Gravel to Granite (Inactive)

Game Master Lareg

That price makes much more sense to me considering the cost of weapons. I'm guessing that pry implies something used to wedge open the trap (ie. leverage is helping lower the dc than if all is being used is your hands to open it.)

Not likely as the length of whatever you used would change the bonus to open it. Additionally, the position you would use to open the trap is the same whether your foot is in it or not, except that your foot is either on the tabe just outside the jaws or inside the jaws, either way, opening it would be essentially the same regardless of whether you are trapped or just setting it (actually it would be harder to rescue someone else as their leg would be in the way, unless you used a prybar type thing)

They probably didn't think about the reality of the device when setting the DC. Just taking the strength concept and randomly adding a DC.

I am assuming Triela has heard of them, and him in particular, but ooc I have no clue.

All Treila knows is the stories about great battles. There was no mention of The Order specifically that she recalls immediately. A knowledge (local) roll would provide a rough idea of what she remembers / has heard.

k local: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (13) + 1 = 14

Capped at 15 for untrained, though he did mention having traveled withbmy mother. If he was someone of note I would expect to have heard at least a mention of his name during her tales of what she has done.

But is that what you would expect from my mother? Would Triela expect to know of someone of note if they had travelled with her?

For sure. That roll will get you the general knowledge concerning them (spoiler below). Triela's mother has told her so many stories that picking out individual names / groups is tough (unless they are recent tales, which have been few and far between since her mother became ill).

Voting results coming out today. Best of luck Robert.

The excess snow has kept me from jumping on to check the results. A bit late, but congratulations on the Top 16 results Robert.

How's it going for everyone else? I'm assuming we'll be down a player as RPG Superstar continues.

How's everyone else schedule looking?

Finals coming up, but I'm still poking around.

Thanks for the heads up.

Got apartment repairs and stuff on "off" days, and been called in to cover extra shifts twice in the past week. I don't think I'll have any more problems getting on, but then I didnt expect any issues last week either. Not having home internet sucks. :(

As RPG Superstar continues we're going to be down a PC. We have a plan for Caylen to rejoin us when possible, but figured I'd toss out options until then for discussion.

There are plenty of NPCs that could tag along, I could fire up recruiting to get a fourth / fifth, or we could put things on pause.

I'm open to all the options.

I'm hesitant to move to far forward without Caylen, but for the time being I'm fine moving ahead with an NPC.

4 PCs works really well, so unless you all feel like the party needs a 5th I'd put recruiting last on the list.

I'd rather keep things moving as long as we can, so pausing the game is in a close tie with recruiting.

What do you all think?

I suggest giving the character some unspecified reason to break from the group. Perhaps staying at the temple while we go to town? Then you can minimize running her character.

I do have my dog Filly, which I can bring into combat if your worried about being down a character in a fight. Not as good as a full pc, but still something.

Yeah. The exit reason is all set. My concern is that Rema is the only NPC that can fill a healing role and she isn't fast at it.

Hey all. Just wanted to extend an invitation to all of you to second campaign / play test I'm starting via pbp. Check the recruitment thread out here. I will continue to run this campaign so don't worry about missing out if you aren't interested in starting another pbp game.

Can you tell us a little more about the setting? All I see right now is crunch, and the reason I always join games is for the flavor.

It's in the same campaign world that this game takes place. In developing background for our game I got hooked by a couple ideas.

Essentially there is a community beyond the dust storm that has some how survived by living underground. The second campaign would be a group from that community.

I'm happy to email you the campaign document. The games run on a parallel timeline so you'd likely recognize many of the names / history.

I have four people that have expressed interest, but depending on their response to the campaign document they may not all stay around to play.

It's likely that I'll need a healer type as noted in the recruitment thread.

I dont play martial classes, period.

I have never lost an unarmed combat match, and rarely lose melee, which should give you an idea of my knowledge of combat, which results in nothing but frustration when playing martial focused characters, since well its supposed to be close combat, but I cant ever do what I would do, and my characters always feel pathetic compared to the real me.

That would indeed make it unenjoyable. We may need a healer :-)

I might do healer, depending on whether I get into the Winter AP game.

Cool. No biggie either way.

If you want to be a badass unarmed combatant look at the new brawler ACG class. Take a monk, but replace their defensive abilities with the offensive ones of a fighter.

It isn't a matter of things such as, how much damage an attack deals, it is the restrictions in place that stem from trying to make combat something exciting, not too lethal, and drawn out, as well as some other limits(for example, I am a counterattack specialist, yet counterattacks isn't even a thing in this game except for very limited and difficult special cases involving prestige classes and abilities from DnD.) and a bunch of other things that are just hard to explain.

RPG combat would not be fun if it was realistic, however that also means that some folks (like me) with real experience and knowledge will find it unfun simply because it feels all wrong and pathetically weak. That's why I play casters, because there is no reality there, thus a caster can't feel wrong at all.

Ah but the martial classes share the same disjunction from reality. They are legendary heroes who can cut off dragon limbs in a single swing, survive being swallowed whole, etc. If you want to try a more realistic combat system try something like the shadowrun universe.

???
That is what I said, martials aren't realistic, and even if they were we'd have to play high level so I wouldn't feel like I'm playing a weak mook.

