Hey everyone, thanks so much for your patience (and Linge for so thoughtfully reaching out!) I should be able to jump back in now and resume normal play. Will post tomorrow!
Hurray! Welcome back Glim! So happy to see you again! :D
Ditto!
Welcome back
Does Horn get an AoO on the skeleton as it moves past him to attack Glim?
ah yes, she should have one. I'll add that. also realized I forgot skeleton DR, but I'm not going to try to retcon the attacks that already happened.
also, Linge, summon spells are 1 round spells. you can start casting now, but the eagle won't show up until next round
well that solves that question i suppose
Oh, okay! Sorry :)
I've got two questions GM!
Did you count the eagle's attacks this round? Does Horn get an attack of opportunity since the half-orc switched weapons?
I did not calculate in the eagles for your next round. one of them hit for 1 point of damage, I'll add it to the tracker
the half orc had a hand crossbow and a sword. she is still holding the crossbow, and did not sheath it so no AoO.
Sorry about the double post, all. I posted once and it never showed up. I refreshed several times, then left for almost an hour before trying again. the old post didn't show, so i had to redo the whole thing, which ended up having different die results. we'll just go with the second post, ignore the first one.
Happened to me before, no worries.
Yeah, the website is bugging sometimes. Not anyone's fault :)
Btw, I'm sitting on the edge of my seat here waiting to see if this is going to be a TPK.
Full disclosure this fight here accounts for probably 25% of ALL of the deaths reported for the ENTIRE AP in the AP message board. I personally had one of my PCs die in this fight in one of my PbP games I'm running.
Granted, a good number of those are because some GMs are jerks who just want to see players killed instead of following the given tactics/morale pieces of the NPCs' stat blocks.
Still, a very tough fight, with a lot of opponents and stringing together several small encounters into back-to-back fights with no chance to rest and recover. all at level 1!
I'm loving it ;)
Oh wow! xD Now I'm scared...
Funny how you and I have widely different reactions, Glim! :P
I wondered about that. This bandit leader is throwing out multiple 2nd level spells, with a +5 attack modifier and a poisoned weapon. How is the standard 1st level 15-point-buy party of 4 that APs are supposedly designed around supposed to beat that in combat, let alone all the other enemies with him?
Probably by finding a way to ambush the house and fight the thieves in smaller groups, or just avoiding them altogether.
Imagining that you managed to free the horses, for example, maybe you'd get to a point where they would be forced to separate into two groups: one that goes out to recapture the horses, another one that's guarding the house and possibly trying to find out whoever did that. You'd have to coax them out of the house, and then do your best to split them up while remaining as unseen as possible.
But it still requires a lot of coordination, strategy and sheer luck that would be difficult to achieve for a newly formed group. But I guess that Reign of Winter would encourage creative solutions in an environment that's very hard to survive :)
Or course, you may also strategically surrender (which we might do xD), and then try to work out a way to escape from your captivity.
Set the house on fire, and then ambush folks as they stood around discussing :P
Not a bad idea! But if the lady we're looking for is inside, that might kill her! Besides, they would immediately know it had to be an ambush once they ruled out the fireplace accident :P
Well, yeah, of course there are ways around it. I meant in a straight-up fight, in a vacuum. It's no surprise a lot of people would die here just because of the difference in power levels between a standard party and this (boss) encounter, if things are played in a way that brings it out.
You're right! The difficulty seems to go from hard to insane
Ya level 1 is pretty painful.
Well, with a little luck we've dropped the bandit leader and can now mop up the half orc.
Then again, if we've not dropped the leader, odds are they'll drop Garran, making it two on two...
It might have been enough if he's level 2, especially if he's a spellcaster with little HP. If he's level 3 or 4, we've pretty much lost...
If they're throwing level 3 or 4 bosses at us after a string of mini-encounters without downtime, then, yeah ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The little shrug says it all xD
Like I said, th morale suggestions really make the difference on this encounter. the designers tried to get creative in how they built these NPCs which put them high on the power curve. if they dont' surrender when the book suggests they do, or if they use some of their abilities that are not in their tactics, they will likely kill a party
With the defeat of Rohkar and the rescue of the Lady, you have all reached level 2!
Feel free to keep the conversation with the bandit and the lady going as you work on leveling up.
post in the thread the updates to your characters, and be sure to update your sheets.
in addition, please update all relevant stats in the Google Slides. I use those to roll your saves/checks dugin my posts and to track your HP. it is up to you to make sure the stats there stay up to date as you level up. It's a lot easier for you to each update your own stats than for me to do it for all of my PCs across multiple games I am running.
Level 2:
+5 HP
+1 BAB
+1 F/R
Discovery (Precise Bomb)
Poison Resistance +2
Poison Use
+1 Formula (Cure Light Wounds)
+1 Skills (7) (Perception, Disable Device, Sleight of Hand, Spellcraft, Survival, Stealth, Sense Motive)
+1 Background Skills (2) (Know. Nature/Dungeoneering)
Yaaaay!
