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My underwhelming search-fu has shown me that since we left Eleder (about the begining of the year), the only place we gained loot was at the mine (10 diamonds worth 400gp each, a +1 heavy pick, 750gp, and the deed to the mine) and the village where we fought the gorilla-bear monsters. Douena has the Zenj Spirit Fetish from the village but I didn't see that anyone laid cliam to the weapon. The money was divided up among the ten of us (Douena, Lorenz, Mahjik, Makoa, Urza, Ishrou, Jask, Pezock, Sasha, Shokambe) so that each of us has a diamond (400gp) and 75gp.
I've updated Douena's profile with the diamond and gold.
I've got it noted down on my character sheet. Thanks, Dax!
Yeah, this is rapidly turning into the DM playing by himself and letting us know how it turns out. Too many saves and too many bonuses to hit on their side. :P
Heh. Well, you'll notice almost all the NPCs (the friendly ones) are immobilized now, too. :)
That said, I'm looking forward to you reaching your destination, so that there are opportunities for you to split up from the NPCs from time to time again. I am starting to feel the difficulties of so many NPCs tagging along, and I'm generally the kind of DM who loves handling large casts of NPCs (although they're generally not participating in every battle the PCs get into, at least not all together).
For some reason all the "important" pbps that I play in, the proverbial poop has hit the fan. Navior's Serpent Skull and Jade Regent, of course - and DM Barcas' Rivers Run Red currently sees the party (at level 5) attacked by a vanguard of 6 medium and 2 large red dragons. (And the party was attending a trial at the time, so is largely poorly armed and unarmored.
I expect some character deaths.
Well, the Jade Regent party's doing not too badly and is in an easy position to retreat if things turn for the worse. In this game, however, you've had some horrible luck this battle. Numerous misses and failed saves from the party all over the place. The opponents are actually not that powerful if you could just hit them more than once!
As for you Rivers Run Red game, 8 dragons? Wow, that's nasty.
It's a (heavily modified) Kingmaker campaign - my character originally died during the finale against the Staglord; the character awoke in the afterlife - along with the Staglord, who in this particular campaign turned out to be "Nikolai Rogarvia" the last heir to the throne. He warned against the return of Choral the Conqueror. My character decided that this was a good enough reason to drag the Staglord back to life with her instead of taking a well deserved afterlife in paradise.
The GM did a great job of running a parallel adventure for my character - as she decided that she'd spurn the easy raise dead; instead she traveled with Nikolai through first Abaddon, then Hell and Axis and finally to Pharasma's Boneyard to petition the goddess directly to allow her to take Nikolai back to Golarion. This took quite a while real-time, and two years in-game time during which the other PCs had already established a small kingdom.
Unfortunately nobody was expecting Choral to appear so soon. Our allies, the Varnholds, are holding of a larger force further afield - skirmishing to buy time - while Choral's vanguard of 8 dragon is attacking the town already.
The Jade Regent fight is perhaps the "safest". But a few lucky rolls by the corby can change that. Melon is tanking nicely, hopefully that will buy the time we need.
...but then there's still the "strange man" who accounts for a DC 20 knowledge check. Even if you allow for a +5 "rarity" increase to the DC, that is still a CR 5.
Oh, wait a minute. I goofed. Mahjik's first hit brought it beneath 8 hp, which should have knocked it unconscious. His last attack could have then gone against #5. I'll fix that as soon as I have time to update again.
In that case hopefully the flanking connects the crit; but in either case #5 will need to save vs stun DC 18
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Ok, I'm really sorry. Last Tuesday I was helping a friend get ready for the Halloween Game we we co-DMing, Wednesday was the actual game, and then I spent every day until today at a friend's house because I was going to be there for another set of games anyway.
Thing is, I could have gotten online and just didn't even think of it. I blame Skyrim, Borderlands, friends, and myself.
No worries. Now post! :D
So, after I get up in the morning, while I'm eating breakfast, I tend to check in on the stats for my blog, just to see how many views I've been getting. Recently, I've tended between 20-40 views per day, most of them for my recent Red Dwarf reviews.
This morning, I took a look at the stats and was stunned to see that in the space of just a few hours I had received a little over 300 views. That was about an hour ago. That number has since risen to 347 and is still climbing. The largest portion of those views have been for my Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition review. At first, I thought there had to be a mistake. But with a little bit of detective work, I found where they were all coming from. Paizo tweeted my review on their Twitter feed! I'm, like, popular or something!
Oh, here's the link.
Nicely done :)
I just read the whole article - and it is splendidly written, Paizo highlight it for good reason.
