Volcano's Land - Beyond the City of Light

Game Master Miner Cotren

Benedetto wants to investigate the Temple at night.

What say the rest of you?

Sure!

Hi All! I PMd Zephyr, and we agreed that it would be easier to part ways with the campaign with a busy life and other campaigns they post in. With their permission, the character is staying on as an NPC (I think Zeph the mystic offers an interesting perspective)

As our campaign moves forward, I wanted to check in with everyone:

--Still enjoying the campaign?
*

--What could be improved?
*

--Should we get another player? (I'm leaning toward 'no'. I think as long as we have three consistent posters and we have good supporting NPCs, I think we will be fine. I'm willing to hear other opinions)

Sorry I haven't been more consistent posting. I'm enjoying things so far, very curious to see where things are going, I just keep checking the thread, thinking about a response, and then forgetting I haven't responded. XD

I don't think we need another player right now. I've found that smaller groups are often better, at least in my opinion. :)

Enjoying the story yes, River is being carried by the others right now but that's fine and these nasty temple people seem like they might be a suitable enemy to face her wrath!

Cool, sounds like we're all good then :) I'm looking forward to seeing exactly where our eclectic group takes us.

Hi All!

So now Corsa has been MIA for about 3 weeks, and this is just tougher to do with only 2 PCs. I don't think we need a LOT of players, but 3-4 is more my comfort zone so we have posting going on throughout the week, more people to bounce ideas / dialogue off of, etc.

Does anyone know a poster from a different campaign that might be well suited to this game? Let me know if you have any suggestions. (I'd like to try that route first before I open recruitment)

I think I can interpret that as "no", and no one has a poster in mind? :)

Since 2 posters is not enough to carry reliable momentum, I'm going to go forward with a recruitment thread --- details to come soon-ish.

Yeah, I didn't think of anyone I'm afraid.

No-one for this sort of game I'm afraid.

Hi All,

Please welcome Amatshe - a new player in our game. The character will be joining in Gameplay in the next few days.

Howdy! Looking forward to playing with you all.

Amatshe, could you put your background, etc into your profile (with a spoiler for organization) when you get a chance?

Done. In spoilers at he bottom.

Welcome! I suspect I know the rough location we'll be meeting your character. :D

Sorry it's been a slow week - school is done this week and it's always a busy time. (I'm a high school math teacher)

Understood, my sister is a high school math teacher in New York so I can empathize with you. Here in Indiana (where I’m at) we’ve been done with school since Memorial Day.

After I take the weekend to get us to the Quiet Elder, I believe we shall be meeting Amatshe soon! I'll aim for Monday / Tuesday.

That does sound quite busy, good luck with everything!

Zephyr's condition (cursed by the Night Carrion) is slowly worsening, so this morning it was decided that Anan would stay in the common-room inn with Zeph and tend to his fever. Corsa sounded reluctant to explore the city that had treated her poorly in the past, so she volunteered to stay with Anan. She's consulting her holy book for prayers to say that might help the cursed sylph, but she also provides simple things like food and water for the other two.

(that's what they are doing for the morning. haven't figured out what Corsa will be doing long term with her player no longer around)

Amatshe - I'd like you to post! As we discussed, you've only recently arrived at Hearth yourself, and you are still being treated as an outsider to the Elder, despite the fact you are an oread. I'd love to hear you post in character, and take some freedom to make the character and the setting your own.

You are currently being asked for weapons and other dangerous items, same as the PCs. I'd like it to be a bonding moment between all of you, if it works out that way. :)

Sorry for the slow posting -- we had a sick kid here that was taking up most of my energy. Getting better, so I should be able to post tomorow.

Happy to see the RPing though! :)

Welcome to 1000 posts - and here's to 1000 more!

Be on the lookout - we will be having 1 more PC join us in the next week or two. They will be introduced through the narrative, and I'm keeping it mysterious besides that :)

Any errands / tasks before the evening? Otherwise I will fast forward to the evening with a quick blurb about Gamb taking you to a nice ifrit restaurant before the mission.

I'll look for replies, and I'll plan on updating Fri or Sat.

Well, that depends on what those cracking sounds were. :D

:)

My vision of River's spell, I just forgot to type it in - since she is often inward-focused (while still paying attention to her surroundings), I think the spell may have given River a brief insight, and caught the oread on her own when his first attempt to jump and catch himself failed.

However you please, oh mighty one! :)

Quick soundoff - everyone good to post approximately every other day going into August and September?

Yep!

Hopefully. :)

I've been on holiday the past few days but I'm back now.

Hello everyone! I'm going on vacation from Monday, I'll be on the coast for ten days. Over that time I might be a bit spotty.

