Hot DM's Argent Corvids (Inactive)

Game Master Hotaru of the Society

Auditinggggg. I am only auditing your profile page, not your character sheet, unless Character Sheet is the only place it is located.

I have not audited money at all. Toooo lazy. But... soon.

Typos! I blame them on being tired :o

Fixed it all up. Going with 2x skill for FCB, since I need to get the bonus talent at 8 to make it useful :)

Everything should be fixed up now.

Alrighty, awesome!

How's everyone else coming along?

Travelling for work. In NY right now, will try to get something up tomorrow night.

Not a problem! Hope everything is going smoothly. :)

On that note, though: Dwarven will not be particularly useful. I could throw smidgens in, but it wouldn't see the same mileage as (Per the player's guide) Common, Infernal, Elven, Halfling, Shadowtongue, or Strix. (I list the ones you already have for the benefit of others who might rethink what they have.)

Also... on the topic of auditing. I've audited a lot. Now it's time that you guys audit -me-.

The following does not include the weight of gold; I won't be tracking that, unless you decide to take the dragon's hoard -with you-.

Money and Weight Auditing:

Armon is pushing over his middle load. I've took the liberty of highlighting what won't be very useful (assuming someone has the light cantrip, and you are in the city) in red. You could also gain 1 pound of capacity by upgrading your backpack; Not exceptionally worthwhile. Further, you still have 69.4 gp remaining over top of your 102, from where I reimbursed you a little for your wand. (10% off for being a member of clergy)

Juniper's audit came up clean. This time.

Michel's audit is likewise clean, at least for now. Mostly 'cause it's empty.

Misha's Audit showed that she seems to be attempting to smuggle quite a bit of gold into the campaign ;). You seem to have forgotten to deduct 248 gold worth of expenditures (I'm guessing Sleeves and Darkwood).

Scath's Audit came up clean. He must have done a good job.

Tobias's audit came up with him being a typical halfling and stealing everything he could get his hands on. You're carrying 13 too many gold. :)

Link in case you missed it.

Hopefully that will be helpful. It may not be -perfectly correct- But double check what you have against what I have. If you break it, I will cut you. It is editable, though.

Feel free to add in things if you want.

In Theory I should gain access to books 2 and 3 tomorrow, which will help me finish helping you guys that still need information from me. If you're waiting on something, please send me a post. I would very much like for everyone to have their characters ready on Wednesday. :)

Aha. That's what happens when you (that is, I) get lazy and buy the premade adventurer kits. Lots of heavy crap you may or may not use. ;P

Thanks though! I went ahead and took all of the red items off my inventory. I also upgraded my backpack to a masterwork one, because why not.

The soap and candles are all a copper apiece, but I guess that's just too negligible to keep track of? Not that I'm complaining or anything.

I still have a free item I need to decide. Nonmagical, and worth 200 gp or less. Not sure what to pick just yet, but nothing, well, heavy.

If people (with hands) have extra gold left over, and are looking for things to buy, at low levels, Skeleton Keys are a majorly sound investment. Two or Three basically give 2 or 3 +10 skill checks to open doors, as a backup to the rogue.

Do we have a rogue?

@Mahorfeus: I figured that was it.

Once you have 1000 gold, copper becomes negligible, unless I'm just trying to annoy you. :)

@Foul: You have a slayer without hands. :)
Melee Kineticist
Face Mesmer
'Buff' Cleric
Melee Inquisitor
Slayer Cat

Crap, she was caught! I blame it on Misha's upbringing. It's so easy to slip into bad habits again, you know :p

Fixed it, I think I went back and added the shield and MW backpack and didn't update the number at the top. Too many things to remember sometimes :)

Wish I could figure out what to spend the remaining gold on. Guess I'll just save it for now!

Re: Rogue

Having someone pick up disable device would be good. I could probably do so for Misha if needed, but it's hard with only 5 points to spend on non-background skills. Also not having it as a class skill kinda makes it harder to justify picking it up. The DC's are pretty steep early on, and that +3 makes a big difference.

For what it's worth, your header doesn't agree with a bit of your profile, and your header seems mostly right. ;)

I'm trying to think of occasions that you need a rogue in this... and they just aren't really standing out. I know there are several lockpicking DCs, but from my recollection there is generally always a key nearby to open it. And it's generally always better to look for the key (and find other treasure in the process) than to pick the lock.

More... locks seem to be more of a gating mechanism in this. Some of the locks are ridiculous (as they should be, in all the cases where they are), but they're ultimately trumped by the fact you can easily find the tools you need, or have them before you ever see the lock.

