"The Meat Grinder:" DM Norv's The Tomb of Horrors (Inactive)

Game Master The Norv

I'm still here, and ready to go :)

I'm in a student theatre production of Streetcar this coming week. We can only have the space for a short length of time so hell week has been condensed into two days of lighting, painting, set construction and running around screaming. I'm dead on my feet and not sure how often I'll be able to check in, so don't hold up on my account, just bot me if I'm too quiet.

I'll make an effort to post whenever I can, and I should be able to get back into the swing of things after the week's out. Looking forward to getting stuck into this one!

Also still here and ready to see what mysteries this tomb holds for us.

@Norv, when you have the time, could you check my pm?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back! Thanks for bearing with me, guys. A new post is up in Gameplay, and the map's been updated. :)

Quad, the feat changes you outlined in your PM sound good to me. Sorry I missed the issues with Sacred Geometry in the first place--my bad as GM.

Will update my sheet accordingly. Glad to get rolling along again :)

This is getting exciting. We'll probably die soon :)

I'm afraid I've got to go away for a bit. Just assume Azgar does whatever he can to help. Sorry for any trouble.

Aw, sorry to hear that, Azgar. No worries; just wanted to check in. I'll DMPC you as needed; just resume when you're able!

Quad, I had forgotten how Constitution damage actually worked (a peril of PF not being my intro RPG, though now it's my main one). RAW, there's actually a pretty harsh penalty: you lose HP (and max HP) equal to the CON penalty imposed x your total hit dice. So for you, you're going to lose an additional 7 HP (1x7), and your max HP becomes 30.

With that in mind, I would definitely suggest using feather fall (which you can). Sadly it won't help you dodge the spikes, but the fall caused 8 damage, so you actually net one point of health back from where you are now. :)

And yes, you can move without getting spiked now that you're on the bottom. Just waiting on Elan's action (and Alaric's if he'd like to do more than call out)!

I actually moved Alaric on the map and took a double move action! Sorry, I'll be more explicit in the future. :)

@The Norv, The section on Ability Score Damage states that you only get a -1 penalty per 2 points of damage. If I'm not mistaken this rule was made so people get the same penalties from the same amount of ability damage. If it didn't exist a person with 11 CON would only have a -1 penalty from 3 CON damage, where a person with 10 CON would have a -2 penalty from the same 3 CON damage.

So you actually did it right :)

Woops, sorry Alaric, my bad for not checking the map!

Okay, I'm back. Sorry for the delay.

Just remembered that when I had the 3 con damage, that my fortitude save was 1 lower. I rechecked my saves, but seeing as they were 21 & 20, I would have still made them, as they would have been a 20 & 19. It just means that in reality, I was even luckier with my rolls, rolling anything below a 16 would've meant that I didn't make my save ....

Very deadly place this, let's see what it still has in store for us :)

Well, Quadravos is patched up, and you've got two obvious choices ahead of you: the demon head mural, and the glowing archway. Where do you want to investigate next? :)

Hello? People still around?

I guess it is the weekend right now. :P

Been a busy weekend on my end and I was kinda waiting for someone to still say something. :)

Sorry, I'm a little busy too.

I've actually been in hospital for a week! I should be discharged this afternoon so I'll try to post then if things need moving along.i

Haha, no worries all. We seem to be starting to get back. Glad you're ok, Twigs! O.o

Hey everyone! It seems like the game has been moving a little slow lately. Maybe I'm wrong, but if that is the case, I wanted to check in with the group and see if everyone was still active and ready to keep moving forward.

Also, I have a very selfish request. Obviously I want all of us to survive and make it through this dungeon safely, but......

If anyone ever were to decide to leave the group/stop playing in this campaign, would you be so very kind and have your character spend his/her last heroic moments bravely exploring a doorway/trap/puzzle which the group hasn't been able to solve yet? :)

It might be due to our somehwat paranoid investigations of the area that the game has slowed down.

But I thought that would be the obvious approach in a place like this ;)

Just to state that I'm obviously still here :)

I've had a bit of a busy spell since surgery but still been checking in. I find with PbPs that a decisive approach is best. Not a kick-in-the-door style of play, but making sure each post moves the game along. Even if that means putting your PC at risk. I've not been wanting to step on any trapfinders or wizard's toes, but I've been ready to charge through the mists for a solid two weeks now, but I've just been awaiting the results of our various proddings and pokings.

I think we're being ridiculously overcareful right now. It might be time for us to just poke our heads through the mists, come what may.

I've been busy with college lately. Still checking in, though, and waiting for my skills to be necessary.

I know we're being very careful, maybe a bit to careful as you state. Just don't want to lose a party member in the first hallway ;)

And depending on our latest proddings and pokings we might need your strength in opening that wall :)

Awesome, I'm glad to see all the quick responses from everyone!

I apologize if there was any confusion in my previous post, I don't mean to imply that we should be rushing through this dungeon. I don't mind proceeding deliberately and cautiously, and as Quadravos φ said, it is probably completely necessary in the dungeon we're currently running. I just wanted to make sure everyone was still around and active.

With needing to be careful and not rush things, I assume we may be going about as fast as possible when doing this dungeon via play by post.

And Quadravos φ is right, we're going to need some brawn to open up this hidden door at the bottom of the pit very soon.

I'm still here too. Not a whole lot I can contribute. I have a feeling that the gems need pressed in a certain order but don't know what that is since the hallway hasn't provided any clues and I'd hate to see what happened if we get it wrong.

I am still here as well! Though the last few weeks have been a bit on the busy side, which I apologize for. I'm going to try to be better about posting!

