Unexpectedly traveling the next few days, my posting will be erratic at best.
I’m always a little sad when there aren’t any new posts being made but my wife started a new job this week, no longer working from home, and it is a little bit of a relief that most of you are too busy IRL right now to be upset about how that’s impacted my posting. My children are back to school next week so I should be able to post normally again then. In the meantime, I hope to have something up this evening, but I’ll definitely have it up tomorrow during the day if not.
It does seem like folks are particularly busy. I hope that you all are well.
I wait with happy expectations. But understand completely if it gets delayed sir.
I should be good to resume posting by the weekend.
Elfgate?!
*squees in meta-knowledge*
I just noticed that in one of my posts yesterday there’s a typo… “in operable” should have been ‘inoperable’. I just wanted to clarify that in case anyone thought it was intended to be ‘in operation’ or something like that.
I assumed that it was inoperable!
Also, is anyone else joining Gaius near his stealthy perch for some bird-watching?
Seth is
Roll Stealth! Probably.
Yup- anyone doing any ‘bird watching’ should make themselves invisible or roll a stealth check.
I’ll be traveling all day tomorrow, should resume posting Thursday.
Apologies for being incommunicado. Having some RL issues with sick in-laws, currently have no ETA on resolution. I'll try to post when I can, but currently can't quote a posting rate.
So... I've been weighing how to proceed, and I'd like some feedback. I know a lot of you/us have a lot going on IRL right now and I'm trying to figure out how to balance keeping us moving vs leaving people behind. I never like 'pausing' games (because, in my experience, more often than not they never really get going again), but in the last full week we've gotten 2-3 posts from Gavin and the rest has just been back and forth between Gaius and I...
If everyone else is reading along and keeping up with what's going on, I could suspend the rule of 2 and advance us, but it kind of seems like if people are reading along it wouldn't be too hard to toss up a quick 1-2 sentence post confirming (or voting against) Gaius' plan to turn to mist and wait to potentially see the mate (for example)?
Are people reading along? Do you want to suspend the rule of 2? Do we need to take a break for a week or two until more of us are in an IRL position to keep up? Have some of you just lost interest in the game?
I'm also eager to know what other people think.
For Arbiter, I appreciate that this game has never really felt like it's been on any rails. It feels like the world is truly open for us to go and do things, even if we don't necessarily know what sorts of things there are to do.
I'm thoroughly enjoying this, but if it would help some of the others, could we have a way of picking up on breadcrumbs for other things? Like, doing diplomacy to gather non-specific rumors that will point us towards other things that we can explore in a given place during a given time period? As the one with the game bible, you know what is interesting and worth exploring.
Another thing that could be beneficial (but also might introduce more up-keep) is formalizing character's goals. A podcast that I listen to has called these Bonds. My in-person gaming group started using these to help us structure some inter-character roleplay when one or two members of the group seemed to be struggling to interact (both with each other and the plot). I'll copy and paste our organizing email into a spoiler below. Let me know what you think.
So here's how it will work. Over the course of a book section, each player will be able to work towards a bond between their character and each of the other PCs (so each person has two separate bonds with the two other PCs). Bonds are interpersonal goals than can relate to the plot and a character's skills, or they can be totally based on personality traits and non-AP goals. Some examples would be: "Ostrya feels that she and Gregor have no common ground. She would like to find something they have in common and can talk about." or "Ostrya has noticed that the bulk of the emotional/psychological responsibility for the mission in Merratt County has fallen on Wyran. She decides to look for ways to take on more of the load."
You could also have a bond along the lines of "Ostrya is excited to have another person around who clearly enjoys fighting. She wants to enlist Red as a sparring partner and teach him some unarmed combat tricks." This last bond works as a bond as long as some actual role play is built into it, and these bonds will never confer a stat bump in any skill or ability. That doesn't mean you can't use skills and combat as scaffolding for a bond, and this could be a great opportunity to provide narrative reason for picking up a feat or skill (or multi-class) that would otherwise seem random.
At the end of each section, we'll take a few minutes out of character to talk about how we did on working towards our bonds. If, as a group, we feel a bond is resolved or worked towards in a substantive way, the player will earn a free d20 reroll to be used on any of their own rolls or another PC's roll. This cannot be used to force a reroll for an NPC, whether friend or foe. So this will add up to a max total of 6 rerolls across the party to be used in each section. You of course won't have any yet in part 1, and the bonds you make in part 4 will make points that can be used in book 4 if we decide this is a system we want to keep using.
Hopefully those examples are sufficiently general. But having such transparent goals written out could help us as players focus on what we're doing and why beyond a given mission and could give the GM some hooks to tug on. Any interest?
Hello, I've had a rather busy couple of days, my brain is flagging behind most of the rest of me. I took part in a hard programming competition that my rather aged mind had to really wake up for, but we took fourth out of 30+ teams, so it ended well.
Now to the topic at hand. Details are nice icing to me, on top of the cake of things that are happening. Conversation is lovely, massively lovely, but sometimes it becomes more about details than a back and forth unless you are either Gaius, the witness, and you who love the details, I am assuming that love of details based on the posts and AM not judging in the least, the differences in people are amazing and Wonderful. But for me, detail is nice on top of meat.
