I still gotta figure out how I want to progress Eric...
Beat Ya DM Aku!
That's what you said last time. I believe it when I (don't) see it.
Also, I need to get the "yay" or "nay" on the Lord of Darkness archetype. RP-wise it fits perfectly (as it is made specfically for this campaign and Eric worships Asmodeus).
But it doesn't matter until level 3 as nothing changes until then anyways.
Level 3 is closer than you think.
And "yay" for the arch.
And stop posting. I want to sleep but I'm just to curious to see what you guys are writing!
MWUAHAHAHAHA! 25 NEW POSTS FOR SEREN! I love it :D
lol. I hate/love you all. go for a work lunch, just a bloody lunch, and yep back for 25 new discussion posts...
Progression for Seren should be fairly simple. RP wise it's going to be a natural progession as she works on her Necromatic ways, plus Oracles really lends themselves to single class, nothing like having to deal with curse restrictions and pausing your mystery revelations for a level.
I'll talk with you Aku as we level about minor fluff style alterations to certain spells to fit in with her expanding knowledge. All the mystery revelations should already align fairly well with this.
I have a proposal. Read it out.
What do you think of one last battle (A hard one) and then you can assume you have wiped out the entire fort? I think its better than go one battle at time.
I think that could be fun, and quite realistic as well since there was a horn that sounded finally.
And if we die, at least we go out in a blaze of glory and take a few more of them with us, (I hope).
I'm okay either way.
Quick question, when someone is hit by the sleep hex do they fall prone. If so the guard will take an AoO if he tries to stand.
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I'm with Zerik, totally okay either way. though I hope we get through it, it would just be depressing at this point to have us all die and have to walk away from this awesome campaign.
It's really a hard battle, you'll have time to prepare for it of'course. I don't want this campaign to end. I just want to end this part.
what you'll do is fight the sergeant and the warden and... a dog! There's no way you'll escape this prison without fighting the most mortal danger of this part! The dog!
I think that could be a lot of fun, personally, I just hope we make it out. : /
You can all post now what you'll do in one Minute! :D
Do we have the keys to the kitchen door that leads outside?
Cause if so, and we can barricade the front doors, I have a decent plan for unseen servant.
The key is in the wall.
Also, Thanks for helping with the 25 posts yesterday, It was fun. And you can use the familiar arc.
Cool and thanks.
My thought was to have the Unseen Servant, since it repeats commands automatically until given a new one or the spell wear off, be told to close and lock the kitchen door. That means even if they unlock it and open it next round it closes and locks again.
While in the specific fight you described that might not be much help, I could see Adanna thinking it would be a lot of help separating the large groups of guards she is (needlessly) worrying about.
Some news. Lyza sent my a smoke signal. She is not returning.
I'm tottaly cool with a party of 4, but if you guys want one more, just tell me and I'll reopen the recruitment.
Also, I'm just waiting for Erik action so I can continue with the battle.
I'm okay with the party of 4. Seems like a well balanced party, I don't seen any gaping holes that we need filled, and this is an awesome group.
I know you didn't ask but, I am also okay with DM fiat dice rolls to give Lyza and Marsella a retirement/death worthy of the villains we are.
I was thinking on lettin then live and use then in the history as npcs, or you guys can even get then as cohorts. But I'm still thinking about it.
: (
Oh well, cookie crumbles, etc.
I don't mind a party of 4 either, though having a skill monkey for the social stuff would have been nice (since Zerik is kind of our combat skill monkey), but it I think between myself and Seren we will have the social skills covered.
As far as letting them live, I could see myself possibly taking on Lysa as a follower, maybe a cohort, though I'm still not sure on that. So, basically, I'm going to be non-helpful and say do as you see fit, Mr. DM. : )
Going to throw out an option for one of them if you are listening to ideas. My plan for my level 3 Revelation could be to get (I was going to get it by level 7 regardless):
Raise the Dead (Su): As a standard action, you can summon a single skeleton or zombie to serve you. The undead creature has a number of Hit Dice equal to your oracle level. It remains for a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier. At 7th level, you can summon a bloody skeleton or fast zombie. At 15th level, you can summon an advanced skeleton or zombie. You can use this ability once per day plus one additional time per day at 10th level.
