"Fists of the Ruby Phoenix" (Campaign) w/ DM rainzax

Game Master rainzax

Based on the Transferring Runes rules, it appears that upgrading Slick's Greatsword to the Hook Sword's Greater Striking rune requires coming up with 10% of the [more expensive] rune's Price, which in this case is 106.5gp. It also takes 1 full day.

The procedure apparently involves swapping the Striking runes on the two weapons so that the Hook Sword ends up with the plain Striking rune and the Greatsword ends up with the Greater Striking rune. If someone then wants to transfer the plain Striking rune from the Hook Sword to something more useful to them, then that would presumably be a separate transfer.

So it looks like Slick will need to wait to get his Greatsword's Striking rune upgraded until after we've cleared out the temple and have a spare day for Billy (or Aoibhean from the looks of it) to spend on the transfer. Oh, and he has to find 26gp more to pay for the transfer as he's only got 80.7gp left on him. Selling the Hook Sword with the plain Striking rune on it at the Stonehenge One-Way Portal would would do the trick (65/2 = 32.5gp).

Also, quick rules question. A deer animal barbarian's antlers have a 10ft reach and have the grapple trait. Does that mean that Osh can grapple 10 feet away with his antlers? Just want to make sure!

As for grappling with a reach weapon, the Grapple trait description states that this uses the weapon's reach (if different from your own) and adds the weapon's item bonus to attack rolls as an item bonus to the Athletics check. So I think Osh is good to go with using his antlers to grapple an opponent 10ft away.

Yes, Osh should be able to grapple from 10 feet away if it has the Grapple trait. My bard does something similar to trip with his whip.

Some feedback for our GM:

o Secret rolls
I apologize that it took 3-4 posts for me to figure out how you want to do Secret rolls. In fact, I'm still not sure. If we're doing something different than what you want, please just spell it out for us. No need to be cryptic. I'm fine doing it how you want. I just need to know.

o Handling questions
1) Billy asked Ahmitar several questions about wall paintings and the ghosts. I even repeated the questions in OOC in case you missed them.

2) Slick asked a question about his reach from the balcony.

3) Aoibhean asked why her AoO didn't apply.

Unfortunately, there were no answers or even acknowledgement that you saw them.

You seem far too thorough and capable to be missing them. I would respectfully request that you at least acknowledge them. Even if it's just to say "Nice try." It seems you're intentionally ignoring questions that you feel aren't worthy of being answered. If so, that makes some players feel disrespected. Perhaps you'd like questions presented in another way. If so, please let us know.

Thanks for listening.

Billy,
I will ask that you vent your frustrations elsewhere than in your PBP game. If I do not respond to every query, consider that it is because there are too many. Let's not wall-of-text the GM between every post please. As I have spoken privately with you before, if you continue in this pattern, I will ask you to step down.

Please let me know if we can just get back to playing our game.

Please let me know if we can just get back to playing our game.

Of course we can.

Was just providing feedback (since you requested it after our previous encounter). I truly thought this Discussion channel was for these kinds of posts. Not my intention to cause offense. I apologize.

Billy,
I am going to ask you to step down from this multi-month, perhaps multi-year game. The cycle of blowing up and apologizing is not one I want to continue for the foreseeable future.

To the rest, I realize this may be a shock. Please take the weekend to consider whether you'd like to continue with me as your DM, or if you'd like to poll the Boards to find a replacement DM with a style more aligned with your wants and needs, in which case I will willingly surrender the PBP to assist the transition.

That said, my wish is to continue to run this game I started with the four of you, and I will be looking to salvage it on Monday, if you'll still have me.

Cheers.

To be honest, I don't understand most of the accusations in your last couple posts. I never blew-up and never submitted wall of texts. I provided feedback (which you requested).

Having said that, of course, I will abide by your wishes.

