I'm sorry. We understand.
My father-in-law passed away at 2:04 am this morning. I will be taking a few days to be with my wife during her time of grief and will return shortly. Thank you for understanding.
Sorry to hear. It's hard loosing a father (or father-in-law). You, your wife and family have my deepest condolences.
You have my deepest condolences, Serena. Take your time.
That said, I had a more positive reason to be missing a few days, but I'll spoiler the text. Like, I want to let people know but it also feels out of place after this.
Everybody is healthy and well, and today brought him home from the hospital. There's a few more errands to run with bureaucracy(registration of birth, naming, etc) and with work (for time off etc), but overall, I should be able to return to normal posting soon. I'll try and get caught up asap and get a post up where I'm up.
Congratulations Alia and family. You must really hate sleep. ;)
Ha, to the contrary, I love sleep.
Just...not...getting any.
Usually we split the nights, but right now, I do full nights and "morning duty"(feeding them, helping with dressing and washing, delivering them to school/kindergarden)
It honestly takes a toll.
Half of the time I try to sit at the computer or watch something on TV, I just fall asleep. -_-
Will still try and check in more often now, until the situation "normalizes".
I felt quite good about having a round of Fast Healing from Skald's Vigor left for the bleed!
Until I decided to double-check if Fast Healing actually helps vs bleed ... And it kinda doesn't. It seems. Though some think it does still. There was a ton of threads about it. Bleh :p
Ow! The song was approaching its last verse - Illthir just hoped there would be room for an encore and not a swan song.
I think high-level bards should have a swan song ability called "The Show Must Go On" where they delay death for a few rounds to belt out one last extra-strength performance.
And then after they die, the Tribute Concert, where other bards can invoke their spirit to perform at an increased level for a time.
No points for guessing who I would place as the God of Bards.
(And Skald already was an archetype of bard, not sure it really needed to be a new class, but the same concept could apply.)
:p
You jest but
At 14th level, a skald can temporarily revive dead allies to continue fighting, with the same limitations as raise dead. The skald selects a dead ally within 60 feet and expends 1 round of raging song to bring that ally back to life. The revived ally is alive but staggered. Each round, the skald may expend another 1 round of raging song to keep that ally alive for another round. The ally automatically dies if the skald ends this performance or is interrupted. The skald may revive multiple allies with this ability (either at the same time or over successive rounds) but must expend 1 round of raging song per revived ally per round to maintain the effect.
(That's true for a lot of the hybrid classes. But I think they wanted to pad their number a little so it could be a whole supplement :p)
Re vigor questions - that sounds agreeable and probably correct :P
Re bleeding - Illthir has a scroll box, so that's a Move Action to get the Scrolls of Cure Light Wounds.
I'm not quite sure if bleed is at the start or end of the turn (and I'm to lazy to look it up at this very moment) but she should be down either 4 or 8 more hp from that and then +9 from the scroll.
(Concentration checks were half continuous damage [2] + spell level [1])
And when I say "contemplate our recent experiences" what I really mean is "how close are we to level 6?
Just wondering :)
Re vigor questions - that sounds agreeable and probably correct :P
Re bleeding - Illthir has a scroll box, so that's a Move Action to get the Scrolls of Cure Light Wounds.
I'm not quite sure if bleed is at the start or end of the turn (and I'm to lazy to look it up at this very moment) but she should be down either 4 or 8 more hp from that and then +9 from the scroll.
(Concentration checks were half continuous damage [2] + spell level [1])
Bleeding occurs at the start of a character's turn and I already added the following round's bleed into the "results".
And when I say "contemplate our recent experiences" what I really mean is "how close are we to level 6?
It's about two floors away.
Re bleed - so that's hmhmmmhm 4 more then I think!
Re "levels" - does this mean we get to skip straight from 12 to 14 eventually :p?
When you say "felled" do you mean "laying in pools of their blood with bits of them chopped off" or "face-planting the dirt with no major visible injuries"?
You know, we could probably just shoot an arrow at Imeckus Stroon and see if there's any reaction?
When you say "felled" do you mean "laying in pools of their blood with bits of them chopped off" or "face-planting the dirt with no major visible injuries"?
The latter-most.
