PF Shackled City SCAP

Game Master Freddy Honeycutt

Definitely not like him to be gone this long. :-/

true, but life likes to throw a few S*** storms that make months of problems.

I will start a thread tonight seeing if anyone knows him RL.

I created that thread a few minutes ago just an FYI.

Oof. Just came back to this thread, curious how things were going. Sorry to hear it ended like this. For what it's worth, I checked KenderKin's profile and, going off of his recent posts, the content of his profile, and the fact that you can't send PMs, it seems likely that his account was disabled by his request, or else banned.

A bit sad, but at least it's unlikely he left because something bad happened IRL. Hope all's well with everyone here! Erine remains one of my favorite PCs, and I really enjoyed her interactions with those of you she shared a party with.

Oof. Just came back to this thread, curious how things were going. Sorry to hear it ended like this. For what it's worth, I checked KenderKin's profile and, going off of his recent posts, the content of his profile, and the fact that you can't send PMs, it seems likely that his account was disabled by his request, or else banned.

A bit sad, but at least it's unlikely he left because something bad happened IRL. Hope all's well with everyone here! Erine remains one of my favorite PCs, and I really enjoyed her interactions with those of you she shared a party with.

Yes, that is the conclusion I came up with as well. I know that in his profile he mentioned something about having opinions stifled so I suspect that he was banned, I'd prefer to think that as the alternative is less pleasant.

Yeah, and he seemed to have been getting in hot water for posting some admittedly kind of hot takes the months before, so it adds up pretty well.

Edrukk and Broccan, I figure we can use this thread to keep talking about what we've been talking about in PMs. I'll want to launch a proper recruitment thread when/if we work out what we want to do.

Anyways, it seems like there are three solid options:

1. Standalone Oneshot. This approach would focus on guiding the current PCs to a satisfying ending—I talked to Broccan about adapting Hall of Harsh Reflections as one option. I'd try to work in people's arcs and backstories to ensure that the ending can feel "final", and probably recruit some other players to pad the party out. The subject might be a final conclusion to their relationships with Erine, too, since the last they saw of her she was on a clear trajectory to potential villainy.

2. Continue On. We could certainly continue from the point we left off in Shackled City (likely recruiting some new players). I don't know the AP well, but I do own the hardcopy.

3. Start Over. We could reset the PCs to level 1 and re-launch in a new campaign. Age of Worms is one option. I know the AP well and know how to run it in a play-by-post, or we could try Rise of the Runelords, Reign of Winter or Kingmaker (I've been eyeing all three lately). If we did Reign of Winter, I might try moving this game into Ravenloft—we never focused a lot on setting to begin with, and I have a lot of ideas for a Ravenloft Reign of Winter campaign. Again, we'd likely recruit more people for this.

I like the idea of resetting and doing either Age of Worms or Reign of Winter. Rise of the Runelords seems to be jinxed for PbP, at least for me. I have played in five RotR PbPs and none of them have made it through the first book. Most never make it out of Sandpoint.

I am not opposed to the other options, if one is the majority preference.

I'm still around, though I am on a bit of a break from GMing.

Yeah, I think a part of me is determined to run a RotR game out of spite at this point. I also think a part of the problem is that the AP does a really good job fleshing out Sandpoint and then you're expected to abandon it. Also, Thistletop is a slog, and there's a lot of "dead time" that encourages Door Syndrome for PbPs. Those are problems someone can fix.

That said, Age of Worms and Reign of Winter suit me quite well. Age of Worms would likely be loosely set in Greyhawk, just because that's the setting I know, but I'll bet it could be integrated into Varisia without too much muss and fuss—I might just need some leeway with the players to tinker with lore that doesn't suit me.

Hi, Azure_Zero! I don't think we've "met" in the context of this game, so to recap, I've been talking to AinvarG and Cuchulainn about getting something going again with the original characters of the game. You're welcome to apply when I launch the Recruitment thread! Alkaid looks like a very interesting concept, from what I've seen of her. :)

EDIT: This isn't to "shoo" you, to be clear; you're obviously free to take part in this conversation, since you were as much a player of the original game as any of us. I just wanted to explain what we were talking about.

I joined an AoW game late in its run and saw it to its conclusion, but I wasn't playing my character - I literally picked up an existing PC because the player was forced to ghost and they didn't want to try to introduce someone new to a party that had been together from day one. So I have some knowledge of that campaign, probably most of the last half, but that doesn't mean we can't go that way.

My experience with RotR is similar. I have started or stepped into quite a few games, though I think B. has me beat. I would love to see that AP through and would be open to side treks and handwaving and modifications to get past the slogs if that suits the GM.

