GM ShadowLord's Reign of Winter

Game Master The Rising Phoenix

Letitia would certainly wait until all spellcasting is completed by her allies before going ahead.

Just to be clear.

I assumed so. Just wasn't sure if we were feeling safe in a "minutes per level" spells sort of place. ;)

Ok, folks. I'm going to be heading out of town for the next two weeks to a place where I have no wifi and the towers are spotty -- all that to say, my access to the interwebs will be sketchy at best from tomorrow (Saturday the 31) until the Monday the 16th.

I imagine I'll pop in a bit at night when possible, but, don't count on me over the period. Feel free to bot as necessary.

With the buffs pre-cast, Callix will try to rush into melee and then fervor a DF to help. If she can't close, well, that's why she prepared returning weapon] today -- and fervor is a wonderful thing. ;)

I will be in a similar situation, only my smartphone touch screen just decided to stop working today. I guess I will figure out a way to keep posting, but do not get surprised if I do not.

Aaarghhh! Everyone's gone! And right before the BBEG!!!!

;)

it gives us... uh.. prep time?

I'm sure it will be fine... how bad could one boss fight be with 3 botted characters?

in all seriousness, do we want to kick this off now, or wait a few days until everyone is back and ready to play? as no surprise to anyone, we are basically at the fog door before a boss fight here.

in other news i have not heard anything from Timm at all, and need to locate a new PC for the party. if any of you have people from other games you think would be good here, let me know and feel free to let other groups know we're looking. I am going to go ahead and post a new recruitment thread today.

as people apply, please send me messages with any thoughts about the applicants or if you have played a game with them in the past.

it's unfortunate that Timm was a bit of a bust, but the core group here is still fantastic. thank you all for sticking with this and making this game a great one.

We've waited this long, I think it's fine to give it another week to find the new player.

The trick is going to figure out how to insert the character into the game where we currently are.

It would likely strain credibility to have someone pop in and join us for the final battle (we've discussed the trust issues we've had) but maybe someone's got a background that would work enough to convince the party to let them join. Maybe one of the Heralds of Summer's Return, perhaps?

Or, there might be someone as a captive or expert that Nazheena's brought with her to use somehow to gain access to the hut (depending on the character class, certainly).

Also depending on the character submission chosen, it might make more sense to encounter them after the fight. They could work with Red Sun to put them somewhere between this book and Book 3.

I know someone irl whose a good player and frequents the boards if you all want me to throw them a call to adventure. As for waiting, well i vote we wait. No reason to take risks and less effort for the gm

From afar, with poor internet: I don't think it would be much of a narrative strain to have encountered someone who had been trapped or enchanted that we freed as we went (under the spell of the drunken far for instance) -- Timm's disappearance would be a little harder to weave into the story.

Honestly, I'd have said we could just pretend there was never a Timm and that it was always the new, new person - but the way things went at the entrance to the forest don't fully allow for that.

Timm leaving isn't too difficult. it's pretty easy to Deus ex Machina a player death in dramatic fashion if needed, or the more unpredictable gnomish personality just decides that something else is waaay more important than whatever you all are doing next.

For a new character, I would either bring them in right at the end of this book after the boss fight, or at the start of the next book. there are a few options based on the PC chosen and how they want to be included. I actually did this very recently for my RL playgroup when we had a fifth person join us. she joined the party right at the end of this book and it worked out fine.

of course the other option is to have a new player just take over the Timm character from this point. one player has messaged me about that option. it smoothes out the change of characters better, but other than that small advantage i usually prefer people to play a character they design to have more of a sense of ownership.

thoughts?

Well, I was going to comment that Timm's departure is pretty easy since he didn't have much of a connection to the overall story or characters. He was just kind of there, and asked to come along.

So if he decides to wander off, it's hardly heartbreaking to the other characters.

If you go that route of having someone take over Timm, I would suggest the new player try to come up with a better reason for joining the party. I mean, rereading the game thread, Timm admitted to not knowing much about Irrisen even though he was smack dab in its capital city. Obviously, it could be retconned as a lie to be cagey with these strangers, but that would then mean that Timm does have a purpose to being with the group. Which would be all the better for the story.

