medlii's Curse of the Crimson Throne

Game Master medlii

The Curse of the Crimson Throne

Welcome to the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path. This play-by-post game will feature most of the events and story of the Crimson Throne adventure path, with some modifications of encounters and treasure to better suit play-by-post and the party.

Posting
Be available to post at least every 24 hours. If you won't be available for whatever reason, just let me know here or via PM. If I do not hear from you, I will take control of your character to keep the game moving in your absence.

Use the [ ooc] tag for out of character speech in the gameplay thread.

If you are making dice rolls, please use the forum's [ dice] function. Please post all bonuses and penalties to your roll and briefly describe them.

Example: The crocodile attempts to bite Tessa!
1d20 + 2 + 5 ⇒ (6) + 2 + 5 = 13
+2 BAB + 5 strength bonus

GM Style
I would rather state things than assume people already know the answer. So if I am overly descriptive, I am doing it since I don't know how experienced you are with Pathfinder and for transparency's sake.

In order to keep the game moving, I will make some rolls for you, especially for knowledge skills. I will then post what your character knows.

I will also roll initiative for the party at the beginning of the fight to speed things up - that way we don't have to wait a day for everyone to post their rolls, then another day to begin the combat.

I try to be as transparent as possible, so I will post all enemy rolls during combat in spoilers.

I am pretty open to trying and exploring new ideas. So if you'd like to try something outside the box, just ask. I will do my best to find some way to say yes.

House Rules

should I rebuild Tessa so her first level is cleric? Not seeing any heal sources as is.

Bosch is pretty straight-forward. He wants his daughter back and is willing to do almost anything to meet that goal. I'm going to play him in the beginning as an honest and hard-working man but as the story progresses, he may become accustomed to a darker path (Represented by ranks in bluff and intimidate).

If he actually catches sight of Gaedren Lamm, you can expect a sharp change in character.

I had envisioned him as sort of a pillar of the neighborhood, going so far as to organize his friends when some less-scrupulous dwarven merchants tried to run some local craftsmen out of business.

His mother-in-law is likely in the area but she is elven, moderately wealthy, and never really liked the simple smith her daughter ended up marrying. Things only went downhill after Lissa passed away. His own mother and father are too far away to truly help and to be honest he would not want them involved in his messes.

In the end, he is a ship without a rudder. Before he had Lissa and then little Belvia to give his life direction and meaning. His only driving force is his impotent anger at Lamm and that is blowing him towards truly stormy seas.

If you can somehow tie Roscoe into the main plot through some other means than 'Master angry, Roscoe bite bad thing, Roscoe good boy!' then go for it.

I'll mostly be using this alias during combat and just describe his actions out of combat in my Bosch posts but if you want to mostly control Roscoe outside of combat, feel free to.

Edit: By the way, how do you want me to handle his HP?

Tessa, that's up to you. You were the only heal-capable person who posted, unless you count the rangers who applied.

Thank you, I may use Roscoe from time to time to point things out or add flavor.

You guys are free to tweak your character details (gear, feats, etc, or in Tessa's case, possibly a different class) for a bit as it will be at least a few posts until we get to the parts where those details are more important.

Some of your characters may know each other. For example, Tessa and Corwin are both fire-types from the Acadamae. At the end of the day, it's up to you guys if you actually have met before.

Tessa got kicked out of the acadamae shortly after enrolling when she was framed. Unlikely that they've met.

TYphon doesnt have the trapper skill set but he does have UMD, so he will be able to heal a little if we acquire some wands.
I left climb and swim separate, mostly cause one of my traits gives me a bonus to swim, but not climb. Tahnx for picking me . looking foward to the game.8D

Checking in.

I am running my RL game right now. Post later.

Ready to roll!

Bosch, you and Corwin are going to bond quickly. Corwin's daughter is missing as well.

Alrighty, lets get this show on the road!

How old are Wren and Bee by the way?
<insert joke about the birds and the bees>

I have Wren as 7 years old. 4'1", 51lbs, brown hair in a pony-tail, brown eyes, pale Chelaxian skin.

I used the Heroic NPC stats and the Young Template

I will look at modifying Wren to the same template.

Thanks! No rush, the age is the main thing I was interested in at the moment.

