This is the place for rules questions, ooc chit-chat, and basically anything that shouldn't be on the gameplay thread.
Some explanatory stuff to get things started:
- Please follow the usual conventions for the gameplay thread. This includes bolding dialogue and using the ooc tags for ooc questions. The basic idea is that the gameplay thread should be somewhat readable as a narrative.
- The basic format for this game will be as follows: I'll write a bit of the story, then present you guys with a choice. You'll have a chance to discuss the choice in character (usually). Once you've arrived at a decision you'll get some challenges to overcome (or not). Eventually you'll hit another choice and the process cycles through again. Sometimes the choice will allow for write in options and sometimes it will just be choosing from a list.
- Sometimes the challenges presented will be in the form of combat. Since this is homebrew there aren't any map pregens available. I'd be ok doing combat in narrative form, but I understand that a grid makes it much easier to see what's going on. I'm open to suggestion as to online map presentation software.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Also, if you like you can take this opportunity to introduce yourselves and explain what everybody would know about your characters based on time spent together in prison. The prison experience is a medieval-style supermax. Not totally isolated, but near-total supervision.
Woohoo! Thank you to chuffster for the selection, and looking forward to gaming with everyone here. This game seems like a lot of fun and I hope to have a great time for a long time with all of you.
As far as maps go, I'm personally a big fan of theater of the mind type stuff, but sometimes it is helpful to have a grid to keep track of where people are. I've seen everything from roll20 to Google spreadsheets, so whatever could work for you is good by me.
Lucifer in the prison... he's probably known quite well for his charming demeanor, which is admittedly laced with sardonic wit that can get on the nerves of those around him. He cuts a striking figure with his fiery red hair and a short goatee, even in the no-doubt drab uniforms used by the prison. If he's been allowed it he goes about in his mithral mask, but I'm guessing that a supermax prison wouldn't accommodate something like that. If there have been any fights in the prison, Lucifer's probably managed to avoid most of them, whether weaseling his way out of trouble or simply staring them down, his trademark "crazy fire eyes" doing their trick. If he did get in a fight, it was probably over as soon as he got his hands on something small and sharp.
Nice to be selected like this, I have to say. Lookin' forward to playing the game with everyone. I have no particular preference or knowledge of map options, and I should be relatively OK with whatever you wind up using. Now onto the long part.
For an account turned demon-worshipping serial killer, Myza's surprisingly beautiful. Between the silver hair, pale violet skin, and silvery eyes, it's obvious to tell that there's something off about her nature, particularly with the readily apparent similarities with Danira as well. In addition, she's surprisingly curvy as well, and manages to present a rather pleasing image, even in her prison garb. However, all of this is greatly undermined by Myza's tendency to not care at all about basic hygine, as well as her eerie silence as well. Indeed, the half-drow made a sound since her arrival, simply signing at people if they speak to her. Combine this with her conviction that she's the smartest person in the prison, a relatively short attention span for "simple" matters, and obsessive tendency to suddenly start scrawling out formulae with any and all available writing materials, and it's readily apparent that she's not really well-equipped to really talk with most people.
Myza has mostly been watching her fellow prisoners, staring at them when they catch her interest with their actions or appearance. However, aside from Danira, this attention is short-lived, and the half-drow quickly ignores people as soon as she stops caring about them. With the full-blooded Drow, however, Myza has been almost gregarious, albeit through Drow Sign Language. Depending on how starved for entertainment Danira has been, as well as the guards potentially cracking down on the two "talking," Myza could have told her the entirety of her background, and has quite likely grilled Danira for information about the Drow Race as well.
Also, Myza has not been allowed to step foot outside without extremely close supervision, even compared to the other prisoners. This is mostly due to the fact that Myza has incredibly easy access to flight due to her hexes, and she could quite easily slip away if the guards aren't extremely diligent and prepared. Other prisoners are probably familiar with this capability as well, as Myza has simply flown out of the grasp of other prisoners during the few times a fight has broken out.
Thanks for invite. Not sure if I can do theatre of mind style since usually its casters who get problems, especially since I have a 30 ft radius I need to watch on.
Alluriel in prison...probably trying to gather information about the rest of the prisoners on who might be useful in what fashion, and what makes them twitch. Also watching the guards for any lapses, so that she can find a way to prison break. She wouldn't be...*showing her hand* so as to speak unless there was a good chance of making a successful prison break.
Many thanks for the selection! This is going to be fun.
So far in my other PBP games, the GM has used Google Drawings, which seems to work decently. I'm fine with whatever works.