If one/both happened to die, and Asmodeus imprisoned their soul(s)...and I procured a part from their bodies. I could raise our fallen companion(or a random one if I had access to both) as my skeletal/zombiefied slave! Because the length of the spell is so short and used basically only a single time per day, we could potentially have them keep their intelligence without creating any gross imbalance issues (especially seeing as we've lost 2 PCs). Just a thought,
Stylistically it could be an interesting piece of fluff. Asmodeus keeping them useful to his grand scheme by letting his chosen channel their tortured souls to further his glory (I can't imagine he would look kindly on his chosen dying before they could be of use to him).
Sorry, have been uber-super busy. I promise to update tomorrow or late tonight. I have not abandonded you guys!
Im on my phone. Will update as soon as I get home. In.mean time, finish your preparations.
The tension building for this fight is intense. Here's to hoping its not a 1 round affair.
I'll post what she finds after the battle.
Lets begin then.
Okay so then I'm assuming she doesn't find anything usefull for the battle. And there I was stressing over those chests being opened.
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Yeah, just some small treasure.
This is what she finds.
4. A bottle of absolute rot gut without label worth 5 gp.
5. A silver holy symbol of Mitra (worth 25 gp) and a Mitran holy book (worth 5 gp).
6. A surprisingly well written love letter ending in a proposal of marriage to someone named ‘Michelle’ and a sapphire engagement ring worth 100 gp.
7. A large collection of letters from home. Perhaps they are poignant but they are also worthless.
8. A masterwork lute (worth 100 gp).
9. A map of the nearby town of Varyston including the Old Moor road.
10. A traveller’s outfit, a finely made pipe (5 gp) with a good supply (1 lb.) of high quality shag tobacco (2 gp).
11-A small bag of doggy treats.
I'll post it for real in the gameplay thread after the battle.
I'm okay either way.
Quick question, when someone is hit by the sleep hex do they fall prone. If so the guard will take an AoO if he tries to stand.
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Sorry about the time it took to answer. Yes, the fall prone and to stand they anyone near then gets an AoO.
In response to the not readying actions out of combat, yeah, I've run into this situation before where both sides are waiting each other out, and usually I handle it in a similar way, where I am basically giving both sides actions in a surprise round (single standard only). So I approve. : )
You can change if you want Zerik. We posted almost at the same time.
Yeah, I switched my attack to the Sergeant. Thanks Aku.
Mmmm, this is getting exciting.
He took 36 damage and he is still alive, the dude is badass. You weren't kidding, this is an insane fight and the warden has only just entered the fray.
And Lysa and I are both out of the fight until someone wakes us up. The good news is that I really doubt the Sargent can last much longer. That Warden is going to be trouble if he is around the same level as the Sargent and his DC for a 1st level spell is 18 though.
I think the wizard may have got away with something, totally okay with it, especially if I understand correctly how it happened, just want to see if I'm getting the order of event correct, please tell me if I'm wrong along any part of this explanation, as that is a very real possibility....
Round 1 he cast sleep, no concentration check needed as no one was near him or aware of him.
Now round 2 is where I think a houserule came into play. What I think happened is during round 2 the houserule is that if you fail a defensive casting spell all that happens is you provoke an AoO, and don't actually lose the spell or fail to cast it that round.
Casting Defensively: If you want to cast a spell without provoking any attacks of opportunity, you must make a concentration check (DC 15 + double the level of the spell you're casting) to succeed. You lose the spell if you fail.
In Round 2 if playing by rulebook what I think should have happened is he tried to cast Flaming sphere, failed defensive casting, so Seren got AoO, and according to rulebook if you fail a Defensive Casting check the Spell should have also been lost. So round 2 wizard should have basically done nothing, as he tried to cast defensively, failed, and lost spell.
So in order to hit me with Flaming Sphere, he would have had to recast it during Round 3, (and have prepared 2 of them for the day).
Then in round 4 he could hit me with Hideous laughter.
Instead of hitting me in round 2 with flaming sphere, and round 3 with hideous laughter.
Again, I am not asking for you to change the result and I am totally okay with how this is playing out. Just curious if this is how Defensive Casting works in this campaign(where all that failure results in is an AoO), makes it a much stronger option to use for casting in melee, which I am all for.
Well, You got me Seren. I'm used to play things like in 3.5
I've never checked it there, but all GM's i've played with, did as the same: Do your concentration, if you fail, you provoque an AoO, if you are hit, make a concentration to see if you are able to cast with the DMG. I did not read about combat casting in pathfinder, I just assumed it was the same (I do the same thing in my tabletop games, omg, I've been wrong for years.) Thanks for the tip. I'll not retcon the action, I think it break the game to do that. But I'll be careful in the futre. And thanks for the information.
