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

Game Master Balacertar

I float in the same boat as you all, but am comforted that I'm in good company ;)

I realized recently that my energy is finite, and have reworked the circuits to keep flow to the life support system, and some of the less complex aspects of PbP, mainly posting as a character, not a GM. (I'm coming back shortly to Worms, GM Rutseg, have no doubt- I, too, want to it across the finish line, but hooo boy the amount of tracking is daunting).

I'm in it to the end here, a glorious run it has been and still is. We're like an old dog wagging its tail, even if it's walking slowly home.

In other news, I've taken on the excitement of a gaming session coming up this next weekend. I can't believe how close it is, now that it looms. My sister gifted me a Gaming Session for 8, for 6 hours, in the old home of Gary Gygax, up in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Turns out, one of those 8 has to be the Dungeon Master, but I've snuck another niece to the table, bringing the party size to the full 8.

Our Module? Well, if it's gonna be the Gygax House, we better run Keep on the Borderlands :) Good ol' B2. I've been running Session 0s without mentioning exactly where they're going, so I can reveal it at the beginning of the game Saturday morning. They'll meet with the Castellan of the Inner Keep, get their assignment, and head off to the Caves of Chaos.

My roster? Almost one of each class- Rogue, Bard, Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, Druid, Cleric, and Sorcerer. I've also gifted my players their very own colorful miniatures from HeroForge, so they can get even more invested.

It's been restorative, because my players are mostly the younger generation of the family- three nieces, one nephew, and a son. I'm also honored to have my sister and her hubby, and my Dad, who got the ball rolling back in 1982 with the glorious red box of ancient D&D. Now he gets to roll some dice, and help us slay some gobbies and orkins...

Oh man, that is some serious family affair! It sounds crazy as it sounds fun, I think you make it back from the Borderlands soon with more stories to share :)

And yes, I am definitely for some more worms can sticking and burning when/if possible :D

Bror that just sounds amazing... hallowed ground and paths well trodden indeed.

Look forward to hearing tales of the mad hermit, his mountain lion and of course the chaotic caves themselves! :)

@All: Am glad the malaise isn't one that personal but perhaps just some fatigue we're all feeling in the strange new/old world order we're easing ourselves back into. Truly consider myself blessed to share these virtual adventures with you all, and especially GMR for having the will to see this saga through!

Wow, that is really awesome. Playing B2 in the home of Gygax.

Thanks for the bot GM and the understanding, everyone! Kinda glad to see I'm not alone re: PbP malaise of late. Oh and I definitely find high-level play rather tiresome as well. JJ's also got a good point about the time of year - it's spring in my part of the world and the nicer weather and longer days definitely has me wanting to get out of the house more!

Finally, that is a super sweet deal Kikinnin! Kinda jealous, to be honest ;)

I just found out yesterday that my sister is trying to be an edge lord... she's notorious for making characters who have little desire to interact with the others at the table, preferring to shadow the party at a distance, and only engage when it suits her... I shouldn't be surprised, but that's one cat that scratches when you try and herd her.

Makes it tough on the GM.

Sometiems it is easiest to have the loner.... find a reason that being alone is not always the best option.

Well, it's done, and it was everything I could have hoped it'd be. Gave 'em a little history lesson, regarding D&D, Advanced D&D, and the subsequent editions, including the Pathfinder offshoot, of course :) Brought the Red Box to the table, as I still have one hehehe. They had fun flipping through the books, handled the original dice set with its crayon, before I revealed their campaign setting, with some laminates my wifey made.

Gifted my nephew a set of Witcher Dice that have only recently arrived after a Q Workshop Kickstarter back during the early months of the pandemic. Also gifted my niece a singular D20 by Dispel called Polar Disruption, having sat out in the cold for 4 hours to get her sister a PS5. My sister got a set of dice that look like various objects(barrel, arrow, potion bottle), which geeked her out so much, she forgot I adjusted her character sheet back to single Level 1 Rogue.

The group made their introductions at the tabled meeting with Castellan Ferec, and his Advisor Marevak, before deciding to head directly out to the Caves of Chaos (Gave my sister's character the exact location, so we wouldn't lose time in the Gygax House). They watched a goblin carry a bag of coin into the ogre cave, and get kicked out shortly thereafter only when the party was ready to enter the goblin cave. They dealt with a handful of goblins, and squared off against the ogre, before the ogre called them off, and told them what they wanted to know- Cave C was usually where prisoners were brought. The group didn't even touch Cave B's map.