I've found that Paizo - and their associated authors - are very on the ball when it comes to responding to feedback from the community. When I wrote a review on Master of Devils (on tenletter), the author, Dave Gross, also came by and gave words of appreciation.
Yeah, Dave Gross also replied to my review of his Jade Regent story (at the end of my review of The Empty Throne) and my review of Winter Witch. That was pretty exciting, too.
This morning, I took a look at the stats and was stunned to see that in the space of just a few hours I had received a little over 300 views. That was about an hour ago. That number has since risen to 347 and is still climbing. The largest portion of those views have been for my Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition review. At first, I thought there had to be a mistake. But with a little bit of detective work, I found where they were all coming from. Paizo tweeted my review on their Twitter feed! I'm, like, popular or something!
I read it before it was cool. :P
Btw, Navior, do you know Pagrip is up in the Crimson Throne game?
He is? Whoops! I totally missed that. It was too far down on my focus page. I missed that there were new posts. I will post an action very shortly.
Precisely! :)
This is what happens when I think I took Animal Fury but forget I took the Toothy racial trait...
Urza growls in frustration as #4 surrenders. He hurries into the next room and releases a jet of flame before another one (#7) can utter those unholy words.
Scorching Ray: RTouch, fire into melee to hit 16 damage 18
o.O
I respectfully request Urza "lose it" like this more frequently :D
My apologies, everyone. Due to some unexpected and unpleasant surprises, work has been kicking my arse for the last couple of weeks. I haven't had much time to log in and contribute to the games during the day and haven't had the energy to stare at the computer screen in the evenings. I'm taking some time off after Thanksgiving. Hopefully it'll allow me the chance to recovery my momentum and a small portion of my sanity. In the meantime, feel free to autobot my PC if I'm taking too long to respond.
No worries, Wander. Take whatever time you need to recover your sanity.
While I'm sure Navior is somewhat relieved to see his stable of NPCs reduced, I'm a bit concerned about a clericless future. Douena certainly wasn't built to carry a party healbot-wise; even if she never took another rogue level and just went straight cleric from here on out, which wasn't my intention, we're going to be at least 2 levels behind the level of divine magic the AP expects us to have. Quite frankly, if I'd been more familiar with Paizo's products when we started, I never would have even tried to run a multiclassed cleric. My RL group has been trying to get by with on a bard and a ranger since the end of the first book of Second Darkness, and I've had to supply them with a succession of friendly NPC clerics and extra potions and wands to deal with negative levels and magical darkness and death ward and character death and all the condition-removal a straight cleric normally has to deal with.
Can we get by with a cleric half the level the adventure expects and a druid at least 2 levels behind? (Don't know if Makoa ever plans to take more barbarian levels or not.)
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I was planning on keeping the levels more or less equal, but I share your concern. Were this a homebrew, I wouldn't mind being down a cleric(Heal is a wonderful skill), but Paizo's APs have a habit of being oddly dependant on healing. I think Navior can handle it, as can we.
Of course, Douena makes me wish there was a divine version of Arcane Trickster, but that's a different matter entirely... :)
I don't share the concern (at least not overly). It may be meta-gamey, but we're rarely >really< in the need of solving something within 1 day that requires a on-par cleric. I think it is perfectly acceptable to take a week off in-game to sleep off the excess stat damage and the like.
All we really need is a level 3 cleric to cover "lesser restore" outside combat, "remove fear" and "suppress charms and compulsions" (level 2 spell, Andoran Companion) for combat. Higher level spells are gravy, true, but they're not essential. The APs have a habit of making external clerics available in different points (either as companions or at temples/churches).
Yeah, Dax is right. There is a race going on, so taking a week off in-game might have in-game implications. Of course, if Douena gets her way, you'll be quitting that race anyway. :)
I'm actually not overly concerned about healing at the moment. Nonetheless, it is something I'll be keeping an eye on as we continue forward. I can make adjustments as necessary (I'm making them all the time, either adjusting the number of opponents to account for a larger party or just changing things I don't like).
Sorry for the slowness in the last week, by the way. I've been busy. Things should pick up again next week.
I don't share the concern (at least not overly). It may be meta-gamey, but we're rarely >really< in the need of solving something within 1 day that requires a on-par cleric. .... The APs have a habit of making external clerics available in different points (either as companions or at temples/churches).
I haven't found this to be the case at all in the APs I'm familiar with. Maybe it's just that they're wilderness rather than urban APs, but I've found it usually the case that the PCs are basically alone and without allies for whole books at a time. And there's almost always time pressures, but even when there's not, wandering monsters and random encounters make it impractical to say, "Well, we're just going to sit here for several days and wait to heal."
