Welcome!
I always do my best to run a friendly game. I want people to have fun and everyone to be able to laugh when something crazy happens.
We are going to try and complete a full module, so we will need to maintain a fairly quick pace!
I really want everyone to be able to post at least once a day, preferably more. If you are going to be away from the game for a short period (such as attending a convention, on a short vacation, or needing to do some business travel), I would ask that you please post that here so everyone involved knows.
Character Profiles
Please have a profile header displaying a brief overview of your character's current status. At the least it should include current/maximum hit points, AC (including flat footed and touch), saving throws, and any pools of expendable resources such as panache, grit, arcane pool, rounds of rage, rounds of bardic performance or other things like those that get expended as you use powers.
In the character profile, please include a complete stat block. You may put it under a spoiler if you wish, but if you do so please put it under a single spoiler. I do not want it split across multiple spoilers.
If you have your character sheet on a different site, please have a link to it in your character’s headers. This allows me to pull it up from any post by the character, rather than having to go to the profile and from there to the external sheet.
If you want examples, the PbP GM Kit has the pregenerated characters done in BB Code. Use those as a general guideline.
Botting
Botting is when someone else makes a roll or otherwise does something on behalf of your character. Bot is short for robot.
Please include botting instructions in your profile and a general tactics in case someone else needs to bot your character. It is alright if you put this in a separate spoiler from the stat block, but once again please don't split it over multiple spoilers.
It would be good for the group to come up with some general agreement for when people get botted. Some groups are more comfortable with botting than others.
Please also indicate if you have a preference for who runs your character. If there are resources you don’t mind them using, please say so.
If your character has any abilities that interrupt play such as Swashbuckler Parry and Repost, Dual Cursed Oracle’s Misfortune Revelation, the Bard Spell Saving Finale or any other things that can interrupt the normal sequence to allow an action, modify a check or cause a re-roll, I ask that you have something in your Botting instructions about when you want this used.. The reason is that it can really slow down a PbP if you have to serialize actions.
Botting those dreaded doors!
To speed things up I am going to ask the group for a marching order, typical weapon(s) or items at the ready, and the procedure your group follows when entering a new significant area. I will then put the whole procedure in a spoiler that is part of the post for the area.
This will allow us to more quickly proceed with the adventure.
I mention doors because without a procedure opening a locked door can take an extraordinary amount of time. I do not want to have to wait for each character to post what they are doing at every door before you open it!
Initiative in PbP
I will roll all Initiative checks for PCs and NPCs, sort them, and organize them into blocks. I will bold the names of characters that should act. I will take the NPC actions in order and reserve the right to delay an NPC in order to make them act with a group of other NPCs.
When it is your turn to act, please post. Do not wait for someone else to post just because they had a higher Initiative. If you know what you want to do but want to wait for someone else’s action to go off first, just say that.
Here is an example of how you could post before another player but have it go off after another player:
Sir Cumference waits for the elven archer Mister Oakleaf to get done firing his arrow before charging the Wily Snark.
I (and most other PbP GMs) do grouped Initiative in order to keep the adventure moving. In PbP people will have different posting schedules and often live in different time zones, Waiting for posts in order could make a single round of combat take days to resolve. Even in a normal game, that slows things down too much. In a special, you would never have time to complete anything.
Within the rules, it is as if everyone within the same Initiative block delayed until they could post.
Chronicle information
In order to be able to generate a PFS chronicle, I ask that each character please provide me the following information:
Player name:
Character name:
PFS and character #:
Faction:
Day Job roll (or a note that you have no day job):
Rules Questions
If there are rules questions, please post them in the discussion thread rather than interrupting the gameplay thread with rules debates.
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Hi there! I'm looking forward to this. Please let me know if you have any questions about my character, whose heavily invested in disguise and illusion; their profile is up to date.
Player name: Doug Hahn
Character name: Tycho
PFS and character #: 232159-6
Faction: Scarab Sages
Day Job roll (or a note that you have no day job): No day job
Player name: Pirate Rob
Character name: Theodric Milan
PFS and character #: 757-34
Faction: Liberty's Edge
Day Job: N/A
Progression: Normal
Couple notes: I played this for credit when it came out and will be using a star to replay. I have very little memory regarding what happened.
