Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition

Game Master Wilken

Bloodragers are cool

I was thinking a Barbarian, you cover the Arcane bit

I'd say Slayer is the best possible class if you want to cover for what the party is lacking, but with new PCs incoming I'm sure party composition won't be much of a problem and you can play whatever you want.

Ripnugget was also 1 hp away from being staggered, huh. If he went down it was checkmate, but right now things can still go either way.

You're at 5553 exp, not that far from level 4.

ok, can I make the Barb at 4th?

Huh...Sorry, I'll have to say no on this one. I know everyone is about to level up anyway and you'd probably only fight one or two encounters at level 4, but while I don't think it would be a balancing issue I think its more fair to both old and new players if you character comes in at the same level as everyone else. Hopefully that's not much of a hassle for you, I think that even if the XP requirement to level up is small, PbPs take long enough time that it'll be a while before you have to change your character sheet.

On a side note, I just opened the recruitment thread here. I've already got way more applicants than expected. If any of you has preferences regarding one of the applied characters please let me know.

Also, what do you think about party composition? Are you fine with class and party roles overlapping between characters or would you rather see the new PCs filling different niches?

@ Denlar: a barbarian at 3rd level would still pack quite a wallop. Half-orcs make for good barbarians, of course!

Now that I think of it, being a slayer would also give you the ability to pick locks and that sort of fun stuff too. Which would take care of the rogue-like stuff in a pinch.

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@ GM Wilken: we already seem to have "blasty" arcane covered by Garbund, the divine covered by Ansgar.
If Denlar comes back as a Barbarian, Slayer, or Fighter, that should take of the tank role.

Might be useful if had a Wizard, Arcanist, Bard, or Skald to add more versatile spell abilities. If Denlar comes back as a fighter or barbarian, maybe we could use a Slayer in the party.

I was also thinking of maybe taking a level or two of a martial class too. Both to make him a more robust arcane blaster, and to have to option for Eldritch Knight at higher levels (entirely dependent on how long Garbund survives, of course!).

I haven't looked at the Slayer, could go as a ranged support.

Lots of info, I kinda like the slayer a bit better since he can have way more to him. Barbs are fun beat sticks.

The beauty of the slayer is ranger combat styles that allow you to get some combat feats you wouldn't normally qualify for.

Well at 3rd I had to take Trap Finding to get those skills and abilities. After that it is free rein

Here's what I think we have covered right now:

Ansgar - Melee tank/ minor buffer
Garbund - blasting spells
Denlar (Slayer) - Ranged and skills

I would honestly say that a wizard focusing on crowd control/buffing or a bard would be a good thin to have in one slot. And a second melee either as a DPS or a tank would be best for the other.

If the second melee also had a divine bent that would be useful as, while I can cover all divine spells, in many cases I will have to wait a day to prepare stuff because I get so few spell slots due to the Crusader Cleric archetype.

I'll take a look through the applicants and see if any pop out at me.

I looked at some of the applications. A paladin, a bunch of Casters, a Swashbuckler.

From what I can see

I think I can go the Slayer, that will work out fine.

Hello everyone :) glad to be joining the fun :)

So I did that thing again where I take more people than I expected to originally. Hopefully thats fine with everyone.

Welcome to the game, everyone :)

I need to know if Garbund and Ansgar intend to delve deeper into Thistletop or if they will retreat so I can have an idea of how to insert the new characters into the game.

I'll have a post in Gameplay up tomorrow with the result of the intimidation.

Well met, friends. Looks forward to this.

And thank you for the invite, GM Wilken.

Edit: Please let me know if there is anything you want me to tweak... especially in the taglines.

So I did that thing again where I take more people than I expected to originally. Hopefully thats fine with everyone. ...

I like 6 people. And I can't really complain given that in the Ironfang game I said I would take 6 and took 8...

Welcome to the new comers I am excited get you integrated into the party.

@Wilken and Garbund - Whether I want to push on or not is dependent on if the new characters wil be integrated into the game while we are exploring and how soon. The group of Garbund/myself/Zantus/Shalelu is woefully taxed and I don't really want to press on without either reinforcements or rest.

So what did we get?

A Shield Fighter and what else?

I am a Fighter/Alchemist
Caeldren is a Swashbuckler/Skald
Normornigan is a Wildblooded Sorcerer

As mentioned my guy is a swashbuckler/skald. Really it's skald with a swashbuckler dip. Here's a general breakdown of how he'll work in a party I think.

Spells will be focused on versatility, taking the human FCB for bonus spells known every level beyond first.

