Yet Another ... Rise of the Runelords PBP

Game Master ziltmilt

Feel free to lob your questions about the game over here ...

Hunter, I"m not sure how Selia has a +5 on KNO - Nature. I'm also only getting a +4 for KNO - Planes. I guess I'm missing something.

She received a +1 to Nature and it became a class skill through the Devotee of the Green trait.

I just realized the HP was not correct either, and I have fixed this. I was using HeroLab to quickly throw the character together and the new update turned on the Vigor and Wounds rules from UC. I will be fixing this momentarily.

Do we have a timeframe yet as to when we will be underway? The anticipation has been excruciating!

Do we have a timeframe yet as to when we will be underway? The anticipation has been excruciating!

I'll get the ball rolling with an initial post either tonight or tomorrow. I do have something I want to run by you, however.

I've been thinking I should do something a little weird. There's some excitement in this adventure right off the bat, but there's also room for some interaction inside Sandpoint before things go crazy. So, I'll probably start with 2 sets of posts:

1) an encounter

2) a series of flashbacks from earlier in the day, where you can interact with locals and get a feel for the place

Given the slow speed of PBP, I'd like to give this a try, so as to give you as much gameplay as possible and to help events unfold a little faster. Each post will be prefixed, probably like this: [RED DRAGON ATTACK] or [HARVEST DAY], so you can easily tell what's what.

In fact, i should probably include a 'game timestamp' so you know the sequence of events. If this is too strange or confusing, just let me know and I'll knock it off.

Sounds like an interesting role-play challenge, especially with Neds duality. Looking forward to it (maybe not the red dragon attack!).

All right, let's do this!

Please keep in mind, we're going with this assumption for character background:

Assumptions: Your character is either from Sandpoint or spent a large portion of his/her childhood there, and became friends with the other PCs as you all grew and matured. All of you harbor some level of affection for the town, which is what has brought you together again as young adults for this very special Swallowtail Festival.

So, your character could have been away for sometime, or could be a current resident. Either way, all of you know one another and have planned to meet up during this year's Swallowtail Festival.

I'll take 'away for some time' option and update my history

Yeah, it'll take a few days to work out all the wrinkles, but the first post is up. We've got a surprise round happening, and 4 of you need to tell me your actions as soon as you can.

After the surprise round, we'll be in normal combat.

I'll also follow-up with happenings in the Swallowtail Festival from earlier in the day, to help you get up to speed.

During an encounter, my plan is to include a link to a battlemat/grid image. Please click on it and reference it when telling me what you're going to do. Let me know if you don't see it or have any problems.

Please keep in mind, we're going with this assumption for character background:

Assumptions: Your character is either from Sandpoint or spent a large portion of his/her childhood there, and became friends with the other PCs as you all grew and matured. All of you harbor some level of affection for the town, which is what has brought you together again as young adults for this very special Swallowtail Festival.

So, your character could have been away for sometime, or could be a current resident. Either way, all of you know one another and have planned to meet up during this year's Swallowtail Festival.

Nice map!

Ned has an unusual background. It's not a problem with Ned being from Sandpoint and friendly with the other characters but if he spent his childhood here it was probably more than a decade before the others. As it says on his character sheet, "At 35 years of age Ned may be little older than the average 1st level adventurer but he looks positively ancient. His time in captivity aged him considerably and he could easily pass for a remarkably spry 60 year old senior."

If this is a problem I have no issue with creating a new background for him.

Having some issues on my end. It seems that the Great Firewall is blocking whatever site you're using. I think I'm going to go ahead and bow out of the game.

You in China? I normally didn't have issues connecting from where I was in Dalian

If we are down an arcane caster (and I hope we are not) we need to recruit again. Ideally I think we could use a thiefy type as well.

As for the map site, it may be best for Dehrisan if you get his email address and just send him the maps each turn as the Chinese (I am assuming) firewall system is wierd at times and will likely deny him access to google folders, possibly skydrive and maybe even roll20 (though thats a good site)

Well, the firewall gets kind of pissy about certain sites. This looks like one of the sites that is "sometimes blocked" in an illogical and entirely unpredictable fashion.

I hear ya mate

Sorry for the late post. I was driving for hours yesterday and didn't get a chance to check the PC. This was an exception though, and I should be posting on a normal schedule now!

The map looks great!

No worries, Selia. We're just getting into round 1 of regular combat now.

Running a combat via PBP is tricky, and I'd like to try something with Initiative. The actions will be resolved in the Initiative order you give me, but you don't have to wait to submit them. Go ahead and tell me what you want to do, even if you're the last to go.

For this encounter, I'll have the goblins act at the same time, but don't worry. They're punch drunk, uncoordinated, and they vastly underestimate you.