I am currently in a long-running RoW that I joined after the GM ghosted an a player stepped up to run it. The experience of running a warpriest through that from the beginning would be very different from what I'm doing currently, so it certainly would not be the same-old same-old.

So I'm open to any of your suggestions. I'm not fussed at all about leaving Shackled City and trying something new.

I'm not an "original"on this thread but oddly enough I was recruited to play Kythel in another PbP which is moving pretty quickly along in the Shackled City campaign.

I don't even recall if I was an original. I've played in dozens of campaigns, but I nearly always come in as a replacement player when someone ghosted.

Ironic story: The AoW campaign I was in had so many players sign up, the GM resolved to run two tables in parallel. I was one of the first people he recruited, specifically asking me to join after we had been in another long game together - but my table died quickly. The GM 'retired' from the boards and someone else picked up the other table, but mine languished, so I just followed along as they played. The new GM knew me from the GM's other game and when I offered to take the role of the bard's now-missing player, I got to finish the campaign in his shoes.

TL;DR: Original or not, I would be happy to have you along for the ride.

For that matter, this game was originally going to be Age of Worms, right? That's why Sanstree was Allustan's apprentice.

I don't even recall if I was an original. I've played in dozens of campaigns, but I nearly always come in as a replacement player when someone ghosted.

Ironic story: The AoW campaign I was in had so many players sign up, the GM resolved to run two tables in parallel. I was one of the first people he recruited, specifically asking me to join after we had been in another long game together - but my table died quickly. The GM 'retired' from the boards and someone else picked up the other table, but mine languished, so I just followed along as they played. The new GM knew me from the GM's other game and when I offered to take the role of the bard's now-missing player, I got to finish the campaign in his shoes.

TL;DR: Original or not, I would be happy to have you along for the ride.

PbP is fickle, for a while there I was running about 30 and playing in 40 games. Then life changed now I run 1 and play in 3! Just a slight pull back ;-)

If you all are recruiting for something new and need extra PCs I'd be interested in playing with all of you once more, if KK wants to keep it small, then that's fine too! FYI though I ran an expanded Age of Worms for Table Top and know that one backwards and forwards so it would be tough to be a PC in that one.

I'm happy to add players, but I would like to run a Recruitment thread, just because I don't know your playstyle or character that well yet! That said, the fact that you'd already know two other players is a big plus. :)

For that matter, this game was originally going to be Age of Worms, right? That's why Sanstree was Allustan's apprentice.

Yep. We started in Diamond Lake. Broccan was a local kid who took a mining job, then aspired to be a hero, and became a fighter.

Yeah, Erine would've fit well into Book 3, if we'd ever made it there.

Anyways, my thinking is, we would delevel PCs and sort of "blur" the events of this game. There could be some understanding that Edrukk and Broccan adventured together a while back, but we'd probably handwave away the memories too advanced for first-level PCs, like the time you took on a horde of lemures or what-have-you. An NPC similar to Erine would be around, but less as a GMPC so much as an NPC integrated into the AP—a replacement for a questgiving NPC, an antagonist, or something else. Plenty of options.

We could also start 100% from scratch, of course, with new characters and/or new backstories. In this case, I'd probably let Erine vanish into the folds of time, since she'd have no relationship with other PCs to make her worth using over the official NPCs.

Basically, if you two want to try to continue the emotional/relationship journeys, I'm game, but I have no intention of trying to shunt my old PC into things just for the sake of my own closure. :P

The basic concepts I'm working with here:

Age of Worms, Golarion/Greyhawk: You would start out in the crummy little town of Diamond Lake, and team up with some new PCs to go dungeon delving. We'd either set this in Varisia or the Cairn Hills of Greyhawk. If the former, I'd feel out the setting adjustments as we went along. I'm more familiar with "Greyhawk Age of Worms" at this point, though. It would be a very natural adaptation, in a lot of ways, and I know the AP very well, so it would represent the least amount of work for me.

Rise of the Runelords: You would be either locals or arriving in town. Big changes I have planned include the infamous quasit fight, the downtime between Sandpoint and Thistletop, Thistletop itself, and probably the way the AP leaves Sandpoint behind. I'll be doing more to tie the final antagonist into things.

Reignvenloft of Winter: This is arguably a pretty smooth transfer—Ravenloft's whole theme is swallowing up areas wholecloth and sticking them into the patchwork realm of domains. It would be easy to integrate Broccan and Edrukk into things. Either they get swallowed up or were in Ravenloft all along and didn't know it. I've run a few games with this conversion before, and it worked quite well, though we never made it past the first book due to player troubles.

