Valence's "Into the Icy Jade Yonder"

Game Master Æroden

Also in fairness, the point of this is to see how much I need to adjust the AP to you all. Feel free to go HAM; it doesn't really count.

I think this ^^^ was a pretty important point. I don't think this stuff is actually happening to our characters.

Valence Niels d'Geiger wrote:

Also in fairness, the point of this is to see how much I need to adjust the AP to you all. Feel free to go HAM; it doesn't really count.

I think this ^^^ was a pretty important point. I don't think this stuff is actually happening to our characters.

Canonically, this is correct. You're in a plot device whose sole purpose is for me to figure out how much to adjust the encounters. I wanted you to stop "trying to figure it out" and attacking the NPCs, so I gave you the saves and the exposition. But now I'm just going to flat out say it all.

And while this is probably going to come off as condescending, I do fully understand the concerns you all have, both expressed and the ones unexpressed. I also am very sorry for how long this has taken. But I want to be sure y'all understand what I've volunteered for, and how necessary this part is if this campaign is to be worth any amount of effort.

Balancing Gestalt Characters

Obviously, this variant results in characters who are significantly more powerful than is standard. But how much more powerful? The simple answer-that gestalt characters are twice as powerful as standard characters—isn’t accurate. Gestalt characters don’t have an advantage in the most important game currency: available actions. Even a character who can fight like a barbarian and cast spells like a sorcerer can’t do both in the same round. A gestalt character can’t be in two places at once as two separate characters can be. Gestalt characters who try to fulfill two party roles (melee fighter and spellcaster, for example) find they must split their feat choices, ability score improvements, and gear selection between their two functions.

While a gestalt character isn’t as powerful as two characters of equal level, a gestalt character is more powerful than a standard character. Hit points will always be at least equal to those of a standard character, saving throws will almost certainly be better, and gestalt characters have versatility that standard characters can’t achieve without multiclassing. Furthermore, a party of gestalt characters has greater durability and many more spells per day, so they can often take on six or more consecutive encounters without stopping to rest and prepare more spells.

Your players may be excited by the chance to play fighters with powerful sneak attacks or spellcasters who can cast any spell. But as the game master, you know that the only measure of PC power that matters is the comparison with NPC power. By throwing monsters of higher Challenge Ratings at them, you’ll still be giving them significant challenges. Gestalt characters look superior compared to standard characters, but that’s a false comparison. With this variant, such “standard” characters don’t exist.

Here’s how to build a campaign that can handle gestalt characters.

Challenge Ratings
Gestalt characters can obviously handle more opposition than standard characters. The simplest way to compensate for this is to use adventures with tougher monsters. In general, a party of four gestalt characters can handle multiple encounters with a single monster of a Challenge Rating equal to their average level + 1. If the monster poses a challenge because it forces the characters to succeed on life-threatening saving throws (such as with a medusa or a wyvern), it’s even weaker against gestalt characters, who have few or no weak saves. Characters can handle multiple encounters with such monsters at a Challenge Rating equal to their average level + 2. A shambling mound (CR 6) or a medusa (CR 7) would be appropriate average encounters for four 5th-level gestalt characters. If you take this approach, realize that characters gain levels faster than in a typical campaign, because they’re gaining experience points as if those encounters were harder than they actually are. You’re obviously comfortable with a high-powered game, so faster advancement may be an additional benefit, not a problem. if you rely on published adventures, this is the easiest option.

If you want to keep level advancement at the standard average of thirteen encounters per level, reduce the Challenge Ratings of all the monsters and NPCs in your campaign by 1 (or by 2 if they rely on failed PC saving throws to pose a challenge). The shambling mound and the medusa would both become CR 5 monsters, and the gestalt characters gain levels at the usual rate. Monsters with a Challenge Rating of 1 become CR 1/2, and other monsters with fractional Challenge Ratings have their CRs cut in half (kobolds become CR 1/6, in other words). Many staple low-CR monsters don’t work well against a party of gestalt characters, even 1st-level gestalts.

Adventure Design
Once you adjust the Challenge Ratings, you have one more subtle factor to consider when you design adventures for gestalt characters. You must take into account the greater “adventure stamina” of gestalt characters both when you’re preparing an adventure and when you’re at the gaming table running the adventure. Because gestalt characters have more hit points, better saving throws, and deeper spellcasting lists than standard characters, they can safely tackle more encounters in a row before they run low on hit points and spells.

Gestalt characters can, for example, delve deeply into a dungeon on their first foray, when the dungeon denizens may not be expecting them. The defenders of any site in a site-based adventure can’t rely on wearing out a party of gestalt characters. They have to pose enough of a threat that the gestalt characters retreat because they’re worried about their hides, not just because the wizard is almost out of spells.

