Runelords

Game Master Wrath

Yeah, the first amulet acts like cloak of resistance. Sorry, I mostly have to type these things under a fairly strict time limit and do make mistakes like that. It's fairly noticable when I go back and find my typo's, but it's rare I have time to correct them.

I'm not bothered who gets the items, but certainly those who get hit a lot could use the AC bonuses. Note the Amulet of Natural Armour is far harder to come across than rings of protection generally. Seems to be in published adventures that those rings of protection fall like candy at times.

I'm happy to do a roll off again if folks want to, however if you're happy to go with Jo'no's plan, it has a very nice symetry to it.

Cheers

Being the rookie,Mikka won't ask for anything now

Jo'No's plan makes sense to me. Here's what we have then:

Feldspar == amulet of natural armor +1
Tania == ring of protection +1

Which leaves us with:

potion of cure light wounds
composite shortbow, mw, +?? Strength, what's the strength bonus?
masterwork thieves’ tools
masterwork flute
silver earrings (25 gp for the pair),
9 pouches of gold dust worth 50gp each,
12 pouches of silver dust worth 5 gp each
18pp

See another of those damnable mistakes. The bow is only +1 strength, but that is still better than a standard bow.

Faily confident neither the thieves tools nor teh flute are much good to folk, so you can get cash for that.

Cure light wounds can go in group loot.

Split cash as needed. If no one's worked it out by tomorrow I'll do a split for cash in the morning including selling unwanted items.

Cheers

(Found some time to post).

Tania uses a shortbow... So she'll take it unless someone else wants it.

Thanks for the ring! Anyone needs the amulet for +1 saves? Bards have two good saves...

Adding Tania's shortbow to the loot (15 gp used).

Loot:

amulet of natural armor +1 = Feldspar
ring of protection +1 = Tania
potion of cure light wounds = Jo'no
composite shortbow, mw, +1 Str = Tania
masterwork thieves’ tools = Sell 50gp
masterwork flute = Sell 50gp
silver earrings = Sell 25gp
9 pouches of gold dust worth = Sell 450gp
12 pouches of silver dust = Sell 60gp
18pp = Convert to 180gp
shortbow = 15gp

Since after my spells are gone, I don't have a lot of useful things I can do, I though I could hold onto the party's healing potion.

Based on the above, everyone's share would be:

50 + 50 + 25 + 450 + 60 + 180 + 15 / 6 = 138gp, 3sp each

Sounds good to me.

If they have them available, I'll purchase 2 potions of cure light wounds.

Jo'no will also buy a potion.

Ok my fellow gamers,

Since we lost Algus, I've been looking at some replacesments in a recruitment thread I started. I have short listed them to 4 possible characters. Since you fine folk are the ones who will be adventuring with them, I would like you to help me decide which concept best suits our group. I'm fairly positive in the posting rate and writing styles of the four players, but if you have advice on that it would be good also.

1) Human Sorceror/rogue - A young lad who worked for a travelling group of players and troubadours before his latent powers activated in Sandpoint and things started going wrong around the playhose. He's being fobbed off to the group by a few of the town bigwigs as they believe you may help him channel his power more effectively (May be interesting for Tania, since its another spontaneous caster with a similar history to her.) Pros - Brings rogue talent to the party, interesting tie in story and a player with good history of posting and writing style. Cons - Another charisma based caster adds competition to Tania and even Feldspar for certain items. A bit of roll cross over there as well.

2) Human Inquisitor - Sent for by Father Zanthus to help purge Maree of her demonic posession. This character has stories writing themselves in my head and may be the easiest to tie to the game. Pros - easy to tie to game, more healing potential depending on how he's built. Cons - Inquisitors cross the divine/combat boundries a fair bit so he may be stepping on the toes of Feldspar, Mikka and Idrian in terms of group role.

3)Dwarven monk/inquisitor - Currently the story for this one is to be coming to investigate the drug ring that you all got accidentally caught up with recently. It's a pretty solid character concept. pros - Monks are versatile, especially when cross classed. Another Lawful dwarf is good for Feldspar. Cons - Another lawful dwarf is gonna cause trouble with Tania and Jo'no hehe. Same issues with inquisitor as above.