If you guys have any doubt, you can ask it, don't be afraid. I don't know everything about pathfinder, and sometimes my knowledge is tainted by 3.5 influence (I still play in the 3.5 games).
Edit: Just one more thing, I like this 'House Rule' way of playing. I would like to mantain things like this in for this canpaign, if you guys don't mind.
I’ve been thinking about some long ago questions and I want to give then a answer.
1 – Crafting:
Zerik suggested a 3pp content to fix that, but I really did not liked it, based on that, you would take about 2 weeks to build (all by yourself) a warship, with a “optional” rule to make it about 3 weeks instead of 2 . (It has been some time I’ve read that, but consider this just an example.)
So I’ve decided to work as this: When you get to a craft skill, replace the week for day.
In this way, a full place for someone with a high crafting skill and really good results, could be finished in about a month, instead some years of work.
What do you think about this?
2 – Leadership Feat.
This one is a tricky one. In a play by post game it will be really hard to keep lots of cohorts. Game may really slow down if we have 4~5 npcs with the party.
If only one pick up Leadership, I’ll not have any difference in the way it works (except the changes I’ll post bellow). But if everyone picks it up (Common guys, you are villains, what is a villain without minions? How boring!) We will have to study a way to make things work. I was thinking about something in those lines: Each player get a cohort, but only one cohort at time stay with the party, serving ‘all’ of then at the same time. The other, can be about doing whatever a villain follower do in it’s free time (You’ll have a chance to create an evil organization of your own, or build a really big one if the entire party work together); the cohort could stay in the organization managing things.
One other thing I’ll change it about the followers.
I’ve often found it really boring you could only get a high leadership score if you had a high cha.
Cha based classes have a really unfair advantage here.
An example: In a tabletop game I play a bard.
She is at lvl 11, my base leadership score is 11.
We play a high powered campaign, and she has 26 cha (+8 bonus), thus my leadership score is now 19.
She has a great renown (“Have you heard? The little girl Badalle and her party survived a trip to Undermountain! Killed a Fiend and a Really huge dragon. She is friend with Elmister and the Gray sisters!” … and some more things.) Now, her leadership base score is 21.
She already has a stronghold, a fortress were she made a orphanage (yeah, call me evil, my followers are street urchins, trained to do whatever they want to do.) and because that, I have +2 on leadership score. Yay I’m only an lvl 11 char and I have a leadership score 23.
In two more levels I’ll reach the normal player leadership table max score: 25.
Now, the brave and famous warrior of our group, an honored person, did the same things I did, but he unfortunately has an 8 cha score. Thus his leadership score instead of 23 is 14.
It’s depressing this situation.
So I want to make the following modifications:
I know that characters with great charisma have an easy time trying to recruit. But why a warrior could not be known by his great str? A cleric for his wisdom?
In this case, If you are not a Cha based class. You can use half of you primary class status (rounded down) instead of your cha.
In that said example above, if our warrior has 26 str (+8 bonus). He would add to his base score 15, for a total of 19.
A char based class still has move advantages, but the warrior would still have a great deal of leadership score.
One other thing I plan to change is this:
All level 1 followers are npc classes (the PC choice); all of the above level 1 classes can be a PC class (with the GM approval of the classes choices).
I know I’ve said a lot here, and I can be difficult to understand. But I would love to hear what you think about those changes.
Sounds like a plan to me. My character will be picking up Craft Wondrous items somewhere in the 7-11 range (where I can start thinking about a phylactery), so any changes to make crafting a bit better is good in my books.
As for leadership I like the idea, should have been based on primary stat from the beginning for balance (I like to think of animal packs when relating it to strength, where the alpha is in charge simply because he is the strongest), but then I have no intent to take leadership. Who needs cohorts when I can have undead minions instead. As for leadership and necromancy, I actually prefer them in PbP then in real life games. I specifically created a necromancer in pbp cause it so much easier to handle minion dice, etc. in PbP where I have the chance to double check my math, rolls, and actions without everyone else at the table waiting there impatiently. 2 hours to have a turn is far better then 5 minutes when dealing with lots of minions.
