Into the Desolation

Game Master Zorblag

Tristan, I changed my mind on the wand based on your valid point. Yes, I can cast on you daily.

Thanks

Now that the fight is over (nice work!) I want to check in and see how everyone's doing at this point. I assume that I'll be recruiting a replacement for Helgash, but how's everyone else feeling?

The first part of Slumbering Tsar is meant to be a sandbox, and the Ashen Waste is generally the easiest area to explore. This fight didn't play to your strengths, but it was one that you were expected to encounter relatively early (as is the rest of the location.) I guess also be sure to remember that you don't need to stand and fight where things occur if a fight is looking overwhelming? Either repositioning or straight out retreating is probably going to be necessary at times (which I think you all know for a FGG product, but hopefully doesn't hurt to reiterate.)

If I may metagame, is it necessary to do the sandbox or is it possible to simply head for the city? Is it assumed we do some leveling before we get there?

It is assumed you'll do some leveling before getting to Tsar.

*edit* I mean, it's a sandbox, so you certainly can head that way and assess whether you're ready based on what encounters look like, but Tsar is the second of three parts of the Slumbering Tsar Saga as written with the Desolation in general being part one.

Yeah, thought it was a sandbox. I mean why provide enormous maps of the desolation, with encounters and so forth, if going straight to Tsar would work...

Rappank Athuk has an immense amount of stuff outside the main chain of the dungeon which leads to the conclusion, and many of the side tracks are crazy levels of out of appropriate CR. Hence I am cautious about anything off the main track of a Frog God adventure.

Agreed, but if you just follow the "main chain" in RA, you are SOL at the end - you need the XP and the warnings in the "side tracks".

I'm running it for my home group, but gave up on tracking XP a long time ago. I just level people up when it seems appropriate.

I haven't seen any of the warnings yet, but I'm more or less just reading ahead only so much. Damned thing is so huge.

I'm cool with how things have gone. Good to know that Desolation exploration is assumed for leveling purposes removing that source of possible contention. So now we know that we're to explore the Desolation Sandbox b4 Tsar.

Summary: I'd like to keep this going

Excellent game so far Zorblag - you're a great GM!

I think the answer is yes...let's recruit more fodder and keep going

Heck I feel we could finish this AP and take on Orcus in RA b4 the RA campaign makes it to another temple

I'm still game.

OK, sounds good then; I just wanted to check in and make sure everyone's having fun. I'll post a recruitment thread for probably two new players. Let me know if you have any requests in particular for what you're looking for, and I'll run choices by everyone in PM before recruiting.

We need a point man... People say traps aren't a big deal, but FGG plays old school with ridiculously nasty stuff.

Yeah, FGG, does very nasty traps all the time. I didn't think of covering it myself or I would have left in the stone work dwarf racial ability.

Yeah, FGG, does very nasty traps all the time. I didn't think of covering it myself or I would have left in the stone work dwarf racial ability.

Maybe GM will allow you/us now that we've lost what should have been our point character... To re-spec a bit

A dwarf fighter can be a very competent non sneaky tank/point

@gm minor build tweak requested

I'd like to change Tristans stats from
10 dex, 10 int
To 8 dex, 12 int

It will still be a 20pt buy. Effectively he will gain 1 extra skill rank per lvl and his build replaces dex with cha for Init ac and ref so there's really no downside to this change.

Usually I'm pretty good at maxing out a build at character creation but I missed this detail

That should be fine, Tristan.

The topic of Bracers of armor was brought up in the recruiting thread.

I was looking forward to finding buying or creating and then attuning those at some point... I believe they should be allowed in ABP. They are armor bonuses and if plate mail is allowed the bracers should be allowed as well.

Armor bonuses items are not eliminated in ABP... Deflection and resistance items are. But not armor

Yeah, as I mentioned in recruitment, it is a bonus not provided in ABP in a slot which is not normal to armor. ABP provides an enhancement bonus to armor, not an armor bonus itself.

Though you can always consider silken ceremonial armor, it's a reasonable loophole for cheaper.