Off to Cave C, and several attacks from all sides later, and the party managed to down all orc guards, freeing the prisoners!! The paladin niece had a very poor run of luck on her dice rolls, including the Inspiration everyone threw her, hoping for a better outcome. My dad was the star bard at the table, having a blast, and downing orcs left and right with his crossbow. Much laughter, a toast of mountain dew, and 6 hours flew by.

The glow of the weekend is still upon me, especially after hearing everyone, including my Far, want to continue the escapades. Hard to beat a face to face table, where the interactions are real-time :)

Sounds truly epic Bror... had a wee drift back to halcyon days myself reading that :)

Dice also sound perfect - was gifted a set of heavy lode copper dice from my wife when I turned 40, alas they've never seen action yet, but yon tales of face to face perhaps has rekindled a flame to once again set the table and the scene.

Joking apart glad you had a rip roaring time of it. Here's to many more be they virtual or real tables.

I remember those dice. My friends called mine the "Grime fighters"

So the medusa in the shower didn't get anyone? There is not much I remember about the caves, but that I do.

With eight players, and six hours, we were lucky to sniff out two caves lol

Sounds truly memorable, those are the small things that leave a shiny mark as time pass. I am looking to switch part of my gaming back to face-to-face, there is something magic in there hardly replaceable.

I see JJ's story with lady's taking bath started long ago :)

Is there a direct way through to them? from the map it is hard to tell if each of the wings are cut off from each other.

Oh yeah! That map designer would have a difficult time at some of my now almost forgotten Technical Drawing lessons xD

Just assume there is a way around the columns to go through, either by the stairs or through a balcony on what is now air.

Or perhaps it was done on purpose for the jailers to have wings? But then why to place stairs? Ohm

Sometimes you just want the stairs

I was thinking more about these or these

Busy busy operational week friends. Likely be a day or so before I can get some clear air to post. Bot "Maxie" if needbe.

Plenty of patience here, especially as we're entering the endgame proper. Pleased to have you post at your pace, bror, no worries.

No worries, as Kikinnin says, we are coming to the end, so as long as it does not impact the engagement we are fine going for a slower pace :)

This battle may go fast if JJs luck holds. Goodness he is a monster against the right enemies.

Ouch yeah, terrain dominance + two weapon fighting is pretty broken! I think it is more because of the massive to hit bonus that makes even the worst attacks to hit, more than because of the damage bonus which is comparable to a sneak attack I would say.

But well, JJ has stacked all his bonuses to Abyss creatures and that also makes him not that good against any other type of creature.

Dark Myrakul is typed as just "undead" and thus I removed the "outsider evil" bonuses, but still I counted him as "original of the Abyss" so dominance worked there! Enjoy JJ's triumph over the evil jailer! :D

The golem counts as a non-abyss construct (although you could have a discussion there because of made of demon parts, but just to keep it a bit interesting!).

344 damage in a single round... woof... I imagine Dark Myrakul felt like a deer on the train tracks...

Well, JJ is built as the best demon killer I could think of. Given Cauldron's history...

Against other evil outsiders he is okay, but not as bad. Against virtually anyone else he is a fighter with fewer special tricks.

The dual benefits of bonus to hit and damage from FT/FE and two weapon fighting are what makes him totally lethal to demons. Even without Alakast he bypasses most demonic DR even when just using his fists. And with +20 to damage from fT, even if he didn't bypass it, he can still slap them hard.

Against non demons with even moderate DR he really really struggles - Alakast makes up a big difference here. Honestly I'm not a big fan of the "bypass DR with a big enough bonus to your weapon" rule in PF. I get why it is there, but it takes away from a lot of creatures things that make them special.

Oof...apologies for the silence; work was busy for several days and now I'm out in Seattle for PaizoCon. I'm posting this from my Chromebook but I can't make any guarantees for consistent posting until I get home next Tuesday/Wednesday.

Oh! PaizoCon! Enjoy your time!!! :)

How's the Con crud? What's the Pandemic pulse, walking the floors of PaizoCon? I'm hoping everyone is feeling freer than the last couple of years, letting your hair down, and sharing tables without the anxiety.

Hrm...