4) Dwarven fighter - Loud, obnoxioulsy crass and bloody good at what he does. This character has the potential to be a great counterpoint to Feldspar, and the player has good history with him in an older PbP and on the boards in general. Pros - He's a pure fighter and we don't have one of those. Good counterpoint to Feldspars dwarf. Cons - We have quite a bit of combat readiness already in terms of Feldspar and Idrian. Tania and Mikka also are quite capable combatants. I'm not sure an extra one is needed. Having said that, we have nearly all the roles filled already, so it may not be such an issue.

If you can all have a vote on which one you'd prefer in the next few days, it will be great. I can make the decision totally if you'd prefer, but I'd really like to see you guys have a say in who you play with.

Cheers

I plan to go Arcane Archer. Not sure if it will be Wizard or Magus (not a fan of the Witch). I haven't looked at the thread yet, but my impression from your summary is the sorcerer/rogue. The additional arcane caster might be rather redundant, but she would be my first choice.

I'm not very good at picking. I like 1) and 2).

My first choice would be Ganny (#3). Of course, he's a nice addition to go along with Feldspar so there's that too, but I also liked his writing quite a bit too, which was most important to me.

I've now read the submissions and my thoughts are
- Human Inquisitor: class is a good mix of combat, skills, and spells; now my first choice
- Human Sorcerer/Rogue: as above, the addition of a rogue would be a good thing though the sorcerer could be redundant.
- Dwarven Fighter: can't go wrong with this character concept, not very exciting, but always a solid pick

My vote goes for the Human Inquisitor. Love the class and i think the versatility is really useful.

I've invited the inquisitor to join us :)

Seems to be a solid character concept and most of you liked it.

Thanks for the input. Kor, I really appreciated your breakdown. You put into a nice succinct form a whole bunch of stuff I was thinking.

Cheers

Hello all and thank you for the invite. This is my first play by post but I am an experienced gamer and have played/run many games, so I am confident that I can catch on quickly. I have read some of the early in game posts and the latest so I can see how the group works, but I have intentionally skipped the middle posts so as to keep my character's knowledge limited.

Without knowing the exact point buy or other rules at the time I had created an Inquisitor with some nice utility spells. As of now he has the Exorcist Archetype but I am willing to dump that if it doesn't work for the game, it is a role-playing choice.

For spells I have taken Cure Light Wounds for utility healing and Protection from Evil in order to fit his character concept. I was planning on spelling him out as the buff/utility caster, but I am willing to go whatever method helps the group the most.

I have not decided on his combat method yet. For now he is set as an archer, but I wanted to post here for ideas so as to mesh with the group better. Would you prefer I make him:

1. Archer
2. Two-handed melee
3. Two-weapon melee
4. One-handed melee and shield

I am open to any of these, since his combat style isn't central to his character concept and I am familiar/comfortable with all 4.

Wrath, I think you may have mentioned this in the past, but what program do you use for creating the map views that you provide to us?

Hello all and thank you for the invite. This is my first play by post but I am an experienced gamer and have played/run many games, so I am confident that I can catch on quickly. I have read some of the early in game posts and the latest so I can see how the group works, but I have intentionally skipped the middle posts so as to keep my character's knowledge limited.

Without knowing the exact point buy or other rules at the time I had created an Inquisitor with some nice utility spells. As of now he has the Exorcist Archetype but I am willing to dump that if it doesn't work for the game, it is a role-playing choice.

For spells I have taken Cure Light Wounds for utility healing and Protection from Evil in order to fit his character concept. I was planning on spelling him out as the buff/utility caster, but I am willing to go whatever method helps the group the most.

I have not decided on his combat method yet. For now he is set as an archer, but I wanted to post here for ideas so as to mesh with the group better. Would you prefer I make him:

1. Archer
2. Two-handed melee
3. Two-weapon melee
4. One-handed melee and shield

I am open to any of these, since his combat style isn't central to his character concept and I am familiar/comfortable with all 4.

