Discuss!
Hello!
Here to inspire you all to ever-greater deeds of heroism!
Greetings. Follow my instructions and we may just succeed.
Haha.
Gameplay is primed, I await your brief introductions, and then I will introduce Fort Thorn and Sir Tolgrith.
Y'all have any opinion which one your fifth member is? They'll be waiting for you in the barracks after you treat with Sir Tolgrith and get your first job.
The added friction of having a paladin in the party with Cyla may be fun. Especially one focused on community when Cyla is very individual focused.
Reilarri would be delighted to have more LG around, especially if they're an archer. I haven't actually looked at the statblock but Erastil, longbow etc etc
I thought I would mention something about game flow, since I know some things like this are not obvious.
When three of you have mentioned in-character that you are ready or or are leaving a scene, we will move on to the next thing. What the next thing is should be stated by the characters who are doing the moving. It doesn't necessarily have to be said out loud, but a person might write something like, "[my character] goes into the keep".
If there is a situation like... two people have posted, and two people have not shown up in Gameplay, I will move us along after I've noticed the last posts no longer say, "yesterday".
In combat, I will use a header in the campaign info tab above. It will look like this:
Combat! Round 4
1. Cyla (mirror image [2]) <--- You are up! (round 5 action)
2. Manticore
3. Reilarri
4. Sven
5. Stayven (barkskin) <--- You are up!
When it is your turn, you have 24 hours to post or I will automate you attempting a helpful task that uses no resources.
During party discussions, I will prompt you when things like, "Once three of you have made a decision, we will move on".
Deciding what to do with loot should be done upon identification. Forgotten items will be left behind. If you have received an item, you should put it on your character sheet, because I will not remember for you whether or not you have it.
My GMing Style Gameplay Loop is like this:
1. A new problem comes up
2. RPing reactions to the problem
3. Gather information by rolling dice
4. Decide what to do about the problem
5. Solve the problem in an action sequence by rolling dice
6. Rest, RPing reactions to the recent events
1. A new problem comes up.
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Anyway, I hope some of those guidelines streamline gameplay. Let me know if you have any problems or questions.
If we manage to finish this (and this adventure is only 36 pages, about one-third the length of an AP chapter) we may be able to continue on from where we are. That will be up to your discretion, whether there is something your characters will be able to agree to do. I am willing to adapt pre-written adventures to suit our needs in that case. Let's set our eyes on reaching level 8 and conquering the Bloodsworn Vale, though.
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This adventure will have some hexploration. Basically, you will learn about a place from Sir Tolgrith's scouts. I will put it on the map. Then, you will travel there, rolling for random encounters as is appropriate for the terrain depending on the amount of time it takes to get there. You will be responsible for feeding and sheltering yourselves, as well as solving whichever problems you were sent out to solve.
This adventure has a time limit. In 60 days, there will be officials from the government coming to inspect the trade route. The degree to which they are impressed by the peace and tranquility in the Vale depends on the PCs ability to conquer all of its threats in the time required. I will keep track of what day it is, as well as the time, as long as you are the ones who decide where you go, how long you stay out, and what you are doing.
Sounds good, thank you for the explainer!
@Sven -- without appropriate Knowledge skill check successes, characters are not privy to the special abilities of creatures.
Also, Knowledge skill checks above DC 10 cannot be made untrained.
wouldn't a know. check of DC 12 be enough to know Fey are weak to cold iron? Usually the DC is 10+CR. Still out of his "reach" I guess. I ask since, even if I don't hit the DC for the spoiler, could I still know a little about fey in general?
A DC of 10 is enough to know that all fey share the following traits:
Low-light vision.
Proficient with all simple weapons and any weapons mentioned in its entry.
Proficient with whatever type of armor (light, medium, or heavy) it is described as wearing, as well as all lighter types. Fey not indicated as wearing armor are not proficient with armor. Fey are proficient with shields if they are proficient with any form of armor.
