Rappan Athuk: The Dungeon of Graves (Inactive)

Game Master Alice Margatroid

After reading the strain/injury paragraph it makes sense and I like it. I'm down for it. It will be interesting to see how this works out or changes game play. So far, Olo will only keep one CLW prepared.

I believe the closest equivalent in the Mythic Rules is a base mythic ability that everyone receives at 3rd tier (which is higher than I've progressed in any mythic games so far).

Recuperation (Ex): At 3rd tier, you are restored to full hit points after 8 hours of rest as long as you're not dead. This ability does not restore hit points lost to mythic damage. In addition, expending one use of your mythic power and resting for 1 hour allows you to regain a number of hit points equal to half your full normal hit points (up to a maximum of your full normal hit points) and regain the use of any class features that are limited to a number of uses per day (such as barbarian rage, bardic performance, spells per day, and so on). This rest is treated as if you had gained 8 hours of sleep for such abilities. This rest does not refresh the use of mythic abilities such as mythic power or other mythic abilities that are limited to a number of times per day.

Quick question for you Alice on ammunition for Ninivic. If I buy ammo, he's going to be able to afford 12 cartridges. If we assume, he crafted it, he'll be able to afford 24. He'll have a backup melee weapon either way so I'm good whichever way you'd prefer me to play it.

Apologies for the lack of response. Stuff came up with my girlfriend and helping her out took precedence. :) Writing a response now.

Also, I have not looked at the Mythic rules at all... waiting for the full release for that. So any alternate solutions from there are probably not an option until then.

@Ninivic: You can assume you crafted it if you can succeed on the appropriate Craft check by taking 10. Otherwise you'll have to buy it.

Very cool map Alice, and very concise :-)

Is it OK for me to think that Bryce had his weapon of choice (x-bow) in his hands, or do I have to spend a move-equivalent action to ready it?

Considering your ridonkulous Perception check, I'd allow you to have your weapon in hand.

Thanks, will post my character action soon. Idea is to have Bryce retreating behind "fighters" and ready-ing his action to shoot at first monster to enter into 20-30 foot range (I am aware that will lower his initiative at 4+). I guess that is OK?

Btw. what do you mean by "ridiculous Perception check"? (I don't want to open GM spoilers)

You rolled it yourself, that 28! :) There was no way for the gnolls to hide from you with that score, pretty much. No negative intentions intended. And yes you can ready an action like that, although I'll note that the "green" gnoll at I-8 is 30 ft. away and does not have cover. Only red and blue have cover from the trees at the moment. Imagine the trunks being at F-9 and I-6/J-6 intersection.

BTW I don't mind if people look at the combat dice rolls, doesn't really mean much to me. Anything truly secret I will do elsewhere or make an unmarked/unexplained dice roll.

EDIT: the gnoll is 30 ft. away, not 20 ft. dang diagonal rules...

I forgot 2 things - one, that I am before them on Ini, so it means they are flat-footed now (hopefully?), and two - all of PC's are playing before gnolls also, meaning risk of gnoll in I8 charging me should be minimal.

Will post in game thread accordingly.

Yep, they're flat-footed until they move, so you'll get your sneak attack off. I managed to roll well for everyone but the enemy on initiative.

@Alice - this is a nice change from my previous DM who for some reason had the best dice I've ever seen. In one round he rolled 3 crits... ouch!

Of course, now I've jinxed us and we'll all die.... :)

Great combat description Alice, I love it. Keep it up.

Allow me to propose that we focus our fire as much as possible whenever we can. It will really help to minimize risk. Every monster that dies is one less chance for the enemy to deal damage to us each round. I'll post when I get home from class!

A valid proposal Reginald. I shot at the gnoll in the back simply because of "shooting into melee" penalties, but with my lousy roll of 6 it's not really important anymore :-( For next round what do you think guys - is it better to concetrate our fire even when shooting into melee with a hefty -4 to hit, or shoot another target hoping for a hit?

Good tactics, Reginald.

Bryce - if you're shooting into melee with a penalty, might make more sense to target someone without a penalty. Olo will always try to target casters/ranged first because they can give us hell without pause.

Edit: Just read the combat description/post - well done! Thanks for putting in the time/effort, it really helped me visualize and get in character.