Danira is a slender and graceful creature, like most pure Drow women. She has short, swept-back silver hair, silver eyes and dark violet skin. Her noble heritage shows through in the way she walks and carries herself, as though she's above all these other beings, which, by the way, she is.
Danira has learned to play the game inside the prison. Don't resist. Make them think they have you pacified. The guards frequently take her out into the sunlight to weaken her. She plays along, plays it up to the hilt. Make them think it's more effective than it actually is. Inside the prison, she conjures minor illusions around herself to make the saner prisoners disturbed and afraid. The crazier ones and the weaker ones, she charms and deceives into doing her bidding. She's convinced some of them that she's a goddess in mortal form, and they bring her tributes and gifts. The grovel at her feet and fight one another over her. She feels nothing but hatred and contempt for all of them. It's ever so slightly amusing to her though, and in a place like this, that's important.
But there's that one she noticed, who stands out. Myza. Sweet, sweet Myza. They've never spoken directly, only through Drow sign language. But Myza's gestures are sheer poetry of cruelty and hate, like razors delicately mutilating angels. Danira is entranced by Myza's sheer beauty, despite (or because) it's been defiled by that diseased human blood in her. She's a kindred soul, truly the only one who understands.
If the time ever came that Danira had to kill her, she might feel a tinge of what lesser beings call remorse. She'd kill Myza quickly and painlessly, out of respect. Unlike the other scum in this complex, whose deaths she'd slowly savor.
And I just noticed that literally everyone in the party has Darkvision. That's amusing, to say the least.
I didn't even notice that before. It always surprises me how many races have darkvision. Kind of makes me think of that goblins comic...
We are still waiting on Kyra. Also, when you are done discussing and want to register your vote for the next stage in the plan just put it in ooc text over in the gameplay thread. I'll handle the communication of the votes in the narrative. Of course when the vote can be put into action by you guys directly you can just do that in the thread.
Ill be out of country with limited internet access, 13 - 15.Bot me as necessary.
Too late to change spell prep now, I suppose?
You have time. You don't have your gear at the moment, though. I believe clerics can prepare without a holy symbol but you do need to get your hands on it to cast.
For the first week or so I am also open to limited rebuilds as we work out the kinks in gameplay.
I'm going to give Kyra until close of business Monday to check in and then tag in an alternate. I want to keep things moving briskly enough to keep everybody interested.
Gameplay's looking good so far...
Holy symbol tattoo...uh not sure how you take that one out.Call me paranoid but... :)
This is Kyra checking in. I will catch up with more info and update character account in a couple of hours.
Ok I should be pretty much good to go. The only thing left is the animal companion question I had posed in recruitment and did not see an answer for.
In short: my choice of archetype and domain grants me my animal companion and the option for a second one at my level -3 or a +2 bonus to one stat on my first animal companion. Obviously the first option is stronger(especially with the boon companion feat later) but me having 2 animal companions could cause some problems later on, basically a rhino and a boar charging in the same round is a lot of DPS(Bebop and Rocksteady, best minions ever).
So options are 1. second animal companion like that.2. the stat bonus, or 3. I pick a less useful more story based animal companion to have around for fun, like the giant Mosquito using the vermin animal companion rules.
Kyra is your pretty stereotypical half orc, though much more agile than the standard of his race. He spends as much time as he can trying to grow different plants and fungi in the corners of his cell, but by now the guards have caught on and his attempted creations are destroyed quickly.
Kyra would almost constantly be in fights. fighting for dominance, or for any perceived slight against him, weather it was true or not. His success would very. He has more strength and speed than some(Thank you animal focus) and some of his abilities can be used with the standard improvised weapons one might find and make in prison. However he would often bite off more than he can chew, and have to be saved by the guards, who despise him just as much if not more than his fellow prisoners do.
Let's go with the +2 to a stat or a non-combat oriented animal. You guys should have a healthy amount of non-combat stuff to do. I'm happy for everybody to have good versatility but I'd rather we didn't start out with action economy totally broken.
Agreed. I will go with an additional +2 strength on my rhino. With that I am pretty much good to go. I will update stats and then add a link to a character sheet for spells and such in my character page, and will post in Gameplay shortly.
sheet updated with new stats.
Alluriel I am wondering about the holy symbol for me. They canlt really take away your tattoo, but one of my best murder spells requires me to have a divine focus.
Sorry, should have mentioned earlier, if you have a tattoo you're good to go. In my first scan I was just looking for the trait.
So before I post something in Gameplay to kick off our plan, I want to make sure we're in agreement with what that plan is, so we can all react appropriately when it inevitably goes horribly off the rails ;)
1. Someone lures the guard over. (I've offered to do that, I think I have the highest Bluff modifier of the whole party)
2. While the guard is distracted, other people free themselves in order to either incapacitate the guard, or at least weaken him and/or relieve him of weapons.