Controled Inspired Rage lets me pick what stats to boost and does not limit skills or give an AC penalty. I plan to give the bonus to Dex each time. For Cael and other dex based fighters this is a bonus to hit and damage as well as reflex save and sometimes AC. For casters and strength based front liners this should be a bonus to reflex and AC. Most combat I plan to try to fire up the "song" flavored as encouraging quips and story bits and then skirmish a bit, using spells as they make sense with mostly a focus on buffs and control spells.

Outside of combat Cael should be able to help assist with most skill checks (I believe there is going to be a fairly large party so specialists will handle most checks directly) as well as providing a solid if unspecialized knowledge base. UMD may or my not be a focus depending on if anyone else specializes in that skill. Scroll scribing may become a common passtime depending on how the GM feels about spell kenning to create scrolls, but that wouldn't be for a while.

As for introduction into the game, I had already written into my background that Zelinda made her way to the Goblin Squash Stables and made contact with Daviren Hosk. She could either be there waiting to be 'found', or run into the group... or I can help come up with a reason that she would have left the town after that.

Whatever works best for the story.

Greetings, everyone!

Norm and Cliff reporting for duties!

Thanks for picking us/me.

To follow up on Caeldrens example: in combat, cliff will be the star, with Norm buffing him. He is a very capable fighter. Norm will probably also take some battlefield control spells like black tentacles.

Outside of combat, Norm can help in the party-face department, especially with his many languages.
@GM Willen, can I take Varisian as a language?

I'm also looking in to taking a drawback so I can pick up helpful, so I can do +4 with aid another. That'll be useful but in and out of combat.

But let me know if there is any other role you would like me to fill or any tweaks you'd like me to do.

This is my first time with pbp so I hope you will bear with me. Any guides to the forum, especially thinking about the diceroller?

I'll try and set up the taglines later.

Really looking forward to playing with you!

Here is my Slayer name is kinda funny, since i can see his always squinting to look at things down his bow sight

So, I've changed my tagline. Let me know if I should put anything else in there.

And I made a aliase for Cliff to, so he can growl at you himself ;-)

Again, let me know if his tagline should change.

I suppose my character is fairly self-explanatory, but I should probably clarify Zelinda's intended role, as the others have done. :)

She is primarily a front-line combatant, with a good amount of mobility. Between Zelinda, Ansgar, Caeldren and Cliff, I'm pretty sure that we can keep most threats off of the back line. Her Alchemist levels are mostly for flavor and variety (I'm not currently sure how far down that path I plan to go. Feeling it out as we go).

Also, with Uma, it will improve her mobility and versatility even more, though I don't plan on over-using her, as she isn't an animal companion, so not very durable. May take a feat or two to supplement. We'll see.

I think that about covers it.

Whether I want to push on or not is dependent on if the new characters wil be integrated into the game while we are exploring and how soon.

Feel free to do what you wish, I'll adjust accordingly (using the Law of Universal Convenience, as we say in Brazil)

@GM Willen, can I take Varisian as a language?

Yes.

Here is my Slayer name is kinda funny, since i can see his always squinting to look at things down his bow sight

Small backstory would be appreciated.

After having a brief look through what has already happened, I may have a suggestion for character insertion, and it might be nice and easy.

What if we were sent out from Sandpoint to find and aid the current heroes. We could have a brief conversation with the mayor/sheriff/other before leaving, so that we can provide our own reason for wanting to help out.

I'm sure that there are other options, as well. Just thought I'd get a little brainstorming going. :)

Ok so backstory.

Quiary has been a citizen of Sandpoint for most of his life, his parents feel on hard times and had to give him up to a Crime family they owed money too. Quiary was then trained as a killer, eventually he earned enough money to buy himself out and moved back to Sandpoint to see his home town again.

During the attack on the Festival Quiary helped to defend an elderly family. Now with the Heroes being gone and no word from them he has come to find the Sheriff to see if he can help out further.

Hopefully we'll be able to quickly get into a regular posting. Itching to type. :D

After having a brief look through what has already happened, I may have a suggestion for character insertion, and it might be nice and easy.

What if we were sent out from Sandpoint to find and aid the current heroes. We could have a brief conversation with the mayor/sheriff/other before leaving, so that we can provide our own reason for wanting to help out.

I'm sure that there are other options, as well. Just thought I'd get a little brainstorming going. :)

I was thinking something along those lines too. I'm reading through what's happened to get a better idea.

I'm up for that, it'd fit Cael's character and background well.

As an aside I'm going to for in to the campaign and delete it so that it'll show up in my profile. It makes tracking that action easier.