You know, we could probably just shoot an arrow at Imeckus Stroon and see if there's any reaction?
Now's your chance.
Just a quick drive-by speculation on why Stroon didn't teleport when they were first kidnapped?
You would have to ask him (or alternatively do a little investigating on your own). The other people found in the vault (Lord Varn, Sam Renault, and Sandralane) don't have a lot of knowledge about "magic" magic. Sandralane works mostly on faith.
Mm. Just something to make note of :)
OOC I wonder if our new friends can carry us through another battle. Maybe.
How many places are left to poke? I recall something about a statue somewhere...
There was a training device in the sparing chamber on the first floor that may have murdered a couple of people.... As for places to poke. The estate is pretty big, with a number of nearby houses (the homes and workshops of the estate's servants and officials, and a big guest house) that were hosting the other non-charterholders invited to the meet including the Lord Mayor of Restov, the high-court officials, the religious representatives and the investors and all of their hangers-on.
I assume that one of the watches is Durgan rather than Fergus. I know all dwarves look alike (and the names are similar to boot).
In any event, Durgan is asleep at this point, and it is entirely on Serena to respond.
Durgan was on the first watch with Sandralane and Matheus before the website ate my initial posting. I lost track of all the beards in the rushed follow up.
Feel free to chat with your co-watchers, and wonder aloud and at length at why Alak Dool isn't sitting up for any of them.
"Sooo... Dool or Stroon at mud wrestling; who would take the crown? " Illthir idly suggests something somewhat humorous to lighten the mood. Also, the thought of both smug wizards in the dirt was amusing.
------------
Just in case the chatter would drown out the thump-investigation :p
Koren scowls.
Myes, but he hasn't taken the school specialization of "asspain" :p
While I give Serena a moment to answer back on the game thread, folks might want to consider the party's next move.
I assume Durgan is asleep.
Depending on how horrible things go during the night watch events, waking up may be a priority :p
Assuming the night passes relatively painless I feel that we might benefit from trying to find as many other traps/horrors and do what we can to solve them. The more pieces we have, the better.
First though we probably ought to take a closer look at that illusion. Maybe it is a projection? Maybe not. But if it is still there in the morning ... We need to do something. If only for our morale :p
But then it's probably collecting people again. Durgan wanted to find the banker - which is understandable. Not sure if there's any other specific person we need to look for? But leaving people trapped doesn't feel on the table either.
As a side note the two Illthir is most interested in finding is her dear horse again. Hopefully haven't run too far. But it is a pretty smart horse so probably :p
And then our faë friend, but that one isn't lost around here.
Long term we probably need to take a closer look at the validity of our and others claim on the stolen lands. Just so nothing hinges on some load bearing person being alive (and is now not). And that there's no lawyer showing up in 5+ years to inform us they're repossessing the whole shebang.
Also because someone clearly don't like us. This seems extremely excessive for dealing with a purified temple, so there's probably other motives at play. And if not - knowing that is important because it means we really need to take a second and third look at that "temple".
Just some near and far future thoughts :)
Somebody extremely powerful is behind this and we don't know the full scope of what is going on... which is a running theme with this campaign.
When I said, several years ago, that I saw 5th-level PCs as comparable to Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli, that was in reference to this piece. Which is not gospel truth by any means, but I think it has a lot of merit. 5th-level PCs are really a big deal if you assume 1st-level is the rank-and-file (which is true for some GMs and not others). Maybe I said this in the context of storming the Stag Lord's fort?
But I never meant this to imply how we compared to the highest-level NPCs in the world. Only the rank-and-file.
Because even if we are Aragorn and Legolas, this is a world where Achilles exists. Aragorn on his own can fight twenty orcs as long as he can take them on one or two at a time, continually moving to keep from being surrounded (Durgan might likewise be able to do that). Achilles charges into the middle of the enemy army and slays hundreds. It's just a different style of story if your top-level NPCs are 16th+ instead of 5-ish (and that's not even getting into magic).
Which is to say, I fully accept that this world has a lot of people much higher-level than we are. That's fine. But they are in our story quite a lot (especially this past year), and so it feels like we are bit players who don't know what is going on and don't really have the ability to do much.