+1 BAB (+1 total)
+1 fort/will save (+3/+0/+3 total)
+1 0th/1st level spell/day (3/1 total)
+2 spells known: magic missile, vanish
+7 skills:
-+1 knowledge (arcana) (total 2 ranks)
-+2 knowledge (dungeoneering) (total 2 ranks)
-+1 knowledge (history) (total 2 ranks)
-+1 knowledge (planes) (total 2 ranks)
-+1 spellcraft (total 2 ranks)
-+1 lore (ulfen mythology) (total 2 ranks)
favored class magus: +1/4 arcane pool point (+0 total)
Do we get the level-up HP immediately (in which case I'm alive again) or once we rest?
Also, it doesn't matter this level, but are we still going to be going with Automatic Bonus Progression?
Yay level up!!
Looking at Horn's sheet and the animal companion descriptions, I realize that I haven't counted the bonuses applying to Small creatures (+1 Size, AC, -1 CMB and CMD). Sorry :( Should I change them now?
I also don't remember the rules for Background Skills. Do they have to add a rank in the same skills as Level 1, do we have to choose others, or are both alternatives possible?
I also don't remember the rules for Background Skills. Do they have to add a rank in the same skills as Level 1, do we have to choose others, or are both alternatives possible?
You get two extra skill points that can be used on any of the relevant skills. They can, but don't have to be, the same ones you took at 1st level.
Okay thanks Sigrun!
Level 2:
Linge:
+ 6 HP( 5+1 Favored Class)
+ 1 BAB (+1 Total)
+ 1 Fort/Will save (+4, +2, +7 total)
New Special Capacity:
Arctic Native: At 2nd level, an arctic druid gains a bonus on Initiative checks and Knowledge (geography), Perception, Stealth, and Survival checks equal to 1/2 her druid level in cold or icy terrain, and she cannot be tracked in cold or icy terrain.
For the sake of convenience, rolls with bonuses applying in cold/icy terrain will be indicated in Linge's sheet with the abbreviation AN (ex: Perception +9/ +10 AN)
Skills: (6)
+ 1 Heal
+ 1 Knowledge (arcana)
+ 1 Knowledge (nature)
+ 1 Perception
+ 1 Spellcraft
+ 1 Survival
Background Skills:
+ 1 Handle Animal
+ 1 Knowledge (Geography)
Spells:
+ 1 0 Spell
+ 1 1st Level Spell
Horn:
+ 6 HP (5+ 1 Cons)
+ 1 BAB (+2 total)
+ 1 Will save (+4, +5, +1 Total)
+ 1 Skill Rank (3 total)
New Feat:
+ Dodge (+1 AC Bonus)
Skills:
+ 1 Intimidate
+ 1 Perception
+ 1 Stealth
Still smol but even more dangerous than before!
Level 2
Slayer 1
Hit points +7 Total: 17
BAB +1 Total =1
Saves: Fort +2; Ref +2 Total: +6 Fort; +3 Ref; +5 Will
Skills +7
Bluff +5
Diplomacy +5
Heal +8
Knowledge, Religion +6
Perception +9
Sense Motive +10
Survival +7
Background skills +2
Knowledge, Nobility +5
Linguistics +6 Added language: Celestial.
Slayer specials: Studied Target, Track.
Only doing a 1 level dip into slayer, then it's cleric the rest of the way.
what are y'alls thoughts on Automatic Bonus Progression? I have not run a campaign with those rules before. I imagine it would take some adjusting to the loot you find as we go that would affect bonuses, but I am sure I can figure it out if everyone prefers to play that way. I'll leave it to a vote
Not sure what that is - can someone provide a link?
I don't know what that is either... I found this
It's linked at the bottom of Shalm's original recruitment post. Did you all not read that?...
I'm fine either way. I haven't used it before either and wouldn't mind trying it, but if it creates too much work for you, I'm perfectly fine leaving it out.
That was nine months ago now - slipped my mind, but thanks for the reminder.
Ya I remember him saying he was going to use the rules. I will have to read them again before I vote yay or nay. Of course we have to vote for our new Prime Minister up here in Canada here soon too. :D
I am fine with the automatic progression rules. I took a look at them, they are not the best for casters but I can make due. So my vote is to use them if everyone else does.
Lvl 2
HP +5
Will +1
Skills (5)
Bluff +1
Kn Arcana +1
Kn Local +1
Kn Planes +1
Spellcraft +1
Background Skills (2)
Kn History +1
Kn Nobility +1
Spells per Day
Lvl 1 +1
New Spells (2)
Sleep
Colour Spray
it sounds like no one is particularly attached to the automatic bonus progression. if no one has strong feelings about using it, I would prefer to keep things as written rather than making the adjustments needed for those rules.
the main benefit of ABP is that you leave slots open for more interesting magical items as it reduces the need to fill your inventory with stat-boosting items like Belt of Giant Strength or Cloak of Resistance.
but it also means I will need to replace or remove all of those stat-based items from the loot in the game.
Fine with me!
I'm fine without it!
Shall we gather the loot and get some rest? Sigrun and Glim must be on the edge of their seats :P