Alright, this is the Discussion Thread for Group A. I'll be putting up the gameplay thread in a few minutes!
Good to be here! I look forward to the game.
Happy to be aboard, looking forward to playing with you all! Darsis is more of a henchman type than a leader. It will be interesting to see if the group picks a leader or goes with a more democratic approach.
Checking in. If you're looking for a leader, Taemon'dow has the ambition for it. Either way, he makes a good party face.
Despite the surprisingly high Charisma score, I'm not seeing Lysander as a great leader type--he much prefers to work behind the scenes, and he is a loyal servant. That said, he could work well as a lieutenant of sorts if that ends up needed.
OOC I prefer a democratic approach to things, but IC, Lysander's definitely an autocracy kind of guy. Whoever the leader is, he'll follow their words to the letter... unless he thinks they're too weak a leader, in which case he'd be of the mindset to have them replaced ASAP. But I won't do that to you guys, I promise!
Its probably the kind of thing best left to sort itself out organically in truth.
Where have the brands been placed btw?
From the picture, they look like they're on the lower arm. Like half the way down the forearm?
Gotcha, thanks.
Thanks for picking me. Excited to be a bad girl.
As for leadership, Katrin won't obey a man. She might work with one if they respect her, but she'd never like swear loyalty to one or anything like that. Gods don't count.
Read your game! Very early, but it so far looks cool. An interesting mix of PCs.
Gary McBride
Fire Mountain Games
They are an interesting bunch, aren't they?
Should be a fun ride, I've been wanting to play Way of the Wicked for a long time. Nice to see you taking an interest Gary, I've certainly got high hopes for the AP.
Thoughts on Combat (especially initiative)
In the other group right now they're starting on their first combat, and the question of initiative has been raised. This is the solution they and I came up with, and if this group likes it as well then we can also do it for this group.
First, I would roll everyone's intiative.
Once that was done, I would seperate everyone into groups, depending on whether they were before or after certain creatures. You could post anytime as long as your group was up.
For example, A, B and C roll higher than the guards, and D, E and F roll lower than them. So A, B and C could go in any order. Once they were all done, the guards would go. Then D, E and F could go in any order. Once they were all done, the next round would start.
That is definitely the best way to do it, and what I would have also suggested. You have my permission to roll saves and perception for Katrin as well whenever you think it would speed things up.
Same as Katrin--that seems like the best initiative setup, and I'm cool with you rolling for me when necessary.
Ditto, I roll init and knowledges for the PCs in my games, I would only roll saves if the outcome would effect my baddies actions that turn, but have no objection to it as a PC.
GM rolling initiative is pretty much best practice, and I do it in my games. Ditto for saves.
If you get some kind of image editing software, you can screenshot your PDF of Way of the Wicked like you've done. Then edit out any "S"s for secret doors or whatever else, and save it as "Player's Map".
Then you can open the image in Maptool, and add an appropriately sized grid. Export a screenshot, save it over your "Player's Map".
Then open it back up in your image editor, add a new layer and paint over everything we can't see in black. Then save it as "Game Map". Each time we open a new door, open up your "Player's Map" image and re-cover what we can't see in black, then save it over the "Game Map". Keeping the Player's Map as your original uncovered.
Make sure the game map images are under 2 MB, and then upload them to google maps just like you've done. You can then insert images of the characters or various objects and drag them around on top of the map.
At least that's how I do it.
Final result looks like this.
...so, I just realized that Lysander's constitution is actually 8. So Lysander took exactly enough damage to actually kill him.
Man, I feel really bad about your character dying in the first combat, especially since I really liked him.
Lysander, if you'd like to stay alive, you can have previously used that resiliency thing from being an elan. Since that's probably how it would have worked in a real life game, just spend the pp and I'll call it good.
Aren't we using villain points? Maybe let him use the action to trigger resiliency?
Yes, using the villain point so he could use resiliency and then using it. So he'd be at -4 (or less, I guess) instead of -8.
Gunter, I really hope you roll well on CLW...
Villain points the same as hero points I take it? Melee character with 8 con? That's asking to get killed.
Well we had to roll randomly I'd say toughness and favored class bonus to HP should make it viable, there are plenty of items that can help to.
Ah yeah, I forgot about the random rolls >_<* Now I feel like a d*ck. Sorry.
Mind if we sought out the distribution of armor and weapons OOC folks? Darsis has probably claimed too much so how about...
Sword and both scabbards for Darsis - he can get a swift action attack with a scabbard, but he has to throw it, so its better if he has two.
Armor for Lysander and Taemon, they both have the bluff chops to potentially pose as guards.
Sword for Katrin, hopefully it won't matter if she has it in hand?
Mavro takes Darsis's dagger.
The bows should probably go to two of Darsis, Taemon, and Katrin, I don't believe anyone else is proficient? I'd suggest Darsis get one purely because he will have a better chance to hit and do more damage if it comes up due to favored enemy.
