Conquest of the Vale (Inactive)

Game Master leinathan

I posted the following (not inside of a spoiler) regarding the trap the first time it was seen:

"The vine is a trap. Anyone who passes over the vine will be snared by a thorny vine. The vine-trap covers the entire entryway to the interior of the hedge-circles."

I also asked whether there were any actions anyone wanted to take before entering the path, to which nobody had any actions. Nobody addressed that there were traps in the pathway in their "lets walk forward" posts. To me, that reads, "we've forgotten about the traps and have decided to simply walk forward".

I am not going to retcon it. There were many opportunities to address the traps.

Seems fair enough to me, TBH. We could have rolled perception checks to check where we were walking. The way I usually see it, is that if perception isn't rolled then use passive perception as the baseline and if the DC was higher than that, we walk into them.

So, are we going to submit our actions?

I imagine the recent site troubles have been holding people up. I wasn't even able to log in for past few days.

Yeah, I just got online too (I did so by clearing the site cookies and resetting my password).

yeah, sorry. took me a few days to figure out how to fix it.

Make sure you actually move your token on the battlemap!

Just got back into my account!

Oh, I think I misunderstood the Handle Animal skill page. I believe the higher DCs are to teach the animal a new trick. According to the Handle Animal rules, it is a DC 10 check for a trick that the animal already knows.

As a combat-trained horse, Shadow would know "come", but not "flee". So if you want, you can roll a DC 10 Handle Animal check to have Shadow approach you.

So I just saw the that Reilarri's turn marker has been removed, I would still like to take my normal actions after Stayven has gone, please. I'm hoping he will also cut Reilarri down.

Oh, I see. You posted earlier, but didn't take an action. I took that to mean you were passing your turn.

I've moved you in initiative to below Stayven, to represent a delay action. I will update when I get home from work, as it has been way more than 24 hours.

Cyla -- check out the handle animal skill page. According to this, 'handle an animal' is DC 10, which is:

"Handle an Animal: This task involves commanding an animal to perform a task or trick that it knows. If the animal is wounded or has taken any nonlethal damage or ability score damage, the DC increases by 2. If your check succeeds, the animal performs the task or trick on its next action."

Oh, but I see at the bottom of the page, it says you can handle animals, but not train them. Ugh. F~*%ing Pathfinder.

we will get there eventually haha :P

Olly olly oxen free!

Going to be pretty quiet over the next few days, the weather is supposed to be unpleasant all weekend and the furniture still needs to get moved over to the new house.

I should be able to check/post regularly again on Tuesday. I'll try to keep up between now and then but can't make any promises. Thanks for your patience!

sorry all, still busy. Apologies for the limited posting.

Hey all. Some IRL changes for me mean I'm struggling really hard to keep up with all the games I've committed to over the past few months/years and I just don't think I have enough bandwidth, or will again in the near future.

I've struggled with this decision but I think I'm going to have to bow out of this campaign. Thank you so very much for including me, and I hope you all go on to have a great time.

Good luck!

Very well!

Others -- when I say 'describe', I really do mean describe. I would really like some text in your posts that shows what your character is appearing to do. Like, how do you communicate to each other that you've decided to start battle? Posts entirely lacking in-character text will not be counted.

Gotcha. I think I'm past the editing window on my post but I'll do my best to remember that going forward.

Was on my phone and got it out while I could. Sorry about that, will add in some more detail now that I'm at my computer and can type.

Thank you, Sven! A great post.

Sorry to see Reil go. I liked the character and her interactions.

Also, thank you Ieinathan. :)

And finally...potential critical hit! Which comes with a rules question. With bane, does the extra 2d6 get multiplied? I think so, as it is untyped damage. But am not sure. So would like to ask.

Extra dice are never multiplied in Pathfinder. You multiply your weapon dice and the flat damage bonuses.

Ah. Right. I’ll remember that.

Gov -- I don't believe a wicker basket should protect against the damage of AoE spells, and I also don't generally believe in familiars taking damage unless they're used during combat. If you would prefer that Basil be treated as a regular creature sharing your space, let me know, but this is your notice that carrying Juniper on your back does not exempt her from danger. If you want to do that, you should put her into an extradimensional space.

However, I will remove her from the map. If you want her to come out, you can put her back adjacent to you (although she will still have to make checks against the wall).