Just waiting on the OG players to post so we can do our thing. :)

Weekends can be a little slow, but thing will ramp up eventually.

Heh. I totally get it. Just my way of getting into it. :)

So, finally finished reading what has happened until now. It's only been a short while, since the party was sent after the goblins, so it might be a little bit of a stretch to have the sheriff send reinforcement when it wasn't planned in advance.
He could have reconsidered, thinking that sending 5 people was to little to handle all the gobos.
Or maybe some volunteers approached him, saying they wanted to help, and he sent them after the party.
The third option I see, is that the party findes a place to hold up and rest while sending shalelu back for reinforcement

Norm would want to go solely for the chance to see the place, hoping that something thassalonian would be there, so seeing someone making ready to leave, he would ask to join. If refused, he would simply follow on his own.

That's fairly similar to my assumption, as well.

in Zelinda's case, she would try to help as much as possible. What with the goblins causing a problem for the people in the area again, she would do whatever she can to help. It would almost feel like a duty to her, what with her uncle doing the same in the past.

On a different note, I hope everything is okay with Garbund. Haven't seen him in a while.

I don't want to be devil's advocate here or anything, but is there any chance that we can NPC Garbund for the time being? It's been nearly a week since his last in-game post, and it's really hard to keep a game going with only one active player, and there are four others waiting on the sidelines.

Personally, I'm hoping that he's just having some basic RL things getting in the way and he'll be back with us ASAP (I've actually really enjoyed his posts, from what I've read so far). I just don't want to cause the game to suffer any more from the lack of activity.

In the end, GM Wilken, it's your call, and I'll go with whatever you decide. I just wanted to have my opinion be heard.

I'll do something to push the game foward in a few hours if we don't get any activity, would hate to leave you all waiting.

I am just trying to clean up the loot from this room then I plan on retreating to town for reinforcements.

With the knowledge that there is more to do here I can't think of a good reason not to retreat and resupply with the loot from the battle so far. Ansgar doesn't actually know help is on the way and he wouldn't want to risk Zantus any more than he has already.

If you want to time hop, I am okay with you jumping us back to town with all the gear we would've got from the throne room. And Denlar's body. He needs to be put to rest properly.

And Denlar's body. He needs to be put to rest properly.

or so he can be resurrected by the BBEG and be an constant adversary through-out the game! ;-)

Regarding drop in activity, do you want some kind of other way of contacting us? must say i'm in very surprised that you can't get notifications from this forum. Maybe Messenger, Discord, Hangout, skype or something like it?

And is there something else we need to have access to? I read something about a loot sheet and maybe roll20?

I'll have a followup post with everyone meeting back in town later today.

For the gear, Ansgar will take all of it with him either to keep or to sell.

Ansgar will keep:

- Two potions of cure moderate wounds
- Keyring
- +1 shortsword
- Cloack of resistance +1

Ansgar will suggest that Garbund keeps:

- One potion of cure moderate wounds
- Wand of Silent Image (4 charges)
- Wand of Produce Flame (33 Charges)

Ansgar will suggest that Father Zantus keeps:

- 20 gold pieces
- One potion of Cure Moderate Wounds

Ansgar will suggest that Shalelu keeps:

- Wand of Tree Shape (4 charges)
- One potion of Cure Light Wounds
- One potion of Cure Moderate Wounds

Ansgar suggest that we sell and add to the group fund:

- Two studded leather armor, small sized
- Four shortbows, small sized
- 100 arrows, small sized
- 3 masterwork horse choppers, small sized
- dogslicer, small sized
- whip, small sized
- master work breastplate, small sized

Ansgar will also suggest that 1/4 of the profits from sales go each to Shalelu and to Father Zantus.

@GM Wilken, let me know if all of that is acceptable and I will get the costs sorted out. With Garbund not posting at the moment I am just going to make the above decisions myself.

You can sell what Denlar had, mainly the Master Work Ranseur. He wouldn't want you to be out cash because he died.

Sounds good, just have to add up how much gold you earned from the sales.

GM, I have a couple of quick questions. How closely do you monitor weight and encumbrance? To the letter, or more, don't be crazy about it?

Also, as there are a bunch of us new to the game, are there any things in particular that we as new players should know about as to how you run the game?

I'm sure I will come up with more questions, but that's it for the moment.

This AP in particular doesn't seem to care too much about encumbrance, so I'm not making any real effort to track it.

I don't think my game is wildly different from any other, maybe those who've been playing for a while can point out something that surprised them on how I run games but for the most part I think I just run a standard game like any other.