Well, they capped in-person attendance at 500 (but there's no way there's 500 people here at any one time, I'd guess maybe a couple hundred at most) and made masks + proof of vaccination/boosters mandatory. I get the sense that a lot of it is probably more for the comfort of Paizo employees though I'm sure some of the attendees also feel better for the restrictions too.

Personally, I'm at the point where I don't wear a mask if wearing one is optional *but* neither do I mind wearing one in places that still require it or if it would make others feel more comfortable.

People are *definitely* happy to see each other again - I've seen lots of hugs and fist bumps the last few days!

Posting from the airport lounge, waiting to fly home from my trip. PaizoCon was lots of fun, even in a reduced capacity! I'm hoping to get to go back next year.

Once I get home my posting should more or less return to normal. That said, I *also* get to come home and pretty much go right back to work so I may be a bit slow for a few days if things are busy at work.

Okay... so before I do the Wall Of Rolls(tm)... does Adimarchus count as:

An outsider (guessing yes)
Evil (presumably)
An evil outsider (guessing yes, but technicalities might count against me here)
A native of the abyss (really not sure about this, he rules a plane, but his history is complex).

He is an Outsider (Chaotic, Evil, Extraplanar, Tanar'ri) but does count as good against [good] descriptor spells and spell-like abilities (not supernatural abilities thus Kikinnin's smite and auras work as usual but Marigold's holy aura fails to) and also counts as good against items (so no holy weapon extra damage but yes to smite extra damage!).

And about native of the Abyss, I am going to rule he counts as native of the Abyss while he is at his demonic form but not count as a native of the Abyss while on his angelic form.

Does it make any sense? Should not, he is the Demon Lord of madness ;)

Ahhh, Marigold was granted a similar boon after her resurrection - though she's good-aligned, she also counts as evil against [evil] descriptor spells and SLAs.

Heh. Lord of madness not making sense.

Okay, so here is what I think my layered bonuses will be
+1 to hit and damage as he is an outsider
+2 to hit and +2+2d6 to damage from evil outsider bane.
+1 to hit and damage from prayer
No +2d6 damage from holy
Heroism +2 to hit

+20 to hit and damage from favored enemy when he is in demon form
+4 to hit and damage from FE (evil outsider) when he is in angle form which is normally overridden by his FT bonus.

So in summary
Angel form: +10 to hit, +8+2d6 damage
Demon form: +26 to hit, +24+2d6 damage

You got da Smite in there?

Nope, I totally forgot about that.

Ouch!

Mmm... ok, rereading the Aura of Justice it seems the 10' distance only matters on the moment you activate the smite, it does not seem to restrict its use to distance afterwards. Checking the forums seem to support this.

So Kikinnin's sacrifice leaves JJ on the board with a +24 damage per hit I believe!

Yowser! So, extra +7 to hit - shouldn't matter much this round. but 24x8 extra damage will make quite the difference.

Well, our joyful play together cannot be delayed any longer, you have defeated the game :)

Wow...

What a ride it's been!

I'm actually sort of at a loss for 'words' right now, to be honest.

Depending on what other folks (or our fantastic GM) have in mind, I'll try to get a fitting epilogue post for Marigold composed - though I work tonight so it might take me a day or two to get it done.

Now I can say that I've played two APs (the first was GM Euan's Mummy's Mask) to completion via PbP :)

Wow, this was my first. And what an epic it has been.

20 levels. Six and a half years.

And it is the granddaddy of all APs as well.

I'll try to get a suitable epilogue written as well, but I had to put up a small short one in recognition of the milestone.

Well done everyone, and most especially to our GM who has stuck by us and the slowly changing cast of support characters of the years. Who has kept the wheels spinning and dropping clues... that don't pay out for many years of real time!

Unsurprisingly this is my alias with by far my largest post count (aside from my GMing one).

I'm glad Marigold made those saves. Looks like our demon lord had a lot of save or die material there that we were a bit lucky to avoid at the beginning.

Ditto. Words can't really do this game justice. Kudos to you all and especially our illustrious GM.

Been a long old road, enjoyed every step. Wow...

Will get an epilogue written for Maxim also.

Where are we in the all-time campaign pages now? Still on that front page, or have some of them young upstarts usurped our rightful position?

We sit at 19th on the first page :) I think it’s quite appropriate that GM Rutseg carried us into the top twenty most posty PbPs.