Tl;dr: I won't be sad to see Timm go, but if another player takes him over hopefully they'll tie him to the story more.

Worst case, new player could take Timm for a trial run and then decide on a permanent solution afterward. Avoids the strangeness of wandering off now, and lets the new player get a feel for things.

OK team, we have a few submissions for our open position. not a ton of them this time, which kind of surprised me since there are often people talking about wanting more high level games.

If any of you have any more opinions you would like to share before I pick our new player please let me know. I will pick someone on Wednesday to give time for you all to look over them.

Thank you to those who have already sent their thoughts, it's been helpful!

I'll go take a quick look now that I'm back.

Hi there! I am back! :D

I have made a review of the different candidates and sent my preference to you GM Red Sun.

Now, let's make that sneaky witch tremble :)

Hello, thanks for selecting me! I'm looking forwards to this AP :)

One question, how are we handling HP for level ups? Do we roll or take the average (+1)?

We have been rolling for level-ups, you can choose whether you want to roll your previous levels here in thread or take the average for your "starting" levels.

going to give you all a moment to speak to Nazheena here, we'll roll initiative once someone moves in or does something agressive, but Letitia had mentioned trying to reason with the woman first.

Welcome to our little group of frozen heroes Llewellyn/FangDragon! :D

Aaaand bang bang! The story unfolds for Samuel! You have been holding that big button for a good time sir! :D

yeah it's the struggle of the PbP format. I planed for her to be here since pretty close to the beginning, but it takes a really long time for stuff like that to play out. I had some things for some of our other starting party but they fell off long before I could do anything.

I've been stringing this one along and dropping hints for a long time, fun to finally get the payoff. thanks Samuel for the work adding a nice hook into your background for me to work off of and for carrying it forward all these months!

It sure takes a lot of patience, but when they pay off, it's a great surprise. Plus, it makes the game more personal when there's these connections to the characters that come back around and complicate matters. It's no longer just an encounter and combat that you have to overcome to get to the next level/chapter.

I agree that the payoff is awesome -- though when I look back at how many breadcrumbs you left on the trail, I feel silly that we're surprised [so I'll pretend it's more shock than anything. ;)]

At the start of this combat please verify that your health, AC, etc is correct going into the fight. Also, if you could add the buffs you put on before coming into this clearing into the status section of the stat tracker that will make my life so much easier for a combat that is bound to have a lot of spells and effects flying around.

Also, Llewellyn, I should explain how I use the slide deck "maps and info" from the top of the page or "RoW maps" from my header line. on slide 5 you'll find a stat tracker and die rolling template sheet. I use the rolling templates anytime I need to make rolls for the team, which includes initiative, saves, perception, etc. I leave it up to the party to keep those stats up to date, and just roll whatever they have there when needed. please go ahead and replace all of the lines that say "Timm" with your name and relevant stat.

on the right-hand side is the stat tracker, which i paste into any in-combat GM posts to keep track of everyone's AC, Hit Points and ongoing effects. again, this is up to the party to update their HP and AC as they gain levels. I try to update the health as people get hit or heal up, but if I miss something and we go into a combat where your health is not what it should be you can update it and let me know i missed something.

I try to keep on top of it, but with several games going on at a time I miss things. sometimes rather big things

Done.

Done GM, I've replaced all Timm's stats although I haven't yet replaced the image you're using. I also keep track of HP in the games I run and I appreciate how easy it is to miss something.

A question for Ashling, is the forum picture representative of her appearance? I've started making some notes for the introduction :)

No, lol. She's actually 100 percent cursed human. Abnormally pale, Bright violet eyes with rune patterns in her iris's white hair. Usually wearing a cloak and lightly clothed even in the winter

Yes it's crazy. All of us ladies have white or nearly white hair.

It's a winter adventure path! The frosted look is in!

Anime tells me white hair is both cool and a sign you're stronger

Indeed! Llewellyn is going to be quite a contrast :)

GM since Llewellyn has a couple of masterpieces I thought I'd share how I think they work to make sure we're on the same page.

Callix is just very fair, turned up to 11. Well, 10-and-a-half.

