Im glad it wasnt serious.
Glad to see things are all right, Thorfinn.
I've been looking at the medical literature, myself, and I'm sure the potassium intake is important, too. Here's an abstract. I'm researching it mainly because although I'm not there yet, I might be one day.
Fast is fine with me as well and let me also toss in and say I am glad everything is fine, Thorfinn. I've had probably more than my share of big medical issues over the last couple years and know how miserable it is. Hopefully cutting back on the salt will help.
Okay, everyone consider yourself having the Fast XP progression. I like the idea of leveling quickly and fluidly, with plenty of challenges to get you there. Please, keep up the quality role play -- its worth XP too! ;)
Sorry for taking so long to put up real character sheet I was super busy yesterday, got home late and just crashed. Hopefully today will give me anough time to throw one up. Mind your shoes.
*Finishes cleaning up the floor* Sorry about the mess. Anyways, sheet up! Not sure how to link it to this place though.
You can put a text version in profile, or if you work it out with the gm email it directly to him.
Just communicate in this thread as your character alias so I don't have to struggle finding profiles. So, if it wasn't clear Jeod just found Nolin. :)
Sorry, keep forgetting to change the little box at the bottom.
So, is everyone comfortable with me making skill checks and saves on their behalf when it comes up?
Meh, you've got the sheets already. Just please make sure you are using our updated sheets when we level.
Also, a suggestion about rolling skills and attacks and such. When you roll a d20, you have exactly a 5% chance to roll either a 1 or a 20 or anyting in between. When that happens, many times your skill comes to mean absolutely nothing and that takes away from the build of your character. To represent more of a bell curve in rolls and to actually NEED those skills, I would suggest rolling 2d10 instead. You get a larger range of average rolls and critical failures and successes are that much harder (and realistic) to get.
Thats just an example of a standard roll. My current gaming group uses it and we find it makes the game much more vibrant then using a standard, pure luck d20. To crit fail you need double 1's and to crit hit you need, for a pure x2 crit, double 0's. If you have a weapon that crits on a 18-20, one of your dice must be a 0 (or in the case of the dice roller system, a 10). What are your thoughts?
To be fair in skill checks you don't automatically succeed or fail with a 1 or 20, that only applies to attacks and saves.
In the 3.5 epic rules(and I believe unearthed arcana too) they had optional rules about alternate options for a 1 or 20 on a skillcheck but that is more for when you have such a high skill that it is impossible to fail things that there should at least be some chance of failure, or you are attempting things that require astronomical skill checks. When we are just running level 1 characters the normal range is probably pretty fine.
For the original question, I have no problem at all with you rolling skill checks that are reactive for us. Things like perception rolls or a lot of times knowledge checks we just automatically make.
The other option that I normally use in PbPs is taking advantage of spoilers. Putting a tag like 'Perception DC 13' with a spoiler below that has the information in it lets us roll our own checks without it taking an additional post, we just only look at the spoiler if it applies to us. Doing the same thing for unusual languages can help a lot too since only those who speak them look.
Hmm, while it's not an official rule I think we should make it a house rule. I don't care if you're Elminster, you roll a 1 you botched whatever you are trying to do. And the only reason I'm trying to push this is because I like to add a level of realism to any kind of game I do, regardless of how high fantasy it is or what position I'm in. It's a proven fact that rolling 2d10 yeilds a much higher average of 9-15 rolls then a d20's pure 5% to roll anything. Can we atleast try it so you can see the difference?
How much worse is that system for getting a critical? That would very seriously affect my chracter, I personally would rather just use the simple 1d20.
A lot worse--
Crit threat on a 20=1% chance of a critical threat, down from 5%.
Crit threat on a 19-20=3% chance of a critical threat, down from 10%.
Crit threat on a 18-20=6% chance of a critical threat, down from 15%.
What balances rapiers and scimitars is their high critical threat probability. If you want to keep about the same chance of a critical threat, you have to make the base 18-20, make the 19-20 weapons 17-20, and make the 18-20 weapons 16-20. Then you have to futz around a bit with what keen edge and similar effects from feats do.
