Saevox's Gauntlet: A multi-table PvPvE Pathfinder module! (Inactive)

Game Master The Rising Phoenix

THE HOOK

Have you ever wanted to pit your party's skills against another party? Do you enjoy running a challenging gauntlet of traps, monsters and puzzles in a race against time? Saevox's Gaunlet is the first installment of a three part PvPvE multi-table adventure PbP where four separate parties make a mad dash through a harrowing gauntlet of challenges to be one of the first to obtain Saevox's Fang, the first of three pieces of an ancient Thassilonian artifact called the Trimerix, uncover the location of the second piece of the artifact and make it out alive. Three other parties are running the Gauntlet as well, so you best be quick and at the top of your game if you want to make it out the other side!

GENERAL INFORMATION

• Parties will consist of 4 level 4 characters with any official Paizo class that is non-evil based.
  
• This is a PvPvE game. The intention of this game is not straight up PvP, but it is allowed against non-party members as required. The objective is to get the loot and get out, if your team doesn't have it and the other one does, well ...
  
• There will come a point in time where you will likely confront other members from another party. While death is a real possibility, murder should not be on your list of primary objectives. If half the party is already down and the other two are barely conscious, please do not resort to a fireball as your plan of attack. Remember, PvP is allowed in this game but evil characters are not.
  
• There will be FOUR GM's in this game to ensure that the game keeps moving and that there is always one around for adjudication.
  
• This is a one game day, one shot adventure. You won't be stopping to take a nightcap at the inn or worrying about setting up a watch at night. The objective is get in, grab the artifact and get out alive with the artifact! If your party survives, they can advanced to part 2!
  
• The encounters in this game are designed to be quite challenging and you should prepare yourselves accordingly.
  
• We’re still role-playing here! While it's obvious you guys are going to optimize the crap out of your characters, but we want to see more than just dice rolling please.

APPLICATIONS

• This is obviously not a normal game recruitment of four to six players, we need 16 people to pull this thing off! I have roughly one full team of players already, so I'm looking for about twelve additional players. You're welcome to dot this thread, comment as you see fit, muster, etc, but I'll be reserving spots for whole parties.
  
• This is first come, first served. I won't be looking for specific classes or concepts, that is going to be on you. You're going to need to form a full party of four amongst yourselves and submit the required information to me.
  
• Required information: Initially all I need to know is the main paizo alias (player not character yet) of the four players that make up the group.
  
• Once have a confirmed spot of four, you should then discuss the team name, classes, concepts and flush out your party here. Google Sheet.
  
• I have no how long it will take to get a full group of 16. Ideally I don't want to stay in recruitment longer than two weeks, but this is a bit bigger recruitment than normal. I'm not in a rush to get started today, but I definately like to get the ball rolling sometime in the next 2ish weeks.

FORMAT

• All PbP posting will take place here on Paizo's forums.
  
• This campaign thread will serve as the master game thread. All game wide announcements from GM's or game wide OOC discussion between all players will take place here.
  
• A separate campaign thread will be created for each adventuring party that will contain their localized gameplay and discussion threads.
  
• Roll20 will be used for the map. This will allow us to utilize dynamic lighting and restrict visibility for players to only what their team can see.

ROUNDS AND TIMING

• In order to keep pacing equal among all teams, the entire game will take place during Tactial Combat/Initiative rounds.
  
• Initiative is rolled for all players at the start of Round 1. Those initiative values will continue to be used until the party encounters a new combat encounter. If a multi-party combat is underway the new party will roll and be inserted into the existing init as new monsters joining combat normally would.
  
• If the game advances a round without all actions submitted, those characters with missing actions will be automatically be placed in delay and can come out of delay at any point in the next round.
  
• Because we are basing the time system of this game around real life days, we can't be subject to the less than stellar uptime of Paizo's forums. There will be a system in place for your to submit your turn actions to the GM's when Paizo is unavailable.
  
• The game will advance one of two ways:

  1) The round will advance no later than every 48 hours (2 days) from the start of the previous round IF all players from all teams have completed their actions for the current round. If all players from all teams have completed their action for the round the game can be advanced sooner than 48 hours.
  2) If a player hasn't completed their actions within 48 hours, a single 24 hour extension will be added to the current round. During extended round time, any player of the party whose character's actions are missing may submit actions for the missing chracter in their party for that round. Only 1 extension period of 24 hours will occur per round and no round will take longer than 72 hours to progress (unless the GM's announce it so for some reason).
  