Crazy idea. We had 4 players. Down to 2. Rather than recruit more, how about Sven and Gov get either gestalt or mythic powers? The two of us seem to be posting fairly regularly. And if we take down the fey, it could be an interesting level up bonus.

For example. Defeat the fey king. Sven gets Mythic Archmage. Gov gets mythic Hierophant. Gets us some better casting and perhaps fighting skills. Abit more HP, etc. Would let us get through the challenges to come without needing more players.

Could see either one giving us the oomph needed to get by with 2 players.

That is a crazy idea!

I'm much more likely to grant gestalt than mythic -- you won't accomplish anything truly mythic in scope during this adventure worthy of a tier.

However, I have a counterproposal: You spend your 7th-level feat on Leadership. Cohorts and followers would add another level of management to your gameplay, but also give appropriate resources to help take care of your encounters.

I think that I’d rather do gestalt. Leadership isn’t very good for combat, as followers are much squishier than PCs. If we do that though, it could be fun in making it a much grittier setting. Leading local soldiers and mourning their inevitable messy deaths.

So yeah. Gestalt = more fun for me as it is a rare treat. But leadership red shirts isn’t a no. :)

Hmm. "It's not powerful enough for combat" isn't really an argument that does much to sway me, but let me ask: What would you gestalt with?

Let me rephrase. Low level characters die easily. It’s hard to balance encounters that can challenge PCs without killing. Let’s say I had a bard follower. Anything that could challenge Sven would slaughter him. And if the follower was a fighter? Well, he’d be in the thick of things. Quite easy to take down there. So it could work, but not killing the follower while challenging Sven would be tricky.

For gestalt...not sure. Depends what Gov does. The two of us would need to fulfill the roles of the party. Maybe slayer? Would free up an implement for more diverse casting, add Ref saves, some more HP and skills and would give the party trapfinding. Makes a character who can do a little bit of everything. For a 2 man party that seems to be the most useful.

I'd tell you not to worry about that. A game with me is never going to be about rocket tag, and if a death occurs, it will be because a player mistake was made. Of course 'followers' are between 1st and 3rd level, can't take PC classes, and aren't designed to be taken into combat. But a cohort would be 5th-level when you took it, and could easily compete with most enemies.

But we'll wait and see if anyone else has any thoughts to chime in with. I would most prefer to change nothing about the rules and let you figure out how to handle situations on your own.

And we have applicants. Problem solved!

Sven, who are you attacking? You must move in order to reach any targets, and you must make a Strength check as a full-round action in order to move.

Sorry! Yeah...movement. Well, he failed to move with that 2. :p

Aight! I'll post.

Salutations everyone, I'm the new guy!

I'll be playing Portia Porphyria-Jeggare, a LE Wizard who is wickedly gross at Knowledge Skills, and absolutely jacked at Bluff (good Diplomacy, too). I like asking for Knowledge checks to get all the setting and NPC info I can, roleplaying it -- and then I Love to Bluff those we may deem an enemy, tricking them into trusting me, or some other bit of guile, so we the group can squeeze all the information we can out of them before, you know, rolling Initiative! ....My spells are mostly artillery and control (Fireball and Grease, Magic Missile and Create Pit) -- not so for buffing spells -- sorry, no Haste. My PC is LE but I'm an absolute believer in teamwork, sharing info & treasure, and NO PvP.

I'm pro-Cheliax and a big fan of Asmodeus and Mephistopholes and such. Hey, I like Iomedae, even respect her -- but she's wrong. Asmodeus is right. The Nine Hells are the first demarcation line against the chaotic-stupid hordes of The Abyss. We gotta stop them. Better to work with Hell against the Demons then wait for Iomedae and Ragathiel and such to actually stop Chaotic-Stupid from taking over!

Oh also, I have a cute little Viper Familiar named 'Tiamat'!

Here's a bit about Portia Porphyria-Jeggare if you want -- or we can roleplay some of this in Gameplay, up to you, I'm not big on PC secrets.

It may take me another day to get my Profile up to the standards of this PbP -- I'm on it. And there may need to be some tinkering with the Crunch in my character sheet. (I gotta fill out my spellbook.) But Portia Porphyria-Jeggare is pretty much finished. ....I'm also going to read a bit through the Discussion Thread and take a gander at y'all's PCs, and read a bit of Gameplay -- to learn a bit about the style and tone and such of the campaign. Then I'll be ready to post.

