Shattered Star

Game Master Zesdead

Can I get some input on where to put my physical prowess bonus progression? As in, is my to-hit actually *bad* (and thus I should whack it in Dex), or have I just had a string of bad rolls against high-AC bosses (and can stick it in Con for extra damage)?

Unless you’re consistently targeting touch AC, any 3/4 BAB class is going to need a little help with their attack bonus. If you’re picking up a touch attack sometime soon you might be fine going with Con, if you’re planning on mostly sticking with the physical blast my suggestion (for whatever it’s worth) would be to up your Dex.

Shadlah: I would recommend putting that into Dex, to increase your ranged attack bonus, and also your AC.

And... Ziomarra's profile is updated!

(Removing those 2 negative levels takes off a HUGE burden!)

Arsith is ready…

Just a detail, my L7 feat: wondering between Alignement Chanel (to do some damage to Evil extraplanar creatures we might meet) or Create Potions

what do you think?

I'll be out of town from 10-25 to 10-30. I'll not be posting at that time. Bot me as needed.

Though it shouldn't affect my posting too much, my work schedule has been shifted to solely night shifts in the wake of our one dedicated night shift person quitting unexpectedly. This will probably be what I'm doing for the somewhat-foreseeable-future so you'll be less likely to see posts from me during daylight hours (say, anywhere from about 8-10am up to 5-7pm CST).

I'm back from the beach, will be trying to catch up this weekend.

Sorry for disappearing for a week again!

Between family and work commitments, I just haven't had time to spend on online gaming.

No worries. I've been trying to get back into the groove of things myself.

So...I hate to bring up the elephant in the room but it's been two weeks since GM Zed's last Gameplay post. Hopefully nothing's wrong and he's just been really busy lately but we still have to face the possibility that he might not return or, if he does, that he might not be able to continue running the game. If so, what do we want to do, if anything?

The Mistress of Sin would surely recommend a strip poker.

Or worse.^^

I've had to shut down all of the PbPs I had been GMing for lack of time, so I would understand if Zed had to take a break.

He had been running six campaigns (this one, Legendary Planet, The Emerald Spire, Rise of the Runelords, The Blight: The Levee, and The Blight: The Crooked Nail), and it looks like his last post for any of them was 10/22.

I have Zed's email address somewhere, and I'll drop him a line.

Thanks, Zee. I completely understand if Zed's hit a rough patch and needs to step away for awhile - I just like knowing one way or the other so I can plan/adjust accordingly, is all :)

Same. Knowing would be good, rather than this awkward limbo.

Zed has not responded to PMs or direct email.

that doesnt sound good...

Bummer....I hope he's okay :(

Nope, it doesn't. I do hope he's okay too. :(

So, I guess we need to talk contingency plans if Zed can't/doesn't return.

A year ago, I would have volunteered to take the reins of this campaign: I own a copy of "Shattered Star," I really like the AP, and I enjoy GMing in PbP.

Unfortunately, my time is at a premium at the moment, and I honestly don't think I have the bandwith. I can't even commit to daily posts as a player right now. I had to shut down my other campaigns for this reason.

We have a fantastic group here with a lot of history and excellent character dynamics. I would very much like to continue if we can.

Ideally, one of us could continue running this game. We could even let Zed take the conn again when/if he returns.

Thoughts?

At the risk of being presumptuous (and if I am, tell me to knock it off) I think I might be the only one within the group who could feasibly look at taking over the game at this point in time. Everyone else seems to have enough going on elsewhere that adopting a full AP game wouldn't be doable - even if they otherwise wouldn't mind giving it a go.

But even for me, that would be a pretty big commitment to make. I don't own the AP and would have to look at picking it up - my brother has physical copies of the books I could borrow to get a start on the reading part but since I do a fair bit of my PbPing via mobile means I'd much prefer having PDFs that I can access at any time. Another issue is that I have to admit that I'd like to actually keep participating with the group as a player but GM PCs aren't always well-received, in my experience.