As for the harrow cards- You have each earned five Harrow Points. These are somewhat similar to hero points or fate points. Each book of the Crimson Throne adventure path gives different bonuses. For the Edge of Anarchy, these points can be applied to dexterity and speed-based enhancements:

In “Edge of Anarchy,” the PCs are faced with numerous situations where they need to be quick on their feet. During this adventure, a character can spend his Harrow Points in the following ways:

Dexterity Rerolls: Spend a Harrow Point to reroll any one
Initiative check, Reflex save, attack roll modified by Dexterity, or
Dexterity-based skill check. You must abide by the new result
(although if you have additional Harrow Points remaining, you
can use them to attempt additional rerolls).

Dodge Bonus: Spend a Harrow Point to gain a +1 Dodge
bonus to your Armor Class for one encounter. You can spend
up to 3 Harrow Points per encounter to increase your Armor
Class in this manner.

Speed Increase: Spend a Harrow Point to increase your
base speed by 10 feet for one encounter—you cannot spend
multiple Harrow Points to increase your speed multiple times
in one encounter.

The card your character drew will also give you a bonus during a certain encounter during this section of the adventure path. I'll let you know when your card comes into play.

Now's the time for any questions or reactions to the cards. If not, let me know how you'd like to approach the fishery at Westpier 17, especially time of day and if you are being sneaky. It is currently evening - maybe about an hour after sunset. The fishery is less than 30 minute's walk from Zellara's shop.

Cross posting is sooooo much fun and entertaining.

keep track of your ammo, spells, and other consumables. You don't need to do it in the gameplay thread, but it seems like Bandru especially will be going through a lot of arrows XD

What is the roll to retrieving arrows

Not sure. What you need, my friend, are some durable arrows. I think they are one GP a piece but apart from getting lost or being used in certain situations, they can always be retrieved.

Nicely done so far... hey was that unwritten rule split the party or don't split the party

LOL

you guys are kicking butt!

The rule for recovering ammo is (from the equipment section:

Ammunition: Projectile weapons use ammunition: arrows (for bows), bolts (for crossbows), darts (for blowguns), or sling bullets (for slings and halfling sling staves). When using a bow, a character can draw ammunition as a free action; crossbows and slings require an action for reloading (as noted in their descriptions). Generally speaking, ammunition that hits its target is destroyed or rendered useless, while ammunition that misses has a 50% chance of being destroyed or lost.

I'm okay with recovering 25% of the arrows you shoot, should be somewhat easier to track XD

Bosch is right, the durable arrows cost 1g each but you can recover 100% of them. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/weapons).

Is fun so far thank you for running it.XD

glad to hear it! I'm always open to input, suggestions and constructive criticism if you have anything you'd like to share.

Yeah this is fun. I like that people are so active so far. Hope that it keeps up.

Didn't think we would be going against Lamm already. thougjt we would be on hos trail for a while.

Don't say that or he'll ninja smoke-bomb away.

When I read through the adventure, I was surprised by the fact that you go after and kill Lamm right away. I am adding/ changing some minor fluff in the adventure to give Lamm a bigger part in the overall story even though he is dead... I wasn't very thrilled with the way the book played out - "The characters kill Lamm so they obviously want to go through with the rest of the plot that has nothing to do with him!"

Speaking of which, I am writing up what you find in his office right now.

How are we handling loot? Can we assume that we can collectively fence or sell the stuff we recover and then split the gp equally? Hand out gems and stuff to people? How about enemy gear?

You can sell enemy gear for 1/2 value, you can assume you sell it easily since you are in a large city. I would say divvy the gold among the party (split 5 ways). If you guys would like to divide it up otherwise, then go for it, but it is extra math... (Falstaff got the Ogre Slaying Knife that gives +9 against ogres! He shouldn't get gold too!)

Tessa, looks like you volunteered yourself to handle the party loot :) After everyone has taken what they want from the various loot piles, post in the discussion thread how much cash each PC gets.

Arrow head please

I'm not picky about exact divisions but would prefer everyone to get roughly the same amounts.

Snagged the mw silver dagger and silver dagger, but am willing to part with the latter.XD. offered the 50gp to Corwin for the kids, but if the group would rather split it, thats ok too.
We obviously cant keep or sell the Brooch.(can u say beheading if caught)
IMO we should keep the vial of siversheen and keen edge. could be useful.
Am willing to forego other loot THIS time.;). If i get to keep the daggers.
But mostly whatever the group decides.sorry long winded today.

also not sure bout the fishery, if the owner is dead we might be able to claim it, for what or why I don't know tho, just the munchkin in me trying to get out.

