[Non-PFS] [3PP Class Only] Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands (Inactive)

Game Master djpika

Sorry to hear about the COVID, although given the R0 rating of the latest variant, it's almost impossible to avoid. And damage sadly stacks each time you get it :(

Consider using a nasal rinse daily. Stats showed that it reduced the overall duration... mainly because you're helping to flush out the virus expansion out of the upper respiratory system.

You know, I've been asthmatic forever, and was just feeling like it was time to get some serious neti pot action going to accelerate the clearing of my sinus. Thank you for that. I will make that happen today.

We can roll for you as needed.

@Party - Still waiting on folks to take action...

I am at least up and about at this point.
Is there anything that Nate needs to act on?

If you'd like to roll up your psimon scout that would be nifty and cool bananas

I've found that Guaifenesin products, such as Robitussin or Mucinex, were helpful with dealing with congestion when I had Covid symptoms about a month or so back.

Zinc [50 mg or less] also may help as a vitamin supplement too.

"Wait, if he can't fly, how can he float back out?"

In my COVID delerium, I missed this, and now I cannot stop laughing

Ah Damn, Xeph's runnign head long again!" and follows him in, sticking himself against the wall as Xeph squares off with two.

Damn! Sorry Zup! I didn't see your post about your readiness to throw a grenade. I set things up and then Xephkiel fu<ked it up.

Not at all~ This works fine! I can only hit one group. You (and probably Sgt) handling that group is great. I stil got a tasty 2 or 3 hit.
This is my replacement for the huge bomb! Idk how it'll work on things don't breath though.

Damn! Sorry Zup! I didn't see your post about your readiness to throw a grenade. I set things up and then Xephkiel fu<ked it up.

Scholar Zupon wrote:

Not at all~ This works fine! I can only hit one group. You (and probably Sgt) handling that group is great. I stil got a tasty 2 or 3 hit.

This is my replacement for the huge bomb! Idk how it'll work on things don't breath though.

I'll have to second Zupon's notion that Xephkiel's 2nd round actions should work out pretty fine; given our respective places in the initiative listing [even from a strictly rules as written standpoint], Zupon would've acted first out of all of us anyhow. Or, if we're going by a narrative nature, Zupon would have enough presence of mind not to aim his explosives where others might be and Xef knows enough to allow Zupon to utilize those explosives to great effect. :)

Apologies about not being able to sign in much more sooner; ended up having to deal with some RL stuff that came up earlier this month. ;)

I have it in my character sheet. Was under my feats as I got it via a feat I'll throw it here in a spoiler. I don't trust that wiki so I copied everything although will need it again at level 3 if its still wonky

Here's what I got from asking the DDS Discord:

DS
—
Today at 10:39 AM
If I'm reading this right, since the original is a ranged touch attack that technically does "normally affect a single target," it would become a splash weapon with a 10' range bursting into a 5' radius electric cloud. I think the sonic damage would be lost in the process, since that is neither a single-target effect nor an AoE with a radius. Let's see who wrote that feat, though....
Oh, @Hydronz ! Quick question above about the interaction between Improved Bottled Lightning and Vaporized Formulae, which you wrote. (See above for links and text). Did I guess right?
Sorry to bother you, I know you have a lot of SoG stuff on your plate.
Rex (Steven Alpert)
—
Today at 10:44 AM
Yes bottled lightning is a formulae that only targets one creature.
If you bottle it, its now just a """splash weapon""" (creates the minimum radius) that deals the lightning damage in that gaseous area. Because it has an attack roll, it gains a Fortitude save vs. the lightning damage. The sonic damage is gone.

Hope that helps.

Cool beans, so bottled lighting is valid, and all the lighting in an aoe w/ the save.
Sounds great.

Not that I have one currently! but good for the future for sure.

in the mean time i"ll be tossing some cherry bombs~

Speaking of the map, I'm gonna be honest with you...i have zero idea which is the current map.

Do we actually need 7 map links? It'd be a bit less confusing if only the currently used map was in the links section.

If it'll help out any, Storm Dragon, currently we're all on *RotBM on the bolded Maps section. It's a pretty large map though so anything other than using the browser screenshot function will not work to record the positions. ;)

The current map is always marked with the asterisk * sign.

The current map is always marked with the asterisk * sign.

This is correct. Explored regions are in one place. Besides going back and copy/pasting tokens to newer maps, the party can return to the previous maps... or players may want to reference previous maps, which includes the town, ad hoc.

Urgh forums had a hiccup logged me out and lost my post. silly paizo.

Did we want to make a standing marching order? This done to prevent the incidents we had. That way we have a standing marching order and placement schema for when folks forget to move a token, or move the wrong map's token, etc.