It's been years. It would be more investment in figuring out who Edrukk was to try to replay him than it would be to start fresh, so I'm fine with a fresh start if anyone wants that. On the other hand, I can go back and feel him out if you want to carry his story forward. Deleveling him kind of ends up being a fresh start, for that matter.

I defer to Broccan.

I vote reset, either Reign of Winter or Age of Worms.

That's all fair. I'm pretty neutral between those two options. Any leanings? I have maybe a slight leaning towards Age of Worms, just because it'll be easier to recruit players and requires less work from me to adapt.

I'm fine with making it easier on the GM.

Complete reset, or just roll our boys back to first level and keep the ancestry and class?

Since we're resetting stories, too, you can keep the character or change them. Or you can build them to fit the party we assemble in Recruitment, to patch up loose ends? Thoughts?

Broccan will either remain a fighter or become a brawler, as both of those fit his personality and background.

Then Edrukk will remain a dwarven warpriest. No sweat.

I don't mind a reset and starting from the beginning.
Though I would like to keep this Alkaid as close as possible to the original, since this one is using a monster class and template.

Relaunching with Age of Worms sounds good to me. Just as one last check-in, though, before I start working on the Recruitment post—my playstyle is a bit different from Kenderkin's. I'm very into character arcs and relationships. If I run Age of Worms, I'm going to want to put a lot of focus on roleplaying. Character backstories will get worked into the AP, and character growth will be an important part of progressing forward—there'll be plenty of roleplaying encounters to intersperse the combat, and PCs will be encouraged to have meaningful interactions both with NPCs and with each other. I'm not asking for a soap opera, but, well, a pinch of drama and melodrama is good for spicing up the dungeon delving.

At the same time, I like to run a pretty high-stakes Age of Worms. I'm not super into character death itself, but losing combats can have serious story consequences, and enemies won't always play fair. In my last game, I had a PC die in the second encounter of the entire AP. That's a little bit harsh, but the point is, Age of Worms is kind of mean sometimes.

Sounds good. Age of Worms is known for its high PC body count, so I fully expect things to get messy.

What are the creation rules/limits? Point-buy? Background skills? Any banned or limited feats/archetypes/classes, etc?

I'll post those to the thread—I'm thinking 20- or 25-Point Buy, background skills, the old Action Points house rule, Automatic Bonus Progression, fighters get bonus skill points and the Combat Stamina bonus feat... yeah, a fair few house rules. I like to tinker.

I would of like a reset of SCAP, but Age of Worms is fine.

automatic-bonus-progression so folks can look it up.

Background skills

When KK made this game it was 20-PB, and to help pay for my template to keep a form of power balance, I cut my PB in half.

Yeah, I know the old PB, but we're planning a rebuild.

I should also say that I'm not sure if I want a half-succubus in this game—I'm not familiar with the rules system you're using, and I want to cut back on the amount of extra work I do for PC builds so I can focus more on integrating backstories and the like. A tiefling and/or fiendblooded sorceress would be perfectly fine to apply with.

As I said I used a *Monster Class for this one.
For this Alkaid, me and KK talked about the character and made an agreement on things using existing content and what the penalty would be for the templates.

Now I have done unorthadox builds at times that do follow rules, but are sub-optimal combos for interesting characters.
In fact Alkaid is based on a half-succubus Cleric of Kord NPC I made for a 3.5 game.
Even once thought of doing a half-nymph barbarian or monk pre-pathfinder.

*Monster classes are akin to the ClassRaces found in the Savage Species book.
And I used the Beta23 version since the retail version was not out at the time.

Yeah, I'm saying that I don't have KK's notes and I don't want to just run KK's game. I have a fairly distinct style of GMing from him.

From what I've read, I don't think Alaid would be suitable for play in this game. The PCs aren't supposed to start off especially powerful or important, and being the direct offspring of a deity and a succubus is definitely those two things. A tiefling or sorceress would be fine. I would say I'm open to the Godling later on, but that prestige class is an unbalanced nightmare and I'm not sure it will be worth it to try.

Happy gaming folks, I know AoW too well to play in it. :-)

That's completely fair, take care!

I'm happy to add players, but I would like to run a Recruitment thread, just because I don't know your playstyle or character that well yet! That said, the fact that you'd already know two other players is a big plus. :)

As far as my play style goes, I am pretty adaptable. If you want to see my "body of work" so to speak go ahead and check out this thread. I shut that thread down as it just got too damn long, the game is still going on here .

I have been in a ton of other games as a PC and GM in Pathfinder (I think of my 40,000 posts on he boards 35,000 are I/C or Discussion pertaining to one campaign or another) but this is probably the closest thing you would find to my "style" overall.

