I like the background and that he is a regular poster. I say before trying anyone else new. DM Salsa should shoot the player a PM and see if he wants to modify his character or create a new one that is more arcane focused.
I like the background and that he is a regular poster. I say before trying anyone else new. DM Salsa should shoot the player a PM and see if he wants to modify his character or create a new one that is more arcane focused.
+1 I like that plan, duno wha tmight've happened, maybe a last minute emergency?
I vote we go with the rogue as is. I think a 'burly' group can handle it.
A rogue with greatsword could have a lot of fun if the rest of us melee types use Dirty Trick (blind)... lol.
I have the big axe right now, but am planning on taking the two weapon feats going forward. I have no problem with the rogue, you just have to recognize that we will not have a buff/de-buff caster other than the summoner and cleric. Decent, but definitely not the same as a full arcane caster.
With four melee types, wouldn't we also start to crowd each other?
We would have a Paladin, a Ranger, a Rogue/Swashbuckler, Ava, a Monk, and a reasonably good meleeing Cleric. Yeh, I would say we are melee oriented.
We would have a Paladin, a Ranger, a Rogue/Swashbuckler, Ava, a Monk, and a reasonably good meleeing Cleric. Yeh, I would say we are melee oriented.
For this situation I'd highly recommend a wizard, sorcorer or witch as stated before we're lacking in spell power.
Ranger, Paladin, Drunken Master, Eidolon = 4 solid melee types - right about that. But those are set.
Question is, can we handle a rogue instead of the caster? I think we can.
By the way, I think I'll tweak my cleric to be less of a fighter and more a supporter, we definitely have the beef.
Once there she employs the 'beauty of the crimson volcano' technique (a boot to the face).
Nice!
We really have 3 divine casters as well - Paladin, Ranger and Cleric. Yeh, 2 are pretty secondary, but casters nonetheless at higher levels.
My vote is an arcane caster. I suppose someone going Arcane Trickster would be interesting, but having someone to cast web and black tentacles and all the other arcane spells would be very important. I am in one battle right now in another campaign with a pile of rakshasas. They have huge DR, like 15. Our mega-fighter can hardly touch them. If he rolls a 12 for damage, with +16, he only does 13 damage, and that is max. A roll of 1 only does 2 damage. Without arcane support we would be screwed, we might anyway as our caster is getting low on spells.
Good point about the arcane caster, sounds like we don't need to make things harder than we need. And like I said, with an odd main stat, I'm in this for the long haul.
Ranger, Paladin, Drunken Master, Eidolon = 4 solid melee types - right about that. But those are set.
Question is, can we handle a rogue instead of the caster? I think we can.By the way, I think I'll tweak my cleric to be less of a fighter and more a supporter, we definitely have the beef.
I think that we could handle it with a rogue instead of wizard, but I'd be more comfortable with the utility of a witch or wizard. That said, I'd most prefer to try and work things out with Anna if possible.
We really have 3 divine casters as well - Paladin, Ranger and Cleric. Yeh, 2 are pretty secondary, but casters nonetheless at higher levels.
My vote is an arcane caster. I suppose someone going Arcane Trickster would be interesting, but having someone to cast web and black tentacles and all the other arcane spells would be very important. I am in one battle right now in another campaign with a pile of rakshasas. They have huge DR, like 15. Our mega-fighter can hardly touch them. If he rolls a 12 for damage, with +16, he only does 13 damage, and that is max. A roll of 1 only does 2 damage. Without arcane support we would be screwed, we might anyway as our caster is getting low on spells.
bloody RAshakas, why won't they DIE?! OH wait...I'm the DM in that lol.
Where is the blessed crossbow bolt when you need it?
If my priest had bless weapon, it would be a much easier battle since I have a Keen Rapier +2. Unfortunately it is DR15 Good and DR15 Piercing.
bloody RAshakas, why won't they DIE?! OH wait...I'm the DM in that lol.
That was gold.
bloody RAshakas, why won't they DIE?! OH wait...I'm the DM in that lol.That was gold.
We tried to cut off the Rakshasas at their source, but the damn DM is even tougher than the monsters. I cannot even find the writeup on the DM monster to figure out what its DR and Resistances are.
Fearghus, in a brief lull in combat, bursts into the hustle.
Okay I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that it seems like Anna has gone AWOL. While I hope everything is alright with her player, only posting once in game is not doing any favors to anyone. The good news is that the player you guys asked about is still interested and is willing to play a caster. He said he'd have a character ready later. (Family comes first and he's spending some time with them.)
I'll work his character in as soon as he has it ready. I apologize for the delay, I'll have an update ready in about an hour
Fearghus dancing scares me.
The two handed swashbuckler here. Sad to miss the bar room brawl. I was prepared to swash many buckles. Good luck with that wizard, I hear he is quite the lightweight.
