

Nilan has a Wand of CLW already...

I wish that Vow of Poverty wasn't monk only, because it would make an excellent thing for Nilan to take.

Like the old vow from Book of Exalted Deeds?

As an observation it would be cool to see if something could be hammered out to get Nilan some bonuses and benefits within the context of his character idea because it makes sense to have a sort of aversion to goods but the Christmas tree effect is strong in the game and it will be increasingly difficult to keep him alive without gear.

Yeah, I know people hated that Book for various reasons, but I loved Vow of Poverty.

I think once I have scrolls galore and other items, I'll be ok.

@GM, did you see my earlier question about time/downtime to scribe scrolls?

I agree I thought it could be used very tastefully with good concepts, some just cheesed it too much, lol

I'm willing to sort out some sort of benefit for Nilan in exchange for a vow of poverty with consequences if its violated. I'm always cool with these ideas if the players are working in good faith, which y'all are.

I really don't think there is any need for that. Honestly, I wouldn't know where to start. Nilan has his gold, and he will use most of it to craft scrolls if he can....speaking of which

@GM, did you see my earlier question about time/downtime to scribe scrolls

Sorry, I did and thought I responded. You have a couple of days downtime so can scribe a bunch of scrolls.

Ok, So Nilan will be scribing a whole bunch of scrolls

CLW x4= 50GP
CMW x4= 300GP
Aid x2= 150GP
Bulls Strength x2= 150GP
Bless x4= 50GP
Align Weapon x2= 150GP

850GP spent scribing scrolls. I'll not have a wasted round again.

My proposed changes will reflect the fact that this doesn't require two feats and a changing in the wording of what a mendicant friar does/is.

The 3.5 wording was To fulfill your vow, you must not own or use any material possessions, with the following exceptions: you may carry and use ordinary (neither magic nor masterwork) simple weapons, usually just a quarterstaff that serves as a walking stick. You may wear simple clothes (usually just a homespun robe, possibly also including a hat and sandals) with no magical properties. You may carry enough food to sustain you for one day in a simple (nonmagic) sack or bag. You may carry and use a spell component pouch. You may not use any magic item of any sort, though you can benefit from magic items used on your behalf -- you can drink a potion of cure serious wounds a friend gives you, receive a spell cast from a wand, scroll, or staff, or ride on your companion's ebony fly. You may not, however, "borrow" a cloak of resistance or any other magic item from a companion for even a single round, nor may you yourself cast a spell from a scroll, wand, or staff.

If you break your vow, you immediately and irrevocably lose the benefit of this feat. You may not take another feat to replace it.

Here is how I would change it:
To fulfill your vow, you must not own or use excess material possessions, with the following exceptions: 1) you may carry and use nonmagic simple weapons(the Skane that Nilan carries counts). 2) You may wear nonmagic simple clothes (usually just a homespun robe, possibly also including a hat and sandals).
3) You may carry enough food to sustain you for one week in a simple (nonmagic) sack or bag.
4) You may carry and use a spell component pouch.
5) You may not use any magic item of any sort. With the following exceptions A)Bonded Holy Symbol B) Scrolls (only those crafted by yourself)
6) The Mendicant Friar must accept his portion of any share of treasure and immediately donate 75% of it to his church.

What do you guys think? Too powerful?

Honestly I think it is almost too toned down. The benefits of scrolls and having some cash being offset by sacrificing AC progression (which you lose the war of escalation on even if you have magic) and other bonus feats seems like too strong a trade.

I would personally argue for the same progression, no "exalted feats" but bonus to saves instead (or replace the bonus feats with only save and hp related feats so you could only take say toughness, iron will, etc. as your bonus feats) and the altered vow as presented.

I would also advocate for one final exemption on line 5 "artifacts of the church" as there are theoretically things blessed and sanctioned by Pharasma that someone could come across. It may never happen but it gives the GM some wiggle if something weird comes up and gives Nilan a legitimate out to carrying say a wonderous item crafted by his order or something later in the game.

I say all this because I ran an extensive BoED game back in the day with 7 people and the vow guy ran into some trouble despite the extra feats and stuff there are things that are hard to account for "replacing" mechanically.

EDIT: Also keep in mind that PF is slightly more powerful level per level than 3.5 so even with all I just said there is still a good chance Nilan is behind, which is sorta fine because that is the point I think its about finding the right balance so that he isn't under imminent threat of dying just by being in the group, lol

I'm hesitant about something that severe. Pathfinder is balanced so that you're expected to use magic items - replacing all of the gains you'd get from them through innate abilities is... difficult to balance.

