Greetings, everyone!
Welcome to the game, totally-not-suspicious random person!
Hey look, it's a PC! we should have them join us
@Solace - Sorry I missed you were going with Clidan. I summarized the outcome of the foraging for Day 1 in post 538. It was a bit scattered though so I will make more compact summary block for the end of every day from now on. I will post a summary for Day 2 when the day is over.
I realize I made a typo in how far away their camp is. It is only one mile away, so you can get to it and back in the same afternoon. The length of the journey was in my mind whilst typing and not the one way direction.
Also, I am going to start posting the date and time of day in the bold header for each post so its easier to keep track of.
I'll update the game Sunday night if it looks like conversations are stalling. I want to give you guys time to talk, but also want to keep the game moving. Let me know if you have issues with the pacing.
EDIT - Also, Solace you already rolled for foraging for day two in post 559
I updated the forest map. I found a better hex map of Nirmathas so I'm using it now. There's an additional river on it because I found it on one of the maps for Part 2.
The hexes are 5 miles from side to side so you have a scale.
Just want to summarize what I got decision wise from everyone posts to make sure its correct.
Falcon - Stay for a few days then find somewhere better winter
Ian - Wait for a couple days
Alezandu - Stay put for at least a few days
Daniil - Move deeper into the forest
Solace - Wait for a few days
Elyas - Wait for a few days
Claustipher - Wait for a few days
Olivia - Wait for a few days
I don't think anyone objected to the main party going to the Ranger station.
I'll get another game play post up shortly.
^^ correct
Let me know if I am moving too fast with some of these posts. I am trying to use the Stepping Approach to circumstances like this where I am 99% sure that there won't be a majority dissension or any decisions to be made. I think it gives enough opportunity for roleplay while not robbing the game of any action momentum.
I am going to answer Ian's question about food here.
The amount of food you need per day depends on your level of shelter. Unsheltered is 6 lbs. Poor shelter (lean-tos, tents, overhangs, deadfall) is 5 lbs per day. Good shelter (anything with 4 sturdy walls and a heat source basically) is 4 lbs per day.
The other thing that has to be remembered about your current diets is that they are largely fruit, vegetables, and fungi. These types of food are relatively low in calories/weight compared to fats and meats. Given the current level of work you are all doing your looking at 5000 calories a day roughly. If you get into a fight it would be closer to 6000 calories.
I can also say from personal experience that the food amounts required are reasonable.
At least we are in temperate climate right now. I've been binging on Nat Geo's Life Below Zero and the amount of calories and straight up fat they eat is amazing.
Won't be posting tonight. Sorry guys.
Hey guys, in the future can you list out all of your to hit bonii individually instead of summing them all.
@Daniil, I can't figure out how your getting your +6 to hit with the composite long bow.
This is what I can find:
+3 from dex
+1 from Weapon Focus(Bows)
+2 From Divine Favor (Fates Favor giving an extra +1 here)
-1 From Deadly Aim
+0 from Point Blank Shot (to far away)
which equals +5.
bab+1
Gah, I didn't even look at that, just went 1st level Warpriest has 0 bab. Forgot you guys levelled up haha. Thanks
No worries, it was my fault. I still had level 1 in his header.
I think I should have been more explicit.
I don't need you guys to list out your stat blocks, just keep your bonuses separate in your attack roll.
Using Daniil's attack as an example.
Instead of:
Do this:
OR
You can keep all your static bonuses in a clump (the +5 above, from BaB, Weapon Focus, Dex Mod) but list out all the fluctuating bonuses.
Makes sense, will do.
Gotcha
Sure.
While looking back over the discussion thread, I noticed the house rule about distance penalties to Perception, which I think is definitely an improvement. However, it makes sniping almost impossible, and I was hoping to use Alezandu as a sniper a fair amount. Would you be open to decreasing the sniping penalty to Stealth to -10 in order to compensate for the lower Perception penalties at long ranges?
Solace sighs. I wish that boy would stay farther back from the fights...
Solace fires upon the archer who shot at Ian.
While looking back over the discussion thread, I noticed the house rule about distance penalties to Perception, which I think is definitely an improvement. However, it makes sniping almost impossible, and I was hoping to use Alezandu as a sniper a fair amount. Would you be open to decreasing the sniping penalty to Stealth to -10 in order to compensate for the lower Perception penalties at long ranges?
Can I suggest something?
You can take feats to eliminate the penalty. You can take Expert Sniper to reduce the penalty by 10, and Signature Skill (Stealth)'s first unlock reduces it by a further 10, to a total of... that's right folks, zero! This allows you to use Stealth in combat for as long as you can find cover to hide behind.
Thanks for the suggestions. It would be nice if the penalty was low enough that I didn't need to take those feats for sniping to be practical, but they do at least make it possible. In any case, either way is fine with me.