Alternatively, if anyone knows player/GM Eric Swanson he has told me that he might be able to take the game but it probably wouldn't be until January at the earliest as he's got some things of his own currently requiring his time and attention. But of course that's a 'might' and not a 'can do'.

I have the books in PDF format. If you can open google drive on your phone, I could share them with you.

1) if LL does end up taking over the game, I definitely vote for Brianna sticking around!

2) I don’t know if he’d be willing/able but I have a friend (Joe) who was going to run something for a few of us until it fell through... if someone can share PDFs with him he might be interested in picking this game up?

I've played with Joe in a couple of other games and would vouch for him being a reliable and fun poster. Nate, if you want to check with him and see if he'd be interested then I'd be happy to continue with him as GM if he wants to take over. If he isn't able or interested then I'll look at picking up the game. Sound like a tentative plan? We for sure have Zee, myself, Teldon and Jo interested in trying to continue if possible so that's enough to work with - though I hope Arsith and Shadlah would like to keep going too :)

I'd like to keep going too, but can't afford to GM the game, unfortunatly, way too much work theses days... And it will probably be worse for the next few months, sadly.

I can barely find the energy to post most days, so I know I wouldn't be able to run. There's nothing really stopping me *physically*, but... I'm just so much less switched-on these days than I used to be.

I can share them. I might even have everything already set up.

Hey Jo, just in case, I'll go ahead and take you up on that offer of shared files. That way if Nate's friend isn't able or interested in picking up the game then I'll already have something to work with until I can afford to pick up the PDFs myself.

I talked to Joe (my aforementioned friend), he was going to check out some of the thread and read up a little on the AP. I think he’ll probably post something here once he gets far enough?

Okay, cool!

Alrighty then. I'll sen Bri the link via PM. I'll send Joe the link when he posts.

And do you know someone who could continue the Emerald Spire campaign too?

I've been without a computer for a few days and likely will be for a few more. It keeps going to BIOS and won't boot from my hard drive. I'll get back to this when I can - my phone keeps freezing too much to post reliably, and my tablet has several busted keys.

Hi, Everyone.

As much as I hate to say it, I think I need to resign from PbPs in general for the foreseeable future.

Nothing bad... I just have too many things competing for my time right now, and something has to go.

Best of luck to all of you, and I hope to see you around!

--Haladir.

; _ ;

I had kind of figured this was coming when you said you needed to bow out of TL;DR but I still hate to see you go - though I completely understand. Hopefully life will slow down for you eventually and maybe we'll see you on here again, some day. Until then, take care!
______________

So...should we just look at tabling this game for the foreseeable future? With Zee out and most everyone else (Jo, Shadlah, Teldon?) pretty busy of late it seems like there's not really enough time or interest to be able to keep it going.

I'm still there, but with two players it's not enough

Still alive. I can still play, but it's looking like the curtain's closed on this one.

As busy as I am, I would definitely keep playing this game if we could find a GM

Okay.

I was waiting to hear if Nate's friend was going to pick up GMing the game or not but for now I'm going to assume that he may not have the interest after all or he may not have the time even if he has the interest.

So, providing that everyone else is still good to continue (which they seem to be) I'll submit a ticket or whatever to have control of the campaign shifted to me. Jo was cool enough to give me access to his copy of the books so I'll start reading up on the AP and reread the thread and aim to start this up again with the beginning of Book 3. This will take some time on my part because it's so much more to read through than a PFS scenario or even a module and I want to have an idea of the big background picture since that'll make for a more cohesive experience. It'll also take some time because it's the holiday season and we're all generally busier than usual.

Other points:

(1) We'll keep the same character build rules as well as the use of ABP and Hero Points since they seemed to have been working out fine up to this point.

(2) I'll have to come up with a good way to write Zee out of the game for the time being while still leaving it open enough for her to potentially rejoin the group if Haladir is ever able and interested in playing again.

(3) Zed had indicated that he would swap in the contents of the module 'The Harrowing' for another dungeon-crawl section later in the campaign, much like he did with 'Feast of Ravenmoor'. Since I don't know what his grand plan was, I'll probably just run things as presented in the AP books and call it a day.