Such realism is not possible to attain, yeah some systems come closer, but really, grabbing the wrist and pulling someone's weight off balance, jumping and wrapping one leg around the neck and the other leg around the torso and other arm and then pulling into a flying armbar in a 1/2 second is kinda hard to implement game wise, and it is probably the most simple of wins and wouldn't have worked that simple against someone of experience much less when trying to actually kill someone (that kid was just stupid, three falls all the exact same, didn't even try to alter his attack.)

Shadowrun was alright but certainly not a fix. More realistic games aren't actually more realistic, just more complicated.

Lol that entire scenario sounded like a fancy grapple check.

I love that you two mentioned Shadowrun. Haven't looked at the most recent addition, but there are times when I miss that game.

Did the gameplay thread slip under everyone's radar? Or are we waiting for Aak?

First need to determine whether I catch the wrist, if not then determine whether his strike hits me.

If I did grab the wrist, then determine whether I pulled him of bakance or whether he was quick enough to reposition to maintain his balance or if he went with it and flowed with the off balance, or if he too slow to handle it before my movements reach the next step.

Or if I didn't grab his wrist, did he hit or miss, did I roll with the blow or flow into his attack to hit a pressure point.

Then consider that regardless of the outcome of the above (way to much writing for such a simple combat move), there isn't a return to a combat stance but rather things continue to flow such that it is questionable where one attack ends and the next begins, or where a movement changes from a block/parry/dodge to an attack or reposition.

It might sound like a just a grapple check, but there are dozens of variables and possibilities for one to fail or make a mistake or use different tactics.

As things happened, I made 6 decisions each of which had dozens of possible options each of which had many different possibilities for how the opponant might react, each of which must be considered and prepared for and analyzed for best possible outcome, and my opponant had just as many opportunities to change the outcome. The number of choices, possibilities, and opportunities rise exponentially as the participants have better skill and the match lasts longer. Adding additional combatants raises such that "exponentially" doesn't do it justice.

Yeah, a grapple check put into extreme detail. The weapon fighting is what's more unrealistic.

Yeah I'm ready to move on DM.

There are spoilers to read and things happening in the gameplay thread for you all to respond to.

Hmm, for some reason I didn't get the update. Posting now.

and then the bear begins dancing... (ok, maybe not. But the image sure makes me laugh - lol).

So who's still kicking out there? Might have to resort to DMPCing here soon.

Silx simply doesn't believe it's their job to go fighting wildlife, so he's going to sit there until the fight is over or convinced otherwise.

I am sorry to have to do this, but I will be pulling out of this game. I'm starting a new semester at school and I'm taking 20 credit hours, and I fear with too many games I'll be too distracted to focus on school. I'm sorry to do this so suddenly and leave a gap, but my schooling is more important. I wish all of you the best of luck!

Thanks for the heads up. If things slow down for you, feel free to drop a note or stop by and say hi in discussions.

How's everyone else doing? Things have really slowed down and my guess is that it'll be some time before we see Caylen back in thread.

I am good with continuing, but don't necessarily want to go beyond what other ppl feel, I leave it up to you DM and also Triella's thoughts.

Sounds good. I have no problem amending things. Recruiting wise I think finding a melee type might not be too tough. Going to wait to get the thread going until Triela has a chance to chime in.

Id like to know how he is getting 20 hours in one semester, that is like 5 or more classes and the couple of schools I've been too won't let you take that many.

Im fine with continueing, but this week marked a major transition as my last post suddenly ended and now I'm being shuffled around with lots of crazy changes temp fill-in tasks until the new contracts get started and things settle down.

Basically, I don't expect to have any warning about schedule changes. Ill still be here most of the time, but I might miss somedays unexpectedly.

As for recruiting, Im up for it as I prefer larger groups for pbp.

Man, I catch up with this thread and it looks like bad news all around. I came to let you guys know I won't have time to rejoin any time soon. I can't access Paizo from the office anymore (which is where I did the majority of my posting, since I don't have much free time at home) and that's caused me to scale back on my PbPs. This was my first PbP ever and I hold a lot of special feelings for it, which is why it's hard to say goodbye to it. But for right now, I just don't have the time to commit to it.

Thanks for letting us know. Let me know if you're interested in starting a PbP back up. Congrats on the run in RPG Superstar.

What are everyone else's thoughts?

Haven't seen much activity lately. We have a recruit ready to join us at any time. I'm happy to run with just three players. Can look into recruiting some more also.

As before, up to you and the other peeps whether to continue, shut down temp or shut down for good. I am good with three manning it, it has been fun and i like the way things are progressing, looking forward to seeing what is going to happen in town, but also understand the fluidity of pbp's.

i am game either way :)

Thanks Caylen for the enjoyable experience, and hope you are able to come back at some point. :)

That was my feeling. Going to go ahead and do a bit of a cut scene then to get things going. Will need to touch base with the new comer, but I'm guessing tonight or tomorrow.

I've been waiting with great anticipation. Can't wait to get started. :-)

Post up. Take it away however you like. I'll have a bit to add for story for Silx's departure. Otherwise I'll yield the thread to the players for a bit.

How goes it? Sorry for the delay on my part. I'd forgotten to let you all know that I was going to be out of town for a few days.

Ok. Looks like it might be time to let this one go. I've tried to keep it going, but nothing seems to be working. If anyone really wants to keep it going let me know. Otherwise I'll be marking the campaign as inactive.