I will also try to advance the "plot" more directly in my posts to help speed things along...I agree with Twigs about making sure that each post moves the game along (assisting with skill checks is frequently a useful thing to do!). I have personally been a little bit more withholding than usual, so I'll try to give you guys a bit more lead to work with. :)

Our first proper combat! As a note, you'll see in the post that I gave you access to the foe's stats, as well as listing one chunk of the initiative as "remaining party." I find that for PBP this makes things easier; you can adjudicate the success/failure of your own actions, and when we hit that point in initiative, actions will occur in the order that the party members post them so that no one has to wait on someone with higher initiative to act (unless they're setting up some teamwork effort). Make sense?

Umm...I'm not on the map for some reason.

Sorry, layering problem. Forgot to send the room token to the backmost layer, so you dropped behind it when you moved. Got you back! :)

Sorry the delay in posting everyone. I'm on a roadtrip through Utah, Nevada and California, and didn't realize how little reception I'd have most of the time, plus always how always being behind the wheel would cut into my PbP time. Sorry to everyone for not keeping up.

Again, I'm sorry for the delay. I'll be posting my action this morning here, very shortly.

[Brief message to all games]

My apologies for the MIA over the last couple of days--work jumped me with a couple surprises earlier this week, I'm opening a show Sunday night, flying to a wedding in a different state Saturday, and helping run a huge fundraising event on Monday. So I may be out for a day or two more, though I will try to read and update as I can! Please be patient with me as I work things out.

All should be back to normal on the 21st! :)

Ok, no problem. Hope everything goes well :)

Yeah, no problem here. Thanks for the heads up! Good luck with all your plans!

And we're back! Thank you all for your patience. :)

I am slightly confused about our current situation.

First we had :

As the party picks through this room, and heal themselves up, they see that the interior of the tomb seems to be far less ornate than the entranceways...at least, here it is. The gargoyle wears a bronze collar studded with huge blue stones, but otherwise, you can see nothing of interest, magical or otherwise, in this barren chamber. The doors to the south and southeast appear to be the only way forward.

We took the southeast door.

then we had (after going through the small rooms) :

The northern door reveals, yes, yet another room, this time with another door in the northern wall (which, if memory serves, would seem to lead back into the chamber you started in). As far as you can see, this room is identical to the previous ones in the series...

and finally :

Despite a solid half-hour of searching, no one finds any sort of trapdoors in the rooms you've been through so far...as far as you can tell, it's just a circuit of chambers that (apparently) would open back into the one you fought the gargoyle in. Although you're unable to find any mechanism, or for that matter evidence at all, of the hidden door that should lead into that room...

Evidence of which door leading into which room is lacking?

Actually, you examined the door to the southeast without opening it, then the door to the south, which Alaric proceeded through (referring to it as "the second door"). Those little rooms make a circuit (let me know if it's confusing on the map) that goes basically clockwise from the southern door, and end in a northern door that, logic dictates, should open into the chamber in which you fought the gargoyle. However, no one has opened that door yet, and on returning to the gargoyle chamber, you can't find any evidence of the other side of the door...

Let me know if this is devilishly confusing, or just plain old irritating confusing. :)

Ah I see where my confusion lies. Due to how it all is depicted on the map, I thought we went through the SE door (which after re-reading Alaric's post is indeed false) went around and were standing behind the South door. As it is not drawn yet, I suppose the South-East door is on the lower part of the East wall?

Will post something in gameplay now that is cleared up.

That is correct. :)

Just a heads-up that I will be traveling tomorrow afternoon and at Thanksgiving festivities on Thursday; I will try to update whenever I can, but in extremis, you may not hear from me until sometime on Friday.

Happy holidays to anyone celebrating! :)

Sorry for lack of posts. Life has been happening. I'm afraid I'm going to have to call it quits for this campaign.

Aw, very sorry to see you go, Azgar! Please let us know if there's anything we can do to help--sending you thoughts of support!

Sorry to see you go, but life takes precedence.
Hope everything is well.

@the group, this leaves us with a great predicament though. We have lost our trapfinder. Seeing the amount of traps we found in the initial parts of the dungeon, I see it going wrong real fast without someone that can disable the traps.

@Norv, any idea what we can do about this?

I'm sorry to see you go, Azgar! It's been a lot of fun delving the tomb of horrors with your axe wielding clown!

@ Quadravos: I agree, this will make things very difficult for us not to be killed by the some unknown, upcoming traps. I'm sorry to see Azgar go, and I assume that only leaves one option for us... To get another (probably lesser) Azgar :)

Sorry to see you go Azgar. Hope all gets better soon.

I agree. We need a new trap setter-offer, I mean disarmer.

All the best, Azgar.

I directed you here and then realized that it would be best to have this conversation a bit more discreetly, so I'm PMing you all with the situation on finding a replacement victim trapfinder. :)

I directed you here and then realized that it would be best to have this conversation a bit more discreetly, so I'm PMing you all with the situation on finding a replacement victim trapfinder. :)

Hey all, I wanted to post a link for everyone in regards to trying to find a replacement for Azgar. This link is to the profile for a trap finding toon, made by PapaSteve08. He is interested in joining the group. Originally he had submitted a cleric to the recruitment thread, but now that we are in need of a trap finder, PapaSteve08 has created a new toon, I.e. a trap finder :)

This is just for your information, to give you all a chance to see his toon, in case we want him to join the part.

No need to respond to this post, or vote in the discussion thread or anything, like the Norv mentioned in his post above. My post and the link is just a "for your information only" type of thing :)

PapaSteve08's trap finding toon