And healing is the least of my worries. There's ability drain and negative levels and magical darkness auras that light can't pierce and invisibility we can't purge and things that call for break enchantment and dispel magic and remove curse and all kinds of other things that can't be solved by waiting for them to go away. As Urza is a sorcerer and not a wizard, he's not going to have the spell selection to pick up any of those nichey spells, even if they're on his spell list.
Nor are scrolls a reliable option, even if we could afford them and had someplace to purchase them from. Douena can't even cast the raise dead and restoration scrolls we have without first casting owl's wisdom so her casting stat is high enough and then a caster level check and a chance of completely losing a very expensive investment. Even if they're both cast without mishap, that still leaves whoever was raised with one negative level we can't get rid of. And then we won't have access to another raise dead ever. Makoa might have reincarnate when we're 14th level, but that's it -- and we still wouldn't be able to restore the negative levels.
Yeah, the lack of raise dead or restoration may become a concern. Jask was certainly the least convenient NPC to have die, but the dice fall where they will... At any rate, I'll keep an eye on this as we proceed. If I feel the need to introduce a replacement for Jask, I'll do so. I don't want to force any PC to change their planned level progression, so neither Douena nor Makoa should feel the need to go all cleric or druid from here.
Yes it is a race. No we don't have to win to progress to the next books. (At least, I'm assuming that the plot doesn't somehow hinge on us actually being there first.) It's part of the story that we might take second place, and that is a good thing too.
I think Navior has the right of it: if we really need something he can make it happen one way or another.
(Regarding deeper darkness, Mahjik got that covered via his everburning torch. Urza can presumably glitterdust from a scroll reliably enough. Right now we've been mostly shedding NPCs, which in a way is good - deepens the involvement for the PCs. Imagine Lorenz's drive for vengeance if Sasha should fall.)
Restorations will be a pain, but that's okay. Given the lack of loot, we wouldn't be able to pay 1000gp to recover 1 level anyway ;)
Right now we've been mostly shedding NPCs, which in a way is good - deepens the involvement for the PCs. Imagine Lorenz's drive for vengeance if Sasha should fall.
Well, that's fine for PCs who are motivated by vengeance. Douena's motivated by fun -- and she hasn't had much since we got off the island. It's just been a long trudge of politics and logistics and working for a cause she doesn't believe in. No amount of treasure or fame or knowledge is worth the lives of people she loves, and rather than lose anyone else, she'd rather walk away and let the factions fight amongst themselves for the damn city. There's nothing there she wants.
EDIT: I don't know why, but it would feel different if the Aspis Consortium had attacked us out in the wilderness or anywhere other than the Pathfinders' supposed "safe house." Douena's anger would be turned toward the Consortium, then. But since we were attacked for being blindly obedient to the Society, going where they told us to go, even though we didn't really need to resupply, and being where they told us to go to be "safe," it feels like it's their fault.
Restorations will be a pain, but that's okay. Given the lack of loot, we wouldn't be able to pay 1000gp to recover 1 level anyway ;)
We actually have 4000 gp worth of diamonds right now, that I presume are restoration supplies, if we had anyone who could cast it.
Everburning torches won't do a thing against deep darkness, which is a higher level spell.
Mahjik specifically got a clerical everburning torch (i.e. same spell level as deeper darkness). It won't be able to increase the light level against deeper darkness, but in the overlap the pre-existing light conditions apply. Makao and Urza at least should be able to see fine in that regardless, and Douena in many cases.
What exactly is the rationale behind forcing the PCs to work for a faction in this adventure anyway? We could have used a library and done research by ourselves and found a guide by ourselves, if one proved necessary, and all the factions could still have chased us and tried to get us to work for them and attacked us to slow us down or get information or whatever. I'm guessing that once we get where we're going, the faction is going to be our only resource for buying/selling/etc.?
There's a thread in the Second Darkness forum (Why was Second Darkness AP so unpopular?) where a poster lists the problems they had with other APs for comparison; one was Serpent's Skull (fortunately no specific spoilers), and they said
Being forced to work with an organisation for the AP makes a lot of players feel like employees rather than heroes.
That's right where I am. I hate that my PC is a pawn of some faceless organization rather than acting autonomously. (Doesn't help that I find the practices of the Pathfinder Society, as delineated in Seekers of Secrets and the current webfiction, repugnant and a lot closer to LE than the N the group supposedly is. If Douena knew what was going on at the Grand Lodge in Absolom, she would have stalked away indignantly back in Eleder.)