THE STORY IN SAEVOX'S GAUNTLET

Forty-seven years ago a tremendous discovery was made in the badlands of the Barrier Wall, an abandoned treasure hoard of what is assumed to have belonged to a unknown dragon. This news wasn't able to be kept secret for long and treasure hunters, historians, governments, organizations from the around Golarion flocked to claim a portion of the untold treasures.

While many riches of tremendous power were uncovered, it was a manuscript that recounted a series of ancient Thassilonian trials that were the biggest find. These documents described three contests that were held every century to take protective ownership of an ancient artifact known as the Trimerix.

It appears that the last contest was scheduled to occur a few days after Earthfall and thus scholars predict that the contest was staged but never took place. They deem it likely that this artifact which has been long forgotten, was buried underground in three separate dungeons and likely survived the cataclysmic event. Numerous copies of the manuscript were uncovered from the hoard and each were spirited off to the best scholars that money could buy by their respective new owners. Through rigorous research and study over the years to follow, the location, timing and few other details of these contests known as Gauntlets began to emerge.

Today marks the day that the time-locked location of the first trial known as Saevox Gauntlet, is scheduled to begin. Four of the most powerful factions that control the information on the contest specifics have each dispatched their own agents to participate in the contest and take ownership of the first part of the artifact, an object known only as Saevox's Fang.

GAMEMASTERS

• Because we have 4x the players, we're going to roll with 4x the GM's!
  
• Your humble GM's will be: GM ShadowLord (thats me!), DM Bigrin, GM Kiito and GM Huggles.
  
• All 4 GM's will be monitoring all game threads to make sure we can things moving along according to our timing system.
  

DISCLAIMER (the fine print)

• We've put a LOT of work into this concept and we're really excited to try do this thing! That being said it may fail miserably. We ask your patience as this is obviously not something we've seen done before.
  
• This obviously is going to take several parties to pull off. If we don't get any interest and submissions for players we won't be able to run this.

IMPORTANT!
Mechanics, Party Information, Character Creation and other pieces of important information are listed in a Google Sheet that may be adjusted if something crops up in the future. Because of the restrictions on editing posts here, this sheet should be considered your master reference for this game. It can be found HERE.

These are the current guidelines as listed in our Master Game Sheet HERE.

CHARACTER CREATION SPECIFICS
Party size: 4
Character level: 4
Archetypes: 1/Class - All Paizo archetypes allowed, but only a single archetype per class
Starting wealth: 6,000 GP
Skills: Background skills in use
Traits: 3 (2 + 1 from Drawback)
Drawbacks: 1 (Required)
Hit point rules: Max at level one, 1/2 + 1 for each level after that
Teamwork feat: 1 free Teamwork Feat
Classes allowed: All Paizo non-prestige classes are fair game
Ability Scores: Ability scores are determined by the race points of your chosen race. Ability scores will either be 15, 20 or 25 points with lower points given to higher RP races.
25 Point Buy: Gnolls, Gripplis, Ifrits, Oreads, Sylphs
20 Point Buy: Catfolk, Duergar, Elves, Gnomes, Goblins, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, Halflings, Hobgoblins, Humans, Lizardfolk, Orcs, Ratfolk, Undines
15 Point Buy: Aasimar, Dhampirs, Drow, Dwarves, Tengus, Tieflings, Vishkanyas
Lowest stat before racial modifiers: 10
Highest stat before racial modifiers: 18
Alignment: Nothing evil
Religion: Characters may worship any deity but must be within one step of their alignment

ALLOWED / IN USE

• Firearms are extremely rare and early firearms only.
  
• Encumbrance rules are normal except there is no coin weight.
  
• Background skills are in use.
  
• Golarion deities.
  
• All Paizo Pathfinder material.

NOT ALLOWED / NOT IN USE

• No prestige classes.
  
• No middle/old age categories.
  
• No templates.
  
• No item creation.
  
• No hero points.
  
• No custom items.
  
• No evil alignment.
  
• No mythic anything.
  
• No playtest anything.
  
• No single item over 3000 GP.

SPECIAL

• Each party needs a team name.
  
• Each party needs to select a benefactor for their team. Who's funding your expedition and why? Some examples could be an organization (such as Pathfinders or the Aspis Consortium), a national government (Prince Stavian III from Taldor), an extremely wealthy historian who has a penchant for Thassilon, a dragon who wants the Trimerix for their hoard, etc.
  
• The dungeon you are entering was created in Ancient Thassilon. I highly recommend at least one person from each party has Thassilonian as a language.
  