But, i think this way of doing Initiative will help move things along. I also like the way it capture the chaos of battle, and is more realistic than resolving actions in a specific turn order like you'd do in a real-time game.

And, I promise I'll have some prior events posted for you soon, so you have a better handle on what this Swallowtail Festival is all about.

Just as a quick note, I can't see any media sharing sites at work so when posting at lunch it'll be 'blind' so to speak. Mervyn will continue to the nearest goblin and attack, using the rolls from above.

Can you do your turn from home? We're only doing 1 post a day. Most days, I'll be updating well after 7 pm EST.

I took a couple of liberties in resolving actions by folks going after the goblins did, so tell me what you think of this. I'm .. uncomfortable by having done this.

I'm leaning towards splitting combat up into 3 real-time days per round, which will slow the game:

a) PCs acting before the monsters
b) the monsters
c) PCs acting after the monsters

Or, we can use individual initiative and (ironically, even though it's more complex) resolve a round in a single real-time day.

What's your opinion?

We may be down our witch. Leaves us with no skill monkey/ lock picker and no arcanist.

I think it would help situations like that if everyone had a sort of mission statement at the start of combat. Like, Jubrayl positioning himself between the speaking platform and the goblins in order to be better able to see what was happening then running forward to engage. If there's some sort of vague IC goal that they want to accomplish, then adjustments like what you did with Nicholae can be aimed to accomplish that. But if that makes you uncomfortable, then I'm fine either splitting it into three days like that or using individual initiative.

My thinking is if you have to change my requested attack as long as it stays with his personality do what you must. As the GM your the boss and you have the final say.

I'm fine with your changing my actions to fit what's actually happening.

We may be down our witch. Leaves us with no skill monkey/ lock picker and no arcanist.

No worries. I've got a couple folks in mind that will probably be joining us.

Well, the site was apparently down last night, so I couldn't update anything. It'll have to wait until later this evening. Sorry for the delay, but there's nothing I could do about it.

One more thought on running combat: if we use this method of you declaring a set of actions plus individual initiative, it's probably more fair to determine initiative each round. Otherwise, you're locked in at the same position for the entire encounter. What do you think?

I think flexibility is key for a fun game. Also move in groups. So PCs before monster group A, then PCs again that are lower in initative etc. Players can post earlier and leave you to sort it out later if they don't correct later.

DEPENDING on the posting rate from the other players it may take 1-2 days a round.

I'm not really a fan of the thought of rolling initiative each round, I just have a feeling that that would just get very confusing very fast. Though as I said earlier you are the GM and this is your game, if that's how you want to run it I'll try it and worst case scenario it doesn't work and we go back to the old way.

I will throw my chip in with the "maintaining Initiative" crowd. I feel it may get overly complex with you having to track the changes each time. As Hakak said though, it's your game and if you think it will be easier, it's always worth a shot :D

I'm fine with using the same initiative for the entire encounter.

Complexity isn't really an issue. I'm using Maptool for your tokens, and the PF framework for it takes care of tracking initiative. It's pretty easy, really.

I'll try anything once.

Guys, I'm leaving for vacation shortly and don't have time to adjudicate the latest round of combat. I should have an update for you on Sunday, 8/18, so a little more than a week from now.

I hope you're enjoying what we've done so far, and it looks like when we return, we'll also have a new player join us.

Have fun!

Enjoy your vacation!

Ok then. See you in a week, then.

Cool. Have fun.

Well, I'm back, and the latest results are posted. Hopefully, you're all still with us.

If a majority of you post your actions, I'll advance things to the next round. Let me know if you have any issues with how the combat is resolving.

I deleted a post due to my acted out of order. I'll try to be good from now on :-(

If Nicholae or Ned would never have done what I just talked about, sorry, we can say that it was someone else. I'm just trying to establish a bit of our previous history.

On Ned's behalf I'm o.k. with it. Although I usually frown on this sort of thing :-)

You haven't lost Ned. Did the goblins and Nicholae already go?

You haven't lost Ned. Did the goblins and Nicholae already go?

I'm sorry , i must have messed up and didn't see your action, so I put in an assumed action for you, Ned.

I'm going to have to learn everyone's icon. I just realized that the really mean looking goblin at L15 is actually Hakak. It's a good thing I didn't have Ned didn't take a swing at him :-)

Yeah but I'm a bit bigger then your average gob.

I'm gonna need to wait a day to post again due to lack of time. In the meantime, maybe we'll hear from our gnome once more.

Yeah but I'm a bit bigger then your average gob.

and toothier.

Guys i'm sorry ... i had a brutal day at work that went on forever. I should have an update for you tomorrow.