This week I probably won't be able to post because of work. Everything should be back to normal by thursday.
This week I probably won't be able to post because of work. Everything should be back to normal by thursday.
Thanks for the heads up.
While looking back over the discussion thread, I noticed the house rule about distance penalties to Perception, which I think is definitely an improvement. However, it makes sniping almost impossible, and I was hoping to use Alezandu as a sniper a fair amount. Would you be open to decreasing the sniping penalty to Stealth to -10 in order to compensate for the lower Perception penalties at long ranges?
Thanks for bringing this up Alezandu, finding gaps in house rules is always the hard part.
I've looked over the following:
Core stealth and sniping rules
Core stealth penalty vs perception penalty break even point (200 ft)
House ruled stealth penalty vs perception penalty break even point (greater than any hand held weapons max range)
Since 'sniping' should be happening at long ranges, and there is mundane equipment available to get a +4 bonus to stealth (camouflage net) I think the penalty should be reduced to -15 from -20.
With either Signature Skill(sniping) or Expert Sniper the penalty becomes -5, which means that the stealth and the perception penalties are the same at 80 ft from the target. At 160 feet the target has a higher penalty to perception than the sniper has to stealth with either feat.
I will also allow Expert Sniper to automatically progress to Master Sniper when the prerequisites are met. This should allow sniping to remain competitive for a reasonable amount of levels with only the investment of one additional feat.
Before these rules are in play, I would like to hear other peoples opinions on the proposed changes. I may have missed something critical or obvious that makes my suggestion unusable. I'll give everyone until end of Tuesday to comment if they want to.
Another thing I would like all your opinions on. Once combat is decisively turned against NPCs, as it is in our bridge combat, would you prefer me to narrate its end so we can move on more quickly or play it out? I am thinking that for expediency's sake narrating it would be preferable, but the counter point is that it removes the chance for the dice to do amazing things.
Basic guidelines I would use:
1 - This only applies to NPCs, I'd never narrate out a PC defeat
2 - The probability of NPCs dealing any more damage to PC would be very low, either due to the NPCs inability to hit or the PCs ability to kill it before its turn
3 - The NPC will always end up killed during the narration
4 - If anyone wants to suspend a potential narrative end they need only say so. Once its cancelled though it can't be brought back for that fight.
Due to my inclusion of rules 4 I need everyone to be on board with this. I do feel like it will help keep the game pace up, as I would have been able to end the current combat and set up the next scene today as opposed to setting up another round of combat.
Those sound fine to me.
I am fine with it. We would need to specify before hand is we want to take someone alive.
Why not just skip the narratively unimportant encounters altogether?
I am fine with skipping the last round of a combat once it is down to one or two small opponents left. Any of those times that the fight is basically over until someone can roll those last few hp.
I do the same thing in my real life game I GM, and it certainly makes sense not to draw out a PbP game for an extra day IRL for that one round of combat.
I am fine with it. We would need to specify before hand is we want to take someone alive.
Taking someone alive is basically why I put #4 in there. Or if someone wants to roleplay something out.
Why not just skip the narratively unimportant encounters altogether?
I don't believe that Pathfinder has encounters in it that are narratively unimportant. I put my explanation in spoilers as it got pretty long.
The only narratively unimportant encounters are ones that either don't cause the players to make a choice, use resources, learn something, or highlight a state of the world.
Since it's pretty hard to make an encounter that doesn't do at least one of those four things (I actually can't think of any I could make) its pretty hard to make an encounter that's not important.
Using the combat just finished as a quick example:
1 - You learned that the group needs to talk about when to set off an ambush.
The fight could've taken 1/2 the time and effort if the hobgoblins had been allowed to come try and arrest Elyas, Olivia, and Solace. That would've meant fewer resources spent and less chance of someone else noticing.
2 - Ian's impulsiveness was brought front and center.
The conversations to be had about this later will be great moments for small amounts of character growth.
3 - Easy encounters are generally seeds for side quests/mini adventures
I couldn't've put the freshly made path there without some sort of hobgoblin presence here.
4 - The party had to use resources.
Your group is down enough hit points to require either a couple channels or a couple healing spells. There were some spells cast that can't be gotten back for a later fight without resting. The archers are depleting their arrows. All of this stuff happening will influence later fights, and skipping easy encounters means that medium or hard encounters become easy.
5 - I learned that the group wants a fight
When I highlighted the situation at the bridge no one questioned fighting your way across the bridge. You could have easily moves 1000 feet down the road, crossed it without much issue, returned to the river, removed your armor, and swum across further down stream.