You have all gotten enough XP - you are now level 2! Please update your profiles. You can either roll here in the discussion thread for your hitpoints, or you can take 1/2 of the base hit dice for your class and round up.

You are more than welcome to try and claim the fishery as a base of operations, legally, by squatting, or whatever else you can think up. Or eventually turn it into an orphanage or a smithy or wizard college as you see fit.

The fight against Lamm was pretty easy, even though you were missing the companion dog Roscoe. In fact, you guys didn't take a single point of damage through the whole fishery. It is partially because you guys were smart, went in at night and had good tactics (not to mention lots of good rolls). BUT, I will up the CR on future fights a bit. Crimson Throne is written for 3.5, so I will do some reading on what other GMs have done to make it more compatible with Pathfinder PCs.

1d10 ⇒ 8
1d8 ⇒ 7

I'll take it...
... and Roscoe gets even more terrifying.

It mostly depends on whether or not we can find the parents of most of these children. Bosch is going to insist we do something to take care of the ones that can't find homes. Teach them a trade and how to defend themselves if need be. He would not object to more work space anyway but once he gets the money, he'll insist on taking legal ownership of the building.

I like the idea of taking it over and turning it into an orphanage. I think that is a great idea. Also it can be our base of operation as well. We still need to go through the boat and decide what to do about Hooks and turning the evidence over to the authorities.

Okay I updated my character sheet now for HP roll

1d8 ⇒ 8

Huuzzzaaaahhhh max is always good.

Hp roll then on to update the sheet.
hd: 1d8 ⇒ 4
meh.

Updated and ready to go.
mucho fun so far!!

Glad you are enjoying it!

I don't see a consensus on what you guys want to do next. I've seen (in no particular order)

Ok, I handled the loot. By selling the valuables at full cost and enemy gear at 1/2 cost, the total gold recovered is 1929 gp. Divvied five ways evenly, that's 385 GP and 8 SP per character.

Typhon got both of Lamm's daggers.
Bandru got an adamantine arrow.
Tessa got a wand of Cure Disease (7 charges)
Corwin got a wand of Magic Missile (18 charges, CL1)
Bosch has received no loot yet.

I did not sell off:
Thunderstone
Oil of Keen Edge (one dose)
Silversheen (one dose)
Zellara's Harrow Deck
Queen's Brooch.

I'd say Bosch should get the Oil of Keen Edge and Silversheen - he's one of our two melee characters, and Typhon got a silver dagger. That gets them both the ability to bypass DR/silver (at least for one encounter).

The thunderstone should go to a melee character as well, and I'd say Bosch to even up the loot distribution.

1d8 ⇒ 7 for Tessa's 2nd level hp. She's taking a level of Flame Oracle

One of the daggers i took wasnt just silver it was masterwork. thats 300 gp alone. so take my share of the gold and use it for supplies of magic for our casters. potions wands etc. or start a
'party' treasure for group expenses.

Thinking about it Tessa has a good point about the silver vs DR. Does someone else want the second silver dagger. i don't dual wield so 2 is rather redundant for me.( ima keep the MW one but if someone wants the other....)If we spread our abilities around it might work better.

Corwin hp: 1d6 + 1 ⇒ (6) + 1 = 7

I'll take it.

Corwin is good with the wand. It should give him some flexibility. As to the rest of the loot. Putting together a party fund for scrolls, potions and the like is a fantastic idea.

Also, if there is specific gear you want let me know. I'll be making some craft checks in out down time.

Can u make obsidian daggers? Was considering the feat that allows me to auto confirm crits by breaking my weapon on the hit. The weapon has to have fragile quality I think to make it work. Obsidian fits the bill. I like the idea of breaking the dagger off inside the target to do more damage.
(like in the Chronicles of Riddick, when he takes out the BBEG.)
Other than that MW daggers would be good.8D

As badass as that sounds, it might not be a good idea. Daggers already have a good crit range and we'd end up spending a lot of time with constant repairs or replacements. Besides could you imagine asking a smith to craft them?

"You want to do what with my work? You're off your rocker, mate, I make things to last."

But yeah, Masterwork equipment will be forthcoming.

How much for a masterwork composite long bow with +1 strength