GM_DBH's Shattered Star

Game Master DBH

I've been struggling with this decision since January.

I've been on and off the board over the last eleven years. I've loved my time here, but with changes in routines it's harder and harder to find the time and motivation to post. I was planning on staying in the six games I cut back to, but things are picking up in RL and it's only going to get worse when classes start again in September. So I feel like it's time to step away from all of the games.

I apologize for the inconvenience and I hope it doesn't disrupt the game too much, Take care everyone, good luck and good gaming. GM_DBH thank you so much for letting me join the game for a time.

I am saddened to hear that Robert, thank you for playing with us a time and I hope things pick up for you.

If you're ever able to return you know I'll always fond a place for you.

A couple of things, we will put a hold on the game until a new player is joining the party.

Elena, when you spoke to Sheila Heidmarch in Magnimar there was a message for Elathras recalling him by the order of the Pike sadly. Luckily Sheila had a new prospect who came with you.

I've sent a PM to a prospective player I know is a good player. Hopefully I'll hear back soon.

So this will all take place before you go through the door at A10.

Also Elena, a fully charged wand of Cure critical wounds is 21000gp.

A fully charged wand of haste is 11250gp. As is a wand of Fly.

I will rule that you can pick those up in Magnimar if you wish to swap out the wand of Cure critical.

I'm pretty sure you can scrape up the 1500gp difference. :)

Also Koriah is a two weapon fighter, bastard sword and Aklys. She has good stealth and great perception.

I'm sorry to hear that too, Robert. We've only been in two campaigns I believe but you always were a solid poster as far as I can tell. And with 45k posts that is a pretty legendary career/portfolio to have achieved. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors and you will surely be missed!

@GM Thanks for the info. We had a 10% discount when buying things in Magnimar too, right? From book 1, the market princess' gratitude for finding her father's remains I believe. That would lower the price of a fully charged spell level 3 wand to 10125, which would leave us with 375g leftover. This assumes the wand with spell level 4 can be sold for half price of 21000; 10500.

I'm curious to see who the replacement player would be.

I've been struggling with this decision since January.

I've been on and off the board over the last eleven years. I've loved my time here, but with changes in routines it's harder and harder to find the time and motivation to post. I was planning on staying in the six games I cut back to, but things are picking up in RL and it's only going to get worse when classes start again in September. So I feel like it's time to step away from all of the games.

I apologize for the inconvenience and I hope it doesn't disrupt the game too much, Take care everyone, good luck and good gaming. GM_DBH thank you so much for letting me join the game for a time.

Wow. Well, crap. Elathras was awesome. Between him and Bharak, you two were bringers of destruction to the bad guys. :)

Hey, it's been fun, Robert. Take care of yourself, bud. And I can absolutely imagine how tough of a decision that was. Especially after being on these boards for so long.

Be good! :)

The person I invited has responded Profession Smith 6 ranks is working on a Bard (Archivist).

Good news for Elena the Bard is female. :)

HA! Profession Smith! That's awesome. :)

Nothing to worry about in this game, Smith. I'm not some psychotic half-elf in this one. ;) LOL!

Dang, sorry to see you go, Robert. I've also been in a few games with you over the years, and I've always thought you were a great player. But I get how a change in routine can make PbPs harder to keep up. Good luck in the future!

Elena: A wand of haste would be great, but Axton already has two wands of fly. Plus, we're about to head underground. I'm not able to think of anything to pick up instead while I'm sitting here at my in-laws' kitchen table listening to them snip at each other, otherwise I'd try and come up with an idea. But if you want to just bank the gold, that's good, too.

Vhane has some money if you need it, Elena.

If not Fly then Greater invisibility or Freedom of movement are always useful.

Though both are 4th level and so are more expensive.. With your 10% discount one would be 18,990gp.

@Vhane thanks, but what should we get? And how much money does vhane want to invest in a wand?

We have enough to buy one with third level spells. Sidenote is that Axton will have to be using it as Elena, as a level 1 bard, only has a 75% chance of success when trying to cast haste (bard 7). It will be a level or 2 before i have enough ranks in UMD to bypass it.

Some spells i can think of that might be useful:

3rd: displacememt, haste, jester's jaunt (teleport bharal and vhane into full attack positions or save grappled allies).

