
Cap'n Voodoo |

voodoo, is your Zolurket campaign a homebrew or published thing? At what speed is it progressing? What other info can you offer about it?
There is an outline of Zolurket in the Dungeons of Golarion campaign setting that I'm filling in so YES! my games run fairly fast compared to most i've seen on the boards. I post every day and my players are usually very reliable.
Here's the recruitment thread for more info:

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Rather than redo the matrix here is the list of those people on your "side":
Sandra Quinn
Rosie Cusswell
Crimson "Cog" Cogward
Giffer Tibbs
Jack Scrimshaw
Tilly Brackett
Conchobhar Turlach Shortstone
Barefoot Samms Toppin
"Ratline" Rattsberger
Owlbear
Pro group officers:
Kroop
Grok
Riaris Krine - (She seems to like the group in general and Ajani in particular given his skills at boarding and climbing)
?? People who might help??
Caulky Taroon
Maheem

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The Con thing reminds me of one of the things I in particular liked about the D&DNext playtest. I'm not entirely sure if I'm allowed to mention specifics of it here, so I'll leave it at that. That is one thing they are addressing, however. That certain characters once their stats get so high, should not fail at certain tasks due to bad rolls, causing silly and highly unlikely situations. Refer to the movie, The Gamers at the scene where they try to open the portcullis to enter the dungeon to see what i mean.

Ajani Ihejirika |

Cap'n, may I read the section on the boarding exercises from the Wormwood Mutiny book so that I may know how that kind of action is supposed to go in terms of the game mechanics?
I don't want to crack the book open without your permission.

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Oh its cake:
Throw grappling hook (usually AC 5 or so) but with range and non proficiency that can be a hard throw and then a dC 15 Climb check to cross the rope.
If you get things thrown at you there will be a Ref save to stay on. Obviously those who can jump super far can also close the gap that way.
You can read over the exercise on pg 29 if you want but what I said above is the meat n' potatoes.

Ajani Ihejirika |

Gotcha. What kind of thrown weapon does it treat the grappling hook as? Just a thrown weapon? If it's a thrown weapon like an acid flask or something, non-proficiency shouldn't be an issue.
Otherwise, what proficiency would it require? Druids have proficiency with slings, and I can't imagine a grappling hook being much different than that...just heavier.
Also, is it known that the boarding action is coming up when the day begins? Like, would Ajani be able to prepare spells specifically intended to be used for the boarding before it begins? Is Owlbear one of the crewmen under Ajani's command for this mission?

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This might be helpful. As a piece of equipment they basically don't require proficiency I just realized but rather require it if your want to use it as an actual weapon.
10 ft range, no penalty to use, usual AC 5. Not horrible.
Yes, you all have been tracking the ship for a day so feel free to swap spells. (This would affect Quillin too).

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I had a niggling sensation I wasn't clear enough in the set up.
Basically up until about 30 minutes to intercept the range is great enough between the two ships that everyone on board is still rigging or setting defense in prep for the side by side. The hunted ship is doing its part to get away so constant adjustments are required to maintain pursuit and gain speeds.
As the ship is maneuvered to prep to board, there may be some ranged firing but since neither ship seems particularly well equipped for ship to ship combat (and because Harrigan wants to take the ship intact) there is not much in the way of combat.
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It was at about the 15 minute mark you all got grabbed from your tasks for the briefing and you have that time to grab gear, get prepped, do any last minute adjustments required in the rigs or on sails (or last minute hauling or what have you) and get in position
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So at the 5 minute mark or so there is a lot of focus on being ready. At this point Farthing (the Sail Master) and Plugg (with Scourge) actually prove their sailor bona fides as they use much less of the crew to maintain the pursuit and then try to match speeds long enough for your group (and others such as Harrigan himself) to throw hooks and board while slowing down the Wormwood to stay with the ship. Meanwhile the other ship will probably try to move away again so that will take some work (also will require some running back and forth to get the best point of boarding when the ships meet)
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Round "1" is basically the boarding action, you will cast your hooks and cross or do some other action if you want to take your chances that next round the ships will be lined up still. IF you are particularly bold or have the equipment to do it quickly you might get one solid shot off with a ranged attack before needing your hands to cast the grapnel in Round "0" (Which is where I will place Mel's shot once everyone chimes in)
I don't know if any o you have ever sailed but at open sea at pursuit depending on wind this is some pretty fancy work. (And why I love pirates.) Imagine trying to jump between two cars (Admittedly slow for cars but given that the penalty for failure if potentially being drug under the two ships and spit out the ass end of either one its probably a rush)
Does that help visualize?