For the record, I want to thank you for giving me a chance to participate. I enjoyed the fast pace of this PbP game thanks to your being so active. I'm sorry I made you regret the decision choosing me. I had fun creating a high-level character, and I had fun while it lasted. Again, I sincerely thank you for the opportunity.

Pleasant journeys, everyone. Best of luck to Cirri's Corsairs. Hope to see you around the boards.

I have exchanged DMs with the the GM to inform him that due to Billy's ejection from the adventure, that I too must withdraw myself.

Billy is a good friend of mine in real life and I cannot in all good conscience continue playing in this adventure given the manner of his departure. My enthusiasm for roleplaying Slick is gone and I do not wish to risk any potential damage to our friendship that my continuing to play might cause.

I hold no rancor towards DM rainzax. Though I disagree with his decision, he did what he felt he needed to do for his own good and that of the adventure. Unfortunately that placed me in an awkward situation and so for my own good and that of my friendship with Billy, I felt I had no choice but to follow him out the door.

I am truly sorry for the negative impact that our departure will have for the continuation of the adventure and hope you can quickly find two more players willing to fill our slots. If it helps speed things up at all, they should feel free to use my Slick build as the basis of their replacement PCs.

I had fun playing Slick and was looking forward to a long adventure with like-minded players under the oversight of a good GM. I wish each of you individually and the adventure as a whole the best of wishes for a speedy recovery from this (hopefully) minor bump in the road.

Players,
I have recruited Max Gain to join us, and may or may not recruit another player from Recruitment.

Unless I hear otherwise, I am going to assume we are ready to continue on shortly.

Cheers.

Hello everyone, glad to be a part of this game. I won't be able to have any productive activity or roleplay until after Christmas though.

Howdy Max! Merry Christmas, btw.

I'll be on vacation from the 28th to the 30th, but I should have internet.

Hey folks, apologies again. I've been having a rough couple weeks IRL, but I'm good to go now. Thanks for your patience.

I do have to say that I'm saddened by the circumstances of Billy and Slick's departures from the game. I think it's probably far too late to ask for a reconsideration, but I would urge all of us to extend the grace and patience to each other that we would wish for ourselves. I can't speak for Billy, only myself, but when I've asked about rulings, it's not to be argumentative, only looking for clarification and understanding. The more I understand why you've ruled a particular way, the better I can avoid running into that situation again. We're still strangers to one other, by and large, so we're still getting to know how each other person thinks and plays the game.

Forgot, am I to be jumping into gameplay immediately, or will you add me in the game, like be found in a room?

Max,
We are in the middle of salvaging this game, which has experienced two consecutive interruptions. First, one player had to step down for personal reasons, and has been replaced with another (Osh), nary a week ago. Second, I asked a disruptive player to step down, and as a result, his friend also decided to step down as well, prompting me to recruit you (and, maybe, a 5th character too).

Assuming people want to move forward with the salvaging effort, I think the best way to do so is to take a couple of days to finalize your character and get your Character Bars together. Both of our new folks. Then, I will post a "short summary" + "soft reset" post back in Gameplay, and we can proceed from there. This leaves us with three questions.

Q) Max and Osh - how much time do you need to finalize your Characters and Character Bars?
Q) Cirri and Aiobhean - given the reshuffle, would you like to make minor changes to your Characters?
Q) Team - how do we want to go about incorporating Max and Osh into the Story?

Is there any other questions I didn't think of?

Howdy, fellow teammates! Can't wait to meet you in character. Cirri is a strix explorer of the wilderness and lost civilizations. Sorceress Hao Jin has traveled far and wide, and has tapped into so many civilizations Cirri can't wait to win this tournament and explore some more.

Cirri is currently the team sponsor, selling most of her treasure to pay for the trip.

By the way: "Common" language defaults to Taldane, but we're in Tian-Xia, where the common language is Tien. So you should specify whether you speak Taldan or Tien instead of Common. Cirri only speaks Taldane, so she's has no idea what people are saying.