Off hand suggestion of a possible marhcing order.
Chigao - scouting and trapfinding and all.
Xeph or Harkness. (Or both when hallways are wide enough)
Gray.
Zupon.

This allows most of the melee to be up front, while alloing chigao to scout-but also escape behind a wall of effective frontliners. Harkness' buffs can get wel lutalized near Xeph.
Grey can fire from the back.
Zupon can move forward and heal, stay and fire small aoe's or small darts, or if need be he can manage a secondary backline frontline (likely with Chigao coming to help).

There is an order linked to under Info->Character Order. Folks might want to double check it just in case. However, this was one of those scenarios where the scout got spotted where it wouldn't apply. But a good point - we'll default to the list for normal walk in scenarios.

Yeah, though it needed updating a tad from the loses/gains.
I didn't want to move Andru from the roster list there, as I'm not sure if that would lock it or anything.

I think we just have to hope for the best and adjust accordingly if he returns. I wouldn't drop him from the game; but we can adjust player order for now as if his character is doing research in town or something.

Will have a post up tomorrow, been a hectic week for me.

Apologies, have been really under the weather, and the apology is quite sincere because it's a shame to not have been more invested in the most damage and most effect Nate has ever had. The Matter Agitation almost ranks up there with the goblin negotiation, and that was what, like a year ago?

Apologies, have been really under the weather, and the apology is quite sincere because it's a shame to not have been more invested in the most damage and most effect Nate has ever had. The Matter Agitation almost ranks up there with the goblin negotiation, and that was what, like a year ago?

Well, there also was Nate's talking with the ghostly kid upstairs on the keep's 2nd floor but Chigao might've inadvertently botched things up for him on that unfortunate note. :(

Still, taking down that bugbear was an important thing though since they really did a number on Randall in terms of damage. ;)

Nathan "Cable" Grey wrote:

Apologies, have been really under the weather, and the apology is quite sincere because it's a shame to not have been more invested in the most damage and most effect Nate has ever had. The Matter Agitation almost ranks up there with the goblin negotiation, and that was what, like a year ago?

Well, there also was Nate's talking with the ghostly kid upstairs on the keep's 2nd floor but Chigao might've inadvertently botched things up for him on that unfortunate note. :(

Still, taking down that bugbear was an important thing though since they really did a number on Randall in terms of damage. ;)

He'll get his Concussion Blast soon enough ;)

So maybe this is a good time to check with everyone. Posting has been slow, but I've been going with it since there's a lot of harsh things going on in the world and real life takes priority. But at the same time, it's getting harder to resolve posts because of delays or round actions stacking up while waiting.

What does this group want to aim for? The typical PBP 1 post/day?

Sorry. I am very much still here. It wasn't until this campaign that I realized, despite my gaming experience; I have little experience with dungeon crawls. The limited space and mobility is frustrating, but that's suppose to be part of it's charm. Like that last fight with the bugbears, Xephkiel couldn't do much because of the narrow hallway and cube pit. So he helped out where he could.

What does this group want to aim for? The typical PBP 1 post/day?

Since I has a personal tendency to post at irregular intervals between days, I'd personally would never be able to keep to a 1/day posting schedule.

That being said, if many of the other players would prefer to have it be done that way, I'll attempt to keep up with my postings a bit more regularly, as much as I could manage- but they'd be most likely slower compared with the rest of the party though. ;)

I am pretty open. I check pbp in th morning and after work. But I don't always have an option to initiate in situations.

I'm fine with the 1/day req, or if we want to extend the time for some play styles given pbp.

This has been a fun pbp, but it has also half died and revived several times, so it makes sense if the DM is wanting to wrap it up due to life stuff.
It'll be 2 years in December, i think since we started.

Wow! Two years. And it feels like we haven't really started yet!

IME anything that involved players doing things "in order" is going to be a big bottleneck for a PbP. This is typically why I've found looser Initiative systems (up to and including "heroes first") often work better in the format.

Under regular posting schedules, most people can spare a post once a day, or every other day at the latest. In Initiative order, however, there's a strong possibility that if everyone is posting 1/day, it will be 3 days before a player can make a meaningful post (or 6 days if people are posting once every other day).

This makes it easy to fall out of the habit of posting, exacerbating the other issues.

Combined with dungeon crawls themselves being their own bottleneck (go to door, make relevant checks for door, open door, search room and/or roll Init, do combat, then search room), this leads to overall pace being VERY slow in a PbP that includes more "traditional" D&D gameplay.