In event-based adventures, gestalt characters can wreak havoc with timetables because they have more resources at their disposal. For example, a 10th-level gestalt wizard/sorcerer can easily teleport the entire party four times a day-without resorting to scrolls. That means two round trips to visit the wizened sage who’s an expert in rune translation, each in the blink of an eye.

Please read the above.

Two Deinonychi is a CR 5 encounter by PF rules. You took them down in less than two rounds. It is literally a waste of all of our times for years if you blow through the standard book encounters as swiftly as that, which you would, since you're neither sub-optimal characters nor single-classed normals; we could just read the AP and use our imaginations to fill in the actions entirely for all the good it would do us to run it without adjustments.

Additionally, I've always been less-than-impressed with the major villains in published works; I, like most of you, grew up on video games, though certainly to a lesser extent than this new generation will. Boss fights are supposed to be difficult.

And these might be, for a group of inexperienced players (or intentionally not optimized characters) numbering 4 or 5; 6 even pushes it with "normal" PCs. But they certainly aren't for you.

When this bit is finished (and I'm going to skip the expositions at this point; let's just get to the campaign), the party will be right back in the middle of the castle courtyard, never having left. Ameiko's going to come out and yell at Valence for tricking you, tell you what you missed having not played the first book, and then we're off. This way, I can kill you, and have no fear; there's no need for extra hand-waving, because I already waved you out of "reality" for your characters. I apologize if this broke immersion for some of you, but it's far better to do it now than in the middle of an "actual" fight.

Additionally, Valence ceases to exist in the game once this is over. He's the shop; press X to buy. If he weren't in the caravan, then there is another issue with immersion; where are you going to equip yourselves? If you rely on drops, then you should really learn to love what you have now. No major cities exist along the way; by the rules, RAW and RAI, there's no reasonable way for y'all to upgrade into the proper gear for yourselves without devoting substantial character resources into crafting. Even just giving it to you in a hoard makes me cringe; the PCs weren't "destined" for this, they were hired, so why would the random treasure have exactly what they need? I mentioned allowing you to pay him for help later on; add the costs of Resurrection, Restoration, the cost of the equipment that was torn asunder when the PC was brutally eaten by a beast, and so on, and it's expensive to die. Valence, as your personal shopkeeper, would gladly charge a fraction of this amount to cast the Ex Machina spell and save that character, or wagon (or entire caravan) when someone makes a bad decision that could wipe everyone. This seems like a mechanically fair trade-off for the enjoyment of challenging encounters.

As for the NPCs I asked for help with, spoiler alert: those were going to be available as cohorts later on. More action economy means easier encounters, means we can have the Monster Hunter Caravan fights along the path that PCs shouldn't reasonably be able to defeat on their own until much later in level. Some you were going to pick up along the way, and others would be there from now; easier to weave into the story than why, just because you hit 7 and can take a feat, there is an abundance of NPC cohort options in the middle of the polar ice cap.

But wait, there's more. Don't read this unless you've played the AP before, or read it, or legitimately don't care if I spoil the plot to you. If you do care, then don't read it.

So, in-character, get angry; I don't care how the characters opt to respond, though your discounts will likely be compromised if you yell at him over it, at least at first. Out-of-character, thank you for the patience.

Here's a Dire Bear; enjoy.

Thank you for the thought out response. I'm glad I brought up my concerns.

Is the bear flat-footed?

Also, I'm realizing I made some hasty build decisions that are really clumsy. Would you be open to me adjusting my build at all after the testing?

Dual wield on a slow cleric just has a ton of drawbacks(hard to cast spells), especially if I'm going to have to be running back and forth a lot. I would just switch to a single-weapon build.

Kazrek and Chalkou - Thanks for being friendly to Sporocystian in that other recruitment. They're an old friend of mine (who sneaked on here without letting me know, I see you in the character list), and it's always good to see niceties.

The bear is flat-footed; it has not yet acted in combat. It's also getting an additional -2 to AC this round if it fails 'Lo's save, since instead of wasting an AoO it can't make as it "backs away in fear" or something.

Kazrek - Go ahead and redo as needed.

Be the community you want to be a part of.

And thank you. I'm just switching feats and weapons is all.

Simply put, Phaender will not participate. He doesn't care if anyone else plays along but he doesn't.

Just to be clear, this is purely an in character action.

I'm still around. Does it seem like we'll continue at some point?

I don't mind if you don't have time to run this game. It seems like a very time consuming undertaking. I don't want you to feel pressured to push forward on my account if you don't have time.

If you're still planning to run, I'll sit tight. I can be impatient sometimes. Don't mind me.

:)

Hello?