Fey breathe, eat, and sleep.
This is not an appropriate time to be rolling Knowledge checks to try to find out what's ahead. You haven't even hit the road yet, so you're just guessing. You're not going to get any precise information.
Its more of a "we were told they think its fey, what do I know about fey in general" like= "we are fighting undead, okay, what do we know about undead? Oh, usually positive energy is effective against them, may need some silver or a stake. Maybe some salt for ghosts. Probably should bring slashing and blunt weapons."
That sort of thing.
The information about fey in general is fairly broad.
They are living, breathing creatures from another dimension. They have odd motivations, but can generally be understood. They generally speak Sylvan, and some can make use of nature magic. They usually live in forests, and all live in natural environments.
Cyla doesn't have languages listed. Can you add them to her character sheet? You must include Draconic.
Also, I'm only reaching +8 for her standard, un-buffed attack bonus (3 Bab, 3 Dex, 2 magic). If it's different, please show me, otherwise I will count your attack totals as 26 and 17.
you are partly correct, the +10 was coming from when I still had weapon focus instead of deadly aim, however my BaB is +4, so the hits should be 1 lower. Corrected
Thanks for getting there with me! XD
Make sure you change that on your sheet, and add languages.
done, I promise I always pick draconic for arcane casters (save very few exceptions) just because I enjoy the idea that magic is related to dragons. Heh.
Sven -- to see what your character knows, scroll up and read the knowledge spoilers I posted. You can open the DC 17 spoiler but not the DC 22 spoiler. Every time you encounter a creature, I will post Knowledge spoilers. You should assume you know only what is visually obvious until you roll the dice and read the appropriate information.
Also, remember that using Legacy Weapon reduces your Strength bonus from investing points in the implement :)
"Once mental focus is invested inside an implement, the implement gains the resonant power of its implement school, and the occultist can expend the mental focus stored in the implement to activate the associated focus powers he knows. If a resonant power grants a bonus that varies based on the amount of mental focus invested in the implement, the bonus is determined when the focus is invested, and is not reduced or altered by expending the mental focus invested in the item. Once all of the mental focus in an implement has been expended, it loses its resonant power until mental focus is once again invested in the implement."
So Strength bonus should remain. And rgr on the spoilers.
Oh, great! Thanks for linking that. That makes me want to play an occultist!
Gov, I can't see a way for Juniper to move in a straight line and be within reach of the chimera. Can you place your snake where you want it to end up on the map for me?
So, couple of questions/statements before I get to work now that combat is over.
1. Are we playing with the idea a character doesn't know if they are in a threatened area/space of an enemy they can see? Normally you know if you are in a creature's threatened area if you see it, with a few possible exceptions. If we do not, are we assuming we must decide to cast defensively or not based on if we think we are threatened? Apologies for any confusion this might have caused.
2. While I hadn't intended for shadow to see combat, however it seems like it may be something that comes up again. As such, for reference to everyone, in the mounted combat rules if your mount is dropped (or goes unconscious) you must make a DC 15 ride check per soft fall rules. If you fail you take 1d6 damage and fall prone. Otherwise I believe you don't fall prone. If were house ruling it that's fine.
1. I wanna say it's more like, "I will adjudicate the results of the actions that you have taken".
Let me use another example. There's an enemy next to you. You've looked at the map, but it's slipped your mind, and you forgot to roll concentration. You take an AoO and lose your spell, and you put in an OOC: "If I'd noticed I was threatened, I would have rolled concentration!" Or perhaps you roll Knowledge but gloss over a creature's acid immunity just before using an acid-damage spell.
I feel that it's fair to allow you to use your own judgment about what you should be doing on your turn, rather than apply my GM knowledge to allow you to make the most tactically-appropriate move.