(4) Without Zee, this puts the party at 5 characters - or 4 if you don't count Briana. Are we good with continuing on as is or do you want me to see about recruiting a replacement player?

There's probably more stuff that I'm forgetting but if anyone has any concerns or questions, let's talk them out :)

0) Sorry, I just checked with my buddy and he officially doesn't think he can take on a whole AP (or even 3/5 of one).

1) Are you mentioning this just to make us aware that we won't need to rework our characters, or to let us know that we have the option to rebuild and/or switch characters if we want? I definitely want to keep playing Teldon but if reworking things is an option I might look into how I could improve his melee ability a little bit, or maybe swing the other way and look at adding some actual arcane casting since we're losing Zee?

2) We should make sure to get the shard from Zee before she goes...

3) I'm cool with whatever you want to do.

4) I know GMPCs aren't real popular (generally speaking, I'm personally not crazy about them) but I think in this case you're more than justified in continuing to play Briana (and I hope you will). I'm also fine continuing with 5 (and willing to rework my build to help with that if it would be beneficial), although I don't really have any objections to adding someone (as long as its someone we know will be reliable).

1) More or less? I mainly didn't want anyone to worry that I was going to come in radically change what we've been working with. If ain't broke, don't fix it, that sort of thing. That being said, if anyone feels the need to do some rebuilding then that'll be fine - especially since we basically just leveled up anyway.

2) Hah! Yes, part of writing Zee out for now also involves a good way for the shard to pass back to the rest of the group without it becoming a huge issue.

3) Glad to hear it!

4) Yes, since people seemed more or less okay with it when the subject came up earlier I'll continue to GM PC Briana for the time being. She'll probably fade into the background when it comes to the group making decisions on things but if need be she can speak up as a tie-breaker. That sort of thing generally fits with her personality, anyway.

If this game is going to continue under Lady Ladile's hand... I think I can find the time to keep playing.

So... As long as you can put up with me not being able to post daily (and sometimes disappearing for a few days), I'd like to press on.

Lady L: I have the PDFs and could share them with you, if you would like. They're already on my Google Drive.

Huzzah!

Hey, we'd be happy to have you stick around! Makes my job a little easier, too ;)

Seriously though, we probably won't be quite as active as we were back in the early days of the game but I'll do my best to keep us moving forward. So post as you're able and the rest of us will do the same :)

Whoo!

I'll work on getting the maps to you this weekend. Now, though, I need to get to sleep. Waking up early to try losing this gut of mine.

That's a great goal, Jo! I can't offer anything to help besides encouragement but it's offered freely whenever you need it.

Also Customer Service got back to me super-fast so now I've got control of the campaign :D

I have this terrible (and probably really unhealthy) pattern: every fall semester I gain 10-15 pounds; during the winter break I lose 5-10 pounds; during spring semester I gain another 10-15 pounds; and then over the summer I lose like 20-30 pounds to get back down to where I started (which is still a fair bit higher than it should be).

I finish my (94 credit) masters this Spring, so hopefully that'll end the cycle (although, my wife and a few others have already started asking if I'll go back for a doctorate).

Good luck. I've got all kinds of tips for losing weight if you want any (clearly don't ask me for tips on keeping it off though, lol).

Well, my problem's more that I gained 200 lbs. in the last 10 years. Some bad habits from college, no longer being in a marching band, a tendency to stress eat, depression, and a sedentary job all contributed.

So, plan is to start being more active and exercising and eating healthier. Going to be a long road, but I just have to stick with it and find a plan that works for me. I figure cutting out cokes and tea would be a good start.

If you have any tips on exercising, that'd be great! I need to set up the scale I got and start tracking my weight. If you want, I can post my progress here.

I'm glad my weight didn't changed much in the last 20 years... I was on the skinny side (1m75 for 65 kg; that's 5'9" for 143 lbs) for years, now at 46 years old I am around 72-75 kg (159-165 lbs).

I don't exercise, I have a sedentary job, but I don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke, I eat with moderation, I mostly drink water or non gaseous drinks.