4th: freedom of movement, blessing of fervor, death ward maybe.

Hi all!

I'm still in the process of bumping Lexi up from 3rd-level to 12th-level, but I figured I'd report that she's currently got both displacement and haste penciled in for known spells. Also, she's got cure moderate and cure serious wounds so she can be a secondary healer as needed.

Welcome to the group! As a resident martial enjoyer, I’m always happy to see haste brought up. :)

Since I've set it up that Elathras has been recalled by the Order of the pike and Elena found this out when she took Casamir back to Magnimar.

Finding this out when she spoke with Sheila Heidmarch, we can have Elena & Lexi meeting for the first time and do it in the discussion.

Then the two can go back to Windsong abbey and met the others. Then onto the action downstairs. :)

@Elena: Money is not really a thing for him. He's got roughly 11,000 gold on hand. And that money came from what was going to go to Uma.

So, 11,000 gold I would say. :) If you want the cash, just say so. All good.

Not to mention that Elathras left the shard of gluttony he was carrying.

Some spells i can think of that might be useful:

3rd: displacememt, haste, jester's jaunt (teleport bharal and vhane into full attack positions or save grappled allies).

I like all of those options, but I think let's pass on haste for now. Both Axton and Amelexis have the spell available.

Further, if Bharak is now our only heavily armored front-liner, I think something that keeps him from being taken out of the action would serve us well. Displacement is a great defensive boost, and is a solid choice to cast on him before a combat.

I've never heard of jester's jaunt before! I like it for the reasons you stated in what I quoted above. The only thing to keep in mind is that it's a touch spell, so if Bharak gets grappled (rude), whomever is on j.j. duty will have to get close enough to free him. But I still like that option. Only our bards can use it. Axton's UMD is at 11, which isn't terrible, but not as reliable as I'd like for a DC 20 action.

I like all of those options, but I think let's pass on haste for now. Both Axton and Amelexis have the spell available.

Shoot, no I don't. I'm thinking of my other arcanist that I'm playing in one of DBH's campaigns. That's why I had Axton choose slow. It doesn't change my opinion above, though.

Hi all!

I'm still in the process of bumping Lexi up from 3rd-level to 12th-level, but I figured I'd report that she's currently got both displacement and haste penciled in for known spells. Also, she's got cure moderate and cure serious wounds so she can be a secondary healer as needed.

Welcome, Amelexis! Glad you're joining us.

It looks like you're primarily a spell-caster, correct? This PC has more spells than he can cast, so feel free to coordinate with me if you think there's any duplication you want to alleviate.

Hi all!

I'm still in the process of bumping Lexi up from 3rd-level to 12th-level, but I figured I'd report that she's currently got both displacement and haste penciled in for known spells. Also, she's got cure moderate and cure serious wounds so she can be a secondary healer as needed.

Welcome and nice to meet you! Also, thanks for chipping in. I like her character description from the profile :)

On character building, I'm not sure what you were told beforehand but this group thusfar has not needed much if any healing. I think there were two instances across all books in which my cleric ever had to do it in combat, and out of combat her channels were always enough. It might be different now that one of our tanks/melee dps has left but I probably still wouldn't invest into that. Bharak, Vhane and Axton are all high on damage and Elena can do it too via summoning and buffing. Usually the opposition dies before they get a hit in.

One question I had is what combat style Amalexis wants to use? If it helps, Elena has a lot of overlap with the bard's buffing role, having spent a lot of resources into getting inspire courage and she provides constant morale bonusses via Flagbearer and sometimes Good Hope.

I think Axton only counts as high damage if there's an AoE target grooup. Otherwise, he"s been outshone. I've been thinking that I'll start to focus more on debuffing and battlefield control.

Good luck new team! You can do it!

Lexi is a terrible combatant and relies on buffing her allies (mostly via her Naturalist ability) to win battles. That said, I'm trying to give her a decent AC so she can step in to "hold the line" briefly if that becomes a necessity. I haven't chosen her new feats (beyond her 1st-level one--Lingering Performance), so maybe I can make her a slightly better combatant...archer perhaps?

I had both CMW and CSW as known spells and very few "attack" spells; I'll swap one of the cures out and see if I can find an additional attack spell or two for her repertoire. I'll also look to avoid duplicating spells that Axton already has.