Welcome Balodek!

For fighting styles, Feldspar and Tania are focusing on melee, though Tania is only med BAB (though I'm thinking of putting some Fighter in the mix...). Idrian is doing the archery, with Mikka and Jo'no focussing more on the spellcasting. I'd say it's pretty open to whatever you'd prefer.

Welcome to the adventure Baldek.

I think the party has more ranged attack options than melee options so I would suggest a melee route. (Of course I am a wizard that loves to keep meat shields in front of him). But as Dreaming mentioned either route is viable in the party mix.

Welcome to the game, Balodek!

I think we're balanced well enough in the combat department for you to choose whatever attack options suits your fancy. Feldspar generally goes the warhammer and board route.

Whichever choice you make is sure to be of good use to the party.

Wrath, I think you may have mentioned this in the past, but what program do you use for creating the map views that you provide to us?

I use a programme called maptools Kor. It's fantastic, and for a whiel there we even used it in our face to face games linking two laptops together to map and track party progress. I only gave that away as GM because my friends prefer to use minis :)

Here's the website

It's all free and runs through java. You'll need to token tool as well if you want to make custom tokens for your games. It took me a little while to get used to it, but now I'm quite fast at creating maps and tokens for our online game.

I take screencaptures of the maps in player view, then paste into Photoshop to convert to jpeg. Upload the jpeg to photobucket and link to here. Voila.

Even better, the maptools programme has dice rolling functions and programable macros. So for all of your tokens and many of the critters i use, I edit a macro button the first time i need to make a roll for you, then i can use it forever after that. Saves me tons of time for combat.

Cheers

Balodek, congratulations again on making it in. First time PbP hey? Well I hope it's a great experience for you. I find this is the only medium where I can truly flesh out roleplay characters. In my RL group, the boys tend to be too hack'n'slash for many roleplay opportunities.

As the others have said, one of the joys of the Inquisitor is its complete felxibilty in role. We have most of the bases covered with our current group, so any path you choose will be support in whatever way.

Idrian is planning to go Arcane archer.

Feldsapr and Tania are both very martial characters (and looks like Tania may become even more so hehe)

At this stage, my advice is to build what you want to play. It will fit in no matter what.

The joy of the character concept you provided was the story I can create for him as we progress. I'm trying hard to tie everyone's character to the game through their backgrounds, and yours was just writing plots in my head as I read it.

They're a good group of players, with nice group interactions and good combat tactics to date.

Have fun.
Cheers

Ok, level 2 Inquisitor is posted in my profile. Let me know if there are any changes/red flags/questions.

As one note you'll see I took Bless Water. Although I think it's pretty circumstantial and really almost useless, it fits my concept too well to not take it. As Durik levels up he will most likely abandon this spell in favor of a different one as he learns more powerful methods of exorcism.

Balodek

Well Durik looks fairly good to me. I've gone over him fairly quickly and can't see any glaring errors. When you come into the game, it's most likely the group will be level 3, so it will be worth statting him up for that level as well.

I start holidays next week, so I'll have lots of time to play around with your plot line. However, if I get time this week, I'll starta little intro story for you in this thread to run in conjunction with the main thread.

Bless water might be more useful than you think in some of these early runelords games. I thikn its a good choice. I also appreciate you creating to your background rather than squeezing out extra bouses here and there. I also note you took exorcism as a profession. I'll try to work in chances for you to use that as well.

Cheers

Mark (Mikka)

Mate, you came in at a time when we lost a charcter and I didn't have much time. As such, I haven't been able to do much with Mikka's background or personal plotline. I'd like to address that this holiday as well, since I know how much you enjoy the collaborative story aspect of things. If you have any ideas or plotlines you'd like to use or try out for Mikka, let me know. I have one or two thoughts on the topic, but haven't fleshed out much at the moment.

Cheers

Sounds good, I'm good to go as soon as you are ready for me. For level 3 I'll add masterwork to his armor/buckler and a wand of cure light wounds with the extra 2000 gold that brings. If this is out of line with the rewards the party already has I will modify appropriately.

