Ruins of Azlant: the wonderful journey!

Game Master bigrig107

The profile pic works fine for me! The creatures are next up in initiative right?

Yep, they just went! The three of you are up now.

Let me know if you can't move your token around, Ku'Hania, and I'll fix it. But you should be able to.

Yep seems to be working just fine.

I have put a token in for both Ku'Hania and Ankha for now, but I just used your profile pic icon.

I'm perfectly happy using the profile pic icon. Thanks!

If you can't see Roll20, Ankha, can you at least use imgur? I could always just post a screenshot of the map on ROll20 for you, so you can see it there and have the use of it, that might work just as well.

Like this?

That works perfectly for me. Thank you! I'll try to sort out Roll20 when I get home.

Cayeden Cailean has blessed this expedition.

Cayeden Cailean has blessed this expedition.

Ooh, nice rolls!

Easy first test!

I’m at work right now, but I’ll get the map of the colony up when I get home, shortly. I just wanted to give you all a chance to react to the combat and the cheers.

I look forward to Dolgrin and Ankha feeding into each other's mad scientist tendencies ^_^

"What if we do X (horrific thing)?"
"No, no, I tried that 30 years ago, before you were a twinkle in your parents' eyes. If you want to do X, what you really want to start with is Z (other horrific thing)."

Map of the colony, as you can see it.

I forsee many weird actions from our two..."scientists". Looking forward to it!

The hiking portion of my trip is about to begin, which means I'll be without a computer for days at a time. So I've deliberately placed Ankha in the background and the other PCs can continue without her. (If you really need Ankha's help please feel free to NPC her as you deem fit.) In any case, there won't be any further posts from me until Monday.

Happy hiking!

Have fun on your trip!

For the rest of you three, how would you like to handle this? Unusual GM warning time, most of the encounters are designed for four PCs, and some of them have the potential to get out of hand even with four (with some bad luck).

Should I NPC Ankha with you three until she returns, or should I tune the encounters down a bit to make it more manageable by three PCs?
I usually don’t like NPCing characters, but in circumstances like these I wouldn’t mind that if need be.

I don't imagine we'll cover too much ground in a week. Ankha said she was fine with botting her PC. Just doing regular attacks and not using up daily resources should hopefully be fine.

I concur with Dolgrin

Yeah if we end up in combat in the next couple days, Ankha will probably be back by round three.

I usually don’t say stuff like this and do encourage parties to split up (it’s fun!), but this time I’d really recommend staying together. Both because of the wide variety of skill checks some of the encounters will need, and the encounter difficulty.

I’m at work right now, just wanted to drop in and discourage splitting the party this early. I’ll get a post describing more of what you see after I’m done at work, this afternoon.

That's fine. I say we start at the top of the list like Dolgrin says, saving the town hall for last.

Groovy. Sticking together and pressing on!

I know that's a lot of information to process all at once, but I think this is still the easiest way to handle it. If you have any questions about specific areas or buildings, feel free to ask!

Yes, I definitely had concerns about splitting up. It seemed a bad idea, especially so early on.

That spellbook reminds me: Since 3/4ths of us are spontaneous casters, we should probably coordinate the spells we learn as we level up!

That spellbook has some great spells for our Alchemist, though!

That spellbook reminds me: Since 3/4ths of us are spontaneous casters, we should probably coordinate the spells we learn as we level up!

Agreed, though I think shamans prepare spells like a cleric, so they can choose new spells each day.

That spellbook has some great spells for our Alchemist, though!

Definitely agree. As soon as Ankha has some time and money she'll be adding new spells to her formula book. :)

@GM: I did get Roll20 working on my home computer, so I can use it so long as I'm not traveling. Speaking of which ... I'll be traveling June 5 - July 11. This will be mostly urban travel, so there shouldn't be any problem posting except for long travel days, but I will need to use the image workarounds in case of combat during this time.

Right right, I keep thinkin' she's an Oracle for some reason :P
Shaman is cooler

The spellbook definitely goes to the only one who can use it!

One of my favorite bard archetypes is the studious librarian, or as I like to call it: the bard with a spellbook. I'm playing one in a Reign of Winter campaign right now, and the ability to occasionally pull out a clutch spell that no one else has prepared has been a game-changer.

Unfortunately, studious librarian is incompatible with both dwarven scholar and stonesinger, so no dice there.