Ajani Ihejirika |

It helps a ton! Much appreciate the time you took to explain in detail. I have two more questions before I start formulating my final post: Is there time for Ajani to swap his spear for a club and still give his crewmates a battle plan before round 0 begins? And what will be the distance between the two ships at round 0?

DM Wellard |

Long time since I Rp'd a boarding the Action..the last time was in the 80's playing the old 'Privateers and Gentlemen' game.
Oh and I bougt over 100 painted pirates at the weekend..cost me £200 but they are nicely done..and I have an idea for a Pirates vs Samurai game...or maybe Pirates vs Dinosaurs..

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BTW, for those who would like to play in Shattered Star, here's the link to the OOC thread.

Phillip0614 |

Whoops! Yeah that'd be a typo there. Granted, sometimes mistakes are hard to catch when you are doing stuff from your smartphone because your school's wifi decided to stop allowing https connections. What's the point of being a teacher if I can't get online and have some PbP fun while my kids are busy with assignments?

DM Wellard |

Last Saturday I was at a historical pagent run by Historic Scotland and was in conversation with members of PUBCAT..who are PUBCAT I hear you ask..they are a reenactment association recreating the golden age of Piracy. The acronym stands for..
The Piratical Union of Buccaneers, Cutthroats and Allied Trades..I'll leave you to guess as to what the Allied Trades are.

Ajani Ihejirika |

It's too bad the Paths of Prestige book didn't come out before Skull & Shackles was so far gone. The Storm Kindler seems like it'd be an absolutely ideal PrC for this setting.
Granted, you lose spell-casting levels and Wild Shape...which brings up a question from me. If you use the Storm Kindler's Storm Shape ability to transform into a Whirlwind (per the universal monster rule), can you still cast spells? Seems like the answer to that would be no, as you no longer have hands or a mouth for verbal/somatic components...

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Anywho, sorry for the delay in posting, with the holiday yesterday and some other logistical challenges this week I am with my son more than normal and might not be able to get online as much. Expect posts to be a little thin this week but I'll make up for it next week as best I can ;p
Ajani (if you want to retool to make that class work you can) I would think that you would need a magic item on the order of the one that allows spellcasting while shifted and I am certain that that could be found...

Ajani Ihejirika |

And now that I've sorta caught up with work stuff, I'm wracking my brain to decide if actually re-tooling Ajani would be worth it or not. Bleh. I always have a hard time making decisions like this, especially since Pathfinder has made staying base class so much more appealing.

Ajani Ihejirika |

I think I'm going to stick with Druid. I didn't start out planning for Ajani to be a Storm Kindler and I don't really wish to change his build from the direction I already had Ajani moving in. Changing it would mean pretty much altering the entire inspiration for the character, which is not a direction I wanna go in.

Phillip0614 |

Devon, do you want me to keep the 1 I rolled on my hit die or re-roll the correct die? I'll go with whichever you want me to go with, but I wanted to check with you before changing my HP on the character sheet. Was gonna bump my Wisdom up at level 4, but maybe I should do Con instead. It would stop me from having to swallow the dreaded uno on rolling for HP!

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Before I forget, I should probably level up Bart.
hp: 1d10 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 2 = 3
I believe you said last time we leveled that we may re-roll any roll of less than our con mod. I so: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (8) + 2 = 10. That's better. If I'm mistaken on this, let me know and I'll use the first roll.
Also, took Improved Unarmed Strike as my feat. Doesn't do me much good atm, but it opens up a lot of feats for me later.

Phillip0614 |

Cross-posting from Jade Regent thread since there are people in this game that aren't in the others:
While I'm thinking of it...you guys have been a really good gaming group and I really enjoy playing with you all very much. Each of you has volunteered to run a PbP of each AP that has been released since Jade Regent, and since I've gotten my proverbial feet wet - heck, since I've dove into PbPs headfirst - I thought it was time for me to get my DMing feet wet. I can always put my Kellid Horse Lord in a different game.
So...if y'all are up for it, I'll volunteer to DM a Reign of Winter PbP and open it up to you guys first. Haven't created the thread or anything yet, of course, just figured I would give y'all a heads-up.