If you change your mind and run the Reign of Winter Ravenloft campaign, I'd be down for that for sure.

I can agree this Alkaid would not be a good match for a Age of Worms game, even themematicially, and starting off at level one she would be OP as hell.

Yeah I've looked at the Godlings and they do seem OP, and I feel they won't even fit theme wise.

I'll think of some crazy ideas like;
a re-make of my half-succubus Cleric of Kord,
a Half-nymph Brawler,
a Half-minotuar fighter,
A tiefling Ninja,
a Giant,
an Angel, etc

Somewhat want to make my frostrager again, but since rage got overhauled from 3.5 to PF it don't work right.

Might even want to build an Indiana Jones type character....with a twist..

An archaeologist bard or an investigator would be a great fit for Age of Worms.

I'm hoping to launch the Recruitment thread tomorrow, Tuesday or Wednesday, by the way. I just want to wait for Edrukk's confirmation on playstyles, then finish drafting up the recruitment post itself. Feel free to submit your character, Azure! Skill monkeys will be of great use here.

I also have one other player I've invited to take part—if they're interested, we'll be recruiting for three more players, for a 6-person party.

I’m not afraid of a roleplay-heavy game and I’m not worried about lethality in the game. It is your table, don’t worry about whether I “approve” of your style; it is on me as a player to work within the boundaries as you set them.

It might be my table, but I don't really have fun GMing if the players aren't having fun, which is why I ask! :P

I honestly don't think it's a player's "job" to match the GM's style. D&D's not a job. It's a game we play together. I try to respect players' preferences, and they try to respect mine, and if playstyles clash, that's a good thing to know so people can adjust or find better-fitting groups.

Nowhere in my post did I use the word "job"; if I cannot be flexible enough to work with your style - I understand that is a two-way street and I expect/respect you to do your part - then I'm at the wrong table.

All that said, I've generally been very flexible. I have landed and stayed on a diverse set of tables. I have faith that I will fit on yours.

Oh, I read "it is my job" when you said "it is on me". That, appropriately enough, is on me. I apologize for the mixup! Can't read today. :P

We're cool. Looking forward to knowing what the character creation rules are so I can start building Edrukk 2.0

I presume that the ruleset will remain PF1e.

Yup, PF1e. And I probably won't be able to post it until tomorrow at the earliest, but the general character creation rules I have planned:

Class/Level: 1st
Abilities: 25 Point Buy, no more than 13 points on any one ability.
Classes: See my profile for class modifications, but Unchained rogues are allowed, and fighters start with +4 skill points and Combat Stamina as a bonus feat.
Sources: Anything on the PRD. Spheres of Power/Might are allowed on a case-by-case basis. Please link any non-Core source your character relies upon in your profile.

Equipment: 300 gp for starting gear. No non-Core armor, weapons, or combat items without GM approval.
Hit Points: Max for first level.
Feats: Everyone gets Dirty Fighting as a bonus feat. Additionally, you may choose either Power Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting, Agile Maneuvers, Weapon Finesse, Point Blank Shot, Martial Weapon Proficiency, or Light Armor Proficiency as a bonus feat.
Traits: 2 traits. One trait must be a Campaign trait—see my profile for a full list. The Campaign traits are not ready yet. They'll be available when Recruitment launches. Drawbacks on a case-by-case basis.
Skills: We are using Background Skills. Knowledge skills are heavily modified—the short explanation is that most Knowledge skills no longer identify monsters, and you have to use Lore (creature type).

Got a few ideas stewing in my mind, and two of them are rangers....with archery and or two wield....

As for PB, I'll likely use one of the following arrays;
14,14,14,14,14,10
14,14,14,14,13,12
16,14,14,14,10,10
16,14,14,13,12,10
16,14,13,13,12,12

I'm envisioning Edrukk II as a cousin or another generation removed from Edrukk I, so while he is still a dwarven warpriest, he will have some changes.

To that end, do you anticipate us having downtime that would make an investment in crafting worthwhile?

Yeah, downtime will be plentiful in the early game. I like to give PCs at least a week or so between each installment. I ask them what they want to do during the break, they tell me, and we decide whether to turn it into actual roleplayed-out scenes or just have me post a summary post and move on.

I am a fan of the dynamic magic item crafting rules from Pathfinder Unchained, mind you.

Have you determined if there will be a list of campaign traits that we are to choose from?

There will be; I'm just finishing writing them up. The current set is on this profile—some of the traits might receive boosts or modifications, though.

EDIT: Okay, I think they're done.