[AP] The Shackled City Adventure Path by GM Rutseg (Inactive)

Game Master Balacertar

Looks okay. Everything seems clear enough once I've zoomed in.

Maxim, I found a faq that says your magic maneuverability applies to the Fly bonus.

Your bonus then would be:
Dex+Good maneuverability+Fly spell bonus of 1/2 CL: 3 + 4 + 3 = 10 plus your roll of 2, would be not enough for the Hover DC 15, but at least you do not pummel down, just you are forced to move as you made in your post.

With 1 rank in the Fly skill we will be able to handwave hover and change direction Fly checks (+14 bonus +1 minimum roll).

Cool - with your permission I'll drop a rank in something and add a rank in Fly? To be honest I'm baffled that I took Fly spell and neglected to take a rank in the corresponding skill...

Granted, we just leveled up and it will help us get rid of boilerplate.

Working ye olde graveyard shift tonight guys so I'll try to catch up on Gameplay when I can!

rest well, MG too many of those in my past, think I'm still playing catch-up on lost sleep

It's ok Marigold. I will not update until tomorrow morning.

Graveyard shift? Been there, done that!

You have my condolences!

Gonna just take a moment to sprinkle some kudos on our illustrious GM for the current crowd control and lengthy updates he's throwing down. That's a bit of work, and it's done for our enjoyment. Won't take that for granted.

Agreed!

It's also a bit of a poser!

Juraan has spells specialising in killing things.

Not so good in a mob, where we're trying to avoid killing people.

Tricky! :o

^Agreed. As I've been discovering myself, GMing is no easy task, especially higher-level combats that have a lot of moving parts - so thank you, GM! The effort is appreciated, as always :)

(On a slightly related note, I now have a personal understanding of why you requested no AoO + reach combat shenanigans way back during character creation....oy...)

I'll join in here as well, many thanks for the work that has been put in behind the scenes, I know many times I have posted long post, and how draining that can be, especially when going through a bit of writer's block.

My hats are off to any who have donned the GM's hat and must keep up with all of the players but specifically in this post to GM Rutseg, followed by GM's Black Dow and Lady Ladile both of whom I have had the pleasure to be a player in one of their games.

As long as I have the time for it, it is a pleasure to do it for people who enjoys the game as much as I do! Many thinks to you for your interest and efforts to squeeze a flavorful post in between shifts, long day work, child-care, travel and all kinds of personal enjoyments and responsibilities! And I do the player often and have many GM's to thank as well, starting with you Mr. Rat Sass :)

I was thinking the other day how crazy this encounter might be in a pen and pencil session. There is just too many things to manage, it might take a whole turtling session to finish even for a prepared GM. I do not know what Paizo was thinking. In fact I noticed this campaign has encounters with much more enemies than newer AP's. Have you also noticed that?

I would definitely say that I've noticed this AP seems to be a lot more challenging in its combats, even early on in the story, than more recent APs. Wasn't this one and the other two early APs (Age of Worms and Savage Tide) written for 6 players instead of 4?

I can speak for Age of Worms- it's a four-player run, but has been much more comfortable with five.

In fact Shackled City was designed for 4 players. But then when they made the Aniversary Edition adapted to 3.5 stats, they said, due to players feedback they recommend this AP to be played by 6 because its extreme challenge at some moments.

I think it might have also contributed to the difficulty that I often move enemies on you if alarm is raised which might have lead to situations where you have not had time to recover between combat and combat. And I might be also a bit more strict about some rules as AoO, ranged combat and monster defensive capabilities than other GMs. **shrugs**

Well, the overabundance of bad guys is almost like ye olde D&D 1 way back.

At least with this AP, there is some rationale for why there are so many nasties to fight against.

Way back then, the rationale was "it's because Gary Gygax does it that way".

I'm telling you!
This mob scene is something else.

Surrounded by people who can thump you, but you can't hit back the same. Sheesh!

There! That's my moaning, groaning, whining and whinging for the day. :p

Note to self: the Stinking Cloud spell would be handy for just such an occasion!

Had a bunch of work nonsense crop up that's kept me busy through the night; I'll try and get caught up sometime this morning after work if I can.

My apologies to you all, I have been tied up with work(learning two new jobs within the same company in the past 9 months) and RL issues that have prevented me from posting with the regularity I would like.

I would like to continue but should my absences be distracting for the rest of you I will understand and withdraw.

I can't speak for anyone else but I'd like you to stick around as long as you feel that you're able to :)

+1 to Marigold's sentiment. You're playing for our enjoyment, but also your own. No need to break your back/neck/ass to please or appease us.