So I've added a post to the recruitment page about Bracers of Armor and why they won't be in the game.

I've just sent a quick PM to all the current players asking for just a bit of potential input on the applications for new players. If you have any opinions you'd like to send via PM I'm happy to hear them when figuring out who to add!

Hey everybody! Thanks for the invite, looking forward to playing. I am in the process of getting my profile all up to date, should have it done here shortly.

This is Auleth. Thanks as well for the invite. I will have an alias set up over the next day or so and look forward to joining you all.

Welcome to the game! I figure we'll have the two of you get to town tomorrow (this game day is nearly over,) and meet with everyone else.

OK, everything should be all set. I removed the Agile Maneuvers you mentioned in your message, that was an automatically added thing by HeroLab for the elephant in the room rules.

A few questions for you:
1. How well do you know the kineticist class? I'm quite familiar with it myself, but I know some people avoid the occult classes and/or just aren't very familiar with it, wasn't sure if I needed to give a primer on how the class works or not.
2. Can the weapon attunement given by ABP be applied to kinetic blasts?
3. The stats currently in my profile are my baseline stats, but they are not the stats I will normally be walking around with because of Elemental Overflow. Each morning I will use 3 points of burn to power up my defense talent which will turn on my Elemental Overflow. This will give me a +2 size bonus to dex and con, which changes a lot of my character sheet stats. Do you want the character sheet in my profile to reflect baseline stats as it does now, stats with EO applied, or a version of both? Either way, I will keep my stat line updated to whatever is currently set (so almost always the stats with EO)

Glad to have new cannon fodder, er I mean welcome to the game.

@Bannog, I'm somewhat familiar with the kineticist class. It's from theory-crafting rather than play, but I've given things some thought and shouldn't need too much of a primer. Feel free to give a heads up or let me know if it looks like I'm interpreting anything incorrectly though! The current players can tell you that I need to sort some things out from time to time and make mistakes. Hopefully they'll tell you I'm happy to correct them when I realize it.

Kinetic blasts wouldn't be eligible for the ABP bonus, though should you ever get access to the hydrokineticist shroud of water elemental defense that you would be able to attune that.

Keeping the baseline stats in your profile are just fine, though noting the use of elemental overflow in the morning when the buffs get done and keeping track of burn, AC and HP in the stat line should be plenty.)

how do you feel about making use of the retraining rules? Specifically the infusion selection for electric blasts is pretty terrible below level 3, and you get 3 infusions before you get access to level 3 infusions. At level 7, I qualify for level 3 infusions, but I don't actually get to take any until level 9. I'd like to retrain the Kinetic Blade infusion (hypothetically the one I would have taken at level 5) to the Magnetic infusion instead. Per the retraining rules, I could do this at a cost of 350gp (current level 7 x 5 days to retrain a class feature x 10). Are you OK with that?

I'm not opposed to retraining in general, though the rules are pretty clear that for class features you can only retrain to the level of the feature you're replacing (they use paladin mercies as the example which makes it pretty easy to follow,) so replacing the kinetic blade infusion with the magnetic infusion wouldn't work.

I might suggest the penetrating or spindle infusions if you don't want the kinetic blade infusion from level 5. Any of the three should come in handy in some circumstances I'd think.

Actually, thinking about it now, you can't actually have qualified for either the extra wild talent feat (it gives a wild talent 2 levels lower than the highest level talent you can use, so you can't actually take it until level 7, but VMC Wizard uses that feat,) or the telekinetic finesse wild talent (you only just got the expanded element and, again the feat to take it with extra wild talent wouldn't have been free.)

*edit* But, thinking just a bit more, this post has the solution. You can have retrained your level 5 feat to Extra Wild Talent at level 7 after getting the expanded element. The level issues with class features don't apply to feats so that would take care of it nicely.

Bah, I didn't notice that, I had always thought you could retrain in this way and just assumed my understanding was correct.

With extra wild talent, though, I could use retraining for that because the retraining feat section's only restriction is that you can't retrain a feat you used as a prereq. So I could have taken another feat at level 5, then retrained it to extra wild talent at level 7, yes? At the same cost of 5x7x10=350gp?

