GM of Rust's "Whims of Fate" Table 1 (Inactive)

Game Master Knight of Rust

Drask's avatar will work just fine. Ready to move forward!

Maggs' avatar will work as well. Can use rat swarm squares for hand powers, and I'll get a good Hand image for you soon

Avatar works here, too. All I need (as far as I know at the moment) is a response from my semi-enslaved angel hat and then I'm good for whatever story-beat is next.

I'll be taking another short staycation from 1/1 through 1/5. Posting will be sporadic until I return to work on 1/6.

Jo's avatar is fine for the moment.

Also, hello everyone! Feeling better and getting back into action.

Scratch my previous, now deleted, post. I checked in with Rust about some detail I wanted to include but in the process he solved the issue by just asking me to wait til he moves us along tomorrow, at which point he’ll set up what I was gonna do for me. Yay!

I’ll post in about an hour, and set it up so that you don’t have to do individual posts where all you do is walk up to me. It’s mostly just a chance at dialogue and maybe an opportunity to pull out some creative thinking and weird knowledge checks.

Currently conferring with Rust about whether or not Jo can help with my next angel summon--figured I'd ask him since the class feature itself has some pretty heavy potential for campaign spoilers.

I would allow it. Joanna wouldn't be able to replicate it, of course, but I'd allow the aid.

I'll have a map up either tonight or tomorrow morning, and I'll move us along then.

The map will be up tonight. My laptop crapped out on me, so I'll have to wait until I'm on my desktop. Sorry, guys.

No worries.

And Maggs, hope you don't mind me throwing the bit about the goblins out there. I just thought it might be something that we could build on.

Absolutely fine, don't mind at all. We have a history, share pieces of common backstory, anyone may elaborate on past experiences.

As far as the nightmares, I imagine the inspiring event pretty simply: Maggs surrounded by a bunch of goblins, each with their happy little 6 HP, then boom,

Then the vicious thing happily climbs up Maggs' leg and body and perches on her shoulder, pulling lice out of her hair.

Yeah, that'll be enough to give poor Jo nightmares alright.

I doubt anyone will get super wound up about this, but I definitely meant “evocation” not “abjuration” in my last post. For the record. Wish I’d have spotted it before this morning.

Whew, that's the first time I got to see this build really in action once it reaches the mid levels! Even with middling dice that hurts.

Presumably since Hyacinth's aroma is breathing-based we could preemptively hold our breath to avoid the negative effects, yes?

Yes, you could do that, too.

Benecha watching Byron get eaten: "Yes, this is still acceptable."

An attack that misses by 5 or less destroys a mirror image, which I believe Drask only had one left?

Correct, and correct. Header updated (I track his mirror images in his header).

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the Shadows are quasi-real, have AC, and are destroyed if they take any damage.

All three assertions are correct. However...I am not entirely sure if they provoke. That is something I hadn't considered, and a very interesting question.

So one question to address is "are they figments or shadows". Those are both subschools of the illusion school. The effect describes its function as similar to mirror image, which is a figment, but it also has the flavor text of "shadow" and "quasi-real", which suggests its shadow.

Since at higher levels the shadows can be the origin point of attacks and can manipulate objects, I believe the answer is that they are shadows, since figments are not able to do those things.

So they are quasi-real shadow...mirror images. Neat.

So...yes, I think that they would provoke in that case.

Would you allow them to make acrobatics check to attempt to avoid AoO's?

So they are quasi-real shadow...mirror images. Neat.

So...yes, I think that they would provoke in that case.

Would you allow them to make acrobatics check to attempt to avoid AoO's?

I'd allow it. Just remember that your movement is divided, so it'll be a little weird to keep track of sometimes.

Yup. There's a reason for the barbarian dip and the mithral armor, Drask is moving at that smooth 40 feet.

Hey just fyi the math is looking tough for everyone’s least favorite support druggie of dubious worth. I screwed up my stats really bad because I misunderstood something about white elephant—don’t ask, I won’t answer, I’m still annoyed at myself—so I can’t actually do enough damage to save myself even if Killer Croc’s Colon rolls really poorly. I will attempt not to die.

Good use of resources, Maggs. Thanks.

Just fyi, the GM and I were talking and realized we both forgot about my Defensive Shock cast. If he decides to roll retroactive damage, the crocodile is gonna take 4d6 retroactive shock damage from biting me, maybe another 2d6 if I discharged inside it ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Sorry, couldn’t resist the phrasing. Anyway the remaining D6 will discharge on your swarm. I’m also okay with us just forgetting I cast that this time since it’s my job to pay attention to that and I spaced it twice in a row if Rust wants to go that way.

Also I’m pretty sure I’ve had irl nightmares not totally dissimilar to what happened to my pathfinder character this past round.

GM, Hyacinth has 5 mirror images active. Did the crocodile get past them?

It may help to have such buffs either tracked in your header or in an "Active Buffs" spoiler in all of your combat posts. As somebody who has GM'd on the board in the past that is massively helpful.

Yes, sorry, I've been lax with my header. I'll fix that. :)

Boom, nicely done!

Also, I am very thankful for my own buffs spoiler, because I nearly forgot I had spider climb active. Otherwise I had done a lot of math for what it was like to jump towards the front of the boat and swim over the crocodile, but with spider climb it's a much simpler approach.

Hyacinth is fine now, I just rolled it. So is Drask by just a hair.