Q) Cirri and Aiobhean - given the reshuffle, would you like to make minor changes to your Characters?

Looks like we have a lot of frontliners, here. If I have the chance Cirri will swap out more healing spells. She'll fall back a bit to focus on buffing her allies rather than dive into battle.

Q) Team - how do we want to go about incorporating Max and Osh into the Story?

I thought up two options:

b) Retcon lazer: This IS the team Cirri paid for, they've always been here. See? They're here now. If the setting assumes we're a fixed team, it may be easier to say we've always been here.

I think I'm still happy with Aoibhean's build. The only thing that I currently regret is having bought a staff of evocation instead of a staff of divination, but I'll survive.

One concern I do see is that we leave a lot of healing to Cirri; I'm the only other person with any Medicine proficiency, and I'm only Trained.

I'm fine with a retcon to explain the change in party. We're only a couple hours into our first adventuring day.

I do have >Natural Medicine<, so I can use my Master Medicine check to Treat Wounds.

Character bar has been updated! Power went out yesterday so I wasn't able to check out any of games until late in the day today.

@Cirri, how have you been communicating with the group before? Osh definitely does not speak Taldane nor Strix.

As for how you want to introduce Osh and Max, I'm flexible with the idea. I'd prefer to have them just joining the group instead of being their from the beginning, if that's okay. But if you guys want to retcon Osh and Max being there from the beginning, I'm okay with that too.

Aoibhean knows Tien and Taldane, so Cirri squawks like a big loud foreigner and other party members massage it into Tien when needed. One plan was to take >Multilingual< at level 12 as she picked up the language.

We just finished fighting some ghosts. Maybe you broke free of the ghost's curse?

I'm cool with being an interpreter! I think we can generally assume that's what I'm doing so the two of you can speak with each other directly.

If you'd like to have your character join after the fact, that's good too! I posted about a retcon for the ease of implementation, but I don't have a strong feeling toward it.

The character is finished, with the ancestral paragon rules added.
Okay, thanks, that also clarifies up the plan.

Max,
How long do you need to format your Character Bar?

I don't know how to type in check boxes on character page.

You can copy / paste them from the Campaign Tabs or from my DM Alias.

Guns okay? They weren't PFS legal when you started this, but they are now.

Uncommon/Rare: Again not going to over-arbitrate your selections, instead going to invite you all to make that decision for yourselves, and sponsor the concept of "less is more" =)

This is my general take.

Okay thanks.
I think my character pane is done, but I've never dealt with a pane more than a page long, or played this high where a bunch of abilities are added, and I'm also not an organized person. I will need some help to make sure I didn't miss anything important in the character pain as well as organizing it.

No worries, Max! We're all new to high level PF2. I think one of the best things you can do is make it so each of the feats on your profile links to the feat's page on the Archives of Nethys. That way, it's easy to just look it up and see what it does.

After that, I'd sort the feats into categories (Skill, Class, Ancestry, etc) and indicate what level you took each feat at. Currently it's kind of a dizzying list of numbered items but it's not immediately apparent to me if they're sorted or not. I'm biased, but I think mine is pretty good, so take a look if you're not sure where to start.

GM: I'd like to recommend Dorian Grey's character. I've played with him both as his GM and a fellow PC, and he's been fun and capable.

Here are your main "buckets" Max:

Are you open to feedback from your teammates? Or is Max pretty much settled in?

Thanks, looks a lot more organized. Yeah, feedback is okay. Especially the character bar, mine isn't as long as the others, 3 lines vs my 1.5, so I feel like I'm missing a lot.

Welcoming Audi ibn Jad to our group!

I'd like to move us along Monday - check out the Map and let's decide where we want to go sometime this weekend.

And Merry Christmas.

Hello Table! Tank you for tinking of me!

I appreciate the inclusion. I will be reading the Game thread and rounding him out this weekend.

Merry Christmas!

Good to see you, Audi.

