GM Ladile & the Pathfinder Society Present: The Slave Master's Mirror (Inactive)

Game Master Lady Ladile

Mr. Monty's weapon is an intelligent weapon, and thus gets it's own perception checks and has 360 darkvision and telepathy out to 60 feet. Thus, it's surprisingly hard to get the drop on Monty as Slitherbane will give him a heads up to impending doom. So if your doing perception rolls behind a screen, don't forget to check for him to. Since he's an item, I think he only gets a +2, but a extra roll is a extra roll.

As a brawler, Brady has few surprises, other than the Martial Flexibility ability that lets him pick up feats on the fly (Faliana has this too through her brawler level). Some common uses of this ability are spoilered in his profile, if you want to review in advance some of the choices that he has.

Tad has agile tongue (delivers attack spells, including cure spells on allies, with 10 ft reach) and a bonded holy symbol (acts like wizards' bonded item, allowing any spell on cleric list once a day, without need to prepare it)

edit: I also should make sure that you as GM are aware that because Tad has the ecclesitheurge archetype, he's a squishy as a wizard. He's a squishy, sweet, gentle little healer who occasionally gets angry enough at evil to throw a fireball.

Ecclesitheurge also gives him the abiltity to prepare domain spells from his primary domain (fire) in non-domain spells, and choose a third domain for a day to take spells from, but he's not using either of these abilities in his current set of spell choices.

Thanks for the info, Dale - definitely handy to know! And while we're on the subject, does anyone else do anything super cool or unique that I might need to know about? :)

(Also apologies for my posting slowness; in the interests of transparency I sometimes hit what I can only describe as depressive slumps and they tend to interfere with my ability to get anything more than the bare minimum done.)

I've almost been knocked out cold with a cold myself. I need to get a gameplay post in, but this headache has been making makings sentences difficult.

As for unusual abilities, there's Martial Flexibility that Brady mentioned, but Fali also has five levels of Relic Channeler Medium, and like any medium she does have access to spirit surge where she can roll a d6 six and add it to any d20 roll that was modified by her spirit bonus. The kicker about it is she can do it AFTER failing, so she might (very rarely, I forget about it a lot tbh) make you have to retcon things.

Other than that, she has object reading like an Occultist, and a whole host of other personalities that can occupy space in her head or take over her body for a time. All of this information is in spoilers in her profile (so I don't have to go search for it every time I can't remember the exact wording) so feel free to go reading around. There is also a great primer on her spirits and what mechanics they provide.

Thanks for all the additional info, guys! I'll definitely check out Faliana's profile as I've not got much experience playing with or GMing for mediums/occultists.

Just a note that I've got an early day tomorrow which necessitates going to bed much earlier than I normally do. Depending on how tired I am when I get home from work, updates will either happen tomorrow in the early evening or possibly in the wee hours Thursday morning!

So this is where all you guys ended up!

And shame on you Monty for GM crediting yourself out of Senghor! I'd set you guys up perfectly for that one! Geographically, and story-wise (it might have answered some lingering historical questions from the prior scenario (though I suppose only Dale really cared about that =)))

And, as an FYI, Ladile was in the first (and 2nd through 6th) scenarios I gm'd in pbp!

Glad you all found a good place to team up again (even if it isn't in the Expanse!)

Dale will certainly plot his revenge for this disgrace. They'll never see it coming.

So this is where all you guys ended up!

And shame on you Monty for GM crediting yourself out of Senghor! I'd set you guys up perfectly for that one! Geographically, and story-wise (it might have answered some lingering historical questions from the prior scenario (though I suppose only Dale really cared about that =)))

And, as an FYI, Ladile was in the first (and 2nd through 6th) scenarios I gm'd in pbp!

Glad you all found a good place to team up again (even if it isn't in the Expanse!)

Actually it was Tad who was leveled out of range (and I was having troubles counting exp and thought Fali was out of range.) Monty wasn't out of range until after we decided to try a different scenario.

I'll just have to try brining a different character around to see the repercussions of Senghor!

See, me rushing in wasn't the problem! For once!

Couldn't be helped though, my brother in law and sister asked me to run that one, and I never could tell my baby sister no.

Hey guys, real talk time. I know that my posting habits (or lack of) have been really erratic lately and out of character. While it may not have been as apparent in this game as we're still at the beginning of the scenario it's still something that I've been aware of. The fact that a few of you guys (my players across various games) have checked in with me privately via PM is just further proof of it.