First, no autofail/autosucceed on a 1/20 for skill checks. I would actually consider that reasonable. If I fail 5% of the time on the job, I'm fired. So is anyone else. It's not realistic.
Second, no changing of 1d20 to 2d10. Thorfinn has posted some of the resulting changes in probabilities. Part of the system balance assumes that these probabilities are in check, but here's another example:
I attack a target with AC15. I receive a +5 to the roll, so I need to roll a 10+.
Average roll on 1d20: 10.5
Average roll on 2d10: 11
Rolling 1d20: chance to hit = 55%.
Rolling 2d10: chance to hit = 64%.
Now let's say the target is AC18. I need a 13+.
Rolling 1d20: chance to hit = 40%.
Rolling 2d10: chance to hit = 36%.
Add three to the AC for a midrange character, and my chance to hit drops nearly in half.
Even more importantly than the crit ranges, the midrange becomes MUCH more swingy. No, rolling 2d10 instead of 1d20 is a bad idea, and I do not recommend it, at all.
First, no autofail/autosucceed on a 1/20 for skill checks. I would actually consider that reasonable. If I fail 5% of the time on the job, I'm fired. So is anyone else. It's not realistic.
Without taking away from the rest of your discussion, which was useful (I hadn't thought through the way the change to 2d10 would affect normal attacks), most job tasks can be abstracted as taking 10, and if taking 10 fails you're in the wrong line of work.
I'll stick with the traditional d20. Luck is part of the game that is fun.
Without taking away from the rest of your discussion, which was useful (I hadn't thought through the way the change to 2d10 would affect normal attacks), most job tasks can be abstracted as taking 10, and if taking 10 fails you're in the wrong line of work.First, no autofail/autosucceed on a 1/20 for skill checks. I would actually consider that reasonable. If I fail 5% of the time on the job, I'm fired. So is anyone else. It's not realistic.
Haha, good point, fair enough.
Hm, I see your math and meh, I've used this system for 4 years and it's a hell of a lot more fun then d20.
fyi i'm sick as a dog and can barely think so no post for a day or two
Ok not so sick anymore.
Glad you're feeling better. Now let's see if your staff turns up; I have a feeling we're going to need all hands to deal with this band.
GM Nudge: There's an area you haven't explored yet...
WRT maps, I've used the spreadsheet in Google Documents before; shrink the column width to match the row height and you get squares, which you can color and/or put letters into. See HERE for an example.
Im trying to get there, hopefully you and unruly and hayman can hold them off till the rest of us can arrive, how awesome would sleep be right? Or color spray?
Burning hands ftw!
Thorfinn's suggestion is a great one for me, I tend to use google docs as a battlemap myself, you can also host images and text documents there as well for when you want to show us things.
If people have gmail accounts you can set permissions to let them log in and move their own characters, but if you open it anyone can see the file without having to log in.
funny you should mention sleep. I got that spell, but heal first was in order when I told my preparation
I'm traveling this week with limited Internet access. Please feel free to NPC me this week.
Okay, posted. I'll reiterate, Favored Enemy: Goblin may not be a bad idea.
GM Kyle,
I have no problem with you DM ing Hayman like that. So feel free. I put his thoughts up there so that just in case I wasnt able to get online, you had what I planned for the character.
Since I was down over 50% hp, I put up there that I was going for a cure lt. wounds. But its no biggie.
I do appologize about being away for so long, but I kept checking the week before and there was no activity, so I got a little lax in checking.
It wont happen again.
TY
Don't apologize, I needed to keep the game moving.
Jeod, Hayman and Nolin, you guys are next. Is everyone busy playing Mass Effect 3...?
So can I go? I thought since you listed me last I had to wait for those two.
Its been a new combat round. Every time I post the entire initiative order and enemy actions, that's your cue to post: notably when I write your name in the post to go.
I posted earlier that players may post out of initiative order to speed up combat. To be clear, is Nolin entering the other room -- not the room with the rest of the party? I had thought I already listed you found your staff in the room adjacent to the cells and was under the impression you were returning to join everyone else.
