Rise of the Runelords

Game Master Kevin O'Rourke 440

Well, I prefer we don't, because that one wand makes Milgen at WBL. :P

But I actually meant 'currently carried disposables' not 'all disposables ever carried'. I haven't run into any GMs that were THAT cruel. But I have had to count currently carried disposables against my WBL target.

Yeah. Even though I have no plans for having Drazh carry around any wands or use potions, my vote remains not counting that against WBL. It doesn't seem fair to me.

So...I had an idea. Think that you all might find it funny.

Step 1: Buy a cracked ioun stone.
* "Cracked: These stones bear an obvious crack, whether as a result of the crafting process, because the raw stone was already cracked, or because the stone has been damaged (for example, if it gains the broken quality). A cracked stone’s power is usually the same as an undamaged stone, but weaker."

Step 2: Look up the rules for broken magic items.
* "If the item does not fit into any of these categories, the broken condition has no effect on its use. Items with the broken condition, regardless of type, are worth 75% of their normal value. If the item is magical, it can only be repaired with a mending or make whole spell cast by a character with a caster level equal to or higher than the item’s. Items lose the broken condition if the spell restores the object to half its original hit points or higher. Non-magical items can be repaired in a similar fashion, or through the Craft skill used to create it. Generally speaking, this requires a DC 20 Craft check and 1 hour of work per point of damage to be repaired. Most craftsmen charge one-tenth the item’s total cost to repair such damage (more if the item is badly damaged or ruined)."

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This means that mending works. But the caster level has to be equal to that of the ioun stone. So, lets say for example...you buy a cracked pale blue rhomboid ioun stone.

That's 200 gold for +1 to any strength based skill.

You then go out and buy a scroll of mend from a lvl 12 wizard. The price for that is 12.5x12, or 150 gold.

Or, if the GM is saying "WTF?" then buy a scroll of Make Whole. 150x12=1,800.

Then use the scroll to cast mend on the ioun stone. Total cost of 350 to 2,000 gold, and the ioun stone now gives +2 strength...something which usually costs 8,000 gold.

So, depending on the GM, this would save you 6,000 to 7,650 gold.

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Which is to say...when Drazh hits lvl 12 and gets "mend" at-will from VMC, he should retire from adventuring and make a fortune buying cracked ioun stones and selling the repaired ones for a profit. :)

I can add tabs to the loot sheet if you like, for each character, so we can keep it all in one easy to edit place.

Cheers Milgen. I'll take off the items that Miron is carrying.

@Drazh I know you're joking as no reasonable GM would let that fly but there's an easy way to shoot that down.

Would anyone object to Miron taking the silver dagger?

"I would object vociferously to it!"

Off stage voice mumbling

Milgen looks off stage. "What do you mean rewrite? Who authorized a rewrite on the scene? And why didn't I get an updated script? How am I expected to work in these conditions?!"

Scared intern rushes out with heavily marked up sheet of paper

Milgen looks the paper over, grunts, and then balls it up and throws it off stage. "I've quit better productions than this! Ok, director, if you want to butcher the title by calling yourself that, I'm ready..."

Lights reset to previous levels

Milgen smiles. "No objections from me, Miron, you're welcome to it."

:) :) :) :)

@Drazh I know you're joking as no reasonable GM would let that fly but there's an easy way to shoot that down.

Really? What did I miss?

——

And of course, the above was joking. But in seriousness, are Wayfinder with Ioun stones allowed at your table?

From my reading of this https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/r-z/wayf inder-standard/

For 700 gold (500 for Wayfinder and 200 for cracked Ioun Stone) you have a 75% chance of the two working together (1-25 doesn’t work, 26+ it does?) and then you roll on the chart. A chance for something good to happen, a chance to break your Wayfinder.

Is this allowed at your table?

Rocks, you missed the rocks that fall on your character from the clear blue sky and turn him into a pair of smoking boots in a crater.

It might be a damaged ioun stone so mending could theoretically work. It might be made wrong in the crafting process or because the stone was imperfect to begin with... in which case you're repairing the crack but you're not repairing the magic item because there's nothing to repair it's meant to function as it does, it does not have the broken quality. You're spending a lot of money on a gamble.

Level 3!

Lvl 3!!!!

HP: +10
SP: +6
Saves: +1 Will
BaB: +1
Feats: Endurance (class), VMC (Hedgehog Familiar...gives +2 Will and Alertness)
Class Abilities: Adaptation (30min each day, will be saving for +2 natural armor)

A good level. Saves are now (6/6/5, +2 Hardy) and for up to 30min can have AC21.