Look at how much leveling has slowed down. It was about 6 months to hit Level 2, then 11 months to level 3, then 12 months to level 4, then 24 months to level 5, and now it has been 41 months since then. (I joined at Level 4 in April 2018 and leveled to 5 in October 2019.) Maybe we can jump up a few levels at a time next, like to 7 or 8? It has just become glacial. And it's not like we have stopped doing stuff. We have done so much since then. But with no progress in capability, it is starting to feel like we will always be of negligible power compared to the forces around us. I guess it's nice that we were able to contribute somewhat with all of the 9th-level NPCs around us.
I know this game is very far from the Kingmaker AP, but I would hope it could hew a little closer to the AP's style in terms of the levels and CRs the PCs encounter. Sure, there is verisimilitude to be had by knowing the powerful creatures and NPCs still exist regardless of what level we are - but that they are taking so much of an interest in what we do? I think the whole point of the Stolen Lands kingdom in the AP is that it can be "beneath the radar" of the movers and shakers of the region for a while until it grows in importance.
If the AP's approach isn't in the cards here - if even our little kingdom is going to attract the attention of such powerful forces - then maybe we hold off on trying to build anything or attract any settlers. We focus on improving our skills and leveling up, because right now we would be wiped off the map by whoever planned this ambush. And if it wasn't in a direct assault, it would be by some conspiracy or scheme that we were unaware of, because we never seem to know what is going on and I don't know how we get better at that (thinking of Hotspur, Argentov/trolls, Ilvah, Ser Richard). Spells like Commune, I guess?
TLDR; the (1) cessation of leveling combined with (2) the high prevalence of higher-level NPCs and (3) conspiracies beyond our understanding is making it feel like we are consigned to be bit players forever. Even if some of that changes, we may need to postpone the kingdom idea until we are much higher level, given our hidden foe(s).
Hence my question from February 14th, on how close we are to leveling.
It has been a very, very, very long time.
I had also intended to rebuild Alia slightly, once we get into the Kingdom Phase, and ran that by GM years ago.
Simply because some things simply did not work out. I came into the AP expecting quite a bit of downtime that would allow crafting to be meaningful (the players guide suggested as much) - I did manage to enchant Durgans armor and make some arrows for Zokon, but little else - even my own armor is not remotely done because I essentially had to leave my mobile crafting station+donkey+materials behind in our would-be Capital when we embarked to visit Zokons relatives.
Alas, we are running from one trouble to the next, and nothing ever seems to go in our favor. And there's only more trouble looming on the horizon.
Did you know/remember that there's a full Drow Fortress below our lands? Somehow I'm not convinced they need military infrastructure to just chill and leave us alone.
I concur that we may need to postpone the kingdom aspect if we are up against NPC's of sufficient power to rob us of player agency at a whim. We may need to stick to "Sim Capital" for now, trying to rebuild that fortress into a proper base of operations, not worrying about regions/villages/trade/etc just yet, until we gained a few more levels.
On the topic of today though, it feels like we ought to wake up :p
Hence my question from February 14th, on how close we are to leveling.
The party literally is one floor away from leveling.
It has been a very, very, very long time.
A lot of that has to do with posting rates, something I myself have struggled with of late. Long work hours, family issues, COVID, and a few other unexpected detours have derailed me a bit of late.
It has been a very, very, very long time.A lot of that has to do with posting rates, something I myself have struggled with of late. Long work hours, family issues, COVID, and a few other unexpected detours have derailed me a bit of late.
But as I said, we have done a ton of stuff in that time. We haven't lacked for activity.
Since leveling up (10/27/2019), we have done:In my AP experience, this amount of content corresponds to at least a full book (3 levels). Probably a bit more. I know this is mostly your additions and innovations rather than the AP as written, but I am just talking about the sheer amount of content. It's a book's worth of stuff.
It spanned 3,419 Gameplay posts (from 10,619 to 14,028) over about 1,263 days (so getting nearly 3 posts per day). Most of my games average 300-600 Gameplay posts per level, and our posts in this game do not seem unusually inefficient at solving problems or overcoming challenges. As pointed out above, those 3,419 posts covered a lot of ground. Perhaps the GM expects us in general to do far more stuff in order to level up than an AP would? Given the very slow pace of PbP, and the need to someday be able to contend with the extremely powerful forces around us, I really think something close to the standard PF1 ratio of "challenges overcome to level advancement" is a good way to go, even if we are not precisely using XP and even if the nature of those challenges is different than the AP.
