Awesome. That's what I thought happened, but I wanted to be sure.
Can I just say what an awesome job you are all doing in the description of this adventure. Reading this with the environments, peoples reactions, and conversations all being so rich in detail makes me feel more like I'm watching a movie or an episode of a TV show.
Thanks Benjamin! I do try to make it more of a story.
@All - I tend to describe combat very cinematically (if you hadn't noticed) but often the round-to-round combat details can be lost in that. Would it help if I did something like a "combat details" spoiler? Ex:
Draegar twists away from the woman's sword, then catches her arm before she can bring it back to her. He puts his feet up against the wall and pushes back with all his strength, flattening her arm against her side and causing her own blade to slice into her thigh before clattering to the ground. Hissing in pain and scowling, she grabs Draegar's airborne leg and shoves it upward, causing him to lose balance and fall. In the same smooth motion she grabs the morningstar on her hip, bringing it up to meet Draegar's chest as he falls!
Combat Details:
Alright I'm pausing this combat mid-round. Esdras you are getting low on HP and you were just attacked by a rogue who's flanking you, I thought I would give you the chance to use your danger sight ability. From what I understand you make the decision after you are attacked, but before you know the result of the attack, so you don't know if the attack is going to hit or not (or if he is going to hit, how much he's beating your AC by). So, would you like to use it?
Also we should get some sort of system set up to help with this immediate action. Since immediate actions interrupt the flow of combat, it can cause road bumps in play-by-post that wouldn't normally occur at a tabletop. Esdras do you have a certain list of attacks/abilities that I should be looking out for to give you an opportunity to use danger sight? You can always use it and we can retcon what happened, because I don't want to weaken the ability, but if I know what I should be looking out for it can help me keep the retcons to a minimum.
Alright I'm pausing this combat mid-round. Esdras you are getting low on HP and you were just attacked by a rogue who's flanking you, I thought I would give you the chance to use your danger sight ability. From what I understand you make the decision after you are attacked, but before you know the result of the attack, so you don't know if the attack is going to hit or not (or if he is going to hit, how much he's beating your AC by). So, would you like to use it?
Also we should get some sort of system set up to help with this immediate action. Since immediate actions interrupt the flow of combat, it can cause road bumps in play-by-post that wouldn't normally occur at a tabletop. Esdras do you have a certain list of attacks/abilities that I should be looking out for to give you an opportunity to use danger sight? You can always use it and we can retcon what happened, because I don't want to weaken the ability, but if I know what I should be looking out for it can help me keep the retcons to a minimum.
Since I'm so low, I'll indeed use Danger Sight. However, as a side note, I've mentioned in my last post that if Esdras was unable to finish the accomplice that he would 5ft. step south. This way Esdras would be out of flanking, requiring the enemy to move and perhaps provoking an AOO.
Sorry about not including the penalty of debilitating injury. Forgot it applied to the other target as well.
About future uses of Danger Sight, I believe the best way of dealing with it would be for me to post something like this: (If attacked by X, Esdras will activate Danger Sight.) or (If reduced below Y hp, Esdras will activate Danger Sight against Z). Any thoughts?
Ah, thank you for catching that. They will indeed reposition to maintain the flank, but that will force the accomplice to make an acrobatics check which may end up provoking from Esdras, as you say.
That sounds perfect! I have no problem going back and rewriting a combat post if I need to (handling it any other way would give your character an unfair nerf), but if possible I would like to pause instead like we are doing here.
Combat post coming up!
Mixed success! He made his acrobatics so he didn't provoke, but due to danger sight the potentially deadly strike missed!
Forg seems more concerned about saving his own skin and is trying to get some distance from Draegar, so he cleverly used an item to destroy part of the walkway. Draegar you have a tactical decision to make: how will you handle the new positioning?
Ah poor Forg, didn't know you're packing so many throwing weapons.
Do you have precise shot? If not you're probably taking a -4 for attacking into melee, unless I'm missing something? I suppose you could just wait for Esdras to 5 foot step though.
Oh, good call. Forgot about that. Yeah, I'll delay for Esdras.
That was my last pillum that I have on me. (There's 2 more back with my gear, but I'm traveling light right now). I also have a bunch of alchemical weapons (currently stored with my bot) and a pepperbox revolver.
I'm starting to regret leaving most of my armaments back in my room though.
My next feat is going to be Throw Anything, so at that point everything will be a throwing weapon.
Awesome, sounds good.