Meanwhile, where is everyone from?
I'm in the US -- Florida (originally Minnesota), same time zone as NY.

Welcome! Luckily Sven doesn't quite care about what gods other people worship or where their loyalties lie, so long as it doesn't interfere with him, his clan, or his home. And from the sounds of it, Portia won't mess up any of those three. So she's good in his book!

Glad to have you here. I'm from US as well, live near DC.

Welcome! We're figuring out our style, but i think you can find notes on the first page of Discussion.

I am also in the US -- I am from Seattle, Washington.

Hey there! Stayven’s a dutiful public servant to the city of Korvosa, and similarly wants to learn what he can about what we encounter. He’s more diplomatic than deceptive though. As a lifelong (and initially lower class) Korvosan, Stayven isn’t a huge fan of the Thrunes but will give just about anyone a chance provided they don’t do anything outrageously evil.

Fellow west coaster here, in the San Francisco Bay area.

Wow, Grumbaki, haven't seen Sven since Mike's 'Game of Mortals': Player-vs-Player' campaign a couple years ago! (I wasn't a Player in that, but Mike Johnson is one of my best friends and we've been playing over the same dining room table for over a decade -- we always talk about each other's PbPs and I lurk in online his games sometimes.) ...And I know you and I have talked gaming on The Boards here in various Threads over the years, maybe even met at PaizoCon once. It's great to be in a PbP with you, Sir!

Now I gotta go to bed so I can be awake enough at my job tomorrow to make sure Portia Porphyria-Jeggare's spellbook is in order!

Well, now I don't have to pull double duty! Until you came along I was also the one who might have a knowledge skill, now I can focus in on buffing and having snakes! Welcome, and good to meet you! I'm in Ohio, so much the same time zone as the others.

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Gov's about conflict avoidance in the Vale, trying to find a way for the human colonizers to not completely steamroll the native population, but also to avoid the native populations absolutely massacring the humans, having lived extensively with both cultures. He has had limited success so far, or rather absolutely no success and the dwarven party don't like the obvious orc priest :)

OH! .... MY! .... GOD! ....
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(Do) reduce/enlarge person spells... effect ranged weapon damage?

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No, enlarge/reduce do not change ranged damage.

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Any enlarged item that leaves an enlarged creature’s possession (including a projectile or thrown weapon) instantly returns to its normal size. This means that thrown and projectile weapons deal their normal damage.

Portia, you have a good memory! That campaign was about 2 years ago? Had alot of potential, it's really too bad that it didn't go longer. Afraid that I haven't had the pleasure of going to PiazoCon, but regardless, looking forward to this one!

Okay the Profile Page for Portia Porphyria-Jeggare is complete. Please check the attack & damage for Tiamat -- I'm just not 100% confident I got it correct. ....Boy, I've been playing for so many years just handwaving (both as DM and as PC under other DMs) spells in Spellbooks, that I had to actually work at that.

I'll start to 'EDIT This Post' to show my math -- starting with the spellbook.

And I can start posting in Gameplay -- as a "Meanwhile, on her trek from Korvosa to Fort Thorn...." -- post.
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EDIT:

Scrolls seem to be a little more expensive than you've wagered. For six 3rd-level scrolls, it seems to be 1125gp. However, even accounting for that, I have 7,498 as your expenses, which means you're all golden, and still have 502 gold left.

Anyway, you're all good! Thanks for all your hard work!

Hey GM, sorry for that last missed action, I’m moving up to my college on Sunday and I’ve been swamped with that and a few midterms.

If I miss anything this coming weekend, that’ll be why.

No worries :) I just wanted to keep things moving.

If anyone has something coming up or for whatever reason doesn't think they'll be available to post in a 24-hour window, you can always pre-roll. What that means is that you'll post your action in a spoiler in the Discussion thread. Then, when your action rolls around I'll do the post for you.

I’ll have my saves and action up this afternoon.

Portia -- are you planning on starting to post in Gameplay, or is there something that you would rather wait for?

Not waiting for anything -- it's just harder during the weekends. And Monday has been busy (This is the first time I've had to take five minutes all day.). Likely in the next few hours I'll post a 'Meanwhile,...' post that tells some of my trek from Korvosa to Bloodsworn Vale and Fort Thorn.