Just back from Chicago, wiped out by good sushi and a farewell Midnight Oil concert. I’ll try and process the farewell here, so aptly timed with our weekend affair…

A small last surprise before we call out for epilogues and so! :D

Also, remember me if there is any loose string we left forgotten that you want to close.

It has been a great campaign, with some periods more inspired than others but still the best one I have ever been involved, you are a great group of people and have pulled an interesting cast of characters. It has been an honor to GM for you all!

Still here, watching for the activity in Occipitus :)

Still here too! Marigold was hoping to maybe get some sort of answer to her question but feel free to drop a nudge or something if Marigold needs to be firmer or more direct with her questions :)

Sorry there, I have not really been actively monitoring and pushing this game any more. This is just the last formality and we can officially wrap up afterwards :)

So, here we are, feel free to follow up with the current conversation or send to Gameplay your own personal ending. Feel free to refer and alter any of the adventure locations and NPCs, what remains of the adventure is for you to mod at your desire.

Please, let me know when you are done, because I would like to throw a final ending post before officially checking the closed campaign box! :D

Kikinnin's scene is the perfect ending for me- can't top that :)

Marigold's final post (for now???) has been posted. Once again, it's been a privilege to play with all of you for the last six (!!!) years. Even though I've cut back on some of my PbPing I'll still absolutely be around doing PFS stuff...and who knows, maybe our paths will cross again in the future :)

Echo your sentiments LL - you will forever be Lil' Miss to my goodself :)

Thanks for the amazing laughs, drama and creativity you've all provided in this most epic of games. Kikinnin ever my Bror, and JJ ever Surabar - a darn fool with the ladies, but darn handy with that staff :)

Absolutely hope we'll all game again - rest assured that if any of you are attached to a game it'll be high on the priority.

Special kudos to our illustrious GM for herding us through this iconic AP with a deft hand and flair. Been an absolute pleasure and I'll miss the OOC updates on how everyone is doing/up to in their corners of the globe.

Rest assured I'll be raising a dram in your collective honour - thanks again for the great times had, and the times to come :)

And I too want to express my thanks to one and all of you.

It's an epic story that is fully deserving of its 20 levels. This is the AP that really made Paizo, and set it apart as a company.

But a story needs to have characters, protagonists, actors. And you have all played fantastic parts. Each has shined. Each has flaws, and each a solid core of inner being that you have all had shine through.

And of course to our GM. While each of us players only had one part to play... our esteemed storyteller had to play the part of dozens, and over six years, hundreds of different people, creatures, monsters and divinities. Fair, four or somewhat indifferent to us.

It's been a pleasure and an hour to play with you all.

This campaign has been great from the start and it has been so specially because of the inter party connections you have created. There were times I would just sit and read at your fun, creative or just interesting dialogues and responses to each other.

All of your characters have left a mark on me, and I am very happy we were able to play this one til the end.

I still want to write up a final post in Gameplay closing up some loose ends for a few NPCs and pointing a bit of Cauldron's future.

It will take me some days though (perhaps even weeks?) to gather the strength to close this campaign, so feel free to add things if you wish to respond some of the others. Also just in case Maxim finally wants to post a few words on how the Stogies and Whiskey business is going forward and if his new found status finally collects the attention of Gralthar Nightshield and what happens with Hackbus Wyrdbore ill inventions :)

I fully intend on rereading our Grand Narrative one of these days, and listen to the development of our voices, our strides. Enjoy the little interactions that have swirled below the surface of my memory, for all the waves of storytelling we've done together.

Your names will be chiseled in the Hall of Fame I've got up in my noggin. Not many folks get to finish the journey, though they may get far, a testament to your dedication and care for a story worth telling. I'll be severely biased towards games that include any of you in its roster, should a seat at the table become available, though I've a mind to become more selective in my PbP endeavors going forward. I'm not as young as I used to be six years ago...

A deep bow to our GM for captaining our ship through waters at times turbulent, at times windless, most times roaring. You've seen us 'round the world, and have brought us to port masterfully, a seasoned Game Master if ever I've known one, and I'd like to think I know a couple ;) Well done, GM Rutseg.

Each of you is a new star in my sky, a pin on my world map. May we find ourselves in each other's company, either on the boards or traveling the globe for vacations or conventions.