It is not a coincidence that this game and, as I've observed many times over the years, other games exhibit a FLURRY of posts back to back once things are out of Initiative order and back to "socializing" and then are seeming ghost towns once things go back to "kick down the door and kill everything inside".

Paradoxically the latter, which is the fastest style of gameplay in live games, is the slowest in PbP. IME, and IMO, play by posts work best when the focus is on non-combat scenarios with the occasional burst of ultra-violence.

My 2 cp on the matter.

It is not a coincidence that this game and, as I've observed many times over the years, other games exhibit a FLURRY of posts back to back once things are out of Initiative order and back to "socializing" and then are seeming ghost towns once things go back to "kick down the door and kill everything inside".

Paradoxically the latter, which is the fastest style of gameplay in live games, is the slowest in PbP. IME, and IMO, play by posts work best when the focus is on non-combat scenarios with the occasional burst of ultra-violence.

My 2 cp on the matter.

Like now? There have been more posts since this combat ended than in the same 2 week period while it was happening. But while we may hardly be at the same posting rate as we were when Nathan joined back in town, it works in the way it works.

Wow! Two years. And it feels like we haven't really started yet!

Crazy ya? time flies! Meanwhile BT flies too fast for me~ its amusing dichotomy.

Sorry. I am very much still here. It wasn't until this campaign that I realized, despite my gaming experience; I have little experience with dungeon crawls. The limited space and mobility is frustrating, but that's suppose to be part of it's charm. Like that last fight with the bugbears, Xephkiel couldn't do much because of the narrow hallway and cube pit. So he helped out where he could.

I didn't realize that was possible. Even the modern AP's have dungeons in them :P Yes, mobility and bottlenecks tend to happen. The module does a good job of offering environmental things to interact with, but it still doesn't help with the single file hallways.

We should've picked up Xeph some javilins maybe. or chakram. Idk the proficiency~ They're reusable, not a big deal if you miss.
cover modifiers hurt though Zupon lucks out, lower damage but gets touch ac.

IME anything that involved players doing things "in order" is going to be a big bottleneck for a PbP. This is typically why I've found looser Initiative systems (up to and including "heroes first") often work better in the format.

Under regular posting schedules, most people can spare a post once a day, or every other day at the latest. In Initiative order, however, there's a strong possibility that if everyone is posting 1/day, it will be 3 days before a player can make a meaningful post (or 6 days if people are posting once every other day).

This makes it easy to fall out of the habit of posting, exacerbating the other issues.

Combined with dungeon crawls themselves being their own bottleneck (go to door, make relevant checks for door, open door, search room and/or roll Init, do combat, then search room), this leads to overall pace being VERY slow in a PbP that includes more "traditional" D&D gameplay.

It is not a coincidence that this game and, as I've observed many times over the years, other games exhibit a FLURRY of posts back to back once things are out of Initiative order and back to "socializing" and then are seeming ghost towns once things go back to "kick down the door and kill everything inside".

Paradoxically the latter, which is the fastest style of gameplay in live games, is the slowest in PbP. IME, and IMO, play by posts work best when the focus is on non-combat scenarios with the occasional burst of ultra-violence.

My 2 cp on the matter.

For the record, initiative hasn't really been in order. There's mainly heroes, villains, and then heroes part 2. It was important to delineate the end of the round for folks that delayed. Otherwise people were posting next round actions before a delayed action came in. But the order of which heroes resolved their actions within a "heroes" block hasn't really mattered - for the PBP nature of the game.

We should've picked up Xeph some javilins maybe. or chakram. Idk the proficiency~ They're reusable, not a big deal if you miss.

cover modifiers hurt though Zupon lucks out, lower damage but gets touch ac.

Having a backup ranged option is always a good idea, but Xeph's racial class abilities seemed fine. Having the option to cure when in the back isn't a bad thing. Aid another is always helpful, though not the most exciting action to take.

Paradoxically the latter, which is the fastest style of gameplay in live games, is the slowest in PbP. IME, and IMO, play by posts work best when the focus is on non-combat scenarios with the occasional burst of ultra-violence.

This is probably true, although it depends on the players and the adventure. Tactical players tend to be slow in both formats. At least analysis paralysis isn't as painful in PBP. Adventure wise, scene based combat isn't as bad since it doesn't really matter what the players were doing before hand. It's when the players have the choice of room A or B, or interact with X or move on, that tacks on the additional time.

Since the idea was for players to test out new things, an old school dungeon crawl made sense. Combat effectiveness is where most of the concerns of power level comes up. I believe this was pretty transparent though.

