Per an earlier discussion, I have been thinking about updating the Frozen Shade's primary ability.
Here is the old text of the ability:
The Frozen Shade can move its shade up to 50ft as a free action once per turn, including the round it first activates it, or up to 75ft as a move action. At the end of the round after the Frozen Shade first activates its shade, it may choose to teleport itself to the location of its shade, replacing it. If it has not already attacked that round, it may immediately make one melee attack on any adjacent creature as a swift action. Whether it attacks or not, its turn immediately ends. If the Frozen Shade does not choose to teleport itself to the location of its shade by the end of the round after the round in which it first sends out its shade, its shade immediately disappears. A Frozen Shade may use this ability at will, but only on rounds in which it did not start with a shade already active.
Here is the updated version, with changes in bold:
Shade Transfer (Su). As a swift action, the Frozen Shade can send a shade of its essence towards a target. This shade looks like a partially transparent version of the Frozen Shade itself. It is treated as Ethereal, except that it does not have movement speeds which the Frozen Shade does not possess, cannot pass through solid objects (though it can slide through small cracks, as gaseous form) and is visible on the Material Plane. It is unaffected by Difficult Terrain. A shade may not pass through a square that has been sprinkled with Holy Water or cross a line of Salt that has been sprinkled on the ground.
The Frozen Shade can move its shade up to 25ft as a free action once per turn, including the round it first activates it, or up to 35ft as a move action. At the end of the round after the Frozen Shade first activates its shade, it may choose to teleport itself to the location of its shade, replacing it. If it has not already attacked that round, it may immediately make one melee attack on any adjacent creature as a swift action. Whether it attacks or not, its turn immediately ends. If the Frozen Shade does not choose to teleport itself to the location of its shade by the end of the round after the round in which it first sends out its shade, its shade immediately disappears. A Frozen Shade may use this ability once every four rounds.
Hopefully these changes make the game more fun.
I'm fine with either version. We've had no trouble killing them so far.
Earlier you were planning on returning to the valley to rest and consecrate the Spirit of the Damned’s phylactery, but were trying to get to Pyrsa and check out the gate first. After getting sidetracked exploring the underground complex, you now have to decide if you want to continue on to Pyrsa, go back to the valley right away, or do something else. It is currently early afternoon, so if you continue on to Pyrsa now you will get there by mid afternoon and will probably not be able to return to the valley before nightfall. Currently I’ve heard some suggestion of resting where you are now.
I’d like to get 2 votes on a course of action and then move things forward on that basis.
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We should continue to Pyrsa!
Sure, let's finish with getting to Pyrsa.
Gonna pause here to check in and make sure everyone understands what's up. I think you're resolved to go back to town, so once I get the check in I'll post on that basis, unless I hear otherwise
Just waiting for a thumbs up from Razaniel. Have heard something from everyone else via discord.
We are officially pausing for recruitment to replace Razaniel. You can still move around town, buy supplies, and interact with NPCs. However, we will not have major progression or return to Pyrsa until our new player has arrived.
Gtg!
I would like to officially welcome Ungor the Dire to the game, to replace Razaniel. I'm really excited to game with you!
You can go ahead and dot in plus roll stats, if you'd like to roll.
Once you've got basic background and crunch out of the way, my first order of business is figuring out why Ungor wants to explore Pyrsa castle. Here are some sample motivations I provided to the others at the beginning of the game.
These are reasons why a character would be interested in exploring the dungeon based on the world history which I've provided.
1) You want to stop the cultists who are investigating Pyrsa castle.
2) You want to find the famous treasuries of the dwarves so you can be rich.
3) You want to secure a source of drownstone ore to stop the raids on eastern Autokratoria. You might yourself be from that region.
4) You want to secure some drownstone ore for personal reasons. Maybe you’re an elven spellcaster yourself, and you have some experiments you want to run.
5) You want to reinstate the dwarves as the rightful kings of the mountain. Maybe you’re even a friend or a relative of one of the noble dwarves who escaped the castle before the ritual, and who now faces persecution.
6) You want to ensure the eternal flame stays lit in Pyrsa’s halls so the mythical frost giants can’t cross the Skirling pass. The undead dwarves may not be able to hold the castle forever.
7) You want to lay the undead dwarves to rest and undo whatever pact they made with demonic forces. This would undo the shame of a people and set right a great wrong in the world.
You may also come up with other motivations based on any of the information you've looked at so far. Or you could come up with a mix of several. While I'm ok with some suspension of disbelief for the sake of playing a game together, I also want your character to have solid basis for their actions. As a result, figuring out a motive is my highest priority for you.