I don't mind the spell, assuming you don't tell us to jump off a cliff. Not that Cirri would mind, she can't take damage from falling.

Ok. I have finished his sheet, I believe. Please, let me know if there are any questions, comments, or concerns?

I also just finished reading everyone's Backgrounds, languages (we barely can communicate with each other) and skill sets. I believe Audi will fit right into the voids left.

Busy family day today, so I will finish forming ideas for Audi's backstory and inclusion into the group (Ass Kickers?) mentally. I shall endeavor to type it out tomorrow morning.

Audi (most likely) will be from Qadira (kellish) and he purchased a Choker of Elocution for Tein, as he is going to Goka for the Tournament.

Thank you, again.

Enjoy your Holiday!

EDIT: @ Cirri still formulating his personality, but I can envision that happening, as a way of a friendly punch in the arm...lol.

Welcome Audi!

Happy holidays. Looking forward to the game!

I am under the assumption that we have started this together, as decided with Osh and Max? If not, apologies for jumping in...

Unless there is strong objection, I think this is the way to go.

As we have three new players who may or may not have read the early Gameplay threads, a summary of which Other Teams the party has met can be found in Campaign Tabs > Players hosted in GM's various Aliases.

My initial rolls aside, I am expecting Audi to be back of Initiative, so Oracular Warning. As of now, he will use it on Max; although, if anyone else would be better for it, let me know.

I added his pic onto the Maps; although, I reserve the right to find a better one...lol. I actually do like his profile pic here.

You can definitely change your map and avatar icon. I've changed it at least 5 times already.

I have placed his Token on A4 map?

Also, not certain, but, his Exploration Tracker should be ready.

I am including a "scroll" on the slides for each encounter (underneath corresponding maps), if anyone is so inclined to take notes, it is there as a resource!

My initial rolls aside, I am expecting Audi to be back of Initiative, so Oracular Warning. As of now, he will use it on Max; although, if anyone else would be better for it, let me know.

I added his pic onto the Maps; although, I reserve the right to find a better one...lol. I actually do like his profile pic here.

I mentioned this above in Discussion. I have it in my Bar/Header also.

I am including a "scroll" on the slides for each encounter (underneath corresponding maps), if anyone is so inclined to take notes, it is there as a resource!

On the same slide for each room, a resource for the party to track discovered and ID'd items

...

For Identifying Items, please use the following syntax:

If no one objects, Audi would like to hold on to the Prayer beads?

Max, while Recall Knowledge is generally a Secret check, the GM's general policy has been that you can roll openly for something if they tell you what the DC is. Rainzax can correct me if I'm wrong, though.

Audi - What is your current Curse severity?

I am beginning to suspect that his Curse isn't actually in affect until he enters Minor; which happens once he casts a Curse spell.

That does make one really want to cast a Curse spell so that the chaos may begin...lol.

Ancestors Mystery Oracle is perhaps the most complex Class yet printed

I just moved Cirri's token, sorry about that. Next time I'll draw an arrow to indicate my desired movement.

What are the consequences for using your first Cursebound Focus Power?

Minor Curse One of your ancestors becomes predominant in their meddling. The first time you gain this effect each day, roll 1d4 on Table 2–4: Ancestral Influence to determine which type of ancestor becomes predominant. This predominant ancestor guides you to use their preferred type of action. When you try to use one of the types of actions listed for the other ancestors, you must succeed at a DC 4 flat check. On a failure, you spend the action but gain no effect (though you don't lose the spell if you were Casting a Spell). If your action would take 1 minute or longer, it's long enough that you can overcome the meddling, and you don't need to attempt a flat check.

During combat or another tense, round-by-round encounter, other ancestors wrestle for control of your actions. When you roll initiative, and then at the end of each of your turns during the encounter, roll 1d4 and change your predominant ancestor appropriately. Once the encounter ends, you return to the influence of the ancestor you first rolled for the day.

So, he is Minor stage now.

Ancestral Mystery