Table 2 discussion
dotting
Thank you for the invite. So I guess we don't know each other?
You can decide if you happen to be acquainted with any particular individual. By this point in your careers you are likely of large enough reputation that even if you don't know each other, you know of each other.
If it is ok with the others, I would vote for they to have know each other personally, and have some level of trust between them, just to make things flow smoother...
About Raphael they would know he is a very pious man, a dedicated follower of Sarenrae, and somewhat a fatalist (he thinks all things happen for a reason, that gods guide events and actions of everything and everyone). But he is not a preacher, not a bigot, and in fact a very charming guy.
Sazzat Tamm is very rules oriented, the definition of a lawful neutral merchant. He is a member of an interplanar arms dealing organiziation called the Brazen Claw Consortium based in the City of Brass.
He believes in making, keeping, and enforcing deals of all kinds.
He has been visiting Golarion looking for business opportunities that will advance him in his organization.
That would make sense for them to have meet. He went to Qadira to trade, and Raphael was part of the local group that receive him.
Do you tell players the AC's of the monsters they're fighting so that they know whether to roll damage / effects after their attacks?
No. I also don't show the bonuses of the monsters for saves or to hit.
I respond quite often, so don't worry about it going slow.
Do you want us to roll damage for each swing?
Fair warning, i expect my character's full attack to be a wall of text.
Yes, roll damage for each swing.
I can read a wall of text, it won't kill me.
It would be a good idea for everyone to emulate Sazzat, Raphael, or Laurels's profile so I have the ability to see their stats quickly in their posts.
This can be done when you edit the profile by putting it into one of the first three fields.
I'd like HP, AC, FF AC, Touch AC, CMD, Perception, Init bonus, and saves.
I need to clean up my character sheet as well, it's on my to do list for this weekend.
The raw stat block is a little hard to follow.
"Yes, surely a more thorough examination could be had before such an irrevocable decision?" Darryl adds in hope of helping Sazzat's plea.
maybe better in gameplay?
oops :)
Did we heal up Lucian after the spider szorched him? If not, we should take care of that.
Yes, the academy would have covered it if you didn't. Either way you start in top shape.
Grrrr, Paizo boards weren't giving me updates on this campaign. I'll be catching up, sorry everybody.
Question: Mu'aqquibat The Protector's Damage Reduction 9/Evil applies?
She got only one hit, for 15 damage, right?
Yes, the DR applies. Also, yes, I got lucky once.
Question: Are they still invisible? Not sure if we're dealing with regular or greater invisibility. Also, if they aren't anymore, what do the creatures look like and can we make any knowledge checks about them?
They are all invisible except the ones which were hit with glitterdust (indicated by the gold colored numbers). They are humanoid in appearance, and I believe Laurel did do a knowledge planes to identify them. You can give it a shot as well as he didn't turn up much information
Thank you. I'll get a post in momentarily.
Did we learn enough about them with knowledge:planes so that we can skip rolling dice for sneak attacks vs elementals?
Hmm, I guess technically you did since they are of the elemental subtype.
Lucian did enough static, non sneak damage to kill his anyway.
Ah, then subtract the 11 points from mine as well if they are immune to precision damage. I will edit my damage now.
yeah, invisible critters that are immune to criticals, precision, and sneak attacks are pretty much my kryptonite.
I just had surgery. Nothing life threatening, but I'm going to be in a lot of pain and on a lot of drugs the next week. Please DMPC as necessary.
Will do. Get better. Had shoulder surgery early in the summer myself. That does take it out of you.
So you know, the other table just imploded yesterday. I will likely invite over one player from that table over here so he can continue playing. This would be the only player from there who didn't make a hobby of arguing with the GM.
I admit I can be brusque at times as GM, and I do try to keep players in check. However arguing with the GM when nothing is going wrong to you is something which drives me up the wall, be it as player or GM.
I tend to have a policy when playing of assuming the GM isn't going to twist the rules to screw me, and is just trying to run a fair and somewhat balanced game. I give them some rope, proffer a bit of trust. It tends to work out better than constant bickering. Yes, I often see GMs screw up rules, but I don't much care as it usually balances out both for and against the party.
I won't claim I know every rule. There are simply too many for anyone to do that (short of someone with no other things they focus on at all). I do try to be fair in my interpretations of them, and I am willing to listen to people when I'm wrong. I do, however, not generally allow extra slack on things because players of some types will scrabble for every iota of power, no matter if they have never been scratched or failed a save so far in the game.
My goal here is to try to challenge you and keep it fun. So far I don't know that it has been all that challenging, but I'll see how it proceeds. I can always adjust. I would ask you to indulge me in assuming I don't deliberately cheat nor do I have animus for the players (I was accused of both by the first rage quitter over there).