The second thing I'd like to address is being a druid. The party recently encountered evidence that there was a druid outside Pyrsa's castle walls relatively recently. They also found evidence of older druidic magic in a forest outside the walls. Personally, I feel like druids should tend to seek one another out, they do have a secret language that they share with one another, and I think your character should probably have already met this druid. If this is something you're interested in, I can PM you additional details.
Finally, we need to come up with a way for you to meet the party. In my mind, this should happen once we've got a basic background sketch and motivation from you.
I took a look through our PMs and found one outstanding question. The Wild enchantment is fine despite being a high percentage of your wealth since this seems like a core item which you need to function. It also does not seem overly powerful or broken.
Let's see if the Dice are good to Ungor:
Well that looks like crap! round 2!
=14
=11
=16
=8
=16
=13
woot for round 2.
On his way into the area in late winter, Ungor came upon a druid called Gurtag that has knowledge about the Pyrsa castle. Gurtag gives Ungor a massive intelligence (military term) dump which spurs Ungor to action. Upon meeting Gurtag and learning of the fait of the Dwarf King (and his regrets), Ungor volunteered to lead outsiders through the castle to the King and put an end to this undead abomination of the natural world.
Thanks for this update. I think we're in pretty good shape to get things back on the road.
I am assuming the party wants to leave on the morning of the following day, day 3? If so, can I get some confirmation?
I will plan to move the party tomorrow.
Agreed, but how are we incorporating Ungor into the party?
Did we split the 2k gp 4 ways?
You will go back to the dungeon and Ungor will meet you on the way.
I believe you each got 2k. Razaniel will disappear along with his share, and Ungor will appear with a little extra to compensate for this.
I meant the 2k from Báin at the end.
Ok folks, it's Spring Break here, and we head out of town tomorrow for a week.
Bot me as needed, distribute my stuff evenly if I die!
Ah, Razaniel took his share of that as well.
Right, so an additional 500gp each, that's what I figured.
Is anybody packing a wand of CLW?
Karti has one
You could also try exploring one of the ways forward that isn't blocked.
If you would like to rest, can you post that you're doing that and tell me what area of the room you're in and what precautions (if any) you're taking.
Greetings adventurers! Just a quick note to let you know the family and I are taking some Summer vacation starting this evening.
I'll be back and ready to save the world on 12 June!
Thanks for the heads up.
I myself will be traveling tomorrow. I expect to post normally Thursday and Monday, but will probably not post Friday or over the weekend.
I'm back!!
Alrighty then, so bright and early tomorrow morning, I'm taking 14 Boy Scouts to Summer Camp at Camp Tuckahoe, PA.
Immediately following that will be my family reunion for a week.
I expect to be back online on the 21st of July.
Feel free to make decisions for me while I'm gone!
Understood, thanks for the heads up.
Per discord messages, it is a good idea for us to have a discussion about communication strategies so that we can all stay on the same page about things.
First, I will say that I think I can do a better job of providing concrete rules information in situations where the rules are not clear.
Second, I think that I can also try harder to keep descriptive posts short, or to use paragraph breaks to highlight important information.
Third, I will try my best to ask you for actions as soon as possible anytime I don't think a post constitutes taking an action for me to adjucate. If I see a post and I don't think it constitutes an action, I will plan to mention that on discord and post in ooc text later that day if no one else is posting.
Are there other things that people think I be doing to provide better baseline communication?
I have other things I want to talk about, but this seems like a fine place to start.
I think those will all be good and constructive adjustments.
Right now I think we need to understand precisely what questions you need answered on our plan to make this tunnel. Right now we plan to find a place outside where it's safe to set up camp, and take a few days worth of stone shape spells to get us an easily hidden and accessible tunnel we can use as a permanent hidden entrance/exit.
There have been cases where a map would help. The maps you have produced have been great!
I think those will all be good and constructive adjustments.
Right now I think we need to understand precisely what questions you need answered on our plan to make this tunnel. Right now we plan to find a place outside where it's safe to set up camp, and take a few days worth of stone shape spells to get us an easily hidden and accessible tunnel we can use as a permanent hidden entrance/exit.
I think I'm understanding the issue a bit better.
Your plan was clearly communicated to me and had support from at least two people. Based on this, I would say that I had a clear understanding of what your plan was/is.
The issue I was having was that I didn't need to understand your plan. I needed to know what your actions were. In this case, there was first an idea that your retreat would be awkward if you got in trouble. Then, someone decided that a good solution would be to rest in order to change out the spells you had prepared. However, at that point I didn't see any actions to adjucate. I wasn't sure where you wanted to rest, or what actions you would take in order to get there. So I asked where you wanted to go, eventually you decided that the surface would be the spot. Then I asked how you were going to get there and who was going first, and the answer to that question was finally an action I could adjucate.