This is frustrating for me because I can't point to any one thing as an explanation for why this is. I still feel excited when I think about the vast majority of my current games as both a GM and as a player. My terrible traitor brain continually whispers, 'Hey, you know <scenario> or <module>? You should totally GM that in the future!' But when I sit down to write, I just...can't concentrate. Sometimes I can't concentrate at all, other times I may be able to get through a few games before my brain pulls me in a different direction and I get distracted with something else.

I don't know if it's stress because I don't feel particularly stressed, but who knows? I don't know if it's lack of proper rest - my sleep schedule is *still* somewhat erratic, especially lately with having to pull random day shifts at work due to being short-staffed. I don't know if it is burnout, just manifested as inability to concentrate rather than feelings of apathy/dread/loathing. I really don't know. But what I do know is that it's affecting my ability to provide fun, quality games for my players and to be a fun, quality player myself. And that's not fair to you guys, to my GMs, and to my fellow players.

As much as part of me feels like it's admitting defeat - for I can actually be a pretty stubborn person under the right circumstances - this has been happening for long enough that I think I need to make some changes and seek outside assistance to reduce my game load as a GM and as a player and see if that will help the situation. It really pains me to do this after having agreed to be your GM but I think it would be best at this time for me to step aside and find another GM to run this scenario (or a different one) for you. I'm sorry :(

Thanks for letting us know. I think it's better to pull the bandaid off quickly here at the beginning than to get deeper and let the game whither away. Take the time that you need to care for yourself first; that's always the priority. The games will survive. Thanks again for being willing to pick up our game, and best wishes moving forward. I hope to play with you again on these boards when you feel more settled!

No worries GM. Scale back and relax. Spring is coming and with it some warm sunshine and hopefully back to your regular work schedule.

Thank you so much for your honesty here, Lady Ladile. Real life, including taking care of yourself, have to come first.

Hugs.

Hey, take care of YOU first, Lady L. This is only a game.

Sometimes you don't have the energy, or the inspiration, or the time, I know that. It happens.

Take some time off if needed, do whatever pleases you, even if it is doing nothing that pleases you.

You are playing/gming plenty of games, its totally normal to feel unable to concentrate.

*sends a big hugs from across the Pond*

Wise Sage Monkey Monk Says:

"Games are for fun and happiness, if they bring neither, they do not serve their purpose."

On a less silly note, seriously, take care of yourself first and foremost. Thank you for being honest and up front with us about struggling, and I'm sure we all understand needing to do what you need to do for you.

Warm and fuzzy bear hugs from me as well for you to feel better.

(sends a healing lick towards the voice in the sky)

How could a monkey give a bear hug, Mr Monty?

By asking the bear who writes his posts to give her a hug of course! ;)

It's a little sad to hear that you con't continue this, but I'm even more saddened to hear you haven't been feeling up to posting lately!

You should definitely focus on feeling better! We can do what we can here!

Now let's make that bear hug a warm fuzzy group hug!

Thank you everyone for being so understanding. I've been PbPing in various capacities and with varying game loads since early 2014 so I guess I was overdue for a bit of burnout. Right now I may have a replacement GM for you - GM Hiyami (who is a player in one of my other games and thus aware of my situation) messaged me with an offer to help me find coverage for some of my games. If you guys are amiable to it, I'll let them take over for me here. If you'd rather *not*, please just send me a PM rather than posting it here and I'll look for someone else to take over.

Either way, you guys are wonderful and I hope that I'll be able to run a proper game for all of you - whether with these particular characters or others - at some point in the future once things are settled and I'm back to my usual self <3

Let us get back to you on that, Lady Ladile. We still have a google hangout for the players at this table, and there we can discuss privately.

Take care Lady L

That's also fine, Thad! I know you'd all like to keep these specific characters together for at least one more mission so I understand if you'd rather work together on finding your own replacement GM. If there's anything I can do to help you guys with that process, please just let me know.

OK, I think the conclusion we've reached is that we will wait until after RetroCon to play with these characters.

Thank you so much, Lady Ladile, for being willing to run this for us, and for being so honest and working so hard to help us when you found you couldn't.

We have a google hangout for all the players, so you can mark this as inactive if that would be convenient for you.

Understandable and Dale's player indicated to me yesterday that that would probably be the option you guys would take for now. I will say again that I'm sorry that I couldn't offer you guys the game and experience that I wanted to. Should I end up finding myself with an excess of time and an abundance of creative energy in the next few months then I'll hit you up and we can see about trying this again, whether with these same characters or others :)