6 - Every combat can kill
This combat went very well given that the party had to fight across a narrow bridge. Some slightly higher rolls by me would have injured some people into wound point range, which probably would've meant having a serious think about your next move.
.
Having looked over that combat, the closest encounter to being not narratively important thus far was the goodbye scene. However, I would suggest that it was immensely important as I showed how successful you've been so far, while also subtly highlighting the sacrifices you've made to get here. The same goes for the evening council meeting. The meeting shows how the NPCs are feeling so you can take that into consideration while debating your next move.
So that is a brief explanation about why there is no such thing as a narratively unimportant encounter. The flow of Pathfinder's combat system necessitates "unimportant" encounters to ensure pacing is correct and non-combat encounters give the players a better glimpse of the world as run by the DM, which helps them gauge the DM and how to out think them as well as filling the world with more flavor.
If you've got any questions or want a more detailed explanation of something let me know. I quite enjoy both game and story design, so getting to talk about ti is fun.
Sounds good.
I don’t think anybody was thinking that this was an example of a narratively-unimportant encounter. A narratively-unimportant encounter would be like a random encounter with one hobgoblin.
I don’t think anybody was thinking that this was an example of a narratively-unimportant encounter. A narratively-unimportant encounter would be like a random encounter with one hobgoblin.
I know I just needed an example to illustrate all the points a simple combat can give that make it important regardless of the number of enemies.
But even a random encounter with a single CR 1/2 hobgoblin gives the following:
1 - Tracks back to where it came from, so you can find a base/supply stash/larger scouting party
2 - The information that the hobgoblins are either comfortable roaming alone in the area (and thus have it secure), that there are others near, or that its the last survivor of an encounter with something else.
All of this lends itself to giving players more information which helps fuel choices. Sure the actual combat itself won't be overly interesting, but there's also the choice of fight to kill, fight to capture, follow the lone hobgoblin to get more information, ignore it and let it go by and continue on your way without risking anything.
Even encounters with lone animals offer the option of making the kill to get food, not making the kill so that you don't leave as much evidence of your location so its harder to track you, capturing the animal if it can provide milk/wool/herd stock/pet.
I guess if the hobgoblin literally appeared from no where and had no ties to anything else in the world I could see it as a meaningless encounter, but the idea of that being the case is pretty foreign to me.
I'm perfectly fine with both the sniping rules and narrating the ends of combats.
I disagree that an encounter is significant if it merely forces you to spend resources (in fact, encounters built in simply to wear down the PCs are one of my least favorite things in this game) but the rest of your explanation has given me some more confidence in you so I'm fine with your rulings.
I simply would say that I would prefer not to do that for "boss" encounters with significant foes.
I don’t think anybody was thinking that this was an example of a narratively-unimportant encounter. A narratively-unimportant encounter would be like a random encounter with one hobgoblin.I know I just needed an example to illustrate all the points a simple combat can give that make it important regardless of the number of enemies.
But even a random encounter with a single CR 1/2 hobgoblin gives the following:
1 - Tracks back to where it came from, so you can find a base/supply stash/larger scouting party
2 - The information that the hobgoblins are either comfortable roaming alone in the area (and thus have it secure), that there are others near, or that its the last survivor of an encounter with something else.
All of this lends itself to giving players more information which helps fuel choices. Sure the actual combat itself won't be overly interesting, but there's also the choice of fight to kill, fight to capture, follow the lone hobgoblin to get more information, ignore it and let it go by and continue on your way without risking anything.
Even encounters with lone animals offer the option of making the kill to get food, not making the kill so that you don't leave as much evidence of your location so its harder to track you, capturing the animal if it can provide milk/wool/herd stock/pet.
I guess if the hobgoblin literally appeared from no where and had no ties to anything else in the world I could see it as a meaningless encounter, but the idea of that being the case is pretty foreign to me.
But in the above example, I have no problem with you telling us the fight happened, even rolling a few dice to see if anybody was injured, and allowing us to then explore the ramifications of the lone hobgoblin without going through the two or three rounds it would take to win the battle.
The encounter may be important to the narrative, but the specific exchange of blows isn’t crucial to the story. The bridge battle was because it opened up a lot of opportunities for RP. We surround a lone hobgoblin and hack it to pieces may offer RP value, but the chances are much lower and not worth losing the momentum over. If we all trust each other as actors, we can just rest-con RP value if someone finds it missing.
I'm sorry guys. I'm stuck in movie hell right now getting shuffled around in an attempt to see black panther. Might not get a post or discussion replies in today.
No worries, enjoy!
... snip ...I know I just needed an example to illustrate all the points a simple combat can give that make it important regardless of the number of enemies.
But even a random encounter with a single CR 1/2 hobgoblin gives the following:
1 - Tracks back to where it came from, so you can find a base/supply stash/larger scouting party
2 - The information that the hobgoblins are either comfortable roaming alone in the area (and thus have it secure), that there are others near, or that its the last survivor of an encounter with something else.