Welcome, you could probably just slot in for our missing mage. This fight is going slow over the weekend.
I found a pic of Durnak.
Getting a combo 403/404 error there chief.
Sorry about the slowness, I play with a group at a local game shop on Fridays and Sundays, as well as once a month on Saturdays. On the other hand, this fight might be over in the next round.
The two handed swashbuckler here. Sad to miss the bar room brawl. I was prepared to swash many buckles. Good luck with that wizard, I hear he is quite the lightweight.
Thank you. I hope you'll enjoy this game as much as I enjoy running it.
The two handed swashbuckler here. Sad to miss the bar room brawl. I was prepared to swash many buckles. Good luck with that wizard, I hear he is quite the lightweight.
Welcome to the party!
I'm pretty sure the etymology of "swashbuckler" is from 'to swash' (as in making a loud useless noise) and buckler (the shield). So swashbucklers were pretty useless, loud, and poor fighters.
I didn't really have a point, I'm just a nerd.
So alright, I guess I'm booted. I apologize for the weekend but I was not at a computer at all. I was caught a little off guard by how fast this is posting as I'm used to slower games but I can step up the plate. If you are ok with it I can come in at the bottom of the intiative.
So alright, I guess I'm booted. I apologize for the weekend but I was not at a computer at all. I was caught a little off guard by how fast this is posting as I'm used to slower games but I can step up the plate. If you are ok with it I can come in at the bottom of the intiative.
I admit the game does move quite quickly, which isn't really a bad thing however I think the DM should've waited atleast a week to hear from you before bringing in someone new, though he's new to DMing so not going to be too hard.
There's also the 24 hour rule where combat starts and the character in question hasn't replied in 24 hours since the start of his/her round you bot them. Bit of a pain, but the rest of the party doesn't suffer waiting for when things like this happen.
DM I suggest you look at hope other DMs do rounds and such, might help you for the future and give you some tips.
Learnt everything from that guy, though I still make the odd mistake here or there because I have a bad habit of speed-reading posts so I need to slow down lol.
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Thanks for the kind words Aron, you make my shouting and ranting sound much more pleasant :D.
Just lurking in as Aron mentioned the game to me.
What most PbP's around here do is enforce a '24 hour rule' during combat. That is to say, if a character is up in initiative and hasn't posted for 24 hours the DM will take action.
This is best agreed with the players beforehand, but the two main solutions I see used are-
1. The DM takes the characters action to the best of his or her ability, attempting to keep in-character.
2. The DM has the player on a delay until he/she posts (not my preferred method but some use it).
Outside of combat, a player can easily catch up and some inactivity is made up for by others. But in combat it can really slow the game to a halt and kill enthusiasm.
Maybe we grow to 7 and adjust encounters upward for a while. Attrition in PbP is horrendous. I think my two campaigns have suffered 2/6 and 4/6 attrition in the first three months. Even Aaron has seen some attrition in his KM.
The important rule is, if you are going to miss for a while, just give some notice. Also, I noted in Aaron's KM, some characters do not like having their actions posted for them when they miss a deadline.
I tried to have a leader assigned early in my Elves vs Dwarves to give actions for missing players and form battle plans to give characters the coordination that is so much easier to get in a simple tabletop PnP environment.
For newbs like me, is there anything not already covered by Krol, Alexander, or Luther in the posts above regarding best/common practices, assumptions, etc?
Otherwise, I'd just like to say that I'm having a lot of fun with this game and getting to know the other characters.
Really, it is simple - if you are going to be away post it. And I prefer if you ask someone else to post for you. The DM can easily take over, but this is always tough as they have 10 monsters to deal with and have to avoid metagaming as they already know what every monster is going to do.
It is mostly common courtesy. Let people know when you will be unable to post so that we are not all waiting here making rude comments and bad jokes while waiting. (Not to say I have a problem with bad jokes, I just prefer them during the game rather than due to boredom.)
I'm willing to play the swashbuckler in a seven man game, play the replacement wizard, or step back out if Anna is still around.
Let me know!
IF I'm still in the game and it ramps up in terms of posting while I am away due to time difference or weekend away from the computer, I would not have an issue with someone proxying her. Whoever that happens to be, I would get with them and explain her personality, her background and how she reacts in combat. From there it shouldn't be too difficult.
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Its best to work out what the players are comfortable for the DM to do once the 24 hours are up, but its not really acceptable (especially in a larger group) for people to expect others to wait days on someone in combat; PbP is slow enough as it is.
I have a pretty low rate of player attrition but you generally lose 1/3 or more of the originals anyway, I think the best i've managed (so far) is keeping 5 out of 6 original PC's.