If replaying is at all an issue I'm happy to step asside.
Theodric is a Priest of Pharasma although mechanically he's a wizard based arcane trickster.
My preference for tracking his spell usage is just to strike through on his profile, if you want I can try and cram into spoilers in his header.
No weird interrupts although he does have a dodo familiar named Mango.
I am glad to see avatars for the animal companions and familiars. I would like a profile on Penny reminding me who It bosses around.
Couple notes: I played this for credit when it came out and will be using a star to replay. I have very little memory regarding what happened.If replaying is at all an issue I'm happy to step aside.
Theodric is a Priest of Pharasma although mechanically he's a wizard based arcane trickster.
My preference for tracking his spell usage is just to strike through on his profile, if you want I can try and cram into spoilers in his header.
No weird interrupts although he does have a dodo familiar named Mango.
I have no problems with you using a star to replay.
Strike through in the profile is how I do it on my own characters who are prepared casters. That is perfect as far as I am concerned. Spontaneous casters it is convenient but not required that you track number of uses.
I am fine with people lurking.
I am the one that is supposed to be doing the evil laughter. ;)
@Mongo
I don’t think I’ve seen a character use adamantine armor before. I suspect a large part of that is how long you have to go before you can afford it!
@Melody, Timtenzekil
I would like it if everyone could get profiles together before this weekend. I generally like to collect up Perception, Sense Motive and Initiative blocks for the group so I can just cut and paste them in when needed.
@Everyone
Please see above about door procedure. That isn’t required right away, but there is a section that will go much quicker if your group has one.
I’m currently looking at using Zarta Draleen as the quest giver, but if one of your characters has a link where you would want a different NPC agent let me know and I might use them instead.
Uncle Guaril.
He could make for an interesting quest giver, however we only have the one character from The Exchange faction.
Has anyone done Forged in Flame or a different scenario where Guaril featured and would have looked favorably on your character?
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@Mongo
I don’t think I’ve seen a character use adamantine armor before. I suspect a large part of that is how long you have to go before you can afford it!
I haven't either, TBH, and I suspect that's because most heavy-armor martials don't go straight fighter. Usually if they buy armor with a special material it's mithril for the lighter categorization/encumberance. Fighters get to move at full speed in heavy armor at 7th, but not a lot of characters take 7+ levels of fighter.
I also played all of Down the Blighted Path with him, so got a big chunk of cash all at once.
I have both saving finale and gallant inspiration. Any guidelines on how you'd like those to be handled?
Saving Finale is probably more troublesome since activating it is going to have an effect on your next round action economy.
You get to see that they failed the save. You don’t have a very good Spellcraft so often you will not know exactly what they are saving against assuming a spell or SLA.
If you want, you could give me guidelines for each type of save:
Reflex if it prevents them going unconscious or dying.
Will if it doesn’t appear to be a fear effect.
Fortitude if it doesn’t look like poison.
I will bot the second save for the person to keep the action going. I normally allow people to roll their own saves, but with something like this that could result in excessive delays.
Gallant Inspiration to confirm a crit can be a good one depending on situation. With this one, you could certainly say something to the effect of ‘This battle isn’t going to be a problem, no Gallant Inspiration.’ once the battle has started. Basically a one battle override on the general Botting instructions.
You could also qualify it as while you have more than 2 of that level spell slot left or something like that, so it doesn’t expend all your spells.
I would never have you expend either spell on a roll of natural 1. I figure it is obvious that an always miss / always fail situation occurred. I do not have a firm policy on how recognizable a near miss is.
I am willing to wait for a decision out of combat on skill checks.
If it becomes a problem, we will adjust as we go.
I am open to suggestions for other ways to handle this.
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Tim and Penny are updated, with a shiny new coat of paint!
Not a lot to warn about them, it's a pretty standard companion buffed by caster. Tim usually preps a couple energy attacks but spends most of the time buffing. First aid gloves let him be a combat medic as well. Penny has Bludgeoner and Power Attack and uses both unless commanded otherwise. Tim has a metamagic rod of extend to make Greater Longstrider and Greater Magic Fang last all day. He also leaves a 4th and 5th level slot open to be prepared when the need arises.