And don't worry, part of the point of this encounter is to be not fully armed. It would have been unreasonable for Esdras to have his armor, and there's a reason all your enemies are only using small, concealable weapons.
Gonna give Esdras a chance to chime in.
We're getting closer to integrating new players! Benjamin at this point I'm going to make the decision and say I'm happy with your character and you're officially in!
Unfortunately Viscount has been gone for quite a while so we will look elsewhere. I have a promising area to pull some potential players from, going to aim for 1-2 more players.
Excellent, I'm happy to hear that I've been officially chosen to join this game. I'll be on standby
Although a couple of questions first:
1.) Has my character been around and on the ship for this particular event already? Sort of like a spoiler character you might see in a background shot if someone was to pay close enough attention.
Given that the church has been very keen on seeing my character succeed, or fail tragically, it seems as though being on a very big tour with High Cardinal Philius would be in my immediate factions interest to have me be present.
2.) Depending on the nature of my arrival into the story, I imagine you've given it some though already, is there some sort of grand entrance I should be preparing for when we inevitably meet up? Or am I going to be joining in a more humble way?
3.) What was with that weird nightmare/dream that some of the PC's had a while ago after the night in the inn?
1) You are absolutely present, as a background character as you describe.
2) I've got something worked out, keep an eye on your private messages :)
Alright so I'm trying to wrap my head around how I want to rule this.
Draegar wants to use his contraption to help with the areas that are hard to handle due to the heat. Logically this makes sense, because as a construct it would be immune to most of the environmental effects going on right now. However the problem is when it comes to the fire damage. I don't think the contraption is, or should be, immune to fire damage. However it makes sense that a metal contraption would not be damaged as quickly as human flesh when touching hot metal, and I love the creative solution.
So, I suggest the following houserule: The contraption is not subject to fire damage from contacting hot metal until after 1 minute of exposure, at which point it needs to spend 1 minute cooling. Does that seem fair?
That seems fine to me.
The other way of doing it would be to rule this as "heat damage" rather than "fire damage."
Heat is an environmental effect (like wind chill, or severe cold), which constructs are immune to.
Oh I understand the distinction there. That's why your contraption is immune to the environmental effects, including the heat. Buy actually touching the scalding hot metal is another issue.
I think as long as it's in short bursts it should be fine.
Sorry for the lack of gameplay posts today. Work was insane and I couldn't hardly find enough time to go to the bathroom, much less write a nice post out. Will update tomorrow.
To answer Esdras's question, likely the best use of his time would be finding heat proof gloves and blankets (which Forg does not have) and retrieving the chemicals Draegar needs to repair the reservoir. You can search for them yourself or attempt to find a ship technologist.
I just realized that the ooc formatting doesn't work in private messages. Weird.
Yeah, I think everything else works in the private message forum.
Also, prod...
Hmm, ah well. No go then.
Prodding again, just in case you have time.
Well since you prodded me at what is 3:30 a.m. my time, I was somewhat busy being asleep :P
Ah, forgive me. I normally work at odd hours of the night and in my other games people have recently taken to responding even then, so I became spoiled. I will endeavor to keep my responses to more reasonable hours of daytime.
Oh no, please post whenever is most convenient for you. That's part of the beauty of the boards. We will get around to responding once we wake up :)
Excellent, in that case I will continue to post as I have time. Also, I've taken to adding a few notes to the NPC tracker.
Yes, PLEASE. I will do what I can to help keep the NPC tracker updated but since I am the GM I have a biased opinion on what information should be recorded for future reference, which means I will end up writing a wall of text under their description in an attempt to keep my foreshadowing obscured.
Please please please feel free to use and edit the Google documents heavily.
Alright, back to progress!
Also I have successfully recruited a 4th to join us. She should be coming into the discussion thread shortly :)
And don't mind Benjamin, the dice generators don't work in private messages :)
From the woman's response, I believe the better thing to do is simply wait, at least for a couple minutes. If we move, there is no way to know how much a scene the woman will do... the knights can ignore her altogether or put the whole ship in alert for "murderers".
If she doesn't come back in about 10-15 min, then we move. Even if Esdras doesn't really care about his own status and reputation, he'd prefer not to cause too much trouble to his family.
Ah, forgive me...
"Look Benny, rules were meant to be broken. Don't you go apologizin' just cuz you done something he ain't liked. Mmm?"
*wave*
Hey gang, I'm the new gal here to keep you fellas straight!