*edit* ninja'ed by your edit :)

Good call on Spindle, I will take that instead of Kinetic Blade!

OK, added Spindle to my sheet, deducted the 350gp for retraining Extra Wild Talent, and added updated blast stats for when EO is up and running.

Sounds good!

Alias set up, just need to gather mundane adventuring gear.

1) Which town is the party in?
2) Should Bannog and Auleth know one another/have been traveling together?

My immediate background would have involved hearing about expeditions into the ancient sites of Orcus (Rappan Athuk and Tsar). I'll have come north from Bard's Gate to see (a) what's going on in these locations, and (b) are the expeditions adventurers, crusaders, or Orcus cultists? I'd make no secret of my destination, but be a bit cagey about my reasoning.

Welcome Auleth!

You'll be arriving at the Camp, a tiny (about 350 residents) settlement just on the southern edge of the Desolation outside the fallen city of Tsar. If you and Bannog were traveling together that would be convenient in terms of meeting up with the rest of the party, but we can make it work either way.

If you're coming from Bard's Gate there's a non-trivial chance that you would know that the Church of Muir has sent an expedition up to the Desolation and possibly Tsar recently, though there wouldn't be many other rumors at all about groups or expeditions (maybe a couple about treasure hunters or the city of Bard's Gate trying to revive a centuries dead trade route through the Desolation to the Northern Kingdoms.)

Up to you if I would have known the expedition is specifically Muir-organized, or just happening in general. In any event news of the expedition is what brought me up north.

I’d imagine given the remote location we’d have met on the road, this not being a heavily-traveled path.

The Church of Muir was actively recruiting for an expedition to the area in Bard's Gate, so it makes sense for you to have heard of it. Meeting on the road and traveling together sounds good to me.

Meeting on the road sounds fine to me. I can't seem to find too much information on this setting online, so I have some questions:

1) How common are goblins?
2) Are they generally treated the same way as they are in Golarion?
3) Would it make sense for a goblin to be from Bard's Gate or the surrounding area?
4) Would you expect Bannog to be legitimately assigned to (or accepted for) this expedition?
5) More broadly, do you see Auleth and I as having met with the same priest that the rest of the characters did at the beginning of the campaign and to have been sent along as reinforcements, or are we more rogue agents who are trying to get in on the action?

Goblins are fairly common in the Lost Lands, though most are going to be tribes of uncivilized monsters in the eyes of those in Bard's Gate. Bannog would be tolerated as long as he followed the local laws and what not, but certainly viewed with suspicion were he to do much inside the city. It wouldn't be unreasonable for him to come from the area, but there's almost no goblin population in the city itself so he's much more likely to have been visiting than a resident.

For the expedition to the Desolation, Brother Grindolf probably wouldn't have been too picky. There weren't many who showed interest in taking the job at all and this is just an attempt to gather some information following a centuries old lead that isn't considered vital. If Bannog was interested in following the first party Brother Grindolf would have been willing to equip Bannog (and Auleth,) and send them along after, sure. You're welcome to either go with that or be following along on your own to try to get in on the action. Either option works just fine for the narrative of the story, so whichever you prefer is good with me! You could even split the difference and have one of you be an official dispatch and the other tagging along hoping to get in on the action for their own reasons.

Alrighty, sounds reasonable. Let's say that Bannog is from a goblin tribe that makes its home in the Stoneheart Forest, and he made his way recently to Bard's Gate to become a Hero Wizard.

From there, it will depend on how Auleth wants to play this. If he wants to be officially sent to participate from Brother Grindolf, then Bannog is not; instead, he overheard the instructions given to Auleth (because he was being cautiously quiet, not because he was intentionally sneaking around to hear what other Heros are told to do...), and he will meet up with Auleth on the way claiming to *also* be sent by Brother Grindolf (even though he was nothing of the sort).