Fearghus, i'll point you to this thread which contains some excellent advice. There are other threads like the stickied 'On PbP's, a general discussion for all PbPer's', but frankly that thread is bloated. Have a read of this- Link
Looking through your posts, I think you have it all down anyway. I particularly dig Fearghus' accent.
One thing to consider doing is setting up simple info for your DM in the parentheses of your character sheet, using it as a baseline and tracking HP on it. Copy and paste the following into your 'Gender' box and fill it out-
HP ??/??, AC- ?? T- ?? FF- ?? CMD- ??, F +?, R +?, W +?, Per +?, Init +?, AOO +?
And use it as a baseline, mentioning changes to it from buff's etc. in post. Alternatively, its helpful to add a 'Status' spoiler to each of your 1/round posts detailing HP, active effects etc. or simply
If you post out of order, its best to label your action- Round 2 Action, especially if your posting a round early.
PbP generally needs involvement from everybody to become a compelling story, so don't worry about posting too much. Be as proactive as possible, and even if your playing the mysterious stranger type, trust the other PC's not to metagame and put lots of inner monologues or thoughts into your posts, I find it really helps me develop a character.
And of course, if you suspect you'll be unable to post for more than a day at a time, always let the group know in the OOC.
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Aron told me DM Salsa is new so i'm going to hazard some PbP specific tips... Please disregard or ignore as you wish, i'm not looking to offend anyone!
First of all, find an efficient way to roll the group's initiative & perception, as you'll be doing it an awful lot. Most people use copy and paste, I prefer to use a program called 'Shortkeys' (link- Here ) which lets me roll everyones initiative and perception by typing ## initkm and ##per km (without the spaces), this will instantly act as a command and type it all for me).
Casimir-
Malthir-
Fenna- (GM reminder- + 19 at night)
Ricter-
Kalev- (GM reminder- terrain bond)
Kip-
Casimir-
Malthir-
Fenna-
Ricter-
Kalev- (GM reminder- Terrain Bond)
Kip-
Second, consider the format you want to use to present your combats and again, copy and paste or use shortkeys to present it in your round updates, including the formatting (as you can't edit posts after an hour). Once again, I use Shortkeys and by typing ## combat without the space, I generate this-
Round X
Ordered Initiative-
Active Effects-
Map-
Notes-
Action-
Maps are a personal preference, but there are times you'll want to inform the group about terrain, an enemy's threatening reach, track buffs and debuffs and their durations (players often forget even their own buffs!) etc.
As an aside, the 'campaign info' place is a great location to put up house rules, campaign resources (maps or texts the PC's will want to refer to more than once). In my games, I like to put a cool quote a PC has said in the 'short description' box, using bold tags for the text and italics to show who I am quoting. Adds a little bit of character to the campaign and you can switch it out every month or two :).
Your narrative style is really good. I like it.
Oh one more thing- the preview button is your friend :).
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I noticed you've provided maps occasionally. I would fully recommend you save yourself time and use an excellent program called Maptools (link- Here ). Its free to use, not particularly hard to master and has an in built grid and token system- you can even track your bad guy's HP etc. on it. Tutorials on its use are available at this link- Here. It has the functionality to be used as a full online VTT (Virtual table top) but for PbP, its easiest just to keep it updated on your end and export screenshots; uploading them onto something like ImageShack to post for the players.
An example of an entire dungeon I created in Maptools is here (posted in GM view; you can limit what players can see very easily :) )-
While a much quicker example of a combat in progress on a much smaller scene (took me less than 5 mins to make) is here-
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And on a personal note DM Salsa... don't worry about being new to the scene :). I think in pretty much all of my games i'm the youngest there, DMing for people much older than me as a rule. Aron's not much older :P.
Sorry if any of the advice comes across as patronising and if its unwelcome i'll happily keep quiet and just lurk on your game, it looks like a fun one :)
It's cool. The other game had seven, but it looks like one of them went missing. The next fight won't be as crowded, so having four main front liners won't be a problem.
So, yes Anna your still in if you want to be. David, can you let me know which character you want to play and I'll work you in after the fight's over, which shouldn't be too long.
Edit:
@ DM Alexander Kilcoyne: Thank you for the advice. I am very new at this, I started playing mid-April of last year and only started GMing in January. I will definitely be giving your post a good read through once I get a chance.
I may have noted this earlier, but while I have not played in a campaign DMed by AK, his advice is usually excellent. He is a fellow player in one campaign I am in. As I am also hoping to start a pbp campaign in the near future, I will have to remember this advice to simplify things.
I'm all about the swashbuckler unless there is a need with something else. (I have about 50 character ideas so its always fun trying them out)
I haven't looked too closely at the party make-up.
It's cool. The other game had seven, but it looks like one of them went missing. The next fight won't be as crowded, so having four main front liners won't be a problem.
So, yes Anna your still in if you want to be. David, can you let me know which character you want to play and I'll work you in after the fight's over, which shouldn't be too long.