I haven’t done a lot of adventures with Guaril, so forgive me if the delivery is a little off,
Feel free to find your way to the tavern and meet the others involved in this most excellent opportunity!
I have added a slide deck for maps and added everyone’s avatar to the splash page. The slides are still under construction. I expect to expand them quite a bit tomorrow during the day.
Please place your avatars on Slide 2 in your standard marching position. This included Penny and (if they are to be considered a combat animal) Mango.
Would people like a Google Hangout just so we have an alternative way to communicate?
I will likely create a document for treasure and notes.
Thanks!
I do not have a firm policy on how recognizable a near miss is.
I’ve been thinking about this a bit.
In person, when something misses by one or two I will sometimes ask the person to check their math. It is really easy to miss a bonus.
In PbP, I have gotten into the habit of indicating when someone missed because of cover.
In thinking it over, I wouldn’t mind if you specified an amount someone missed by. It would help keep things going if you would allow me to roll the boost on a miss, so I can immediately resolve if it turned into a hit.
You could still say ‘leave me at least X slots’ and overrides on easy battles.
Mango participates in combat when I remember he exists which is embarrassingly rarer than it should be.
Testing BBCode. Please let me know if I have any modifiers wrong since I normally cut & paste these from my GM document,
Perception
Sense Motive
Hopefully everyone has already updated their profiles.
The convention starts in about 4.5 hours (midnight UTC), but I do not plan to start this game until about 12-14 hours after that — morning of the next day for me.
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Looks perfect for Tycho. Thank you.
Do you prefer updating the profile itself for spells/abilities used, or is a spoiler okay; example:
Abilities
Eternal Hope: 1/1
Moonlight Bridge (50'): 7/7
Veil Pool: 9/10
Mnemonic Vestments: 1/1
Active conditions: None
Spells
Level 1: 8/8
Level 2: 8/8
Level 3: 7/7
Level 4: 4/4
I would prefer to latter as it's set to a macro on my phone / computer but can update my character profile if that is your preference.
I would prefer to latter as it's set to a macro on my phone / computer but can update my character profile if that is your preference.
Given this, do it the way that works on your phone!
I prefer it in the header so it is easier for me to see, but it is much more important to me that the information be correct and up to date.
I typically strikeout prepared spells on the profile but can adjust as needed.
That is fine for prepared casters, it is generally the spontaneous casters where I want the spell count.
In any event, I try to be reasonable. If someone has a method that works much better for them, I am willing to allow them to use it provided it doesn’t greatly increase my workload.
I like being able to just look at the header in the post to see the information I will need. If I have to go to the full profile, I don’t want to have to open multiple spoilers just to find the information I may need. If the character sheet is on some other site, I really want a link to that in the header since that allows me to directly open it rather than a two step process.
I like that Mongo noted the DR in his header since I will need that every time he is hit. I really want people to keep their ACs updated in their headers. Having an active conditions there can be quite helpful as well, to remind me of current buffs or conditions.
The slide deck is mostly complete — found a couple of things that I want to edit still but they aren’t anything that would get in the way of us starting.
Timtenzekil and Penny aren’t on the marching order yet, Slide 2. Also, since the initiative modifiers are so close together I am willing to have Timtenzekil and Penny share initiative if you want.
We should be able to start soon. I will work on Guaril’s entrance as the quest giver.
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Oh gods that's too many Pathfinders, put some back...
(I kid, Penny is pre-errata bear companion, so she shouldn't be overwhelming.)
I'll have them roll separately, even if it means Penny spends some rounds waiting for commands. Speaking of which, let me add a default trick to her tagline.
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I like being able to just look at the header in the post to see the information I will need.
I can do both, no worries :) I tend to get frustrated with the slowness of the Paizo site, but I totally understand the value of a having info at-a-glance for the GM.
Tycho has a wand of Heightened Awareness; I'll make sure to note that in active conditions for you (initiative will be +9 whenever it's up, just assume it's used when we roll initiative).
Profile is updated!
Currently I have the map of the Inn rotated 90 degrees so that I could expand it more. I am not satisfied with it and would like other opinions.
Should I rotate it back and then use the room on the side to label what the different rooms are, or leave it so there is more room if you want to place your avatars on the map?
I expect the map will be used more for reference and roleplay than any tactical combat, although combat is certainly possible.