Oh, blessed day. I can finally get Precise Shot.

Feat: Precise Shot
Alarm Sense (automatic perception roll when within 10 feet of a magic trap)
Sneak Attack 1d6
+1 to BAB, fort, will
+5 HP
Skill ranks: Diplomacy, Perception, Disable Device, Stealth, UMD, Sleight of Hand, Bluff, Climb

Loot Sheet Updated

@GM - +1 cold iron returning dagger- 2,152gp to sell!!!

I think this is incorrect. To the best of my knowledge, this weapon is worth 10,304 gp.

+2 Weapon 8000
Masterwork 300
Cold Iron Dagger 4
Increased Enchantment Cost for Cold Iron : 2000

Total, 10,304 gold pieces

So it should sell for 5,152 GP (normally), and we can sell for 6,182 gp.

Drazh/Hedgehog: Stealth (+5/+8) Diplomacy, Intimidate (+6/+2) Dungeon (+6/+1) SM (+7/+2) Surv (+8/+2) Perception (+10/+7)

Just wanted to make this clear: The first number is Drazh's modifier, and the other is his familiar's.

So, as an example. Perception.

Drazh: +3 (ranks) + 3 (class skill) + 2 (wisdom) + 2 (alertness) = +10
Familiar: +3 (ranks) + 3 (class skill) + 1 (wisdom) = +7

Hope that the numbers above are all clear. There are a bunch of modifiers that aren't included, just for sanity's sake, though.

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And yay on the spreadsheet being updated. How much gold do we all have to buy goods?

@GM - Instead of taking a feat this level and then retraining it next level, can I leave it blank and just take it at 4th level?

Quote:

Drazh/Hedgehog: Stealth (+5/+8) Diplomacy, Intimidate (+6/+2) Dungeon (+6/+1) SM (+7/+2) Surv (+8/+2) Perception (+10/+7)

Just wanted to make this clear: The first number is Drazh's modifier, and the other is his familiar's.

So, as an example. Perception.

Drazh: +3 (ranks) + 3 (class skill) + 2 (wisdom) + 2 (alertness) = +10
Familiar: +3 (ranks) + 3 (class skill) + 1 (wisdom) = +7

Hope that the numbers above are all clear. There are a bunch of modifiers that aren't included, just for sanity's sake, though.

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And yay on the spreadsheet being updated. How much gold do we all have to buy goods?

Assuming nobody keeps anything they haven't fully claimed already, then about 1723 GP per (I updated the sheet to do a 'ideal split').

Milgen took a 50GP scroll so he can put it in his spell book. Other than that, he's taken nothing. Ferocia took a ring worth 1200 out of her share. Miron took a composite bow worth 105 gp. And Azalia took a +1 longsword worth 1389 out of hers.

So, if I added it up correctly :
Azalia : 339 GP
Anneka : 1723 GP
Drazh : 1723 GP
Ferocia : 523 GP
Milgon : 1673 GP
Miron : 1618 GP

There's another 4 GP or so rattling around after the divide, I say we toss that as the cost of dinner on our return.

Leveled Up

HP : +6 (4 Arcanist, 1 con, 1 FC)
BAB : +1
Will Save : +1
Skills : +8 : Appraise, Linguistics, Perception, Stealth, Spellcraft, UMD, Kn Arcana, Kn Local
New Spells for Level : Snowball, Swift Girding
New Spells transferred into Spellbook from Scroll : Burning Hands.
New Spells created based on known spells in memory : Ray of Jolt (0), Jolt Splash (0), Joltball (1), Jolting Hands (1) (40 gp total)

If we're subtracting magic item costs from our loot, I don't want the longsword. It's nice to have, and it might help the party later to have it in use rather than sold, but definitely not worth it to me to not have thirteen hundred gold to use on things I care more about than a rarely-used longsword. Sell it.

Personally, I really hate this method of splitting treasure, because it encourages the party to get rid of things that could be useful down the road, but I'm good with whatever everyone wants.

We must be setting some kind of PbP record! Level 3:

FCB +1 0th level spell known (create water)
HP +6
BAB +1
Fort +1, Ref +1
Revelation: Gift of Prophecy
+1 1st level spell known (protection from evil)
Feat: Improved Initiative
Skills +4: Diplomacy, Disguise, K(dungeoneering), Stealth,
Background Skills +2: K(history)

You might be correct there!