• We make good use of all types of challenges in the Gautlet. You should expect to encounter traps, puzzles, hazards and combat from start to finish.
  
• As if The Gauntlet wasn't deadly enough, there are three other parties gunning to be the first ones through. You are going to get hurt and there is no time to stop for resting. Be prepared.

Inarus the Wanderer gained his name for he has been thrown out of his tribe for the crime of having no shadow. He wanders now, as a mercenary, a guide, a gladiator...and now a contestant in the gauntlet. For what else has he to do?

- Gnoll Bloodrager (almost done)

I'm in! Will whip something up and am happy to fill a skill/martial role in a party - perhaps an Investigator?

Count me in on whatever fun thing this is. It sounds interesting, and I've got lots of good character ideas for this sort of thing.

Count me interested as well. Since there were three people before me, you guys want to team up and take on the gauntlet?

I am happy to fill whatever role needs to be filled. We could even "talk" via google drive about what our characters are going to be and do, etc...

Sounds good to me. If we are going to be a team, how about we all choose the same race? I think we could have some good fun with that...

I'd be interested in participating as well. I've always liked teamwork feats, and would be very interested in building a team together to utilize then.

I'd be interested in participating as well. I've always liked teamwork feats, and would be very interested in building a team together to utilize then.

I am as well! I’m quite curious what you guys can come up with. :)

I’d like to throw my hat in the ring. I’ll get a concept up on Tuesday. I’m thinking investigator or cleric.

A party of Gnolls sounds like fun!

Also the image of a genius, monocle wearing Sherlock-style investigator gnoll brings me much joy.

To copy Vrog, would the next 4 guys in line like to make a group? Dwilhelmi, Rising Phoenix, and Nerak, what do ya'll think?

Since we all get a free Teamwork feat, hope I'm not the only one who thinks a party of Bonded Mind would be an awesome concept- it's an entire party that can run through the adventure without speaking!

Either way, I'll play almost anything, though I've got a roguish- type Occultist on the backburner I think might fit well here.

Ok, I’m game. :)

I’m curious how an Oread Geokineticist would work for this...

75% chance of Ioun Stone having resonant power: 1d100 ⇒ 47
Wayfinder Resonant Power: 1d100 ⇒ 6

Looks like we have about half of what we're looking for so far with a potential team already formed, not a bad start!

Looking good

Loving the other ideas so far. Really looking forward to this. No idea what I'm playing yet, of course.

This looks really interesting. I'll dot in for joining one of the teams.

Given that this involves an ancient Thassilonian artifact, would anyone be interested in doing a team backed by the Pathfinder Society? I'm flexible, but it seems very thematic in this instance.

This is my main player alias on the forums.

To copy Vrog, would the next 4 guys in line like to make a group? Dwilhelmi, Rising Phoenix, and Nerak, what do ya'll think?

While I applaud your efforts in recruiting the GM and concur I’d probably make an excellent teammate given what I knoW of the module, I think others might consider it unfair for me to join your team and run the game at the same time! There have been a few more people pop in here with interest, you could probably recruit one of them.

Hmmm...so if we just do a straight "next 4 guys in line"...

Team 1: Inarus, Aipaca, BigBenClockTower, Vrog

Team 2: Dwilhemi, Nerak, Artemis P., Arknight

Team 3: Grumbaki, Ozone77, Phntm888, [one other]

Is that right for people interested? Or is are any of the ones I mentioned last on the already existing team?

I'm on the already existing team. Though you might lure me away if you have better beer.

What do you drink? Things can possibly be arranged <.< >.>

I'm up for this. Looks like I'm on the team with Grumbaki and Phntm888. What are you guys thinking?

Actually, it's just you and me right now. I did a check, and Grumbaki is Inarus the Wanderer, so he's on team one, it looks like.

I was thinking it would be cool to do a group from the Pathfinder Society, since they would be all about pursuing an ancient Thassilonian artifact, although I'm not married to the idea if you'd prefer not to be. Another idea that popped into my head is a group of Shoanti tribesmen who have some sort of religious legend tied to the Trimerix, seeking to retrieve it (since Shoanti are descended from Thassilonian slaves).

Character-wise, I haven't decided. I do think we need to find a way to maintain a semblance of balance - for instance, in the Shoanti idea above, I think making 4 AM BARBARIANS and relying on our hit points and obscene damage to get through this is probably not a wise idea. AM BARBARIAN with Shaman and/or Skald backup, on the other hand...

Do either of those faction ideas appeal to you? If not, is there something you would prefer?