Our GM picks up our slack pretty handily. I know I've banked on him GMPCing me at times, when RL gets a little heavy.

Thirded here. We all go through phases of not posting as much as we have in the past. Please stick around.

I concur! You're doing fine.

My feeling is we are doing well Ryan. That's part of the point of being 6, we do not need all 6 PC totally focused at every moment in order to move on. Please stick with us as long as you can and enjoy it.

+1 to all of the above - as/when you can manage Taskerhill :)

Thanks all, I'm glad to stay just felt really bad when the GM had to place "Ryan does something heroic" twice in the same 6 round combat.

Every GM is different but I play with some that encourage their players to post a list of basic combat actions for situations where they may not be able to post in a timely manner. It can be really handy if you happen to have a GM that doesn't mind botting PCs as long as they've got some instructions to go by.

I agree with Marigold.
We do that sort of thing at my brother's game.
Not all of us can make it absolutely every session.
It always works well in the games I've played.

Significant advanced warning of limited posting.

The family and I will be heading off on a bit of a holiday from early/mid September until mid/late October.

While I might be able to get the odd post it, it is likely to be extremely limited.

I'll be aiming to cut out virtually all my PFS/SFS by the start of that time. I'll try to post here, but there may be a four-six week gap in which I'm very, very limited.

We'll be visiting the UK (London, Bangor and Edinborough primarily) and then onto Greece, and my birthday in Rome before heading back to little old Kiwiland.

Wow! That's quite the holiday!

*is jealous*

Jealous too!

Have a good hols when the time comes!

Yeah, it is a Significant birthday, so my wife is taking me out to dinner.

In Rome :-)

Great trip. Where about in Greece you going? Can heartily recommend Olympia and the Ionian Islands.

RE: the UK leg its Edinburgh matey ;)

Closer to the time your visiting Auld Reekie give me a noise up, might be able to travel down for a potential meet up if your game (appreciate you'll likely be on a tight schedule)

oopse. That'd be neat. We don't have places for Greece yet, but given the kids ages, it is likely to be two or three Rick Roiden annointed locations from Greek mythology. Kids are big Percy Jackson fans :-)

Olympia's pretty cool in that respect - original olympic stadium/ruins. Looks like something Ray Harryhausen would have crafted :)

Great sounding trip JJ, Have literally no advise to offer for those locals, have only been to Germany in that part of the world, although my luggage made a week long detour to Paris, France.

That is quite a way to celebrate an anniversary! I enjoyed both London and Edimbra. Nice cities to visit, and I had a couple of great pints there as well. I guess you will let us now as the date approaches, but enjoy!

If you decide to take a ferry from Athens to Crete, it's an 8 hour trip.

Are there any specifics you want to do in Redgorge during this day while you wait for the meeting?

Nothing specific just yet; I'll be working today so if anyone wants to go visit the church then Marigold can tag along with them. I'll try and catch up on things later tonight!

JJ wants to check out the church (for Alek and records of his parents) and if there is time, go visit the quarry to see if there are any old codgers (tm) around who might remember his parents.

Warning - I've had a number of my games (including this one) turn up in m inactive games list. Which is a worry. The first one or even two I thought was probably fumble fingers, but this is the third (or at least the third I am aware of) - which is a bit of a worry.

If I go silent, please drop me a PM. I'm not sure how to get them out of the inactive list either - which is a bigger problem.

Thanks for the notice JJ! No weirdness with any of my games so far but I'll definitely keep a lookout...

Sorry gang - been a brutal week at work - overseen a disciplinary then was part of an external audit that was effectively pushed onto my lap.

Mentally spent - will try and get a post up shortly.

An audit lap dance? That sounds all kinds of uncomfortable...

Ufff... that sounds terrible. Take rest!

An audit lap dance? That sounds all kinds of uncomfortable...

Haha. Does indeed... Auditor was a wizened Norwegian gent who looks like a troll, so all kinds of wrong there.

Although we did pass with flying colours (which of course the collective all padded themselves on the back for after muggins here was the only person interviewed)

Hey folks, just a note that I'll be heading out of town later today for a work training trip and won't be back until late on Friday the 20th. I'll have my laptop but the amount of free time I'll have to use it after today (Sunday) is uncertain so please go ahead and bot Marigold as needed; if I have enough time to check in and post I will but otherwise I'll catch up when I get home.

Oh and if I do end up with some free time my first posting priority will be to my GMed games so if you see posts from GM Ladile elsewhere but none here that'll be why. Hopefully that'll avoid any 'I SEE U POSTIN' Y U NO POST FOR <X> GAME!?!?' confusion :P

Have fun training and stuff...