No I don't remember reading anything about finding my staff. Let me look back to see if I can find it and I may have to adjust the past couple of posts if I do. Is that alright? Yes, if the staff is found he would be right behind them throwing spells.
I made a post on 29FEB2012 with a spoiler that had your name on it.
You scurry into the next room, dive into the low tunnel, and while your magic fails to produce a simple light the room is dimly illuminated on the other side. You immediately see your belongings that were stolen from you on the other side alongside a stash of other items you can need readily assess due to the urgancy coursing your veins. You know you have to get to the fight and fast! The room opens up to another low tunnel on the other side of the small room...
I apparently should have been more specific that your staff was there as well which I apologize for so there was no need to go into the next room. I'll let you retcon your actions due to a lack of communication on my part.
Damnit I completely missed your post to me. Altering actions accordingly.
Jeod and Hayman next.
Am I going to have to search for replacements?
I don't know. It's kind of frustrating, when you start one of these and people just vanish. Have you tried sending them PMs?
I just sent them both a message. I give them 24 hours from right now.
Okay, I'm going to be forced to do more recruiting which really sucks since I had to replace one player already and will have to get two more. Let me query the remaining players first:
Do you want me to recruit at all?
Do you want to continue the game?
Have I been a good GM or a bad GM?
If I have been a bad GM, where can I improve?
You've been a good GM. You've explained the rooms well, presented solvable scenarios and done a good job portraying the villains. We haven't even gone beyond the very first fight, no exp rewarded, no loot found so I don't think it's the pace of the game.
I think the only problem might be the concept of the dungeon. Story wise it's just a big ass cave system. No legends, no possible motherlode of gold or mithril or gems, no resting place of epic monsters. It's just sort of there.
I've enjoyed the game so far; pace Nolin, I knew going in that this was going to be a massive dungeon crawl, and I was looking forward to the retro feel. GM Kyle, you were doing a good job with descriptions and flavor text, and the other players were getting into that too. The one thing you could have done that would've made things easier is to give us a map. Nothing fancy; my players get a lot of use out of maps made with Google spreadsheets, and in a game where we're going to be doing a lot of fighting and position is as tactically important as it is in PF, it's good to know where everyone is.
I've been enjoying the game as well even if we aren't very far into things. The descriptions have been good, the idea sounds like fun and you've been pretty clear on what you are looking for. When replacing half the group it can be pretty hard to get things going again, but I have no problem trying to continue.
For critiques to try and help out: A map would be a great thing even if it is just a grid for a battlemat. Being able to see distances and flanking opportunities and whether we would be provoking or leaving ourselves open would be very useful.
Speed of player posting isn't something you have a lot of control over but if we are moving along at a decent pace and someone goes MiA temporarily it can be a good idea to briefly NPC them. Something that can help a lot with this is if we all give some of our standard tactics in our character profile, just saying things like 'Felix will normally move to heal any ally below half health or channel energy if 3 or more allies are hurt at all, excluding any enemies. When fighting he prefers his morningstar and staying close so he can use his touch of knowledge and learn all he can about an enemy he has not faced before.' Will give you a lot to work with.
With that sort of information you can set some sort of standard in place that after waiting a full day for a post from someone you'll post for them and we can keep going and they can hop back in the next post. It keeps the pace up and people focused. On the same idea, I think that it helps if you pose the responses to our actions as you can rather than waiting for all of our characters to be up, it will give us answers and an idea of how the battlefield is changing throughout the round, knowing if our target was killed by someone in front of us, ect.
All in all its been a good game so far though and I hope things revive.
Thanks, guys! Reading over your posts, I'm going to go ahead and continue with the game. However, I will GM Jeod and Hayman until the end of the encounter. Afterwards, I'll likely only recruit a replacement for the rogue. If everyone is enjoying the game, I have a responsibility to continue and try to make it a success -- you players are doing good in staying active which makes it easier. Now, you are new to this Nolin but this is a dungeon campaign. Just remember this but I'm sure you will enjoy the game. The game will get more complex, the story will evolve and twist but right now you're only level 1 PCs.