This is my rule for debating the rules. "If you think the GM has made a mistake and it's significant enough to be concerned about, bring up your point calmly and reasonably. Once. Then move on." I've had a few GMs give me, in my opinion, some unreasonable rulings, but it's their game and I'm not going to argue beyond what I specified above.
Yes I have the same basic assumption that the GM by default is not here to screw over the players. Rule 0 may be that the GM is always right, but rule -1 is that there is no game without players.
Yes, a GM can't be a tyrant if they still want a game.
Hahaha I just read through what happened. Basically it was one of those situations where RAW is wonky (since beastshaped octopus's can breath air due to the very restricted parameters of the ability). But I won't comment on it, best to let it die.
Yes, I never should have argued in the first place. No good could have come out, but the guy accusing me of cheating and whatnot which got under my skin. Heck, in the very first combat with that table they were looking up monster stats and accusing me of cheating.
The more the merrier in our group.
I agree that the challenges aren't very hard so far (but we've only had 3 fights), but that has as much to do with action economy as anything else.
We've got 5 people plus a critter acting on our side and it will take a really powerful single enemy to counter us. (referencing the squid lady and bebilith fights in particular)
The trouble with the single powerful enemy is that there's a danger that they end up too tough for the players to hurt. More bad guys is probably the answer.
If you're going to port over one of table one's players and we end up with 6 + an angel, then we'll need more bad guys.
I do have to adjust the combats since they've been snooze fests so far. I'll be dropping in more flunkies.
I'd double the guys in the next room, just to see what happens.
I also expected the squid lady to run, heal up, and come back.
Powerful outsiders should be cowardly and half the trouble in killing them should be keeping them from escaping.
Of course, we're not packing much in the way of dimensional anchor spells right now, so that could get pretty old chasing down an "at will" teleporter, both from the player and gm side.
Suppose I could do that, but it will mess with your recon.
I will say the simple mythic templates really don't seem to impress. I certainly get the idea why people describe Wrath of the Righteous as a walkthrough.
Yes, I never should have argued in the first place. No good could have come out, but the guy accusing me of cheating and whatnot which got under my skin. Heck, in the very first combat with that table they were looking up monster stats and accusing me of cheating.
Oh that really grinds my gears. Both of those. I've had to tell one of my local players unless be stops googling all his enemies I'm going to make knowledge checks absolutely brutal and not even give them enough to get a name.
retcon the post about 1 demon and 1 ribcage to 2 demons and 2 ribcages.
I don't think anyone will mind.
My character is built to kill an unprepared CR appropriate evil outsider in 1 round 6 times a day. And be pretty decent the rest of the day. Nobody else seems to be a slouch either.
I'd say that either they all need to have dual initiative (which still leaves them open to being debuffed and losing both actions instead of just one action) or there needs to be more of them.
As a DM, I've always found that increasing the numbers is the easiest way to balance things. Instead of an ancient red dragon, I'll do an old one with a couple fire giants. Stuff like that.
In my home campaign of Serpent Skull I would generally double them and buff them, but we also had a party of 7.
Of course I also did some fairly sick things like a large group of freebooter archers. Those were rather nasty.
We're already 1 person above the average party size of 4.
If you're going to add another player I'd double the numbers and add mythic templates to see how we do.
It occurs to me that dual initiative on high power outsiders that can teleport at will could be really annoying.
I've never been a fan of double initiative. It seems incredibly abusable to me.
Only thing I have using double initiative was the invisible stalkers, and to be blunt, they were creampuffs.
Irritating but harmless.
I don't think that dual initiative is all that bad.
Going twice 20 counts/steps apart could be nasty for a critter that could teleport and cast spells at will, but if they're just swinging twice then it's not a big deal.
The best the stalkers could have done is move action to close and attack once on their first count and then attack and move action away on their second count, making it hard for us to pin them down.
They couldn't hit us in any case, so it just would have prolonged the fight, not changed the outcome.
Are you thinking of adding in the other player now? You could retcon the wizard we just rescued into someone else.
And me worrying about the other table being "ahead" of us. :P
If I were you I would say the new guy is a contestant that arrived "late", and is catching up with us. About retconning the reconnoissance, go for it, no problem.
About arguing, so far your ruling are hard, but fair. And I get the clear impression you handle the rules better than me.
I'm good with whatever you decide. :)
I have asked the other player if he wanted to play in the other group. I have not heard back. He usually posts later in the day so there is no telling if he is game or not yet.
Also, I was of a like mind about him being a late contestant.