Also, yes, please list your active buffs either in your post like Drask does or in the header. I'm not the most meticulous of GMs and my attention span is really short so I'm definitely going to make mistakes like that.

Not sure when or how we’ll convey this, but once Byron figures out what happened he’s going to feel a very visceral kind of gratitude towards Mags. She won’t know this but he sees her as just having saved both his and possibly his sister’s life.

Hey all. As you probably noticed, I haven't been on in a little bit. Things have have changed for me personally and professionally. I've been sturggling with some mental issues for a while now that have been affecting things in my life to a fairly severe degree. I have a path forward, and it's going to be hard, but I can do and I'll be okay.

That said, I have also found that the enjoyment I got from playing online is not there anymore. I don't know if it's because I have gotten older or if it's because of the afforementioned mental issues, but either way I don't look forward to post like I did. It's been fun, and I have enjoyed the 10 years I've played on these boards. I need to be honest, though. I don't have the motivation for this that I used to have. I know that it's never fun to have someone leave a game, but I need to consider my mental wellbeing here. I wanted to let you all know that I'm okay and doing well, and I wanted to let you know that I'm leaving the boards, perhaps for good, but definitely for a long time.

Thank you all for the fun times and I wish you all the best. I pray that God will bless all of you. I hope that we'll meet again, but if not, know that I'm alright and will be grand. I just need to take some time to get myself together.

Love y'all
-Adam

Understandable, Adam. I'm sorry to see you go, but I can appreciate the decision to take your best path.

I wish you the best of luck in all you do.

Going to be taking a few days off, myself. Nothing bad, just busy. Feel free to roleplay things out if you like. I'll pick back up Monday.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

My last post is a little chronologically complex, but if anyone wants to do any interactin' I'm willing to assume it happens whenever is convenient--at night, or the next day after I've done Outside Contact.

Just in case it wasn't clear, the "Byron's Report" spoiler is for everyone. I just couldn't find a good way to structure the post without making it overlong, or overshadowing the farewell-to-Joanna part.

We've been playing for a little over 2 months now, and I wanted to check in with everyone and get your thoughts.

Are you enjoying the campaign so far?
Is there anything that stood out that you enjoyed so far that you want more of?
Anything that you didn't particularly care for?

Feel free to rip into me if you feel it necessary. Sometimes it do gotta be that way.

Always nice to see feedback being asked for.

Do you want feedback posted here for all to see or would you prefer it in a private message?

It can be posted here so people can bounce off of it unless you want to keep it private.

Though I do request any uncouth comments on my lineage be directed to my private messages, please and thank you.

Got it, so all "your mother was a hamster" type comments directly to the inbox :P haha

Overall, I have been having a good time. Fleshed out characters and personalities, good writing, very immersive. I can definitely tell love and attention goes into the posts and the story.

My only feedback, as it is, is that I want more of it. I would love an increase in pace. However I am not sure if the current pace is mostly a function of how much time you have available to dedicate to the game, or rather if you're waiting on an affirmative post/reaction from most/every player before moving forward. If it's the former I understand, real life comes first. If it's the latter then my feedback would be to have less concern with pushing the narrative forward.

Overall, absolute blast so far, and I'm looking forward to more!

I really feel connected with the story and the characters, am eager to see more of it. I do regret my spell choice for the day; I had assumed when I picked it that we would be adventuring in the mines and prepared mostly terrain spells and things to help us navigate tunnels and quarries but we certainly did survive the crocodiles with minimal damage.

Sorry for the delay in response in thread, forum maintenance kept getting me.

Being that I know you outside of Paizo, I've been talking to you about the campaign (and harassing you with questions about things I forgot during my long hiatus from DnD/PF) but I'll talk here too for the sake of conversation.

I'm pretty fine with everything so far. The pace has been a little bit of a drag for me too at times though. Though I will express out loud that that's mostly because I'm weirdly anxious that long delays increase the likelihood that we'll sort of drift away and leave the campaign unfinished.

Like with our other projects in the past, I really like your storytelling methods, the flavor you add to our interactions and suchlike. We just need a secret miniboss fight with Moon James and it'll be perfect /injoke

I'm glad that everyone is enjoying themselves, and I appreciate the feedback given. My pace has slowed (I can't bring my laptop to work anymore and I'm just a little bit absolutely livid) but I should be fine soon (tm). As for waiting for everyone, I did want to do that for Joanna's departure to get consensus on one less party member and body to take hits.

But that's that and I don't have quite a lot of time now. Likely won't be able to update this weekend, maybe tomorrow, but we'll see.

So, everyone have a good weekend and anticipate an update for Monday (unless sooner).

I'm enjoying things as well. Appreciate the thoughtful and well-written posts. I feel like Hyacinth hasn't completely clicked for me yet but perhaps she will with a little more time. :)

Hey I'mhaving difficulty logging in, changed my password, sent Paizo an email, I can access the site on my phone but not on my PC sorry I genuinely don't know what is going on

Try clearing the cookies from your browser. That fixed the problem for me.

Yup, just clear your cookies.

Pfffffffffffffffffffffffff guess who forgot that potions get minimum saves? Oh well. Maybe we'll fight some rats or something will roll a 1 :v

Thank y'all for the help

I appreciate the Moose and Squirrel! Now if only Madam Spud had aviator goggles! :D

"And now, here's something we think you'll really like!"

Thank you for your appreciation!

And, out of curiosity and because I should have asked earlier, but whom among you openly wear the symbol of the House of Fate and Fire on your person? Wayfinder or otherwise?