Come to think of it, the party hasn't really had a chance to shop in town for any reach weaponry- although there was some reasonable suspicions that the local shopkeeper might've been in cahoots with the former keep bandits that the party had. ;)

Not sure if there's an option to aid another for ranged/reach/spell-psionic attacks since the aid action mostly implies melee range only though.

Having a backup ranged option is always a good idea, but Xeph's racial class abilities seemed fine. Having the option to cure when in the back isn't a bad thing. Aid another is always helpful, though not the most exciting action to take.

Aid another is so much fun with the right classes~ Its pretty funny I think it was investigator mixed with a few other classes. but there was a build that did nothing but handed out so manyb onuses to hit or ac. I wanna play it someday!

Come to think of it, the party hasn't really had a chance to shop in town for any reach weaponry- although there was some reasonable suspicions that the local shopkeeper might've been in cahoots with the former keep bandits that the party had. ;)

Not sure if there's an option to aid another for ranged/reach/spell-psionic attacks since the aid action mostly implies melee range only though.

We were in town recently actually, albiet irl time it was a long while back but in game time it was very shortly ago.

@GM. The rules for the alchemy stuff does not cover this in Sphers of Power that I can find. So I'll ask you.
Do you want the time he used before, and this time now, to work together for the total time needed to craft his Items? Normal crafting rules in Pathfinder does allow for pausing and continuing. But it would directly lead to a functional powerup for zupon. As I'd be less hesitant to use them if I can craft here and there to restore it more often while the others search rooms and loot.

For instance, in this case between the Cell-Search, and this most recent room search. That'd likeely be enough time to have finished his restore.

You may craft any item whose formulae you know in 30 minutes, or 15 minutes if you have access to an alchemist’s lab or alchemist’s crafting kit, but due to the volatile nature of the enhanced formulae you cannot have more formulae prepared at one time than a number equal to 1/2 your ranks in Craft (alchemy) (minimum 1) + the number of formulae talents you possess. For every 4 ranks in Craft (alchemy) you possess, you may craft 1 additional formulae as part of the same 30/15 minute time period.

Making a formulae is faster than following the craft(alchemy) skill. Are you trying to make that or a traditional alchemy item?

If it's a formulae, I think you have to craft it all at once - I don't think it can be broken down. Since the rules here differ from the core alchemy crafting, I think they would have listed it out as well since they call out the 30/15 minutes craft time.

I assume this is in goblin? It's probably a good idea to list out the language used if it's not common for future posts.

So for something like speaking in a language besides common, would something like this work?

[Aklo] "Don't mind us, we're just passing on through."

I've seen other pbp games that utilize copy-pasted Google translate foreign language text followed by spoilers with just the regular standard English typography. Of course, trying to decide on which actual language to substitute for the made-up ones... that could pose a challenge if there isn't any agreement on which language to use. ;)

PS. Happy Thanksgiving to all. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Post Thanksgiving/Cyber Monday all!

They have mocked our little friend Yars ... !!!

Hope everyone had a great holiday :)

Vars/Yars probably should go and start his own tribe- or leave the current one at the very least. ;)

For diplomacy, note that most enemies are starting at Hostile - DC 25 and those that plan to inflict immediate harm in the near future can't really be talked down. It would be nice to move past mundane trash mobs via diplomacy, but in the latest the scenario is unique enough to go by the rules instead of hand waving them away as the DM.

Just setting expectations on the difficulty...

@DM rel20: Good to know on the difficulty using the diplomacy route. :)

@Nathan "Cable" Grey: Can't complain about how the previous holidays went- still have to see if it'll hold true with the upcoming ones down the line. ;)

Howdy for quick reference for folks on Zupon's healing

He has two forms. med training is his healer's kit (atm he has plenty of uses spent all my gold last time we went to town/refilled my reusable one but eventually it will be an issue. Unless he finds those heal skill magic items someday~)

This is the heal skill. DC 15 to heal 1. +1 per roll above that DC.
Standard Action. Touch range only.
Medical Training: Up to INT times per day.
SGT=3
Chigao=1
Xeph=2
Zupon=1
Names not listed, have not recieved this healing today yet.

Salve Healing: Up to 1+Int healing per day. Heals 1d8+4.
Except the one Chigao has heals 1d8+9 (I made a mistake earlier. Rolling high adds 5 not a d8).
Standard Action to use via touch to yourself or ally. vaporized version can do that, or can be thrown with a 10ft increment w/ a 5ft radius burst.

no one healed by it yet.

This can heal single target or AOE. They take 15min to make. Off hand they're best for emergency in battle. or for effectively taking 15min to heal a good chunk as a group. Can heal things iwth hit points. excpt construct/objects but can generally heal undead or similiar things.