I think if I'm seeing that there's more information or decision making I need from you, it's really important for me to tell you what information I need as concretely and quickly as possible.
I also think that it's important for all of you to describe actions that your characters take, not plans that you have. How well do you all feel like you understand the distinction? Of course there are times when your action is something like "walk along the path to try to get to the town" in which case I can do some fast forwarding for you.
Hmm, I think I'm beginning to understand.
I think the failure may have been us hearing "What are you generally doing?" while what you were really saying was "I hear you plan to rest, but you're not in a safe place, how do you plan to get to a safe place?" I think this was based on the assumption that we felt the path behind us was relatively clearly and that we wouldn't expect resistance if we made a retreat, so we thought we were already in the "fast forward" part of the action, while you still saw us in the "clear and present danger of dungeon crawling" part of the action.
That's how I feel anyways, I can't speak for everybody.
Understood. It's pretty important for me to maintain clear communication about whether you are in a situation where danger is possible or one where it isn't. In situations of danger, I will require greater precision and clarity about your actions.
I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of a number of adjustments I can make to avoid similar situations in the future. I also notice that everyone has now posted in gameplay, so I will also post there.
I would like to talk a bit more, but to be honest I'm having a hard time thinking super clearly at the moment. I had to make an end of life plan for my beloved dog yesterday, and I'm having a really hard time processing that.
I'm happy to provide more clarification for Ungor's actions but I'm trying to defer to the main party (in character) since he just joined the group. It would be presumptuous of Ungor to start directing the groups actions. So most of my posts will be in the form of suggestions for one of the other party members to comment on / make the decision.
Hmm, I understand where you're coming from Ungor. However, even if you don't want to direct actions of the other group members, you yourself still have full control over Ungor's actions. So if you find yourself in a situation where you want to push the game forward, keep that in mind as an option.
I'm very sorry about your dog Trifty. I'd wager we've all been there, and will be again. I very much empathize!
I think there are two more things I’d like for us to be on the same page about.
First, I want you to be the driving force in the game. You decide where to go, what areas to explore, who to talk to, and who to kill. I often feel like you are the driving force in the game, but there are also times when I’m not so sure.
Second, I want decision making to be a part of the game. There are situations where it’s intentionally unclear what the best course of action is. In those moments, I’d like it if you making decisions as your characters would/in character is a core part of gameplay.
Do we feel like we are on the same page about these two things?
I'm good!
Agreed. Retreat out the way we came, and search for a somewhat nearby secure area to make camp in the wilderness so we can pop by 1/day to cast stone shapes.
I need the PCs to take actions. I have seen some good discussion on Discord about how you might go about fighting the golems, but no clear plan. I need to know what you want to do and how you plan to do that before we can move forward. I recognize that you have a hard decision to make, but I can't make it for you.
I've been awol due to moving but I'm back now. I vote with Ungor.
Hey everyone, as I mentioned on Discord, the past few days were pretty hard for me. I had an ongoing issue at work that made things harder than normal, and a couple things in my personal life that have been taking up a lot of time. I should be back to normal by now.
While we're here, I wanted to let you know that I am thinking about changing my posting schedule a bit. I've been aiming to post once a day Monday-Friday, assuming this is warranted, and about once for both Saturday and Sunday. I am thinking that in the future, I will be more likely to post on both Saturday and Sunday, but a bit less likely to post twice Tuesday and Wednesday. We'll see how this goes.
Quick ready check. Who is leveled up and ready to go?
I can't pick a feat. Paladin feats are hard to pick So few, and none that are uber needed.
Atash level 7!
HP: 4 (base) +2 (con) +1 (FC) = 7
BaB: +1/2 to a total of 3-3/4, meaning BaB doesn't increase this level (it will next)
Fort: +1/3 to a total of 4-1/2, meaning doesn't increase this level
Ref: +1/2 to a total of 5, increasing by 1
Will: +1/2 to a total of 5-1/3, increasing by 1
Class Features: Impromptu Sneak Attack 1/day
Skill Ranks: 4 (base) +6 (int) +2 (background) = 12 new points (max skills kept maxed, put rest into spellcraft)
Feat: Accomplished Sneak Attacker (+1d6 sneak attack)
Spells: +1 2nd/day, +1 3rd/day, new spells: Fly, Halt Undead
Familiar level 7!
HP: Adjusts to half of Atash's new total
Saves: Ref & Will increase by 1
Skills: Gains Atash's new skill points
Class Abilities: Natural armor +1, Int changes to 9 (no functional change), speak with animals of it's kind
Trifty, Now that I'm 7th level, what are the stats on the dwarf summoned by the Horn of Karena?
I'm ready to go!
same and I posted my buffs in Discord Ungor will get prepared for the golem fight.
Golem fight! I thought your plan involved diplomacy?