I'm glad Bless Water may come in handy, I love to take the role-playing route but I don't want to hurt the party either. Reading through the logs though it looks like a very capable group so I'm pretty sure it'll be ok. :)

Mark (Mikka)

Mate, you came in at a time when we lost a charcter and I didn't have much time. As such, I haven't been able to do much with Mikka's background or personal plotline. I'd like to address that this holiday as well, since I know how much you enjoy the collaborative story aspect of things. If you have any ideas or plotlines you'd like to use or try out for Mikka, let me know. I have one or two thoughts on the topic, but haven't fleshed out much at the moment.

Cheers

Excellent, I was just thinking about the fact that the character didn't really find a way to fit in as yet. I'll give it some thought and look forward to your ideas.

I use a programme called maptools Kor. It's fantastic, and for a whiel there we even used it in our face to face games linking two laptops together to map and track party progress. I only gave that away as GM because my friends prefer to use minis :)

Thanks. I have played lightly with Maptools in the past but did find much use for it. I have now played with it a bit more and recreated what you have done. I definately see a use for it now. I might also try to incorporate it into my GM'ing just for displaying dungeons and areas as they are explored. I have to

Questions:
1. Once you have placed down a template, is there a way to remove it? The only way I see is to selected the delete template tool and drop it over the existing template which I see being a problem if you were to have 2 overlapping templates, as it would cut out the overlapping part of the template that you do not want to delete.

2. I am trying to decide whether to show the players the map on a tv screen or a projector. However if I understand correctly, to have a display designated solely as a "player view" screen I would need to either:
a) connect the display to my computer and just turn off the display when I am bringing up DM only stuff; or
b) use a different computer for the display which would also be logged into the maptools server.

Are these my basic options?

Kor: If you set up your computer for the projector display, you can have a side by side configuration. In other words, your DM materials could be on the side of the screen that is displayed on your monitor, while the map is on the far right, displayed only on the projector (or TV). It's a little weird, especially when you're moving back and forth but it works quite well. I used it for a campaign I ran last month.

Kor,

Not sure aout the template question (not sure what templates you mean.)

As for the screen question, I've run it as a dual screen which I covered when needed. I've also done the linked laptops, since most of my friends own them or can use work ones.

The best option was linked laptops over wireless connection whicn I have at my home. That way I could do all of my hidden stuff without turning things off and on. We used a wireless mouse for moving the players. They just passed it to each other when it was their go.

However, good as the technology was, it did take away from what we always loved about Face to Face, so we moved away from it. Might use it a little when my home games get to high level again though. It speeds that up no end.

Durik's tale

The walls of Sandpoint reared above the Inquisitor as he made his way towards the township. He had been on the road for two weeks to get from his previous "cleansing" this this town, all at the behest of the Church in Magnimar.

Tired as he was, Durik could see the remnants of fire damage and axe scars on the gates of the town as he entered. Some major trouble had happened here not too long ago it would seem.

No guard stood at the gates, and people seemed to be scarce. Those he did see hurried away from the stranger in town, or peered at him from behind curtained windows. Ignoring them all he continued to the great stone building that dominated the upper secion of the township. The great temple was new built and new opened from what he had heard. Entering though its stone arch, he was met by the first friendly face he had seen in this town. A young acolyte of Gozreh, she was a pretty thing, though her face seemed all too serious for one so young.

"Welcome friend, blessings of the wilds be upon you. May I ask your business in the Cathedral?". Her tone was polite and her eyes gave him only cursory once over as she asked. She waited with her hands folded into her robes for his response.

Over to you Durik. Something to get into character. You'll get a start on Maree's posession while the others are dellving in other parts

Durik pulls down the hood of his cloak and runs a travel stained hand through the errant strands of hair.