What would the Ability Score buy for an Android be? I noticed it wasn't in the list of the races. Just curious.

What would the Ability Score buy for an Android be? I noticed it wasn't in the list of the races. Just curious.

Androids are 16RP so they aren't a good fit for this format unfortunately as the scale goes 6RP-15RP. According to the sliding scale I used for the point buy generation they'd fit in the 16-20 RP range which would be a 10 point buy.

While I applaud your efforts in recruiting the GM and concur I’d probably make an excellent teammate given what I knoW of the module, I think others might consider it unfair for me to join your team and run the game at the same time! There have been a few more people pop in here with interest, you could probably recruit one of them.

Wait, you mean to tell me I failed my Perception AND my Diplomacy check? Man, the dice gods must hate me already! =D

Anyways, to my prospective teammates: Dwhilhelmi, Nerak, and Arknight-

Team Name?
Reason for Competing in the Gauntlet?
Character Ideas?

Let's get this going, guys!

To help out my new frenemies, you should be a team of halfling barbarians, named the ankle biters

Dotting in.

Dotting in!

I can make a solid healer if there is still room for someone. Or a solid tank.

Anyways, to my prospective teammates: Dwhilhelmi, Nerak, and Arknight-

Team Name?
Reason for Competing in the Gauntlet?
Character Ideas?

Let's get this going, guys!

Once you guys solidify your team, I’ll create one off gameplay threads for each of you if you don’t want to discuss here. We’ll be using a separate thread for each group for gameplay anyway.

I think BigBen wanted to switch out of Team 1, so why don’t you take him and we’ll move one of the others in there instead. They are looking for someone willing to play a gnoll. Any takers?

I could build either as a gnoll. Many thing really..

I could build either as a gnoll. Many thing really..

Ok then let's swap you guys. Here's how I see the teams so far. These are not set in stone if you guys want to swap around, I'm just lining it up as I see it.

Here's how I see the teams so far:

TEAM 1: Inarus, Aipaca, Vrog, Saashaa
TEAM 2: Artemis P., Dwhilhelmi, Nerak, BigBenClockTower
TEAM 3: Ozone, Saotome007, Trumbles, Trong
TEAM 4: Arknight, Philo Pharynx, Phntm888, VACANT

Did I miss anyone?

If not, looks like we only need one more!

Team 2, cool. So, where do we discuss our stuff, Team 2?

Team 2, cool. So, where do we discuss our stuff, Team 2?

For now, in here, I think, since the team's aren't "official" yet.

Any good ideas so far on character creation and/or reasons for competing in the Gauntlet? I thought it might be fun to have the "For the Gold!" with the Thieves Guild or something, but I'm just throwing ideas out there.

Just checking in and making it official.

Just happily throwing ideas out too then...

(1) The Order (all Cavaliers, Paladins, Inquisitors, Clerics, etc. part of the same knightly order or religious group)
(2) Elemental Might (Ifrit, Oread, Sylph, Undine)
(3) The Green Menace (Orc, Half-Orc, Goblin and Hobgoblin)
(4) The Cursed (all share a similar curse, and are looking for a cure together)
(5) The Barcrawl gone wrong (alcohol themed party. By the time you sobered up you were all already here. Nobody knows where the weapons, or the goat, cams from.)
(6) Savage North (Skald, Shaman, Barbarian, Bloodrager)
(7) Nature’s Wrath (Druid, Hunter, Ranger, Nature or Life Oracle)

Just spitballing

Oh, now this is cool. I'll take the last spot!

Cool, looks like we got some teams forming! For team 2, I'm really interested personally in pushing the boundaries on what teamwork feats can do, so I'd be inclined towards classes that get free teamwork feats - hunter, inquisitor, holy tactician paladin - or classes that have a lot of spare feats - fighter and kineticist both come to mind. For theme, I'm fairly flexible.

I’ll be working up a Grippli Slayer/Hunter. I’m open to theme.

MerceMary - The last spot is all yours, welcome!

Here are the proposed teams:

TEAM 1: Inarus, Aipaca, Vrog, Saashaa
TEAM 2: Artemis P., Dwhilhelmi, Nerak, BigBenClockTower
TEAM 3: Ozone, Saotome007, Trumbles, Trong
TEAM 4: Arknight, Philo Pharynx, Phntm888, MerceMary

Again, these teams are flexible and if you an issue with your team I'd rather you bring it up before we start. People can swap around however you like, I'm simply listing it here to show it as I understand it.