2. I didn't see anything about the mount dying in the Ride rules, and I saw a lot of argument about it when I went to check various forums. I thought a quick ruling would be best. We can use that rule in the future, so that you can roll to your feet -- I think in situations like this, where the chimera was mid-full-attack, I will roll for you. In situations where the threat to you is over, I will leave it to you.
Similarly though, if you want your mount to move and you don't want to use your hands, you must make a DC 5 Ride check -- just to check that you don't roll a 1.
you can't auto fail or auto pass skill checks, if I recall correctly. So a base +4 ride bonus should always pass. The place I found that ruling was here- Combat rules psrd Its not entirely clear, but seeing as a successful acrobatics check would have you land on your feet after a 10ft drop, I think this works here as well. Just for future potentialities.
I am just unsure if you want me to roll concentration checks for defensive casting if I/cyla "think" I/they might be threatened or not. I made the check because, as a player I wasn't sure of the reach a chimera has, (5ft normally after checking), and I didn't want to slow the game pace down by not having a roll there in case I had needed one. Which I'm not sure if that caused confusion. If you don't want us going "if I'm threatened, I'll cast defensively" then thats fine I just want to be sure because most games I play in work that way, where players and enemies know if they are threatened so I automatically defaulted to that style.
want to make clear to others, Cyla is thankful for their aid, but she isn't thinking from that perspective at the moment. No ill will intended towards anyone. However, if a character would take it that way, lets have fun!
I see all sorts of different rules re: nat 1 and nat 20. I think I agree that saves/attacks are auto-result on 1/20 but skills are not. And I see you have +7 Ride, so you can indeed auto-succeed on that DC 5 check.
Yes, I want you to decide on your own if you need to take actions.
alright, will do. thanks for clarifying.
So, what do we want to do now? I've seen two different calls for resting in different places. It seems we've got a few options.
a.) Walk 90 minutes back to the workers' camp (with one save vs. a forced march) and sleep in their tents (with one character exposed to the cold), and come back in the late morning tomorrow.
b.) Walk 5 hours back to Fort Thorn (with five saves vs. a forced march) and sleep in the barracks, and come back in the evening tomorrow.
c.) Camp right here, within sight of the hedge-ring (with Reilarri, Gov and Cyla exposed to the cold).
d.) Continue onward now, and go into the hedge-ring.
If three characters agree on the same course of action, and post in Gameplay that they are performing that action, we will move on. If players cannot agree, we will split the party.
A or B is my vote IC, OOC I think we can continue. But Cyla is a little shook.
We've still got most of our resources, Reilarri wants to continue investigating (d) and if needed march back to the camp (a)
So Gov, if your OOC-post in the Gameplay thread was meant to indicate that you prefer to camp, it would help if you would say so, and do so in-character.
In fact, it would seem as if that's three votes to walk 90 minutes and camp. So if everyone could just post in-character describing your character electing to leave and then doing so, I will move us forward.
If anyone has a post that is entirely OOC, I would prefer it come here, to Discussion. The Gameplay thread should be for posts in character (not that you can't use OOC-text there, but I'd prefer to see posts with some IC text and some OOC text).
Hey all, I'm sure many of you are in a similar situation, but my posting rate is going to be very low from Thursday through Sunday. Should be back to normal starting on Monday though!
aye posting will likely be sparse until at least the 25th for me. I may get in a post or two, but if need be bot me.
Alright. I gave everyone a good prompt for when y'all are ready to return and continue.
I know that the New Year is yet to come, but I wanted to poke the thread and remind everyone that the party needs to figure out its nighttime routine before we can move on to the next encounter.
I have no objections to the watch schedule except to note that 14hours is a long time.
GM what are your thoughts on a character getting less than exactly 8 hours of sleep? If Reilarri only sleeps for, say, 6 hours is she immediately fatigued and bereft of spells? If not, moving the watch shifts to 3hrs instead of 4hrs would cut it down to an 11hr rest instead of over half a day.