Even setting aside the chronological time, and instead measuring it by activity (both the in-game accomplishments and our engagement with posting) I would expect us to have advanced far more than we have.
We have done so much.
RE posting rate - and still there's part were we drop down to 1-2 posts a week. Or feels like it at least :p
But tbh that's understandable. It's been a long journey and expecting everyone and everything to fire on full cylinders all the time every day isn't reasonable.
Anyway. Just wanted to say that I'm proud of us for the time put into this :)
Re additional content - as tallied by Durgan we've actually done quite a lot. Our journey has been filled with perils. (And we've lost our fairy friend somewhere! Darn.)
If I were to guess I'd say the reason we're not swimming in levels is that the ap probably has set bosses and foes we'd eclipse by now. As tends to happen when one does all the cool side quests :p
---
I've got a bit of a cold and I'm not sure where I'm going with all this, but just thought I might as well share some thoughts. :)
Oh and on post stuff! This is apparently my longest campaign going by post tally. 1400+ posts.
To compare a bit - I've got a finished starfinder ap and a homebrew campaign on ~1200. And then the previous attempt at kingmaker with ~1100 followed by a pair of finished ~800 post campaigns.
So if one were to draw some conclusions by that is that Kingmaker seems to trend towards being a big beast!
And that I probably pad my numbers quite a bit with discussion post spam like this :p
This campaign is #15 on the Paizo forum all-time for number of Gameplay posts.
Trust me I want you guys to level too. I don't have a problem with everyone leveling right now (you all certainly deserve it), but metagame-wise leveling up without a big final haul of treasure, or time to shop for things, or sell stuff, or (re)train, is probably not the most ideal. But I'm fine with it if you all are, and at the very, very least there will be some significant stat increases and a few more/new spells.
Lemme know.
I'm fine with a grand finale and exp/loot-rain. I can avoid eating the marshmallow a little while longer :p
Also still a cold, still stalling on making an IC post. Have some deadlines for monday that's unfortunately quite important and will chip away at them instead.
I'm good, too. I asked, you answered that we're close.
Merely wanted to point out that I understand where Durgan is coming from.
I absolutely do love the touches you give the AP, the additions you tie in as extras. It's immersive. Awesome style.
(Except that Ilvah part. That was a dick move. One I fell for hook, line and sinker. Not blaming you, just to be clear.)
But as was mentioned, there's only so much sense of progression you can have from "doing" things, when subjectively you are not more capable to tackle issues that arise than before.
I think Illthir said it nicely: we did all the cool sidequests and SHOULD probably be overlevelled for whatever is up next. It would be a nice change of pace to be able to breeze through some AP stuff for a while, then eventually return to normal scaling.
That said, let's go do that level, survive, and see what GM has in store for us.
Agreed on all counts. I can wait (with bated breath). I baited mine with pizza.
Dun dun dun!!
(Sorry. Not sure what to post but felt I ought to post something. Will peek in again come the weekend :) )
I'll get a Gameplay post up in a bit.
Ooc I vote that we check Ser Richards place last, since it seems likely to be where whatever doomsday device/final boss would be hiding. Probably :p
Jinkies! Given the size of your party you could split up and search for clues.
Never split. No matter. If we assemble enough rescuees, we'll transition into army group movement, but we're sticking together.
Flavorwise, there is a serial killer/horror setup here, where we are trapped and whoever goes somewhere alone will be a victim.
Mechanicswise, some of the stuff we faced here was too strong to make splitting a comfortable option, without risking the death of multiple NPC's.
There's also the desire to not actually have 10+ extra steps in any combat to consider. Though it's nice when they are skewing things in our favour :p
The top floor isn't that large, so we'd be in earshot. Surely there'll be no extra dimensional shenanigans and distorted geometries!
Just a heads-up: my wife is having a hip replacement Friday, so for the next six weeks, she is going to be in recovery mode and I will be handling the house. If I'm late with posts, please be forgiving.