Level 3
BAB +1
Ref +1

HP +5

Skills
Gained: Knowledge Dungeoneering, Knowledge History, Knowledge Planes,
Increased: Linguistics (lip-reading), Perception +2, Spellcraft +3, Stealth +2

Spells
0: Stabilise
1: True Strike

Feats
L3: Precise Shot, Inquisitor: Stealth Synergy

Class Features: Cunning initiative, detect alignment, track

0: Acid Splash
1: Bane

Adds Wisdom to Initiative, so +7 total now

Class Features: Solo tactics, teamwork feat (Stealth Synergy)

If we're subtracting magic item costs from our loot, I don't want the longsword. It's nice to have, and it might help the party later to have it in use rather than sold, but definitely not worth it to me to not have thirteen hundred gold to use on things I care more about than a rarely-used longsword. Sell it.

Personally, I really hate this method of splitting treasure, because it encourages the party to get rid of things that could be useful down the road, but I'm good with whatever everyone wants.

We can do it a different way if you like, but every time I've been in a game where we just let people take whatever they want and don't keep track of it, there ends up being one player at 2 or 2.5 times WBL, and another at 0.5 WBL.

How would you like to do it? If nobody else can use the longsword (and you are currently the only one other than Drazh who can I think) then it's useless for us to hold onto it if you don't want it.

Loot Sheet Updated

@GM - +1 cold iron returning dagger- 2,152gp to sell!!!

I think this is incorrect. To the best of my knowledge, this weapon is worth 10,304 gp.

+2 Weapon 8000
Masterwork 300
Cold Iron Dagger 4
Increased Enchantment Cost for Cold Iron : 2000

Total, 10,304 gold pieces

So it should sell for 5,152 GP (normally), and we can sell for 6,182 gp.

I forgot to factor in returning.

@Milgen are you taking Snowball from Ultimate Wilderness or People of the North? If you pick up both just differentiate by putting wild or north in brackets beside it.

How ye divide up the loot is up to ye. Feel free to discuss it.

You guys are about 75-80% of the way through the first book. Ye should find returning to Thistletop to be a bit easier now with the extra level and gear. By the time we have book one is finished we get to the point where it's not just you're quite skilled people with potential and start getting into some of the only people who can handle the job territory!

I wasn't sure if you wanted both in your world, or just one, so I just picked one until I found out. If you are allowing both, he'll take the one from PotN, since it has a knock down component. No need for both, since PotN is UW's plus knockdown.

Long story short, I don’t know the best way to handle loot distribution. The idea of tracking WBL is so we don’t have a situation where “Drazh is on the front line. He could use this AC, that backup weapon, oh, he could use that extra bow as well.” And before long I have several +1 items I never use; a few that I do, and Milgen has nothing because as a back line caster he doesn’t need any. And then later on, Drazh decides to sell off some of those items, and as they were ‘his’ he keeps the proceeds and buys something really good for himself, so at all points he is over WHL and Milgen is under WBL.

And besides...if me and a bunch of buddies risked our lives for $100,000 and among the loot we got was a brand new car worth $40,000...I’d factor that into someone’s share, even if they didn’t plan to drive it much. IC Drazh would see holding onto an expensive magic item as being like that.

——-

All this said I’m always open to ideas on how best to handle this.

To me, we shouldn't take out of people's share based on the value of the loot, it should be based on the sale price. That's what I did above. (Well, except for Milgen's scroll, which I forgot to adjust for, oh well). So the ring was 1200 instead of 2000 for example. In other words, not it's purchase value, but the value of what we could have sold it for. So in Drazh's car example, the car was MSRP of 40,000, but if you sold it, you could only get 24,000 for it, so that's all it counts for as a share.

What he said :)

Yeah, it's easy for backpacks to fill up with items that rarely if ever see use. We might as well focus on resale and get items that we know we will use. That risks selling off an item that could have come in handy, but I'd weigh that against the definite risk of having substandard gear for normal use.

I wasn't sure if you wanted both in your world, or just one, so I just picked one until I found out. If you are allowing both, he'll take the one from PotN, since it has a knock down component. No need for both, since PotN is UW's plus knockdown.

There's other small differences but they are very similar and it's staggered if you can't pass the fort save not knocked down.

I wasn't advocating taking whatever you want. I was advocating splitting cash equally, always. If we decide to sell something, everyone gets the same part.

Magic items should be separate and should be rolled for if more than one person can use them or wants them, and shouldn't be sold if they are useful to the party. Perfect equality isn't going to be achieved, but it won't be achieved by tracking WBL level either, especially if you leave out expensive things that you use up. Yes, there is going to be an imbalance in wealth based on what you are carrying, but I don't think that giving up a ring of feather fall or a super cool weapon because it puts someone into debt to the party is cool either, which is what happens in my other game that divides things like this. People refuse to drink healing potions because that gold will come out of their share, and we throw away rings and weapons people could use because that isn't the ideal item for them so they don't want to give up their share for it. It's insane. I feel like we shouldn't be forced into selling things that could help us, even if they aren't things that we would necessarily buy for ourselves.