"Greetings acolyte, I am looking for Father Zanthus and perhaps the tale of what has happened here. Tell me, was a young woman involved in this?"
Diplomacy
1d20 + 3 ⇒ (18) + 3 = 21

The young woman smiles at his question. "We have many young women in town good sir, and most of them got caught up in the raid. However none were more directly involved than Tania Teg and True Vigilion. She and her friends helped to fight off a veritable horde of goblins on Desna's own day. We had all been celebrating he opening of our church when they struck, and none of us were too well prepared for an attack like that."

All of this was related as she led him through the building past a few side chappels to different faiths and into what appeared to be an infirmary. The room smelled of boiled wine and herbs, overlaying a less pleasent odour of old blood and burnt flesh. Only a few beds were occupied, and Father Zanthus was standing at one of them. He leaned over a man who looked to have been smashed between boulders, by the swelling and number of broken bones in his body. As Durik watched, the elder priest laid his hand upon him and chanted a small prayer to Desna. Some of the mans bones reknitted, decreasing both the swelling and the pain he was in. Even so, the healing itself was an uncormfatable process and the wounded man groaned as it happened.

Father Zanthus turned at the polite cough of his accolyte, and listened as she whispered into his ear. The older priest looked at Durik with interest, nodding slowly at the girls words before stepping forward and offering his hand. "Father Zanthus at your service friend. You must be the one Colsten spoke of in his missive to me. Come, I'll take you to my quarters so we can talk in private."

He led Durik through to a spartan room, decorated with a simple wall hanging of Desna's butterfly and dominted by a wooden table that had seen much use. The young woman left but returned briefly with a wooden stool for Durik and a pitcher of water for the two of them, plus some Hard bread and cheese. Zanthus sat and listened while Durik introdced himslef then told him of events recentyl plus his concerns.

This pretty much gives you Carte Blanch to read through the game thread as you need to Durik. You can read everything except spoilered stuff for specific characters. Anything about Maree is fair game to you, since Feldspar has pretty much shared what he knows with Zanthus as well. Cheers

Durik visibly relaxes when he hears that the girl Maree was not the cause of the attack.

"Greetings Father Zanthus, I am indeed here at the instructions of Bishop/Reverend? Colsten."

There is something strange going on here. Already this does not feel normal.

After listening to Father Zanthus relate his tale.

"That is quite the story Father."
Archive binge!
Desna help me, I hope I can handle this one, it sounds bad

"There are of course certain procedures I will need to follow with the victim, not all of which are pleasant. What can you tell me of her history? And have these adventurers formed any sort of attachment to the victim?"

Remember the admonishments of your superiors, show more compassion towards the faithful

"Your pardon, I mean Maree of course."
Durik pauses
"Father, I am loathe to expend more power than is necessary before confronting this entity, but I need to rest and clean up from the road before I will be ready to interview Maree. I see that your town has recently suffered an attack by goblins, and there are many here who could use healing. Perhaps I could lend some of my own meager abilities in that field to your own efforts until you've had a chance to summon Maree here tomorrow?"

Zanthus smiled warmly at the offer of aid. "We always welcome the help of those who can channel the gods powers for betterment of others. Feel free to use the bathouse in the chapel to freshen up first though."

As he leads the inquisitor to the washrooms, he talks of Maree and her attatchment to the Feldspar. "She only arrived a year or so ago. A young and beautiful Varisian woman naturally drew the attention of some of the more hotblooded youths in town, so I went to check on her to make sure she was ok with that. A blind woman can be prey to many types of folk, particularly one as striking as Maree. She struck me as quite capable however,but desperatley lonely."

He paused to pay obeisence to a stature of Desna, before moving through a longer corridor with a stone arch at the end. Steam and the sound of lapping water could be heard coming from the room. "It didn't take long for rumours to reach me about her though. One lad had tried to court her attentions, but ran screaming from her house. I found him cowering in his room and pale as a ghost. This was one of the lads from Marley's fishing boat mind, a solid boy who had braved the summer storms fo the bay and not one to take fright with ease. He was the first one to see the beast take Maree under its sway. since then I have seen it twice, each time it spoke direct to me and warned me of things to come. I did not understand its warnings at first, but since the goblin raid and the arrival of Feldspar and his companions, they make sense. The dwarf in partiular seems to be prominant in this creatures tellings. I find i perplexing that a entity of obvious malign intent is so focused on a Paladin of Torag and seems to be willing to aid us. I fear for the girl, and I fear what motivesdrive this thing even more."