Feel free to ignore whatever Aisling says or does :)
The Declarative: he would prefer skulking to fighting anyhow ;) but don't be afraid to chuck few of his sneak-attack-no-cost grenades

In other news, an introduction. I'm a Croat, I live and work in Croatia, I game since AD&D times, switched to GURPS at college, I skipped 3e because of GURPS and I had kids (I still have them, they just don't eat 36 hours from each day). Played some 4e, 5e (still playing), PF1 (preferred!!), and PF2 (not impressed, but serviceable).

Welcome to the party! :D I started back with AD&D too, and I have played GURPS (though not a ton).

Thanks for the update Aisling! I might have Aisling 'skulk' for a round since he is just recovering from food/water deprivation, but after that I'll have him chuck a bomb or two :) Enjoy your vacation, and with combat brewing currently I think we'll be back to RP around the time you are back :)

Since we have newer players, here is a summary of my combat habits as a DM:

1) I will bot Ny remaining actions after 24 hours (except on weekends, etc). Combat becomes a miserable slog if rounds go for too long. I try my best to bot a reasonable action for PCs.

2) Always feel free to ask what kind of knowledge checks can be used to ID an enemy. Don't make any assumptions if you see something that looks like a troll, elemental, genie, or whatever: I either homebrew my own creatures, or mod existing creatures, so knowledge skills are useful for figuring out the strengths / weaknesses of enemies.

3) Also feel free to post an action, even if it is not quite your turn in initiative -- I piece together all the separate parts, and summarize the results of the round. I also give the benefit of the doubt (like I would have your attack go to goblin 2, if you originally said attack goblin 1 but your ally finished it off first)

Just in case, kinetic blasts do full damage to swarms.

Even the weakest kinetic blast involves a sizable mass of elemental matter or energy, so kinetic blasts always deal full damage to swarms of any size (though only area blasts deal extra damage to swarms).

So I won't do any extra damage but I don't get halved either.

Thank you for the clarification! Swarms and Kinetic Blast is a corner case for sure.

I'll update -- you killed the first swarm with your first action.

:)

It's a useful fact that they specifically call out in the rules... but who reads all the rules for kineticists? There's several pages of them!

:D

I appreciate you knowing your character and the ins and outs of your abilities. :)

Hi All! Just wanted to say I'm still having a ton of fun despite losing PCs here and there :) Hope all of you are having fun too.

**

Re: Losing players

At my other PbP table, I only had 3 PCs, but we had been posting together for 3-ish years, so the worked fine. However, one of the players recently disappeared from the forums, so :

1) I'm going to be combining our two tables soon--- we'll have two new PCs to meet! (3 at this table, and eventually two more = five)

2) I'm going to keep trying to keep the narrative flow of characters believeable - this is a dangerous world where even strong people can fall to disease (sleepy sickness) or planar foes (the PC from the other table is currently trapped by a Dream version of himself) , but with so much chaotic magic in the air it can also be a time for many different heroes to rise.

3) I am always open to feedback. I think it's an interesting challenge to bring us all together to weave a story, and I'm optimistic we can settle into a groove with our new number (five total) once they join. PbP moves slowly of course, so I think we will all meet by end of August or so.

Dream, especially nightmarish one, might play well with my backstory and patron.

I say "go for it!"

You could also move us there, we're doing some terrifying, weird temple exploration. Going into a dream is not unbelievable.

Sounds interesting. :)

I'm back home so no more unformatted posts from the phone!

Aisling, as you find your old equipment (some in the cell, and some in an equipment room next door), you are surprised to find it all intact. The impending Madness must have come too quickly to do much else.

You also find a smattering of your companions' former equipment, but much is missing:

--An Amulet of natural armor +2 (from Stoneheart)

--A ring of protection fire, minor (so 10 pts of resist)

--2 potions of cure serious wounds (both from the Tidesongs)

--Gems and other portable goods worth 2000 gp

A question: From PFSRD automatic progression
"Items that only grant bonuses to AC, saving throws, and ability scores don’t exist in this variant"

Amulet grants only AC bonus (and we already have automatic +1 natural) - is that intentional?

We're not doing automatic progression - I actually find it to be more bookkeeping online to remember all those random bonuses per level (looking at the items is just more straightforward for my brain to process in a character sheet)

I was wondering why you didn't have any of the traditional stuff -- I guess I didn't read close enough to see the inherent bonuses, etc.

If you wouldn't mind over the weekend reworking some of your equipment? It should work out to be roughly the same.

Also, I'd prefer Aisling not have the detect evil wayfarer ability - it steps on our paladin's toes a bit.

Let me know if you have any questions - that's definitely on me.

I've read somewhere in the char building about automatic stuff.

I'm still on vacation, I'll rework it tomorrow.

I have 23 000 gp more to spend

That would also mean i have to change weapon and armor prices

Much appreciated - let me know if you have any questions.