RoW: Let's Thaw the Frozen Stars! (Inactive)

Game Master Daxter

DM, feel free to assign Kalt or Sven to NPCing Lana while I'm gone so that you don't have to deal with it.

grumblegrumble...sure make us do all the work...grumblegrumble...go off and get married...grumblegrumble...congratulations....

All done leveling.

Mez - I wasn't aware you were waiting on us, though it's true we have not said where we're going.

Is there anywhere that we know of that Kalt and Bugsby's curses can be removed, other than going back to Kalt's adopted tribe? If that's our only option, are you ready to play that? I wasn't clear whether you had prepped that or not, or whether you wanted to go that route.

Has Nadya said whether she knows of anyone anywhere who can help with the curses? (I asked her, but pretty indirectly, now that I re-read the post.) I'm not very excited to set out an a big quest with this curse on Kalt, and I think removing the curses would be the top priority for the group.

So we need to know where that can happen in order to decide where we're going. It would also be helpful to get some sense of where we might be able to sell some treasure and hopefully buy other stuff - again, is Wyrmslayer's tribe our only option?

There are three options regarding the removal of curses:
1: go back to the Tribe without Nadya (hopefully some people took linguistics: Hallit on their level up if they didn’t have it before)
2: Go with Nadya toward Whitethrone and find someone to help either on the way, or in that City, since I doubt I’ll be spoilering anything by saying eventually to get inside.
3: Survive with the curse until level up and hope one of your spellcasters takes pity on you.

As far as fleshing out the Tribe, that’s something I can do well enough, especially since I’ll probably toss a few encounters at you on the way there/back to make up for the divergence from the story.

I would like to know who is carrying/wearing what treasure, so if say… a thief comes in the night and filches the Bag of Holding type 2, I know what they got away with…. Maybe… ;)

It'll be a while before any of our casters get Remove curse. Lana can't get it until level 6. Ankih is going mystic theurge so it won't be until 8th. Avora will never get it because it's not a druid spell.

Nobody's said much yet but I'm going to assume Avora wants the icicle wand, Bugsby wants the color spray wand, Lana can hold onto the ring of regen for now, and the other miscellaneous loot can we stored in the bag of holding.

I'm with Sven, I don't think option 3 on the curse removal menu is really workable for a few reasons.

So, gang, is it 1 or 2? I guess for story purposes, I'm inclined to go with Nadya and hope we find a benevolent decursinator on the road somewhere. But if we go to my Tribe, we can be pretty certain to get the curse lifted and hope to do some buying and selling of magic items.

Decisions, decisions...

What say y'all?

Avora is going to MW her spear, her armor, and her backpack. Total cost is 493 gp. She is also going to pick up a sling and 20 starstones (2 gp total).

I recommend that we go to the tribe to see what we can trade.

Not that it's worth much but my Heavy wooden shield can go into the salable loot. I wont be using it anymore due to spell fail.
I'm ready to go where ever we need to go now. XD

Okay, trying to sum up a few things and get us rolling again…

Magic Item Allocation
Kalt: Amulet of Natural Armor, +1
Lana: Ring of Regeneration (until we can sell it)
Avora: Icicle Wand (35 charges)
Bugsby: Wand of Color Spray (23 charges)
Ankih: Handy Haversack
Sven: Ring of Protection, +1 (Ankih also expressed interest in this)

* Unclaimed items of note: Cloak of Resistance, +1, Robe of Useful Items (seems Bugsby would love this…), Cauldron of Overwhelming Allies (I don't know what this does)
* Lots of little things to hand out, or we can stick them all in the Haversack as Sven suggests

Travel Plans
We go with Nadya towards Whitethrone or we go to Kalt’s adopted tribe. Avora votes to visit the tribe, Kalt is on the fence – anyone else?

Bugsby…
How long can we reasonably wait for him to return? Put another way, how long will Mez play him for us? Since Lana will be gone for a bit and things will be quieter ‘round here, I say we wait until she has come back from her wedding festivities. If we haven’t heard from Bugsby by then, we probably need to take action to replace him, as much as I don’t want to do that. How does that sound?

I'd say head for Whitethrone.

And I'm pretty much in agreement with the rest.

Whitethrone sounds good as does putting things on hold until Lana returns. Mez is a short vacation okay by you?

Lana, what day can you comfortably say you’ll be able to resume PBPing?

Should be back to posting on the 23rd at the latest.

I didn't actually mean that we'd put the whole game on hold...just that we'd use Lana's return as an arbitrary deadline, to give Bugs time to post again, but we'd keep on going in the meanwhile.

Oh, that works too. =)

So that's 2 for Whitethrone, 1 for Tribe, 1 torn, and 1 non-committal/don't care.

Whitethrone it is, since Bugsby has already seen the Hallit, and hasn't been to Whitethrone, and I hear Gnomes like to experience new things... :D

Me thinks we have a cursed ring.

Wow, that's brutal. So many curses.

Also makes me regret the parallel I drew between that ring and the real one she'll get on her finger soon.

Shame on you.

Well, what do you expect? My sweetie and I have been together 23.5 years and nary a ring between us.

Anyway, this just means that all the bad juju will be in Lana's ring, and Oladon's ring will be chock-full of good juju. See, isn't that nice?

Feel free to run Lana, even out of combat, it'll be a bit easier on me, especially with Avora now being absent for a lengthy amount of time.

Avora/Nadya can help aide also. Nadya has a +5 heal skill

Avora is away too?