Party currently is:
Me-Durnak - hick Ranger - Strength Build - probably 2 weapon, but could do Archery or 2-handed as the party needs - with this much brute force, might take the archery tract.
Anna - wizard
Luther - Cleric of Iomadea (a less combat oriented build)
Fearghus - Paladin of Erastil
Krolmnite - noble wannabe gnome Summoner, Ava is his meatshield/Eidilon
Dolgana - alcoholic Monk
Genisen - As a rogue, you are the skill monkey (although as a ranger I can help with this). Also, with your build, we have a massive melee front line with Ranger, Paladin, Ava(Eidilon), Monk, and Rogue(Swashbuckler with Greatsword). As a Wizard/Witch - we have potent buff/de-buff and good offensive magic as needed. Either way we will have at least 2 archaists (Krol & Anna), 3 divine casters (Luther, Fearghus and Durnak), 4 fighters (Durnak, Fearghus, Dolgana, and Ava), 1 skill monkey (Durnik).
Thus, for party optimization, probably wizard/witch is better, but as long as Anna is going to be a regular poster, we have all roles filled, so Rogue is good and if it is what you really want to play, should work fine.
lol noble wannabe :p
And yeah in combat she is a meatshield and she sees herself more as his guardian though she's never throw herself into combat for no reason. Both Krol and her and disgusted by what these men were doing and if I know anything, my gut is telling me that attacking these people is going to bring down wrath on our heads.
All very fun though and enjoying it so far.
And also, as Alex says I am not that old at it. I've been playing it longer and DMing longer. I at one time had too many games running and suffered from DM burn-out.
Any ideas I get for a homebrew I just jot down for when one of the games dies. Also, atleast you didn't make a bad choice in picking players like I did with the brothers in KM.
Well then unless anyone has an objection to the swashbuckler or thinks we need something different such as a witch, I will go with the swashbuckler. Overly dramatic in both combat and life and tends to go too far in both as well.
my gut is telling me that attacking these people is going to bring down wrath on our heads.
Lol - wrath on our heads. Your perhaps little person, mine is about 12 feet in the air right now and pretty much bumping into the roof.
my gut is telling me that attacking these people is going to bring down wrath on our heads.Lol - wrath on our heads. Your perhaps little person, mine is about 12 feet in the air right now and pretty much bumping into the roof.
Who needs wrath when they have crossbeams in the ceiling to worry about? Methinks the latter a more immediate concern.
Alright I'm going to bed. Prepared spells are:
0 Level: Resistance, Acid Splash, Mage Hand
1st level: Color Spray, Mage Armor
As abjuration specialist Anna uses her special ability to increase her parties armor by +1 first and foremost in combat. She is protective of her friends and only uses her offensive abilities if the bad guy pisses her off really bad. Anything else you need to know is on the character sheet.
It turns out Iomedae does not support strength domain, so Luther cast his first and last enlarge person. It looks like he will be giving his wand to Anna until he gets really good at magic devices.
Maybe this if you want to keep that domain?
Separatist (Archetype)
A radical cleric, unsatisfied with the orthodoxy of her deity's teachings, forges her own path of defiant divine expression. Though most members of her faith would call her a separatist or heretic, she continues to receive spells from her deity. Charismatic separatists may develop a large following of like-minded believers and eventually found a splinter church of their deity—and they are just as likely to be the cause of a holy civil war as the branches of the religion fight to determine which is the true faith.
A cleric who does not serve a deity cannot take the separatist archetype. A separatist has the following class features.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Separatists do not gain proficiency in their deity's favored weapon (though they are not prohibited from using it or learning its use).
Forbidden Rites: A separatist selects one domain from her deity's domain list, and a second domain that is not on her deity's domain list. This second domain cannot be an alignment domain that doesn't match the cleric's or her deity's alignment. For example, a lawful good separatist cleric of a neutral good deity cannot choose the Chaos or Evil domain with this ability, but can select the Lawful domain even though her deity isn't lawful.
Granted powers from the cleric's second domain function as if the cleric's level, Wisdom, and Charisma were 2 lower than normal (minimum level 1) in terms of effect, DC, and uses per day. This also means the separatist doesn't gain the domain's higher-level ability until 2 levels later than normal. If the second domain grants additional class skills, the separatist gains these as normal. In all other respects, this ability works like and replaces the standard cleric's domain ability.
Actually I will keep my domains as is and change to command vs enlarge person as my go to spell and wand. I can see using command:flee and command:fall to provoke AoOs, especially with an acrobatic rogue with a greatsword.
There will be much rolling around, sometime purposefully and sometime needlessly. I will live up to Dolgana's understanding of a true swashbuckler. Razzle Dazzle!
Was that at reference to "Yo Gaba Gaba."
If so, it made me shudder involuntarily.