With that, he had brought Durik to the baths. They were a series of stone wells in effect, filled with water that steamed with welcomed warmth. Some magic or techological marvel seemed to keep the waters filled, and Zanthus explained that some of accolytes were responsible for keeping the waters cleaned with their abilities. "If Priestess Aliasse enters the room, don't be alarmed if she joins you. The Gozrehlites are a little more provincial in their approach to the nake form, and she will think nothing of disrobing and joining you "to conserve water" as she puts it. Join us when you are ready."

most of the sick in the temple need long term care. Not much call for cure light wounds but a few heal checks might help some of them. Let me know when you're ready to meet Maree.

Durik performs the proper respect to the statue of Desna while listening to Father Zanthus' story.

"This is most troublesome. If the spirit comes and goes then in my experience it is the most difficult to purge. That it seems to be interested in a paladin of Torag makes it even more imperative that we drive this beast away."

I wonder if he is willing to take this as far as we must?

"Father, I hesitate to bring this up so early in the process, but lately I have found it to be necessary. As you are well aware, my order is concerned with the preservation of the souls of Desna's faithful. If I am unable to purge the creature from her then I can insure her soul goes to Desna a pure spirit. The final decision on this will be yours."

Shaking his head, Durik seeks to clear his mind

"Forgive me, I speak too soon of such things. Let us pray for the best and trust in the power of Desna."

As Father Zanthus takes his leave, Durik carefully prepares for his bath. He divests himself of traveling gear and clothing, carefully piling it in an alcove or a on a bench provided for such. His bow is unstrung to protect it from the water but his starknife is by his side, while his mace can be easily drawn from the pile of equipment.

If this Aliasse comes in here she is in for quite a shock

Durik looks ruefully at the marks of a life spent confronting the very creatures of Hell itself. Burns run from his right shoulder to his left buttock, a reminder of the fire that consumed his parents. Claws and weapon scars run along his legs and arms. There are several ritual scars from Shoanti tribes on his chest, and his nose has been broken at least once. For one so young he has seen far to much.

This is a welcome relief, but I have delayed my duty for too long

Unless there is an encounter in the bath Durik will head to the sick and administer healing to those he can before seeking out Father Zanthus to take him to Maree
Healing rolls, 5 made in case multiples are needed
1d20 + 6 ⇒ (17) + 6 = 23
1d20 + 6 ⇒ (10) + 6 = 16
1d20 + 6 ⇒ (9) + 6 = 15
1d20 + 6 ⇒ (6) + 6 = 12
1d20 + 6 ⇒ (8) + 6 = 14

Durik (spoilered for space more than anything else)

Durik

Ha! thanks. I don't know how myself or my regular gaming group have missed that little gem before. Amazingly helpful little item I must say.

Durik

You're welcome, this is the first character I've had use one but I'm sure it'll come in very handy.

I love them in tabletop.

Loot! Who wants what?
dagger +1
handaxe +1
longsword +1

I could make good use of either the handaxe or the longsword.

Tania is only proficient in the longsword... and the dagger...

I think the Longsword should go to Tania, the handaxe to Idrian and the dagger to Jo'no. Feldspar has some love coming his way soon. I'm throwing something in for Mikka as well, assuming the stuff in the spoiler is ok by Mark.

Mikka

Durik

I think the Longsword should go to Tania, the handaxe to Idrian and the dagger to Jo'no. Feldspar has some love coming his way soon. I'm throwing something in for Mikka as well, assuming the stuff in the spoiler is ok by Mark.

Mikka
** spoiler omitted **

Works for me!

No worries, I have a house guest and 150 pounds of fireworks to set off tomorrow night, so I'm in no hurry. :)

Idrian will take the handaxe.

I looked at all the sheets and couldn't find a wand of CLW...

Also, we should probably take a break from our venturing to report in town (and hook up with Durik).