I haven't seen WhtKnt post in any game I'm in with him for a few days. Not so long as to start worrying, he might just be recovering from his crazy Con schedule.

Gotcha. I edited in heal checks for her in my last post.

I'm here, just been busy. Will be away tomorrow, as my sister is having a baby and I have to run up to Augusta, GA to see her. Posting will be sparodic for the next week, but I'll try to stay current.

Letting Sven/Kalt discuss the plan before moving on.

Hope everyone had a good holiday, regardless of religious beliefs.

Would the group want me to open up a new thread for book 2, since we have started it, or just keep going here?

I'd prefer to keep the same thread. It makes it easier to find stuff from past posts, in terms of tracking story details - and I like to admire the large number of posts in some of my PbP games!

Is it possible to rename the thread?

Let me check...

Seems I can, that makes it easy.

Aren't you fancy?! Excellent. Will have to get a gameplay post up later.

So I had an interesting PFS game on my tank Inquisitor on Saturday. We did the final part of the Quest for Perfection (I get a Chocobo!) and the GM flat out admitted to making up rolls.

Throughout the game, I had been remarking on the GM’s dice luck, as he rolled about 10 20’s on attacks; and when saving, only rolled below a 9 on 3 out of 46 dice. After nearly killing both monks and me with hit after hit, the GM picks up the screen and shows me a dice on 20. I tell him he doesn’t need to show me, I believe him if he says he rolled it. And this guy replies: It’s nice to finally roll one, I’ve had to fudge my rolls to keep you guys challenged… Me and the monk played by an older gent nearly hit the roof, and the two of us decided amongst ourselves to never play at that GM’s table again.

I’m debating talking to our VL/VC about this, because doesn’t that completely destroy PFS rules?

Absolutely, and the GM should be reported to the local VO. Fudging rolls is decidedly against the PFS rules.

From the Guide to Pathfinder Organized Play v.5.0, page 19:

Do Not Cheat
"Do not falsify rolls, do not falsify your Chronicle sheets, and do not add new items to your inventory without buying them properly."

From the Guide to Pathfinder Organized Play v.5.0, page 32:

Table Variation
"We understand that sometimes a Game Master has to make rule adjudications on the fly, deal with unexpected player choices, or even cope with extremely unlucky (or lucky) dice on both sides of the screen.

"As a Pathfinder Society GM, you have the right and responsibility to make whatever judgments, within the rules, that you feel are necessary at your table to ensure everyone has a fair and fun experience. This does not mean that you can contradict rules or restrictions outlines in this document, a published Pathfinder Roleplaying Game source, errata document, or official FAQ on paizo.com."

From the Guide to Pathfinder Organized Play, v.5.0, page 34:

Dealing with Death
"...we don't advocate fudging die rolls..."

Myself, when running Society play sessions, I make all rolls (except those that need to be secret, such as certain skill checks) in full view of the players. It keeps me honest and lets them know that I am being unbiased.

I'd suggest chatting with the DM in question first and give him/her a chance to correct the issue before elevating it to a venture officer. It's entirely possible he doesn't know he's not supposed to fudge dice.

True enough, but if he is an experienced GM, I'd go ahead and elevate it.

This was at least the 3rd game he's GM'd that I know of.

Also, I hope you guys aren't minding the less deadly encounters. I find that having a mix of lighter/RP encounters can help break up the room by room hack n'slash that can sometimes happen in these AP's.

I don't mind the less deadly encounters with a bit more witty banter, especially with the current limitations to Kalt's deadliness.

I'd agree with Sven, talk to the guy first, but be ready to elevate it if it continues. If he's fudging dice, he might as well just be deciding what happens and skip the dice altogether.

I'm good with less deadly encounters mixed in with the tough ones. I like character building (believe it or not) and these encounters provide an opportunity for such. For example, did anyone notice that Avora, a druid, did not shy away from eating meat?

Hi all, I'm back. Haven't read Gameplay yet, and now I'm sortof afraid to look... what's this about a cursed ring?

Fudging dice is something that I really, really don't enjoy in my games. Some people do; I don't, and I think a DM and players should all make 100% sure they discuss the issue and have a clear understanding of each others' expectations.

Sure, we still have uncursed party members.

By the way, this literally made me laugh out loud.

See, no need to remove the curse, Kalt still works just fine :D

When he's buffed and rolling lucky...

What's stopping you from rolling lucky all the time? Have you been holding out on us?

Now now, in nearly every major combat, Kalt has had a crit and done a ton of damage, so clearly he's not holding out.

I think he just likes the attention he gets for the "Woe is me, I am cursed!" I mean, look at Bugsby, hasn't said a word about HIS curse this entire time...

:D

Yeah, I was worried the 'Woe is me' but was getting a bit much. I just didn't want to have it not matter in the game. The dying curse of a fell ice witch ought to be worth a bit of RP as well as an enduring -4 to everything that poor, cursed Kalt tries to do, right?

I'm just surprised you haven't tried to put anything over on Nadya... "I was cursed saving your town, now gimme some sugar baby!"

Kalt's got bad enough luck with the ladies when he's not cursed...

I miss Bugsby. =(

I miss Bugsby. =(

Ditto. Dang babies and their vortex of time at-will spell-like-ability.

Since we had allowed until Lana returned for Bugsby to pop in, and he hasn't, shall I start the prospects of finding a replacement? If anyone knows someone who you'd think would fit in well, that would be nice :D

I can start looking for a replacement after work.

I'm thinking we need an arcanist or a trapspotter, potentially both.