And, I mean, a rogue is nice because having a wide array of skills is cool, but with a 6 man party, background skills, and most folks playing 4+skill classes (Poor cleric.), a rogue isn't necessary even in the skilled role. Though you could totally kick some of their butts on their rolls with dedication. The spreadsheet I made has a skills tab where you can look at what's needed. A red area shows no ability to get over a 10 within the party. (In the land of devils and ain't nobody know nuffin about devils. :P)

Wow, that spreadsheet! The gold bit was really good, but I didn't even think to check if there was more than that :o

I will definitely be stealing that next time I DM :)

It's possible. I basically took the text file I used for building Li'an and started making changes. One day I'll write up a simple program that'll dump out a text file based on inputs, so I don't have to keep updating three separate places for most things :p

That'd be pretty awesome, to be honest. It could get kind of 'heavy' though.

If I really set my mind to it, I could probably do it in a day or two. It'd really only be making a sheet where stuff was entered once, and then massaged into the format of the text file I use.

I was kinda trying to avoid it though 'cause it wouldn't work with the spreadsheet I whipped up, and I'd like to get the spreadsheet able to do that instead (which is a lot more complex). I think I need to rewrite that sheet from scratch to fix some pretty fundamental flaws though, like only being able to use 3 classes.

I still haven't gotten to look at that. No excel Op.

It's actually not hard* to create a single sheet in excel, that draws on all the numbers. Formatting it to look good and have what you need available is harder than most things. And it's a lot of typing... at least in Google docs.

*Not entirely true, it has a steep learning curve, and I'm sure there's a better way than I know. Most of what ive learned is either from watching, from picking other's code apart, or monkeying around. Excel very much seems to be a tool where you have to understand the hoops you need to go through to reach the point you want to be. I had a really hard time at first, but it got better. Mostly by others doing, and me 'undoing'.

If it could translate to google docs easily I'd totally port it over, but there are some features that are completely absent in Google Sheets. It's like google makes these tools, gets 90% of the way done and then goes "Meh, that's good enough". Like text color in google docs, you have to click it each... and... every... damn... time... you want to change the color of a text, even if you're using the same color every time! Blah :P

It would be a lot of typing in Excel. My plan was to reformat my text file with XML tags specifying what goes where, and then use MATLAB code to parse and replace stuff as necessary. It's got a nice GUI creation tool, so it wouldn't be too terrible.

What you're describing in regards to learning is pretty common for starting to learn coding. The initial phase of learning involves stealing other people's code and making small tweaks to make it do what you want instead. I call that phase "Monkey See, Monkey Do", because you don't always know what's going on inside the black box you're mucking around with, but you can usually make minor alterations. I've gone through that phase in quite a few languages at this point :)

Audit Sent on skype

Blegh. The medium encumbrance is bugging me. Trying to think of ways to cut down on weight. 9 extra gold pieces for silk rope, which is half the weight. Fancy pantsy.

The problem is that between your chain shirt, morningstar and backpack, you only have 3 lbs of capacity before medium encumberance. You essentially need to lose weight on your armor in order to be carrying much of anything. But does an evangelist who doesn't plan on adventuring outside of Kintargo really need much in the way of gear? :)

I doubt you'll need a waterskin since we'll be near taverns pretty much constantly

53.5-4=49.5

Only one person really needs a rope so you could just ask someone with more str to carry that

49.5-10=39.5

You could drop the belt pouch since you have a backpack

39.5-.5=39

and unless the Cheap Holy Text is part of your spell you could have him leave it in his home or the like

39-1=38 which is light

you do have to give up quite a bit but it will only last until we can get mithral armor

Awwwwlright. I've looked over books 2 and 3... though not in great detail. I'm going to modify part of book 2, because it's dumb. Really dumb.

Book 3, despite being all about parties and socializing (and engineering things in the background for kittyfaces!) has next to nothing on nobles. Which is fine. I'm leaning very much towards just running the noble houses as I've got them in my headcanon.

One notable Exception:

Also, if you want more capacity, and you don't specifically have a reason you want 13 dex, you could move a point of that into strength. That would net you five more lbs in the green zone.

Without the Silk Rope, or rope at all, you'd be at 43.5, leaving you just half a pound overweight if you increase your strength to 12.

If you leave the holy text at home (as suggested), or even get better holy text to keep at home, you'd be just under the wire.

The waterskin, of course, is up to you. :)

Whoops! I did all my first bits of gold expenditure off the top of my head, so I maybe got a thing wrong or two.

Tobias is gonna be real short on skill ranks, what with having to invest in Intimidate and Knowledge (planes) and having 7 Int and all.

Speaking of that - I know not much of Inquisitor is left, but the chassis of inquisitor is better than its' abilities: 3/4 BaB, medium armor, 2/3rds casting, 6+int mod skills, an excellent spell-list, etc.

Also I added some mundane gear. The sacred shield is a channel foci - I can expend a usage of channel energy to give me +1 sacred AC for 24 hours.

Oh, no. I don't mind at all.