You might have your work cut out for you.
Alright Caitlyn you will be inheriting Cass's stat block, which is:
16, 15, 13, 12, 12, 10
HP is max at 1st level and half rounded up thereafter.
Let me know if you need any help finishing out your build!
Alright, I'll get cracking on it shortly.
I don't see specific crunch rules, are they listed somewhere? Starting wealth ? Traits/drawbacks?
Standard wealth for a 4th level character.
No traits or drawbacks. You get the theme feat instead.
Background skills are in use.
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Also, on a not-so-separate note, what are everyone's thoughts on the feat tax rules and automatic bonus progression?
Gotcha, I'm on it!
I like both feat tax and automatic bonus progression rules. I'd adjust the automatic bonus progression to better fit the setting in general.
High fantasy, magic everywhere, keep it at progression = to character level.
Lower fantasy, magic is rarer/dead in certain areas = to character level +1 or +2.
The feat tax is a great way to open feats up more for everyone and allowing them to do their things like be great in certain skills without feeling like their characters are well and truly behind on power scale and encourages more interesting role-play opportunities.
what are everyone's thoughts on the feat tax rules and automatic bonus progression?
Big fan, personally. I prefer my magic items to be meaningful and martial characters not to have to invest resources in what should be basic mechanical options.
Feat Tax: Mixed feelings. I believe the original article was spot on about the needed changes... not sure if I agree with everything that was created thereafter on the full document (not against them, but not sure if everything was needed).
Automatic Bonus Progression: Huge fan. I use it on every game I GM. As Draegar said, makes the items more meaningful and interesting.
"Look Benny, rules were meant to be broken. Don't you go apologizin' just cuz you done something he ain't liked. Mmm?"
*wave*
Hey gang, I'm the new gal here to keep you fellas straight!
Glad to have you, Caitlyn.
Don't mind me.
Caitlyn, what are your thoughts on those optional rules?
Esdras could you explain your position on feat tax more in detail? Is there certain changes that don't sit well with you?
Also, I apologize for not updating the thread again yesterday since I had a response from both Draegar and Esdras well before the end of my typical posting hours. My work is ramping up significantly, although in hindsight I so want to get the scene with Benjamin (in private messages) advanced to a certain area before moving the gameplay thread forward. So Benjamin, if you're up for it, I want to see if we can ramp up the speed of our private messages. Please feel free to prod me more frequently with posts here in discussion.
Esdras could you explain your position on feat tax more in detail? Is there certain changes that don't sit well with you?
Sure!
"Initial Blog Changes"
I really like the idea of Combat Expertise, Power Attack, and Weapon Finesse being options. A lot of feats require them, so I'm fully onboard with removing them (specially Combat Expertise, which is far from great). Getting rid of Point-Blank Shot is also good for the same reasons.
Pooling all maneuvers in two groups is also good. More options for everyone.
On the other hand, I'm not sure if merging Dodge and Mobility is good. There are many feats that give +1 to AC and buffing one without buffing the others seems weird and I don't think they need to be buffed at all (if a PC wants to build a tank, she can with the tools we already have). The merging of ITWF and GTWF is also unnecessary. These feats are already powerful. Making weapon focus and its chain to encompass weapon groups feels a bit too munchkin IMO.
"Altered Feats and New Feats"
Merging Catch Off-Guard and Throw Anything is "OK", but perhaps a bit too good. The changes to Deflect Arrows is simply renaming Missile Shield. Shield Focus and Greater Shield Focus were overly buffed. Natural Spell applying to Wizards is a buff they don't need and steals the thunder of the Druid. New "hamstring" maneuver unnecessary.
Iron Guard is too good... IMO evasion is a rogue-like class signature ability. The same happens with Savage Charge, Unarmed Combatant and Whirling Cleave... just too good.
In general, I believe there are a ton of "not good" and "terrible" feats that could/should have been buffed but were not (comprehensible, since there are just too many of them), but instead they decided to buff some that had nothing wrong with them. The way I see it, they started with a good idea but them the "munchkin" spirit took over.
It's been some time since I've read the feat tax document, but I remember agreeing with the recommendations. My main take away from it was it depending on what kind of group I would play with. I'm fine with whatever the group wants to do, I'm very flexible.
I don't mind dodge and mobility being combined. They are often chained together as prerequisites, and mobility is far from a powerful feat.