Nothing in the AP actually forces you to work with a faction. The factions seek out the PCs and try to recruit them (and may later oppose them). Now, the adventures are written with the assumption that the PCs choose to join one, but it doesn't require that they do. A lot of people tend to equate assumptions made in adventure writing with "mandatory" and that's really not the case at all. In Serpent's Skull, it would be very easy to continue if the PCs chose not to work for any of the groups. Indeed, since the AP makes no assumption at all about which group they join, all the faction stuff is left very vague, making it even easier to ignore. So please don't think you have to work with the Pathfinders simply because the adventure said so. The party is free to decide what they want, and I won't force any decision on anyone. You could even decide not to go to the city if you want, although that would, admittedly, entail abandoning the AP for something different. So far, however, all the PCs except Douena have indicated a desire to work with the Pathfinders.
I am curious though. What are the Pathfinders up to at the Grand Lodge? It's been ages since I last looked at Seekers of Secrets. I barely glanced at the Field Guide when I got, and I haven't read the web fiction, so I don't actually know much about the inner workings.
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Of those who are evaluated in this manner, roughly half are
deemed worthy and allowed to take the Oath of the Initiate.
Under this vow, initiates agree to submit to all the laws that
bind full Pathfinders, but are additionally required to follow
any and all edicts passed down from those in charge
of their training, accepting punishment when
merited and foregoing any compensation
for their labor. While not exactly slaves,
initiates forfeit all but their most basic
rights to the Pathfinder Society, with the
understanding that those in charge will
keep the initiates’ best interests at heart.....
Initiates are stripped of all but
their most basic possessions, with the items placed in secure
storage, and issued nondescript outfits of homespun gray
cloth. They are then brought to the Quadrangle, the massive
cluster of buildings in the northeast corner of the Grand
Lodge, and assigned their new quarters, often packed three or
more to a room. For the next several years, these austere cells,
featuring only bunks, desks, and a lockable trunk for each
of them, are their only homes.....
between mandatory classes and study periods, initiates
earn their keep by performing any and all duties assigned to
them by the Pathfinders charged with their training. These
tasks are generally couched as extensions of the initiate’s
education, and can include anything from manning
the main gate (arms training) to scrubbing floors and
chamber pots (diligence) to providing research assistance
(scholarship).....
For initiates, the rules governing life in the Grand Lodge
are much stricter—though they’re technically required
to obey any request from one of their handlers without
hesitation, some of the basic guidelines include no fighting,
no leaving the Grand Lodge, no entering forbidden areas (a
constant temptation, given the nature of the compound),
no clothing other than the initiate gray, no shirking, no
chemical addictions, and no romantic entanglements (the
most frequently violated initiate rule, sometimes as a result
of taboo assignations with full Pathfinders).
Punishment for transgressions by an initiate is usually
handled by the Pathfinder instructor most closely involved
with the incident or initiate, and can include anything
from extra work shifts to public floggings depending on
the seriousness of the offense.
Sounds like a cross between a cult and the most obnoxious of fraternity hazing, only instead of lasting a semester, applicants are forced to work as menial servants, their possessions stripped from them and their autonomy removed, even to the choice of what clothing and/or jewelry to wear, for "several years". There are no limits placed on what orders they are expected to obey: "any request from one of their handlers without hesitation." In the current webfiction, a guest at the Grand Lodge remarks on the swiftness with which the initiates respond to orders: "the efficiency with which they had learned the menial lessons taught to burgeoning Pathfinders—lessons that I, by virtue of my noble birth, had been spared." Which, honestly, just makes it worse. If they degraded everyone equally, no matter who they were, you could make the case that they honestly believed that being brainwashed to obey orders without thinking somehow inculcates quick thinking alone in the field. The fact that they exclude the rich and powerful from the appalling treatment ordinary people receive shows that they really only do it because they're the Pathfinder Society and they can. It's the worst kind of elitist cronyism, like Skull and Bones, except that, again, this isn't a semester of hazing but of being used as "not exactly slaves" by the Pathfinders.
Honestly, before Seekers of Secrets came out, I thought the Pathfinder Society was awesome. I thought when you did something amazing or made some great discovery, they'd come to you and say, "Hey! Great job! Want to join our awesome club for awesome people?" When I got Seekers of Secrets, I jumped right into it, trying to find out how I could play a Pathfinder Society member. I was almost physically sickened by what I read. They're not an awesome club for awesome people; they're an elitist losers' club for sadistic snobs. I don't see any difference between them and the press gangers in Skull & Shackles or the brainwashers of the Church of Razmir, except that you get your stuff back a lot faster if you're a literal slave on a pirate ship. I've hated them and not wanted a PC of mine to have anything to do with them ever since. I don't see how any Chaotic Good person, who, by definition, respects the rights of the individual above all else, could ever have anything to do with such an awful organization. Douena wouldn't even accept a field commission on the promise she wouldn't have to go through any of that, knowing that they routinely do it to other people.