People should make sure others are well-equipped before being greedy, and trade out lesser items they are replacing and give them to other people... and if self-governance doesn't work, then the DM can step in and correct the imbalance.

@GM - Slight change of plans on the level up.

Instead of taking snowball as a spell from level up, I'm going to take Burning Disarm.

I'm then going to buy a Pages of Spell Knowledge of Snowball instead.

Then put all them in my spell book. Having the spell page does the following :

Gives me an offensive spell for all my sorcerer spells.
Gives me the ability to cast the burning disarm as either Fire or Electricity (for those situations where the target is known to have resistance to fire, since fire is more common).
Gives me the snowball spell in my spellbook, and the ability to cast it on demand as both a snowball and a lightning ball (again, to bypass defenses).

Milgen's also going to pick up a MW Crossbow in town (to replace his 'broken') crossbow. It's not really broken, so if anyone needs a crossbow, let me know.

Finally, he'll pick up a MW haramaki from our resident Tien folks in town (MW so it's ready to enchant later). It's the only armor he can wear.

If anyone wants to sell any of their personal equipment, and asks Milgen nicely (which means politely), he'll sell their equipment for the +10%. If they can't handle polite, I'm sure Miron will do it anyway and score brownie points with his god for overlooking rudeness. :P

Ok...basic shopping. First, Wayfinder, for 500 gold. Second, cracked Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stone for 500 gold.

In addition, the magic worked into the wayfinder amplifies the power of the ioun stone, usually (about 75% of the time) unlocking new abilities in addition to the stone’s normal power. Unfortunately, the energy required is such that the magical properties of the wayfinder itself are diverted to power the ioun stone, temporarily negating the wayfinder’s normal abilities. The mechanism of using a wayfinder to boost the power of an ioun stone is usually called augmenting, channeling, enhancing, or resonating.

So a 75% chance of the two working together.

1 means 1-25 doesn’t work, 2 means 75-100 doesn’t work: 1d2 ⇒ 2

Does it work?: 1d100 ⇒ 10 It works!

The Random Roll: Each combination of an ioun stone and a wayfinder requires a roll on a table to see what resonant power it gains. This methods allows for a lot of variety but requires bookkeeping to track each unique stone’s augmented power, and also makes it difficult for the PCs to predict what any particular combination may be. See the table on page 53.

What does it do?: 1d100 ⇒ 54

54 +2 resistance bonus on all saves.

Also, Milgen is picking up Goblin since we've been dealing with so many, and he's been investigating them in his copious spare time.

Ok, my Wayfinder roll was crazy good. I revise my argument on WBL....whatever the group is happy with.

Also unrelated. If anyone wants a weapon that can be made in a few days, Drazh can make it at 1/3 cost

That's a nice bonus Drazh, and frees up your shoulder slots for other things like :

Muleback Cords for the next few levels is a good one.

Hunter's Cloak about level 5 or 6 would be useful for Drazh.

Not sure Milgen would ask him to do so, given the way things are going.

BTW: I intended the whole 'comes out sideways and bounces off armor' to be funny, but everyone IC took it as Milgen trying to shoot him. So much for humor. I think I'll give up on trying to be humorous in this game, everyone seems to take every post as absolute utter deadly seriousness.

Well...for humor I thought of a hedgehog being a messenger from the gods to tell Drazh when he needs to chill as being humorous. So...yeah. :p

——

And really like that cloak. Makes me wish now that I didn’t trade away Favored Terrain now. Ah well....

Would Milgen like Drazh to make him the MW crossbow? Could get a post up IC explaining why he is. Might bring them closer together. And save you 200ish gold.

I was more referring to Miron's post where he's accusing Milgen of shooting Drazh in the back on purpose.

I thought the hedgehog was funny.

And if you want to, yes, it would be nice if they could realize they aren't exactly enemies. :P

Miron is a literal creature most of the time. Technically, that was a near miss. That it was a harmless one wasn't factored in. Personally, I liked the comedy aspect.

I wasn't advocating taking whatever you want. I was advocating splitting cash equally, always. If we decide to sell something, everyone gets the same part.