If instead Auleth prefers to remain independent from the official expedition and is just heading that way to investigate, then let's have Bannog actually offer up his services as a Great and Powerful Wizard Hero to Brother Grindolf to go forth and do Good and totally not just electrocute everything he sees at first sight. Then he can by happenstance happen to meet Auleth on the road and completely blab about his Heroic Mission, thereby confirming the rumors Auleth has heard.

Either way, we will make the journey from Bard's Gate to The Camp together. When do we show up?

So, I just finished reading through the whole gameplay thread, and I gotta say as an outside perspective that it was fairly freaking epic! Particularly the last fight, seemed unwinnable for a while there even to me and I knew you won :).

Having the full background of the setting and campaign now, would it be alright if I made a few build/purchase tweaks? Particularly thinking about trying to pick up a ring of sustenance, and maybe try to tweak my skills around a little. I'm assuming I'll be taking the contentious point position? I will explicitly enumerate any proposed changes here for specific approval.

It was quite an epic fight. I'm not quite sure how we managed to survive. Honestly, always felt like one roll away from paralysis and subsequent death not to mention all those pesky miss chances while averting gaze.

The point position doesn't need to be contentious. If Tristan is the best character for it with our new group composition, I'll happily take point. Contention arose because the character whose class a melee focused Investigator (aka Hybrid Rogue with full trapfinding progression) didn't want to fill the role that he out of all of us was best suited for.

It could be that our Tanky Dwarf Fighter or the new Inquisitor/VMC Rogue may be the better fit. I'm not sure. It's a discussion worth having.

Tristan is good at trap disabling +23DD but not so good at finding them +12perception.

I'm fine with tinkering with your build some, sure. None of those changes sound unreasonable; just keep me posted on what you're doing (which you're doing a fine job at!)

That last fight was something, certainly. Both sides had stretches of great and terrible luck. There are lots of things that won't run away in Slumbering Tsar, including these (both because of their nature in those circumstances and because there was nowhere for them to run to,) but most groups of enemies would have considered withdrawing part way through that when things were going poorly if that was one of their options.

As for getting Bannog and Auleth into the game, I figure they'll arrive in town tomorrow morning, so we just need to get through Tristan's dance obsession tonight and then the night (which I'll be skipping random encounters for because we've got players waiting at the wings.)

Bannog makes for a great scout, but wants very much to not be a front liner when combat starts. Assuming the above changes are approved, he has +22 perception, +15 stealth, +18 DD, and has a constant ability to fly per the fly spell. Next level he'll be able to disarm traps anywhere within close range (or 45ft at that level), so he'll be able to avoid failed disarm backlash.

He does not do well in melee combat, though. His AC isn't wizard-bad, but it isn't great either, and worse is that his blasts generate AoOs. So I decided to swap out a feat for Roll With It, which means that after he takes any melee hit he gets to zip right out of melee, which is pretty fun!

With these build tweaks, I think Bannog will be more than capable of handling the point position!

Very cool feat. I can imagine combat starting with the little goblin flying out of the front line dusting himself off and then getting revenge from a distance

Those changes all look fine to me.

I believe from what I read in recruitment... Our new inquisitor was on the fence about the Rogue VMC it may have been left in to fill in our need for a point person and have a better chance of being chosen, but if the goblin is covering that, the VMC may not be necessary or I could be mistaken and it's a core part of what was envisioned for the character?

Thoughts Auleth?

I believe from what I read in recruitment... Our new inquisitor was on the fence about the Rogue VMC it may have been left in to fill in our need for a point person and have a better chance of being chosen, but if the goblin is covering that, the VMC may not be necessary or I could be mistaken and it's a core part of what was envisioned for the character?

Thoughts Auleth?

All things in life are mutable, but I do think I'd stick with Rogue VMC. The "there but for fortune I'd still be a thief" part has become a core part of this version of the character. I did put it in there based on described party need, but also built the rest of the character around it.

Auleth would also be willing to go point in general, though he has no remote trap disarming capability. I'd imagine more scouting capacity can't hurt.

In battle, I'd as appropriate either be a mobile Bane arrow artillery, or use Escape Route to help flank and sneak. Next level I will also have tactical flight, though only for 8 minutes/day.