-=-

Now that we have a rudimentary configuration of teams, the individual team threads are now live! Please switch to these threads to continue your internal team discussion on your character and party concepts. When your entire team has completed their characters and passed a cursory review from a GM we will make your team as complete here. Once all teams are complete we will start the game!

I'd like everyone to strive towards completing their character one from today. If that's too fast and won't work for someone please speak up now. I'm flexible on shifting this as needed as their is no need to rush other than a sense of excitement from our team to get started.

Here are the four individual game threads. Please dot into your team and begin specific discussions as needed:

Team 1
Team 2
Team 3
Team 4

If there are still any players perusing this thread who wanted to sign up, please chime in and let me know. I'll create a waiting list for if/when we lose someone. I'd rather know if there are others out there that are still interested!

I've opened gameplay on each of the individual threads, it should now should up in your campaign list once you dot in.

We've decided to assign one GM to each game as the primary and the rest of us will just float through and post as needed to keep the action moving. We randomly rolled to see which GM is assigned to each team, here are the results:

Team 1: GM Huggles
Team 2: GM ShadowLord
Team 3: GM Kiito
Team 4: DM Bigrin

Random. Psshh. We all know GM Shadowlord went to Team 2 because my accidental Diplomacy check secretly worked! ;)

Overall character creation question - Would Master Of Many Styles Archetype be usable for an Unchained Monk? I know opinion varies since the replaced/modified abilities do exist on an UncMonk...

What the word on mounts? I've looked at the character creation rules and was curious if flying mounts were banned. That's okay if they are, I just might have missed it.

Will templates unlock for later on? Like, say, a character was seeking to alter themselves, or something happens in the dungeon that results in them acquiring a template?

A flying mount is a good way to take falling damage at this level. One good aoe spell, and you'll end up on the ground, out a bunch of resources.

Random. Psshh. We all know GM Shadowlord went to Team 2 because my accidental Diplomacy check secretly worked! ;)

Ha, you've got me! Now got YOU! *evil laugh*

Overall character creation question - Would Master Of Many Styles Archetype be usable for an Unchained Monk? I know opinion varies since the replaced/modified abilities do exist on an UncMonk...

I have to admit I didn't know anything about this before you asked. I've done a little reading and it looks like most consider this combination not valid due the replaced/modified abilities. Since I'm not familiar with the class enough to overrule that I'm going to stick with it and say no.

What the word on mounts? I've looked at the character creation rules and was curious if flying mounts were banned. That's okay if they are, I just might have missed it.

There's nothing stopping you from taking a mount. I'd like to point out that in this particular module that you're rushing through a dungeon and large mounts aren't going to work. If you're mount is medium or smaller though it could probably work.

Will templates unlock for later on? Like, say, a character was seeking to alter themselves, or something happens in the dungeon that results in them acquiring a template?

Right now the answer is no. If you make it out alive and something happens for the next module we can certainly talk about it!

Here are a couple of items that were raised from internal team discussions that I wanted to highlight for everyone.

Levels - The entirety of this module takes place at level four. You will not be leveling up at anytime during this module. If you are one of the teams that survives the gauntlet, recovers a piece of Saevox's Fang AND escapes - you will get to advance to part 2.

Part 2 - If this adventure goes well and everyone doesn't die then I will design a sequel for the second piece of the Trimerix. In part 2 your character will be somewhere in the range of level 6 to level 8 and try the second set of trials.

Location: The Gauntlet is located between Nidal, Molthune and Nirmathas lay the Mindspin Mountains, a range of mountains that stretch south for several hundred mountains.

Entrance to the Gauntlet - Your team of four will be entering a 10x10 space to gain entry into the gauntlet. Please keep that in mind when designing your characters and abilities as well as your party. Everything you take with you must fit into that 10x10 space.

Rest and recovery - I made a statement in the information above about how you will not be stopping to rest. The driver for this was that the pace of this module does not allow for that at all. With that being said however, I was not trying to prevent people from selecting classes such as caster that require resting to maintain a prolonged encounter. There WILL be a mechanic in the Gauntlet that allows characters to recover partial resources that have been exhausted. The full details of this will need to be discovered inside, but the intention was not to dissuade casters in the party in any way.

Don't forget the objective - The objective is to get in, get the artifact, get the location of the next trial and get out alive. When designing your characters and party keep those factors in mind. Only 3 of the 4 parties entering will be allowed to exit the Gauntlet, you should make sure you are one of those 3.

I'll be updating the Player's reference guide on Google Sheets tonight with the updated information from questions.