Does that make sense? Maybe it is the difference between world-building and story-building? Just my thoughts, not official definitions, but in story-building, everything written is to move or expand the story along. World-building can be great tomes of additional data to make the world BREATHE. Both are great, but people can have their preferences. Mine is toward story-building with a peppering of world-building.
I am really not very detailed oriented.
Does that help at all?
---
I didn't think the griffon watching required further direction from others, since it feels like non-critical. If Gaius wants to watch for the mate, I am happy to let him watch. I am reading, sometimes at work, where I would have to answer on my phone which is annoying, so don't unless there is something I feel like I would contribute.
I will read Character Bonds, I promise Gaius, just going to crash though after answering my neglected posts. So tomorrow.
While I like the idea behind the Character Bonds, I feel it requires more work and that's just something I just flat-out don't have a lot of time for. But it does basically say: "Chemistry is key, between the pc's". And it is! You HAVE to find it. If you can't find some form of chemistry with your fellow players, you're on an island and that sucks. I've been there in some of my games in the past. It's a horrible feeling. At first, you try to switch something up about your pc and see if that works. And if that doesn't work then, I don't know, ask to play a different pc I guess. It's either that or drop from the game. *shrugs*
Sometimes chemistry hits right off the bat. Sometimes you have to work at it. And sometimes, you may never find it. And that's usually when people quit if they fit into that last category.
But with the whole "studying the griffon" business, I just don't see that as something Maximus would be interested in. It's fine for the others to partake, I've got no issues with that, I just don't really have anything to contribute to it. It just doesn't "fit" Maximus, you know?
And I've been keeping up. I'm just at a loss for what to say seeing how it doesn't really spark Maximus's interest. I should say something but I just draw a blank. I wished I didn't.
The Elf gate does pique his interest though! Well, a working Elf gate would. Still, interesting. :)
Goals are important. I don’t think I’m going to ask for anything formal from people (given how busy everyone is), but I always welcome more insight into people’s characters, especially if it helps me keep characters interested and engaged. I do have at least one goal in mind for each of you already but they are, generally speaking, campaign goals and won’t be resolved until the final chapter. If anyone has short term goals that I don’t know about, please do share them.
As for breadcrumbs and the sandbox… I think I’ve said this before, but most of what’s going on outside of the Tower is sort of beneath you all. You’re at a power level where the five of you could turn the tide of a war, or overthrow the ruler of almost any kingdom. Since you’ve indicated that you don’t want to risk potentially making significant changes to history, most of what you do outside the Tower will largely be more world-building type stuff. Although, it is also story-building for characters like Gaius and the Witness who have goals that this current exploration is furthering. I wonder if there’s a way we could get players more invested in each other’s goals so that things like that feel like story building to more players?
That question, I think, is good, but it was a little off topic… I started that line of explanation to say that in general inside the Tower is a better place to find breadcrumbs and plot hooks while outside of the Tower is (at least at this point) really a sandbox for exploring, or trying to achieve specific goals you being there with you. I know the inside might not have immediately felt like a good source of hooks, but some of that is just because we had (and to some extent still have) to get through some acclimation, and partly because as a group you were immediately distrustful of the two largest groups you encountered (which happen to be the two largest sources of hooks, though certainly not the only ones).
For the immediate future, it sounds like we’re alright with pressing on and mostly everyone is at least keeping up with reading the posts. I’ll try to streamline the birdwatching a little bit (or lot for the last little bit with this gryffon) and hopefully we can maybe get a little more rhythm RPing at the hot spring and visiting the Elfgate. Oh, and remember too that some things that seem like just details right now (like an inoperable magic gate) could potentially prove to be meaningful later (like if you find a way to reactivate it, or to reach it back when it was still working).
Finally swallowed a dose of reality and dropped a few games. Still working 70 hours a week for the next two months at least, but now I will only have this game to keep up with. that should improve both my quality and consistancy.
Yeah, I'm alright with pressing on. All good.
And I was wondering about the whole "reactivating" the Elf gate bit. That'd be interesting if we could find a way to pull that off.
@Gavin: 70 hours a week?!?! That's insane, dude. I'd be a zombie if I worked that long every week.
Yes, sir, I am impressed you can type after 70 hours! Good luck. Hope it gets better for you in all good ways.
Getting ready for work, but yes, fully and 100% want to continue!
Hi folks! I’m still alive, though currently my life has skewed towards resembling a cross between General Hospital and the Jerry Springer show.
I’m catching up on 42(!) gameplay posts, then I’ll get a post up regarding the elf-gate, probably tomorrow morning.
42! Ugh. Man, that just makes me want to cry. I've come back to 31 in ONE DAY! before. Boy oh boy, that was deflating. Hard to catch up to that. But I did! Took me a couple of hours but I did. Wears me out thinking about it now. :P
My dreams of having 30 consecutive minutes to myself this morning didn't materialize. Working on a post in the moments I have.
No detours or downtime to speak of for Gaius.