That said, if you're going to have Nilan resolutely refuse to wear magic items I'll look at your suggestion and work something out. My first interest is in ensuring people can make their character concepts work.

It isn't necessary at all. I'm sure there will be magic items that Nilan can/will use, but taking those didn't seem right to him.

It's not that big of a deal GM. I'm ok with being behind the curve, magic makes up for that in a big way.

Ok, so I'm taking the bracers and the wand of Silent Image.

How about this - you play Nilan as you want and if I feel I need to do thing on my end to help him out, I will. We'll just play it by ear.

I will also snag the MW Battle axe. Which should leave the cloak and the potions. Koriko should take the cloak and who should carry the potions. I don't think I should carry one because I will rarely be in a position to use it in so much that as a brawler I pretty much will be right on top of people and wouldn't want to illicit AoO around potions? MaybeI am not thinking that through?

Please note I'll be mostly away from a computer starting tomorrow. Bot me as needed.

Hey guys! I've been keeping up with the thread. However, with the new baby I've been posting sparingly and when I have the time. Please bot Nilan if/when needed...

I'm having tech issues and work issues, I'm should be back in business Friday.

-Posted with Wayfinder

I'd have liked to have sold the half-plate and leather lamellar before we left (for 330 gp). Also, did we figure out the rest of the items? I think the cloak and a few misc things were left.

Let's go guys. The GM is waiting on us.

So I was hoping to do some crafting in my downtime, but to make my masterwork fauchard, it will take 8 weeks if I take 10 and can find some masterwork tools for a +2 bonus (3140 sp / (20 craft check * 20 masterwork DC). Any thoughts on this? It seems like a ridiculously long time to craft something.

Kumyo would like to find scrolls and potions, but more importantly, discover the wonders of the new world!

So I was hoping to do some crafting in my downtime, but to make my masterwork fauchard, it will take 8 weeks if I take 10 and can find some masterwork tools for a +2 bonus (3140 sp / (20 craft check * 20 masterwork DC). Any thoughts on this? It seems like a ridiculously long time to craft something.

The tools are very small?

Yeah the boards are littered with thread that talks about crafting and its uh, lets call them "inefficiencies" to be charitable. It really is a pain, but maybe our beneficent GM has some thoughts on the matter?

I'm all for encouraging crafting. There's a very good weaponsmith in town called Jorfa, a dwarven woman who like everyone else is indebted to the group. So she can assist Zoresk which will reduce the time substantially.

I'll put some personal side stuff in a bit.

I purchased a very nifty little PDF I use with my groups called Making Crafting Work. It's $.99 and has some tweaks to the crafting rules that makes them much better (imho).

Sorry guys, no post today. There's some setup I need to do and I haven't had the time. I'll get something up as soon as I can. For now, enjoy the break!

Please note that I'm away for four days, with little access to Internet. Bear with, and bot, me.

I don't need anything else, Fingers. Feel free to sell whatever.

Also, I think we should regroup after our downtime RP and have a beer in the local tavern and chat. It's nice to have some RP downtime where you're just chatting with the party.

I am down for a beer and a chat.

Looks like there is 3387 of loot before discounts applied. If you take the stanrdard 50% off for loot sold, then the total becomes 1693. There is already 1259.84 of coins out there, so that makes 2953.34 or 590gp per player.

Spiderbeard, any issues with that split?

Looks good!

Edited the loot tracker to remove all the items except the pinky ring which we haven't valued and which was not included in the above.

Each player earns 590gp. Happy spending!

Family emergency, be back soon

-Posted with Wayfinder

This is to all my games: I should be back "online" by the evening of May 28. A pair of back to back emergencies in my family (one of which involved gunshot wounds the other a simple infection run amok situation) has put significant strain on my day to day resources partnered with some massive issues at work, compounded by the time I have missed because of said emergencies. I am commited to returning I just need a couple more days.

Holy s+#%, take the time you need Irina. I know you're in for the long haul. Hope everyone's recovery goes well.

Take good care!

Back! *shakes head* what a messed up last few days! Remember kids, don't let your paranoid life partners use guns...or something...*waggles finger*

Wow. hope everything is okay.

Yeah luckily it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been though I now question my sister in law's choice of romantic partners even more than I had before. Basically he went outside because he thought there was an intruder and then proceeded to shoot at her, in the house, because...if you didn't find them inside before they must have snuck back in? Anyway she needed surgery, probably life long nerve paralysis and some nasty scars. *sigh* Plus all the other crap that happened which ws far more mundane, lol. Not MY drama but impacts my wife and my world ya know?

This guy getting prosecuted? Not that its my business at all, and feel free to ignore my impertinent question.