With regards to situations where penalties are involved, you should probably always take shots that are more likely to hit. You're not really helping to focus fire if you're always missing, after all.

Certain targets usually take priority, and in some cases we may have to split our damage between targets that melee can reasonably focus and targets that ranged must focus (casters, troublesome ranged things, etc.) In other words, just use your judgement, but try to stack damage whenever it's possible. :)

Just saw GM's post, will be adding my action soon-ish (I do not want to type it from phone). A small corrective - Bryce should be in E5, not D4. I believe it was clearly stated in my previous post, probably just a small oversight?

Derp. Yes. Sorry. Expect that to be fixed in approximately one minute. :P

Thanks. Quick question - which of the squares around F9 is considered "rough terrain". All of them, none, some...?

I am thinking of trying to flank that gnoll but have to calculate my movement precisely.

F9 is a tree trunk. So it's impassable short of some Climb check shenanigans or something like that. Around it, there's no difficult terrain at all (at worst small roots that won't affect your passage).

Nevermind...Posted my action and even with tumbling and all I could not find a way to move closer to them in this round :-( Not having a +1 BAB really hurts since I had to spend an "extra action" just to draw weapon

Alice - I thought I was 25 feet away given my current position? Regardless, I will be moving a little so that should take care of things - thanks for giving me the liberty. Also, very nice description of strain.

Nope, 35 feet. Diagonal rules and such. 5 - 15 - 20 - 30 - 35. Not that it matters now!

I can't post for the next 10 hours or so. Please feel free to have Reginald attack the nearest enemy if you'd like to move things along. Sorry about that!

I've invited one of the former applicants to replace Varnos who should be popping in soon. It's only been about a week since we saw him last, sure, but I'm impatient and I don't like potentially losing someone so soon into the game! Dawdling around waiting for people quickly leads to the death of PbP games I feel.

Hi there. Just popping in until Raseri's debut.

Hey Raseri, happy to have you on board. Look out for the feckin' gnolls.

Thanks, and will do. Hopefully there aren't any more until I join up with ya'll.

Hi Raseri! Good to have you along for the ride! :D

Thanks! It's good to be along for the ride.

Hey Raseri - welcome! Very cool name/pic. How funny, I actually saw your post on the Age of Worms recruitment thread and was going to send you a PM telling you we might have an opening (I remembered you from our initial recruitment thread). Fate, it seems.

Fate, luck, obsessively checking these boards, whatever it was I'm glad I could fill in. :)

You know you're a nerdy linguist when you start wondering about the plausible root languages for the Gnoll language, before realising that your players most likely do not care one bit...

By the way, I'm very flexible when it comes to the skill system. What's written in the book is most certainly not all you can do with it. If you have an idea for something vaguely plausible, I'm all for it.

Girls and boys, just FYI - I am on a business trip until Friday, so my posts my become rare/scarce or short. Pardon for that, will improve after Friday, I promise :-)

Anyway, Bryce do not speak Gnoll(ish), and have no relevant skills (Diplomacy/Bluff/Intimidate) aside from Sense Motive, so I do not have something "smart" to post at the moment

So, since I haven't had a chance to come into the game yet, I've got a question for ya'll. What fantasy novels would you guys recommend?

I haven't really read any since I was a kid. I remember being pretty into the Dragonlance saga, though; especially the Twins Trilogy.

I'm kind of out of the fantasy novel loop as well. My favourite authors were always David Eddings and Anne McCaffrey, and lately I've been reading Elizabeth Haydon, Liam Hearn, Lynn Flewelling and Traci Harding.

By the way Raseri, you'll be able to join in as soon as I write up the next post.

On the topic of Varnos, I suggest we simply continue as we have, and have him "fade out" out existence. He only posted a couple of times so it's easier to have him be retconned out rather than create some elaborate reason for him to abruptly leave or be killed.

Oh, Raseri, I just noticed that your character appears to be built with a 25 point buy rather than 20 point buy. Please fix that if you can. :)

Lastly, before I forget AGAIN, here's an incomplete map of the area you're travelling through.

I have not read any fantasy novels in a while.... I can ask my brother, however who is a voracious reader. He is always reading a novel or two.

Nice map, Alice. Do you make these yourself?