3. Once we're all free, we sneak over to our gear (and Kyra's rhino).
4. Once we're reequipped, we just leave, dealing with the other guards if/as necessary.
Sound right?
Sounds good to me.
I pretty much agree. I added some more details though.
1. Someone lures the guard over. (I've offered to do that, I think I have the highest Bluff modifier of the whole party)
2. While the guard is distracted, other people free themselves in order to either incapacitate the guard, or at least weaken him and/or relieve him of weapons.
3. Once we're all free, we sneak over to our gear (and Kyra's rhino),
4. Once we're reequipped, we just leave, dealing with the other guards if/as necessary.
Also did we lose our witch already?
I'm good with the plan. As soon as we get out of our shackles, I'll hit the guard with the Mad Hallucination spell, followed by Charm Person if needed.
Once we're free, everyone gets Mage Armor until we get to our equipment and gear.
I have fascinate as per bard performance. I don't think that will allow you to relief him of his weapons. The problem with not initiating immediately is that if the guard is in combat, he gets +5 to save to charm person. I suggest you just hit him with the charm person. I'll stay about 30 ft behind.
One way to get the guard to come around might be to have one of us to play that we're sick/having a fit or something.
I can either command him to halt(he can take no actions - so he can't call for help), or command him to drop his weapons - if it gets to a fight.
I like it. Lucifer I think you are our best liar, so whenever you are ready.
What action to unlock the manacles as the diagram earlier stated?
Standard action to unlock.
I will be traveling from Michgian to Minnisota tomorrow, so I will not be posting until late in the day.
Danira, I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but per the rules casting stealthily isn't possible without feats AFAICT. Casting a spell is ~5 seconds of chanting and finger waggling plus a light show. I'm open to persuasion on this if you have a feat I missed or there's an argument I haven't heard before.
If you're not trying to be sneaky with the spellcasting, please just confirm it on here and we'll go from there.
Danira is trying to charm one guard into attacking the other one, with the hope that they keep each other busy for a few moments. Not trying to be stealthy, just effective.
The charisma roll is per the charm person spell description to try to persuade the guard into following the suggested action.
I'm lurking around - I will probably use dazing channel, unselect Danira, Charmed guard, Kyra, and Lucifer. Myz will have to eat the daze effect since - in Alluriel's eyes she has done nothing to assist the escape, and so deserves what she gets. Geez, there's really quite some things you can say about friendly fire once you're evil...
I was thinking about enthrall but the full round casting time sort of kills the whole thing. Also, I need to have the entire group's attention, so I can't cast it early.
chuffster, quick question - for combat, do you want us to post in turn, or just post our actions as we can and you'll sort by initiative? I've played with GMs that prefer both ways.
Just post as you can and once we've posted a whole round I'll write up what happened. If you want to make something conditional you can either write it up as an either/or statement or you can do a post noting that you want to wait to decide what to do and then do another post when the people ahead of you in initiative have gone.
We waiting for anyone? I'm waiting to see the rest of waking guards actions but have posted what action has the greatest possibility here.
I was kind of waiting for a full round of posts and then got sidetracked by the weekend. Guard actions will be up in a bit.
Is it technically round 2 then?
We are still waiting for Danira and Myz unless I'm missing something. Could everybody do a quick check in post to the discussion thread? I've been letting the pace slide a bit but I'd like to speed things up.
Here and ready, boss.
I'm here, as always.
Still here. I'll have something shortly.
I reached out to Myz. If I don't hear back by tomorrow she'll get "killed" in the confusion of the escape and I'll get an alt on deck for the next scene.
Are the waking guards like 60 ft away from where Alluriel is standing? Without a combat map I can't really be sure...
I'm considering channel but I want to catch most no. of guards in it.
Yeah. You can move and get them into your channel radius. Note that the waking guys are in cloth armor and are still prone. The two guys who are awake are in full plate and have greatswords.
Please PM me if I missed something and held up the game.For some reason I didn't see the dot showing thread being refreshed. I say technical error, but I apologise for failing to spot it.
I will be pushier going forward. Right after I made the vow to go quicker real life dropped a bunch of crap on my head. This next week or so I'm going to be more reactive, but I should be more proactive after that.
You can, if you want, disarm the dazed guards without fear of AOOs but please don't take forever to finish the fight. There's only so long I can hold things. Nor do I know how long I have left.
Dazed status:
A dazed creature can take no actions, but has no penalty to AC.