All of this lends itself to giving players more information which helps fuel choices. Sure the actual combat itself won't be overly interesting, but there's also the choice of fight to kill, fight to capture, follow the lone hobgoblin to get more information, ignore it and let it go by and continue on your way without risking anything.
Even encounters with lone animals offer the option of making the kill to get food, not making the kill so that you don't leave as much evidence of your location so its harder to track you, capturing the animal if it can provide milk/wool/herd stock/pet.
I guess if the hobgoblin literally appeared from no where and had no ties to anything else in the world I could see it as a meaningless encounter, but the idea of that being the case is pretty foreign to me.
But in the above example, I have no problem with you telling us the fight happened, even rolling a few dice to see if anybody was injured, and allowing us to then explore the ramifications of the lone hobgoblin without going through the two or three rounds it would take to win the battle.
The encounter may be important to the narrative, but the specific exchange of blows isn’t crucial to the story. The bridge battle was because it opened up a lot of opportunities for RP. We surround a lone hobgoblin and hack it to pieces may offer RP value, but the chances are much lower and not worth losing the momentum over. If we all trust each other as actors, we can just rest-con RP value if someone finds it missing.
I agree with you. Our difference in opinion is coming from different definitions of words.
Series of events:
1 - I started out by suggesting a way to end combats a bit more quickly.
2 - Ian suggests skipping narratively unimportant encounters
3 - I reply as to why I don't believe there are unimportant encounters
4 - Falcon suggests that a lone hobgoblin is an unimportant encounter
5 - I offer my rebuttal to why it is potentially an important encounter
6 - Falcon comments that the while an encounter is important to the narrative the combat can be skipped.
The main problem is that I do not use combat and encounter interchangeably, so when I used encounter I meant everything from seeing the hobgoblin, to deciding to fight, to fighting, to searching the bodies, to leaving. Which is why when Ian talked about skipping encounters I said no as they are all important, but I am fine with skipping an easy combat that is a part of an encounter.
So we agree Falcon, just got wires crossed on definitions unless I missed something. Thanks for taking the time to explain your thoughts.
That’s what I had meant, so we’re on the same page.
Same here. I meant combats, since they habe a disproportionate amount of IRL time that they take.
Glad we could talk that out.
I am going to go ahead with both the narrate out combat and the new sniping rules. I'll get them added to the campaign tab for reference sometime, probably this weekend.
I'm going to give it another day. There are 3 people for the path ambush, one against, and the other four undecided.
This is what I've got.
For the path ambush: Olivia, Elyas, Claustipher
For encircling the campsite: Alezandu
Daniil and Falcon I didn't think your posts were committal so I didn't want to force it.
For Alezandu's benefit - We decided to go with majority rule (5/8) to move the scene forward.
I am good for either option, but at this point i am leaning towards Alezandu's approach, to sneak into their camp and get them there instead of trying to lure them out. Luring the guys off the bridge wasn't very effective in the end.
I am good for either option, but at this point i am leaning towards Alezandu's approach, to sneak into their camp and get them there instead of trying to lure them out. Luring the guys off the bridge wasn't very effective in the end.
Thanks for giving me an in to talk about this a little. I was going to bring this up but kept getting side tracked. It also gives me a chance to talk about how I DM a bit more.
I thought the plan to wait until people came off the bridge was a good plan that was poorly executed. If the people with a surprise round had simply readied an action to attack after the hobgoblins moved they would have gotten their attack in once the hobgoblins moved off the bridge to apprehend the four on the road (they had seen Daniil).
I tried to hint at this issue by calling out the numbers of you that they could see (granted once it was in goblin) and having one of them say that 7 people was too many to fight (they hadn't seen Falcon yet).
While I won't say that the first round/surprise round should always be used for positioning/buffing/readying I generally try to set up combats to allow for that. As a DM I also generally have NPCs use their first round/surprise round to get into a better position/buff/ready an attack. I just wanted to bring this up to help highlight what you guys can expect from me as a DM and to show I wasn't intentionally screwing with your plan at the bridge.
Anywho, another combat coming up, lets hope that wolf thing doesn't kill anyone!
Yeah, that plan would have worked better if we had let them come to us before attacking. My decision to shoot early was based on roleplaying Alezandu's desire for swift vengeance against the hobgoblins, not carefully considered tactics. In this case, however, we can get around behind our enemies before attacking so drawing them out doesn't offer much benefit.
I am going to be withough internet from tonight until either late Saturday or mid day Sunday. Do what you need if action must be taken.
Just to be clear my attack is at the wolf not the blue hobgoblin. Sorry :(