Yes, I do. Although the original maps are in the Rappan Athuk PDF, I just make them a little prettier in Photoshop. Mostly I got super bored (waiting for university to go back after a way-too-long summer break) and read some tutorials on Cartographer's Guild about how to do this kind of thing.

You'd be surprised how little artistic talent actually goes in to the maps, it's mostly just smart use of Photoshop filters and tricks! Looks nice in the end though. I'm currently in the middle of making the first floor dungeon map, and it's somewhat trickier because I can't just make vague blobs suggestive of trees or hills anymore. :)

You're doing a great job with them. I've messed around with Campaign Cartographer a bit, but you're blowing away anything I've accomplished.

Regarding fantasy authors, I was hoping to pick up a few new ones. Most of my favorites are probably ones you're already familiar with. I would recommend some of the Pathfinder Tales novels if you haven't read those yet. I haven't read through all of them yet, but enjoyed a couple from Dave Gross and I hear the one from James Sutter is excellent.

As for my standbys: Tolkien, Howard, Lieber, Martin, Glen Cook, Katherine Kurtz, J.V. Jones, Patrick Rothfuss, Scott Lynch, Charles DeLint, Stephen R. Donaldson, Roger Zelazny, Raymond E. Feist, Robin Hobb, Patricia Briggs, P.C. Stodgell, Emma Bull, Jim Butcher. I haven't ever gotten into Robert Jordan or Brandon Sanderson and I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting. If I think of them, I'll post them. Feel free to ask more about any of these if you aren't familiar with them.

I highly recommend the Mistborn books by Sanderson. I've been trying to get through Elantris, but other things keep side tracking me.

I'll look into the Pathfinder Tales, as well as the others you mentioned. (Not Martin though, I've tried reading through his series of door-stoppers and they are just too brutal for me. Well written, very engaging, but just too brutally.)

@Alice: I used one of the alternate traits to replace the spell like ability and the skilled trait with a +2 DEX. I can easily swap it out tonight before we get into combat if you'd rather I not do that.

Right now, bonuses are +2 STR, +2 DEX, and +2 CHA, base stats are:

STR: 15 (7)
DEX: 14 (5)
CON: 13 (3)
INT: 10 (0)
WIS: 14 (5)
CHA: 10 (0)

Total: 20 pts

BTW, out of the most current authors, I would highly, highly recommend Rothfuss and Lynch if you haven't read them yet. You'll find the Pathfinder Tales to be pretty quick reads.

Right now I'm reading Elizabeth Moon's follow up to the Deeds of Paksennarion books. I'm also a fan of Terry Brooks and have one of his books to read to get caught up. In queue to read next I have Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter and World War Z, both of which were highly recommended to me.

Raymond E. Feist is the Betrayal at Krondor guy, isn't he? I played that game a LOT as a kid. I can't say I ever read any of his books, though. Maybe I should someday.

@Alice: I used one of the alternate traits to replace the spell like ability and the skilled trait with a +2 DEX. I can easily swap it out tonight before we get into combat if you'd rather I not do that.

It took me a long while to realise you meant one of the abilities from the d% table... Yeah, I'd prefer if you didn't use that.

That table is really meant to be used randomly, not just cherry-picking, especially when you compare abilities like +2 Dex to "If you stand atop a grave and meditate for 10 minutes, you learn the name of whoever lies buried below."

Also, your race is strong enough as it is in comparison to the rest of the group that I don't think you should have +2 to three stats with no penalty :P

Sorry for my "lateness" boys and girls. I finally got home, and am reading through my "backlog" (I am involved in several PbP's here), so I will start posting regularly very soon.

Raseri Whitescale wrote:

@Alice: I used one of the alternate traits to replace the spell like ability and the skilled trait with a +2 DEX. I can easily swap it out tonight before we get into combat if you'd rather I not do that.

It took me a long while to realise you meant one of the abilities from the d% table... Yeah, I'd prefer if you didn't use that.

That table is really meant to be used randomly, not just cherry-picking, especially when you compare abilities like +2 Dex to "If you stand atop a grave and meditate for 10 minutes, you learn the name of whoever lies buried below."

Also, your race is strong enough as it is in comparison to the rest of the group that I don't think you should have +2 to three stats with no penalty :P

Fair enough. I'm going to make a couple of changes before we get into trouble.

Okay, I fixed the sheet!