I've got a not-monk build out there, where you take like 3-4 archetypes and wind up with like... two things of the original monk.

It's like... Sensei, Ki Mystic, and Monk of the Four Winds or something like that. It's really weird.

Okay, so in summary:

I think I'll use my free item on a really shiny and jazzy copy of The Light of Hope that Armon keeps at home. He carries the glorified pamphlet version around with him. :P

Alrighty! I updated you on the chart of doom. (Also, the Chart of Doom is listed at the top of the forum)

Great! Now if the Rebellion is ever in dire straits financially, we can hawk your 200gp bible and use it to pay our operatives. I'm sure your goddess will approve, 'cause if that's not giving the people hope, I don't know what is! ;)

You're not a bard anymore. Stop barding. :P

What do you have against armored horses? I see no reason to stop barding, it's hard enough to keep horses alive as is ;p

*prattles on about the virtues of hope and freedom*

Sorry everyone, travelling for work again, and had a much longer Monday than I expected (it started 7AM Sunday, and I didn't get to NY and into bed until 2:30 AM Monday). I'll be a bit spotty this week and next due to the travel.

I'll go with Small Scath, don't hold up the game on me. I'll get another sheet up as soon as I can.

Alrighty. Sorry your trip is nuts. :(

Ugh that sounds rough. I've had really terrible luck in recent times travelling to NC from DC. At one point I think the plane left like 4 hours later than it had been intended to leave. I feel your pain.

On that note, most probably during the week of Thanksgiving, and the two weeks before Christmas, my posting will suffer a bit. We usually triple up on amount of work that needs to be done during those timeframes, so we wind up with 1.5x the work for two different people. It shouldn't be exceptionally bad, though.

Scath

Latest Scath, should be done.

Thank you very much for getting that done for me.

Audit: You missed +4 Size bonus to stealth... or I don't see where it's hidden at. You don't need to update the sheet just for that.

To my knowledge, Gnome and Dwarf will not be used in the base adventure.

Is anyone waiting on me for anything?

Not I!

Nope!

Hah! I love your stick figure people swarms, aka crowds :)

:) I thought folks would like that. :)

Also, the map has letters before numbers (so cool!), and those letters correspond to the gazetteer I wrote up. So O10 is in Old Kintargo. :)

I named the Dreadspan seperately, because I felt like it was its own place. :)

Since I'm using Stealth to hide bodies, and don't get the size bonus, I figured I'd leave it off the sheet for now, unless I go forgetting it regularly.

Alrighty. Sounds good to me.

I plan to start Thursday. I'll have Face to Face on Friday. Then I'll literally be at my computer all weekend unless something huge happens. Map-related things will mostly have to wait for my lunch break or when I'm home, though.

I should be pretty responsive, though, as we go forward.

Suggestions for useful languages then? Sylvan? Aklo?

(Per the player's guide): Common, Infernal, Elven, Halfling, Shadowtongue, and Strix are all local languages, or useful ones. (I list the ones you already have for the benefit of others who might rethink what they have.)

I'm not saying not to have the ones I listed, just that I don't like players having points unless they just want the languages. Off the top of my head, though, I can only remember one friendly dwarf and one friendly gnome in the entirety of what I've read.

I mean, I'm not saying I won't add dwarves or gnomes, just that the town is 85% Human, 4% halfling, 3% Tiefling, 1% half-elf, and 7% 'other'. It won't be wasted if you have it and use it, but it's not likely to come up as much. :) I only say anything because it's in the player's guide. :)

I had planned for more languages for him anyway, so I'll switch them to Shadowtongue and Strix then. I can pick up dwarf and gnome later if it comes up.

Sure! :) More points in Linguistics (by itself) will definitely not be wasted. Basically all the social skills will have a use at one point or another, though it's not entirely necessary for you to be social. There are two scenes that come to mind in book 3 (that I've read) that are about grace... either charisma or dexterity work well.

The first would be sort of... odd... for Scath to participate in but due to the nature of it, it's hilariously apropos.

The second is going to lean more towards sneaky kitty over social kitty.

"The Rebellion's Spy Master is rumored to be attending the event this evening," Thrune says to his advisors. "What do we know of him?"

"He is a master of a hundred languages, able to blend in seamlessly into any culture, produces forgeries so authentic, the original documents are often selected as the fraudulent copy. He is reportedly so stealthy that he could snatch a baby from its mother's breast without her noticing," responds the advisor.

"Then what do we do about him?" Thrune asks, glaring at his crony.

"I... I have heard... that... well," stammers the advisor.

"Spit it out!" he says angrily.

"His weakness is tuna, my Lord. We can catch him with tuna," the advisor manages to squeak out nervously.

"Guards, have this fool executed at once for wasting my time!" shouts Barzillai as he turns and leaves the room.