I hope to finish up Lexi's character sheet today, as I have jury duty tomorrow (and beyond, should I actually get picked).

Sorry, no time to update today.

@Lexi. Axton has a lot of damage spells. Maybe you could try things like Confusion and other mind effecting spells? They tend to make a real difference in some fights.

I'm suggesting this because in another game I'm running the enemy got off a Confusion spell first and three of the party failed their saves!

What was going to be quick curb-stomp became a drawn out fight for survival. :)

There are also some really nasty bardic masterpieces that could be used offensively. There is one that slows the entire enemy team and gives them increasing attack and ac penalties each round they fail the scaling willsave and such.

@Lexi. Axton has a lot of damage spells. Maybe you could try things like Confusion and other mind effecting spells? They tend to make a real difference in some fights.

I'm suggesting this because in another game I'm running the enemy got off a Confusion spell first and three of the party failed their saves!

What was going to be quick curb-stomp became a drawn out fight for survival. :)

Not even gonna mention the AoE feeblemind eh?

GM_DBH wrote:

@Lexi. Axton has a lot of damage spells. Maybe you could try things like Confusion and other mind effecting spells? They tend to make a real difference in some fights.

I'm suggesting this because in another game I'm running the enemy got off a Confusion spell first and three of the party failed their saves!

What was going to be quick curb-stomp became a drawn out fight for survival. :)

Not even gonna mention the AoE feeblemind eh?

That seems to be permanent.

@Amelexis If you want to go ranged combat as a bard and want to keep your charisma high for spellcasting and masterpiece DC's, one option is to throw starknifes, which with a feat use charisma for attack and damage.

This was the last high level bard I made. He had some fun throwing his starknife with the Desna's Shooting Star divine fighting technique (the basic and advanced one) and otherwise AOE Slowing the enemies with his The Waning Bolero bardic masterpiece for offense. Since it also uses charisma for melee attacks and AC/Ref (through one level of Lore oracle), I think he would have done okay to hold the frontline for a bit if it ever came down to it.

The starknife *is* a bit random as a ranged weapon, as you roll a d4 as a fullround and the knife damages the target that many times if your attack roll lands. But it is pretty fun to throw a spinning magical chainsaws of sorts :)

So…I’m glad to wait for things to settle. But do we have a rough timeline as towards when we will kick back off and how we explain the character shifts?

Yeah, kinda agree with Bharak. Maybe we can do this encounter with 4 people and have Amalexis join when they have the character updated? It has been two weeks or so, feels like we're stalling.

I have an appointment that will take up most of my time sadly. No update today.

There is a notable silence as Elena completely ignores Vhane's contributions. "I wish he wasn't so good at using that gun of his so I could make fun of him, the bastard. Are all dwarven adventurers so ridiculously competent?"

LOL!!!

Elena Neidhardt wrote:

There is a notable silence as Elena completely ignores Vhane's contributions. "I wish he wasn't so good at using that gun of his so I could make fun of him, the bastard. Are all dwarven adventurers so ridiculously competent?"

LOL!!!

Trying to write Elena's dislike for Vhane in an entertaining way :)

Sorry. No update today due to life getting in the way.

I have an appointment today which will take some time. So no update sorry.

As always thanks for the heads up. :)

Could I swap precise strike? With my flanking partner no longer in the campaign, it has become close to dead. Could I replace it with scarred legion? If nothing else it gives +2 intimidate, and given that Bharak is only at +3, it’s not nothing.

Normally I'd make you take the retraining time, but since as you say you've lost your flanking partner and it doesn't do much more than give you that +2 I'll say sure.

Thank you, I appreciate it. :)

I've just found out I have an appointment tomorrow. So no update on Tuesday sorry.

Hey everyone, my apologies for going silent. I am on a vacation right now, but honestly i've had a lot of bad stuff happening in my life recently that is really draining my energy and motivation to post. I hope to feel a bit better soon and get back into posting when time allows. But dont hesitate to bot me if needed.

Hey everyone, my apologies for going silent. I am on a vacation right now, but honestly i've had a lot of bad stuff happening in my life recently that is really draining my energy and motivation to post. I hope to feel a bit better soon and get back into posting when time allows. But dont hesitate to bot me if needed.

I get how that can be draining. Hope things improve for you soon, Elena.