I disagree with TFW feats being too powerful. Whenever I try to build a character who uses TWF, I really have to jump through a lot of hoops to make it work. You either need to get a stupid amount of feats (i.e. build a human fighter) or specifically use class abilities that modify the rules to make it easier (ranger, unchained rogue).
I don't mind weapon focus being expanded. I think it feels bad when the 12 feats you pour into one weapon is suddenly gone because the GM uses a critical fumble deck and you accidentally flung your prized weapon halfway across the battlefield.
I also don't mind catch off-guard and throw anything being merged. It seems unnecessary to go "Hey this feat can make me use improvised weapons!...but I need a second one if I want to throw them?..." If you want to beat somebody with a chair and then throw it at them, why not? They're already deadlier with a longsword and no feats.
Deflect arrows being updated seems to make it possible to use either unarmed strikes or a shield for the feat instead of getting to choose one. Probably unnecessary I agree. Although the shield brawler (aka the Captain America archetype) probably likes it.
Shield focus...wow yeah. I agree. An extra +4 against ranged attacks is dumb. Greater shield focus...well not as bad I would say. You have to be a fighter and you have to be level 8, and at that point being a little harder to hit with touch attacks isn't broken. Arguably would be different for a dex-based fighter. Perhaps a smaller modifier would be more reasonable.
Eh, wizards have 13 ways to get around that problem anyways. Burning a feat on it doesn't seem broken, especially when they could have taken a more powerful metamagic or crafting feat instead.
'Hamstring'...meh. I mean why shouldn't you be able to attack somebody's foot to slow them down? You could also just trip or grapple them which would probably be more effective. I agree it's probably unnecessary.
I agree on iron guard. I think maybe restricting it to tower shields only would be more reasonable since those impart an offensive penalty as well.
Savage charge doesn't seem bad. It's a way to keep a vital strike build online with mobility. To really benefit you need a ton of feats and levels.
I do understand the desired change with unarmed combatant. Usually the vision of these fighters is they can use all sorts of unarmed styles, which grapple is incredibly common in. Personally I'm ambivalent because I kind of loath grapple in general and use it sparingly. I think it's definitely useful and has its place, but when every other monster in the bestiary has grab and it takes 80% of players to roll a nat 20 to get out, it just often feels like a big "F you" to a single player most of the time.
Whirling cleave doesn't seem bad at all. It still takes 3 feats (and 6 levels) to get online, and it's really only useful against swarms of low-AC enemies. Remember as soon as you miss a single attack your cleave is over.
But overall I think I agree with your takeaway. Started to make certain builds feel less bad, but there is definitely some unnecessary power creep going on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What would everyone think of this: We implement the following feat tax changes:
Combat Expertise
Power Attack
Weapon Finesse
Point-Blank Shot
Pooling Maneuvers
Catch Off-Guard/Throw Anything merge (looking at you Draegar)
And beyond that, we will take changes on a case-by-case basis. I like the feat tax rules because they help eliminate barriers for entry, not for jacking up the power of feats. Thoughts?
I'm all for it, sounds fun to me!
If you're throwing in power attack, what about deadly aim?
I'm all for it, sounds fun to me!
If you're throwing in power attack, what about deadly aim?
An overlooked detail by me. Yes, "ranged power attack" I see as the same as power attack, and will also simply be a combat option instead of a feat.
Pending everyone else's thoughts and approval, of course. Although I am the DM, at this point the characters are in game and I would like express permission before changing the build rules, since that could set a precedent which may be seen as deeply unfair later down the road if I go mad with power.
Pending everyone else's thoughts and approval, of course. Although I am the DM, at this point the characters are in game and I would like express permission before changing the build rules, since that could set a precedent which may be seen as deeply unfair later down the road if I go mad with power.
I'm good with it.
Will we also be using the Automatic Bonus Progression? If so, how are we implementing it? I'm asking because mostly of Esdras gold was spent on itens that the ABP would replace.
Alright well we will definitely implement ABP, and we will also implement modified feat tax rules (further details TBD on a case-by-case basis).
Also, to Benjamin's question, I don't think I will modify the ABP rules. Although there is one significant area with wild/dead magic, the entire setting is increased in power due to the advance of technology.
Sounds great to me.
Since Power Attack was my 1st level feat, I swapped it out for toughness.
Checking in again. Yesterday was an extremely busy day with many errands to run and less sleep than usual to be had. Permission granted regarding GM's mad power and Feat Tax rules.
But on to important things.
Now on to more sleep.