I have not seen masterpieces before, but it does look like it mostly follows the rules for bardic performances but with stronger effects at the cost of spells known.

The one thing I don't think is right in your description is the lingering performance. the Masterpieces page on PFSRD says "Unless otherwise stated, effects or feats that extend the duration of bardic performance (such as the Lingering Performance feat) do not apply to masterpieces."

Also, I don't see on your sheet anywhere what spell level you are associating your arrowsong's lament masterpiece to. I am assuming it is 3rd level, but it would be good to note it on the sheet somewhere.

I missed that language re Lingering Performance, thanks!

Herolab has a few omissions when printing a character summary, it doesn't list the FCB choices either. I took arrowsong's lament for 1st level spells, I'm tempted to do so for other levels too depending on how things go.

I'll go and amend it for clarity.

Given the results for Samuel's mind on the last couple of combats, I am only going to make a single suggestion to our arming up bard "Pssst... saving finale"

Don't worry got ya covered ;)

Just finished all 55 pages of the gameplay thread, I hope you enjoyed the RP as much as I have reading it.

Poor Samuel. he looks so good against will magic on paper, but the poor character CANNOT roll a will save. I think he has been affected by compulsions more than anyone else in the game.

And yes, this game has been a joy to run from a RP/character standpoint. we have a great cast in this one which has made it probably my favorite game I'm in (as GM or player)

Samuel did even fall to the tea in Waldsby xD

And yes, so far this has been one of the richest RP games I have been in! More often than one would like the players barely interact with each other and rather focus on answering the GM. On the long run people, including the GM, seem to retain more interest through the years when there is a constant chat between the characters. You really want that if you hope to see the whole story through.

I've been lucky enough to fall into a few groups where there's actually excellent interaction between players, but also enough momentum that the game doesn't stall out --- but this is certainly in the top of those.

I think it helps that we all came into the game with well-thought-out backgrounds, so we knew where everyone was coming from - allowing us to have initial reaction and even -- dare I say -- a character arc?

I mean, a book ago, Callix would have probably thrown an axe at Letitia after that offer because of the inevitable betrayal -- instead of realizing that the witch has changed (probably more than she realizes).

And, as Samuel said, it doesn't hurt either to have a GM who's more than happy to grab those things from our stories and dangle them before us like strings before kittens. (Just the start of this encounter - the offer of Alliance, Samuel's sister -- is a clear example of that in practice).

Just confirming, but i believe Sleet storm actually has zero effect on Ashling aside from damage.

Snow sight negates vision problems due to snow or sleet.

And Child of winter negates movement penalties due to ice and such effects

Also at work will post later when i can get numbers up

I think Snow Sight only negates the weather penalties to Perception, but given how circumstantial is that power perhaps the GM will give you some boon there to detect and attack the golem with more ease than other characters.

Nevertheless, this is the exact situation for Ashling to shine, go go snow warrior! :)

Thats why i figured I'd ask, Snow sight doesn't call out specifically, just falling snow and sleet. I figured since abilities like Blizzard revelation exists in the same mystery they were intended as a combo or something? Like how the obscuring mist, Sight ability stuff works.

That and with it coming out alongside winter witch it was intended to work? Idk anyway.

So this one is more just thought and probably wont factor in ever. But Winter oracle has the Ice shape ability. Which is supernatural ... does that mean it would be able to ice shape an ice golem? I'm posting this at 3 in the morning so my brain may not be functioning properly enough to see rules correctly and i doubt this would actually work.

I would say that with snow sight you can see through the spell. seems like exactly the kind of thing that ability is meant to handle! how often do you get to actually use something fun like that?

As for ice shape, I would give Ashling a knowledge check to figure that out. most golems are immune to magic with some specific exceptions, and sometimes that exception includes a shaping spell of the right type.

Ok, Callix moved up out of one spell and mostly around the other. I assumed it wasn't difficult terrain once she was out of the spell effect.

Actually, per the fly spell description,

It can ascend at half speed and descend at double speed, and its maneuverability is good.

Since my fly speed is 60 feet, wouldn't that put me above the cylinder of the spell effect anyway? It's not like I'm flapping wings or anything.