I would say that it explicitly states in the rules that a character must rest for 8 consecutive hours in order to prepare spells. You don't lose spells until they are cast, so you don't actually need to sleep if you, for example, haven't spent any of your spells.
I think it's on a case-by-case basis. I don't think Reilarri should become immediately fatigued for only sleeping 6 hours (although as mentioned above, she wouldn't get to prepare new spells), though perhaps if she went several nights in a row on less sleep, she would become fatigued.
Strangely, sleep is one thing in Pathfinder that doesn't have extremely well-defined rules.
Rest
To prepare his daily spells, a wizard must first sleep for 8 hours. The wizard does not have to slumber for every minute of the time, but he must refrain from movement, combat, spellcasting, skill use, conversation, or any other fairly demanding physical or mental task during the rest period. If his rest is interrupted, each interruption adds 1 hour to the total amount of time he has to rest in order to clear his mind, and he must have at least 1 hour of uninterrupted rest immediately prior to preparing his spells. If the character does not need to sleep for some reason, he still must have 8 hours of restful calm before preparing any spells.
So in other words, I have to rest a total of 10 hours, if I took a 2 hour watch. By this at least. I found it in the magic rules.
The watches were 4 hours. You rested for 4 hours, then were awake for 4, then you rested for 5 more hours. Then you would prepare spells for an hour.
If you'd like to change the watch schedule (for future nights) so that it's not as long, but where someone is watching for the whole night, I'd like to see your proposal! :D
Just a heads-up but I'm having some trouble with my laptop's battery so I'm taking it to get a new one on Monday. The guy at the shop guestimated it could take anywhere from a couple of hours to a day or two.
I should still be able to update the games but it'll be slower. I'll keep you all posted!
good news is I should be getting back to regular posting after today! sorry for the disappearance, work and family obligations were quite time consuming this year over the holidays.
I'd like the whole party to check in here and confirm what you are doing. Also, Cyla still needs to confirm that she has new spells. Last I checked, she had not yet prepared. Also, she should add that tent to her character sheet.
Things I'd like to see addressed:
Is Cyla bringing her horse?
Who is going first and who is going last?
Are you doing anything before or during your entrance to the fey glade?
I will not accept retroactive actions once we have moved on.
yes, she is leading the horse at the moment. She wouldn't leave it behind as it'd surely wind up dead in her mind. Cyla preferably is in the "middle" of the group.
Spells are updated.
Also, I totally forgot I bought this- Ring of sustenance for cyla, so she only needs 2.5 hours of rest a day, and little food/water.
Please post your action in Gameplay.
I would like to politely but strenuously object to the idea that the snares were forgotten. Once the traps are spotted, I don't think it's reasonable to require that we specify that we step around them.
Understood, but the traps were described as being directly on the path, requiring that you bypass them (probably by jumping?) or disable them.
Regardless of whether or not the traps were actually forgotten, they were certainly not in any way addressed, and you had enough opportunity to do so.
So why not clarify that there's no means of simply walking around the snares and giving us a chance to address that? Insisting that we plant our feet in the traps--and it seems like you agree that we're aware of them--feels like a 'gotcha' rather than a reasonable interpretation of what our characters would do with the information available to them.
Last time you were here, Gov noticed a snare made of rose vines on the path to the center of the circle. You notice this time there are several snares instead of just one. Three are scattered about the grounds in front of the entrance, and you can see at least two on the path going into the hedge-ring's center.
I think "scattered about the grounds" implies there is space between them, which in turn implies we could move around or otherwise bypass them. Reilarri didn't make the DC herself but Cyla RP'd pointing them out to us when she made the Perception check. There wasn't even a roll to jump or otherwise avoid the snares made on our behalf, we were just declared to step right into them.
I'm less concerned about this specific trap than I am that this is establishing that the consequence for "you didn't specifically say X" is that the worst outcome occurs, simply by fiat. That's not a playstyle I find fun or engaging.