Yeah, as the two people with 20 Str, Darsis and Katrin should have the swords. I'm not too worried about anything else at the moment. Armor is next on the list though.
Ditto!
We are not going to talk our way past anything if the prisoners are holding the swords and the guards are curiously unarmed. I'd vote that Taemon'dow and Lysander carry the swords and scabbards, even though Lysander doesn't use one. The ruse will only work if it is convincing, and we don't want too many dead giveaways. Lysander's first combat action will just have to be to give the sword to another, or Katrin or Darsis can be standing at his back and just pull the sword free with their first move action. Once the alarm is raised, we can redistribute as you suggest.
Soldiers often travel without their weapons, if they are worried enough to question that we are likely already screwed. I'm really not thinking of it as a go to tactic personally Darsis would much rather kill before talking, and IC I cannot really justify Darsis allowing someone to take both sword and Armor while he just has a knife. I think Katrin feels similarly given her post.
Soldiers travelling is completely different than guards escorting prisoners. Not to mention that swords cannot be concealed, making the ruse impossible if the prisoners are armed. If we can ambush and kill guards as we did here that is all well and good, but their will most likely come situations where we will either have to start an all out battle, or talk our way past. I think our chances of success are far higher if we maintain a stealth oriented outlook.
We could probably also be having this conversation in-character as it pertains to very practical concerns for them.
Well, hold on, everyone! I'm not dead yet!
Elans' resilience ability activates as an immediate action when they take damage...
When an elan takes damage, he can spend power points to reduce its severity. As an immediate action, he can reduce the damage he is about to take by 2 hit points for every 1 power point he spends.
So, Lysander can immediately spend some power points upon taking that hit to keep himself alive, at 2hp for every 1 pp he spends. Thus, I'll say he spent some PP to stay alive when he took that BRUTAL hit. I think the main problem here is that I wasn't on when that happened, so I couldn't immediately clarify that he's using it.
On that note, I'm glad to wake up to see almost 40 new posts--assures me this game won't die anytime soon.
Is it just me, or is this guard about to die just for shouting?
I really do think we should send the ogre to the front. He'd be a great distraction. We'll see, but I somehow doubt that we're going to be able to kill enough guards to escape. He could potentially occupy a big group of them long enough for us to escape.
Yes I think ideally we'd have him take on a large group of guards while we flee. Evil and all that. But additionally as a PC I don't really want an ogre NPC along for the ride.
Grumblejack would have gone to the next room (or outside) and tried to kill the guards, but you guys rolled really low on the horn check. Out of 1d8 rounds in which they could appear, you guys got the one..
Can you try to include map links in your posts Cosmiy? I keep having to scroll back through all the posts to search it out. I usually just post the link in each combat post, but its also possible to attach it to the gameplay thread so its available at the top, not quite sure how, but lots of DMs do it.
Ah, Sorry. I'll try to do that in the future, plus I did figure out how to put them on top, too.
Thanks Cosmiy that would be much appreciated, I'm often looking from my phone so that makes things much easier :)
You had mentioned puttin up opponent stats so we could resolve actions ourselves. Was that done? I looked around a bit and haven't seen any stats for guards...
Oh, I didn't see this before I posted in gameplay.
I like that method, I've just started doing it in my games and like it as it allows for players to describe their actions rather than the DM.
First, I remember posting "what statistics do you want" to this thread, but it must not have happened. I also remember posting in Gameplay, but my internet connection is so bad that I probably tried to but didn't. Sorry.
In other news, I will be traveling for the next few days. I should have access to the internet, but on the offchance I don't, that's where I am.
If you give us their AC, touch and flat footed we should be able to resolve most of our own actions. You could post their saves too, but that might encourage casting one spell over another.
I generally go with this...
AC 13, touch 9, flat-footed 12 (+4 armor, +1 Dex, –2 rage)
hp 11 (1d12+5)
Fort +7, Ref +1, Will +4
Which is the defense section froma monster stat block on the d20PFSRD.
Alright, posting in chicago is not gonna happen. Sorry, guys. I will attempt to post on the bus tomorrow, though. And I will post defence stats then.
Ok, Hiatus over. If Lysander doesn't post in the next day or so I'll PM him, but for now I've just skipped his turn and moved on. Grumblejack's in the negatives and the sergeant's surrendering, although the other guard has other ideas.
Grumblejack should have taken a sword. He'd be a lot more useful actually doing lethal damage and not getting AOOed every time he swings. He's proficient with martial weapons, and even though the sword's not sized for him, it's basically an ogre shortsword. Foolish giant.
I'm not actually sure he's proficient with martial weapons- he's a humanoid, so he's only proficient with simple weapons, and being a giant doesn't really help any. He doesn't have levels in anything, either.