(Btw, Seekers of Secrets also points out that the most common form of field commission, like the ones we were offered most likely, only allows you to apply your discovery or work done for the Pathfinder Society to your final project. You're still expected to report to Absalom, turn over all your stuff, dress in their slave uniform, shine shoes and clean chamberpots for your handler, and scrub statues until they "deem you worthy" of being in their club.)
My personal disgust with the Pathfinder Society aside (as Douena sadly has no way to know about it or she'd dedicate her life to finding a way to firebomb the Grand Lodge off the face of Golarion), the irony is that if we hadn't followed the Pathfinders' advice and had stayed somewhere else than at their "safe house," being attacked while trying to do things our own way would have been enough to nudge Douena onto the Pathfinder reservation. If Jask had died because we hadn't gone to the Pathfinder safe house but had trusted in our own best judgment, well, then maybe the Pathfinders really do have something of value to offer and maybe she ought to respect what they have to say. That would have pacified her on the subject, and she would have stopped fighting the idea, even if she wasn't happy about it. The fact that we got attacked in the very place they told us we would be safest means she never wants to have anything to do with any of them again.
Oh right. I'd forgotten most of that stuff, but it's coming back to me now. In some ways, I like that there's a seedy underside to the organization, but it does create a massive problem with the way the game presents the Pathfinders as an ideal organization for PCs to be members of. If it was just an in-game organization that happened to be powerful and widespread, that would be one thing, but I do have to wonder what the thinking is behind the real-world marketing that presents it as so perfect. It definitely paints Shattered Star in a new light...
Yeah, they're a great organization for flavor. They're appalling as "the good guys everyone wants to be associated with."
And, yeah, I've already accepted that I will never play in Shattered Star. *shudder* :P
(although I must admit I take a bit of sadistic pleasure myself in the thought of Gelik and Amivor Glaur scrubbing chamberpots with a toothbrush.)
The second adventure in Shattered Star is actually really good. If you were to strip it of its AP connections (which would be very easy as the individual parts are only very loosely connected), it would make a great stand-alone adventure. The first adventure is rather bland. I'm only halfway through reading the third, but I'm pretty unimpressed by it so far, which is a shame as I absolutely love Kaer Maga as a setting.
It would be very easy to strip Shattered Star of the Pathfinder Society completely. I think that's the route I would go if I ever ran it (not likely as there are too many better things I'd want to run first).
(although I must admit I take a bit of sadistic pleasure myself in the thought of Gelik and Amivor Glaur scrubbing chamberpots with a toothbrush.)
Hah! Yes, that is amusing. :)
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Hi hope I'm not overstepping my boundries by posting this here and if I am I apolagise. Just wanted to say that as a longtime reader of a lot of Golarion stuff I agree with Joana's overview of the society (Although I put it down to them botching Seeker of secrets than how the society is intended to come across). However I would say shatterd star (So far) and the Orsirion module series presents them in a better light. Also I just want to say Ive been following this play by post for some time and am really enjoying the characters.
Again my apolagies if I'm overstepping by posting this here.
I posted most of my rant some months ago in a thread in the Shattered Star forum, and James Jacobs commented that if Seekers of Secrets had had that effect on my opinion of the Pathfinder Society, then the book was a failure. Some people said that they thought Seekers of Secrets had been "quietly retconned." It needs to be publicly disavowed, like elves trancing in Elves of Golarion or the plethora of dragons in Guide to Darkmoon Vale or James Jacob's personal albatross, the paladin of Asmodeus, especially since Dave Gross' Varian Jeggare fiction seems to be perpetuating the Seeker of Secrets status quo in regard to the initiation process.
You're quite welcome to post here, as far as I'm concerned (especially as you largely agree with me ;). I obviously feel quite strongly about the clash between the Society's positive reputation and the documentation of their actual practices, however. I don't want it retconned in the sense of them sweeping it under the rug and never referring to the application process again; I want it retconned in the sense that they say, no, the Society absolutely does not do that, before I'll consider being involved with them. Ironically enough, Douena was first rolled up for an Entombed with the Pharoahs game, and her relationship with the Pathfinder Society was much warmer. Of course, that was before Seekers of Secrets came out. :)