Same for Gavin (unless he sees a good tea house)
lol- might be tricky to spot a good tea house at 60 mph almost half a mile up, but I'll keep that in mind.
All good
I just spent the entire day (since 9am) in online meetings… I’ll get a post up tonight but I need a little time away from the computer first. Yikes. And I have to do it again tomorrow.
Those kinds of days are the worst. Please take your time.
Ugh. What a beating that sounds like. I don't blame you for not wanting to stare at a computer. That gives me a headache just thinking about staring at a computer for that long. Ugh again.
My meetings actually ended early today! Huzzah! That never happens.
I've updated the campaign journal with your most recent travels. I don't want to rush anyone, but if there aren't any new posts for me to address I'll (assume he casts it and) post the Witness' scrying results this evening.
@Gaius- Gavin, the Twins, and the Witness all have cold resistance from their dragon rings, so its just you and Maximus who need to worry about it. If neither of you are able to cast endure elements (twice) I'll have Gavin do it (unless he posts otherwise before I bot him in the next post).
Unfortunately endure elements is not on the bard's spell list, so Gaius is having a hard time.
But communal endure elements can be cast and split! So it's a matter of whether to spend two level one spell slots or one level 2 spell slots and hope that we're not there for more than 12 hours.
(Two level one spell slots sounds better, ngl.)
Doesn't look like I have anything to help, sorry.
@Twins- I’m sorry, that’s what I get for going from memory without double checking. There’s a spell called darkvision that gives the target darkvision for an hour/level and I thought that was one of your attunement SLAs (probably misremembering that granted power).
We’ll have the Witness use a mythic point to cast darkvision instead
Thankfully we're not usually burning through all of our resources in a single day, and I somehow doubt that we'll do so on this day.
I hope that Gaius' mini-recap was useful as a summary. It was helpful for me to figure out what all we had learned on the way to telling Joska.
I did include links to each gryffon in the campaign journal too, in case anyone wants/needs to go back and look at them later on for any reason.
*Important Announcement*
I was going to wait until after you returned to Joska and completed your quest, but since you've already done all the actual work...
For traveling over 5,000 miles around Cardriss in a time other than your own, and successfully cataloging all 5 remaining species of endangered gryffons, you have all earned your 2nd mythic tier.
Congratulations!
If you have any questions about updating your character, please don't hesitate to ask; and, like we do with leveling, please post what you're gaining here in the discussion thread so I can see what it is (ie what path ability your picking and what stat you're putting your bonus in).
*ahem*
Gaius (as with everyone else) gains Amazing Initiative.
His Strength score is also going to go up. Just a twinge more accuracy and a twinge more damage, but it's about time for one of his stats to break 20.
I'm going to have to think about the Path Ability a bit, but my short list is:
I'm leaning towards either legendary item or mythic spellcasting, both of which would fit Gaius' development.
Remember, with legendary item, it’s 1 ability/tier to a maximum of 3/6/10 (depending on how many times you’ve taken it). So, you’d only have 2 abilities right now.
Yup. I'm just putting down my shortlist.
Well THAT'S freaking cool! Gonna have to look through all that fun stuff now. :)
Decisions!
Um, dex for the twins (though I did consider int). Ability, hmmm, impossible speed is really calling to me. 60 speed is awesome. Clean blade is really cool.
But probably best to take the next armor master so she is no longer hindered by armor for dex bonuses, arcane failure chance (which I always forget about), and so on.
Impossible speed is AWESOME. I have a dwarf with that. It's freaking amazing. A dwarf blasting away at 60'/round. Slap on a mythic point and he does 120'! BOOM! So much fun. :)
I built a character with Impossible speed earlier this year and he could boost to 160 ft, which is a 73 mph run (117 kmh).
It almost makes me want to path into Champion.
Oh man, a monk with impossible speed would be so freaking cool. Shooooot, at top Mythic tier you could get your speed up to 220'! BOOM! You'd be like the freaking Flash!
Gosh, I can't even imagine that. 220' per round. That's insane to even think about. Now I want to play a monk just to be able to say I did that. :)
Ha! That would be insane. Hmmm... the speed would REALLY be nice with Spring Attack and/or pounce,
Okay, impossible speed it is, armor master will have to wait. It's not like they cast spells in battle anyway. Or many spells at all in truth.
@John/Twins- a mithral breastplate is light armor, so you have no max Dex and no ACP or ASF in it already. You’d only need to take it a second time if you wanted to switch to a non-mithral one, or something like mithral full-plate.
Also, in this game, a monk with impossible speed could potentially get the cheetah’s sprint spell through their attunement, which would up their speed from 220’ to 2200’ for one charge, lol. And you can double move when you charge, so you could run almost a mile and attack someone in one round!
Hmm... I remember that now. Hero lab is lying to me! Impossible speed it is!
I thought that a mithral breastplate had the following stats
Cost 4,200 gp Weight 15 lbs.
Armor Bonus +6; Max Dex Bonus +5; Armor Check Penalty -1
Arcane Spell Failure Chance 15%; Speed 30 ft./20 ft.
Because Gaius has the same thing.