Magic items should be separate and should be rolled for if more than one person can use them or wants them, and shouldn't be sold if they are useful to the party. Perfect equality isn't going to be achieved, but it won't be achieved by tracking WBL level either, especially if you leave out expensive things that you use up. Yes, there is going to be an imbalance in wealth based on what you are carrying, but I don't think that giving up a ring of feather fall or a super cool weapon because it puts someone into debt to the party is cool either, which is what happens in my other game that divides things like this. People refuse to drink healing potions because that gold will come out of their share, and we throw away rings and weapons people could use because that isn't the ideal item for them so they don't want to give up their share for it. It's insane. I feel like we shouldn't be forced into selling things that could help us, even if they aren't things that we would necessarily buy for ourselves.

People should make sure others are well-equipped before being greedy, and trade out lesser items they are replacing and give them to other people... and if self-governance doesn't work, then the DM can step in and correct the imbalance.

Yeah, I agree with Azalia, for sure.

And my level up is coming soon. Weekends are crazy busy around my house, and so is the start of the school week, so I haven't had a chance, yet.

Levelling Up: Shifter 3

HP: +9 (+6 class, +3 Con)
BAB: +1
Will Save: +1

Skills: +1 acrobatics, +1 climb, +1 knowledge (nature), +1 perception, +1 stealth, +1 survival
Background Skills: +1 linguistics (goblin), +1 knowledge (geography)

Wild Empathy: +1
Shifter Aspect: +1 minute extra duration per day
Shifter Claws: Her claws now ignore DR/cold iron, DR/magic, and DR/silver.
Woodland Stride

Feat: Weapon Focus (claw)

To be clear Sandpoint has a base value of 1,300gp. I'm not going to ask you to roll for masterwork version of common weapon types etc but for magic items it's still a 75% of it being there or being able to get it crafted not guaranteed! ...rest assured we will be going to other settlements in future parts of the adventure part.

Would a wand of CLW be available? How about a wand of lesser restoration (hoping for a paladin version but I'd settle for anything :)?.

Pages: 1d100 ⇒ 41

They are available. :)

Wand of Lesser Restoration 75 or less: 1d100 ⇒ 93

I'm just going to say a wand of cure light wounds will be fine.

Here's my problem with Azalia's approach.

We get 3-4 kinda neat things, and people take them. Then we split the cash equally amongst all of us from the other things. Let's say we find 5000 gp worth of things that someone wanted (like a +1 hammer for Drazh, or a +1 Bow for Miron), and 4800 gp of things that we sell (final sell prices, not values). We split the 4800 six ways, so we each get 800 GP. Milgen can't afford to get any magic items at all, so he's stuck with 800 gp for several weeks of real time. Next time, the same thing happens, and again Milgen (who doesn't use weapons or armor) ends up with the short end again, because the only thing he usually gets that are useful are (A) wands (which are party stuff) or (B) scrolls (which again, are consumables), or (C) Spell Books (which give him more spell options, but which he then has to pay gold for to use, because they aren't his). I've run a game where the Players did that, and the magic user got hosed over.

I do agree that consumables should NOT count against WBL, they should be party things, meaning we don't take them out of the shares of the loot at all (which is what I tried to do earlier with the wand and potion and wine). But just keeping stuff that might be useful for your martial character in an edge case, and then splitting the rest of the cash equally is basically telling the Magic Caster to go pound sand if he wants any equipment, because the AP rarely gives spellcasters anything equipment wise beyond wands, scrolls, and spellbooks (which again, are either consumable or require cold hard cash to even use). They certainly don't hand out useful things like Pages of Spell Knowledge, magical Haramaki's, or things like that. The AP's hand out magic weapons and armor and rings of protection like they were candy.

I like the CLW purchae, but we should all chip in on that. Are you getting a full one or a partial one? I got 250 GP toward it if you can find a less than full one.

Next time we should probably do purchases like that before we do the cash split. Nobody should be paying for all the consumables, those should be party funds things.

"Wand of Lesser Restoration 75 or less: 1d100 ⇒ 93"

Ok...

Wayfinder 75 or less: 1d100 ⇒ 94

Ioun Stone 75 or less: 1d100 ⇒ 51

Whew!

Passed the 75% chance for wayfinder to be there
Passed the 75% chance for the ioun stone to be there
Passed the 75% chance for the two to even work

Now that's what I call gambling. :P

I only need 590 gold for this purchase. After that, I'm more than happy to chip in for a party wand.

I will point out there's a bunch of caster only items like metamagic rods but ultimately it's for the players to decide as a majority.

@Drazh you got a 94 on your roll for the Wayfinder... to be fair, not many of those floating around outside the Pathfinder Society.