1) That sounds like a fine houserule for crafting to me. It has been argued in other threads but the real problem with crafting is how price and construction time are tied together. It takes me 10 times longer to write a letter because I use more expensive ink, etc. I've done the week to day thing myself in the past and found it to be fine. By the time we up to levels 3-5 crafting is a pretty negligible factor in general, power-wise. This doesn't really affect magic item crafting since you can enchant masterwork items that are already made, but a lot of people roll the crafting of the masterwork item into the crafting of the magic item (*spooky voice*it's magic*/spooky voice*). And I'm also planning on taking Craft Wondrous (at third), Brew Potion (next level as the Cauldron Hex), and currently Scribe Scroll (around 5th).
2a) I've always heard that PbP are one of the best places to run multiple cohorts/minions/summons because: if the extras are run by the DM then he just makes aliases and posts them with everything else since turns can be posted out of order, and if the extras are player run then they make aliases and post their actions when they post their own which (theoretically) shouldn't slow anything down.
2b) I can agree with that. In the past I have said that you use the highest of your mental ability scores for your leadership stat, no matter your class. I have been tempted to argue highest stat in general, but I have trouble seeing how constitution and dexterity could lure in followers. Strength is still kind of stretch to me, but I can see it easier than the other physical scores.
2c) What about monstrous cohorts? I mentioned before that I would love to get a witches coven (really a sprawling sisterhood of witches) going with leadership (disguised as an herbalists guild maybe?). It would be great if, for my personal coven collective, we could get a real Hag of some nature. A Green Hag is CR 5, and while the CR as level rules are not always consistent, would probably make her a decent companion for someone around level 7-8. Anyway, we can talk about the specifics of that off this thread. Especially since if you allow it I think we need to discuss the hags coven spell list, because while I think some of it is appropriate, some of it is too strong for the level at which you can get it.
3) As far as the concentration thing, If that's how you want to roll with it I'm good with that, but it does make spellcasters stronger.
4) Woooo for Fearun! Easily my favorite setting.
Who needs cohorts when I can have undead minions instead.
Why not have both? : )
I played a Necromancer in a real life game in the past and found Leadership to be a great idea. You can create an undead cohort, preferably one that can create his own undead, giving you a kind of undead general, or you can get a priestly order that manage your undead for you. Having acolytes that arm, polish, and carve runes into your ever expanding skeletal horde I find to be a good touch. And when they fall you get to add them to your army! Make the ones with class levels be a cleric with control undead and have them both control and create their own too!
That's cool with me. I like the idea of being able to take leadership with an alternate stat. My CHA is 8 so I would never have considered taking leadership. Now that it's a possibility, I'll think about it, I've only really planned my Zerik to lvl 5, but Leadership may be something I'm interested in.
Hmm... Eric with minions... Granted, he already has a decent CHA. But an entire evil organization would help with our endeavors.
I have another opnion about the casting in melee. As a Dm I i'm know for rolling natural 1 when trying a conc check. Really lots of evil super villains have died trying to flee. Only to roll a 1.
Any of you want to write up a cinematc?
Ill post here what there is to be found.
What kind of cinematic?
How's this sound...
Once all the valuables are stowed, the group makes their way back out of the tower and into the court yard. They stride to the main gate. Covered in grime and sweat and blood, they look like they have stepped out of the last pages of a playwright's tragedy.
The few remaining guards on the prison wall regard them with fear and confusion. Where were their brothers in arms? Where were their officers to give them direction and strength? Suddenly their bows and swords seemed dull and puny in their hands. Their armor and their faith seemed flimsy shields against the butchers below, and they shrank back behind the parapets.
One of those men below steps forward and casually tosses the severed head of the warden into the dirt at the foot of the prison gate. Grey hair is matted and stained red. Your warden is dead. Your sergeant is dead. Every soul in the keep is dead. Some of them died screaming, some begging. Some cried, some tried to run. But in the end they all died. He pauses, the gazes of his comrades sweep the wall like seeking beams.
Lower the gate. Now. Moments pass. The silence became an oppressive thing that was broken by the sound of the gate raising. The speaker's lips curl in a cruel grin and he raises his voice one last time. And so you choose life. Mitra weeps.
And with those cryptic words, the Butchers of Branderscar disappear into the encroaching gloom of twilight - the rolling mists of the moors swallowing them for what the survivors hoped was forever
Ooooo, very nice. : )