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It's always worthwhile to coordinate spells as we level up, but I think we can cross that bridge when we get there. The bard and inquisitor have similar but ultimately complementary lists by party role. For instance, I almost always take the following spells on my bards:
Lv1: Heightened Awareness, Saving Finale, Silent Image, Tears to Wine
Lv2: Glitterdust, Invisibility, Mirror Image
Lv3: Good Hope, Haste

Most of those spells are either bard-only (at least in this party), personal, or useful to have on multiple people. For instance, the Alchemist also has Tears to Wine, Invisibility, and Haste. Ankha will have to take Infusion to offer any of those to other people, and as an extract Haste can't be mass-used. Tears to Wine is the only one that Ankha and I should probably figure out whether either or both of us are taking it (as my read is that that's one that could (should imho) be able to be used for the whole party).

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I'll post ASAP.

I hadn't planned on taking Infusion (I'm thinking of taking Feral Mutagen for my first discovery to take advantage of sneak attack) but could be persuaded by the party to do so. (I do like the idea of sharing personal spells like Shield.) My current plan for sharing spells is by brewing potions (which, as a practical matter, generally limits her to sharing 1st level spells).

The alchemist has a few buffs that are fun to try to pass around with infusion, but they are not natural party buffers. If you're building Ankha to be more of a self-buffing hurricane of destruction (which I fully support), then most of the best alchemist extracts for party buffing are on the other three lists. The exceptions (spells on the alchemist list but not on bard, inquisitor, or shaman) are in the spoiler below:

(I found a sortable spell database when we started this campaign, so this was just a quick copy-paste for me after sorting the spells by each class list.)

In other words, taking Infusion would open the party up to the above list of spells, without which they'll be the exclusive purview of Ankha.

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Dolgrin is designed to be a buffer, especially through picking up combat feats and passing them out like candy, sort of like his own version of Infusion. He'll have the potential to do decent damage, but that will almost always take a backseat to helping the others perform better in their roles.

That being said, the best of the above extracts that Dolgrin would take if he could are: enlarge person, long arm, shield, touch of the sea, ironskin, spider climb, and monstrous physique. None are critical: he already has a reach weapon and will figure out ways to deal with both defense and mobility when those are needed.

Yeah other than my spirit magic, I can change out my spell list daily. In terms of progression and leveling, I tend to do so organically, in that the story, interactions and situational need usually determines how I level, even in regard to feats etc. Sometimes I end up pretty far from where I thought the character would go when we start.

That being said, while there's definitely a bit of "lone wolf" to Ku'Hania right now, she'd pretty community minded, and her spell selection will probably reflect that as we progress.

In terms of progression and leveling, I tend to do so organically, in that the story, interactions and situational need usually determines how I level, even in regard to feats etc.

That's how I normally handle progression too, though occasionally I'll drive the story in a certain direction if there's a spell or feat that I really want. With Ankha I don't have any goals besides being decent in combat, good at crafting alchemical items, and maximizing usage of her aid another shtick, so the story will generally dictate how she advances.

If that thing doesn't die this round, this might be the quickest loss of a companion/familiar/spirit animal ever. Full damage bite is more than Haplo's total HP. LOL

Sorry I feel like one of my recent posts sucked the air out of the room or something. I can tone down Dolgrin's preachy pedantry.

Personally, I enjoy your posts (and Dolgrin's talkative personality) very much. I don't know what it is about dwarves, but one of my PCs in another game is a dwarf who talks as much (or more) than Dolgrin!

I'm glad to hear ^_^ Thanks.

Am currently travelling but will try to post more over the next few days.

Hey guys, just letting you know I'll be having a minor non-life-threatening surgery on Tuesday, so I might be out of commission for a few days thereafter.

I'll try to post as soon as possible after it!

Had the dental surgery today, everything went well and even through the pain and aches I feel much better than my previous state. Gonna take a few days off to rest and recover, and then I’ll have my games back up shortly thereafter!

Thank you all for your patience.

Thanks for the update! Glad to hear the surgery went well. Take all the time you need to recover.

Glad to hear it all went well. Back in New York and on my regular schedule now.

Alright, and we're back! Not quite done recovering, but good enough to get things started again.

Appreciate you sticking with me through this!

Good to see you back!

Hey, sorry guys. Had a bit more trouble recovering than I thought I would, been resting more, like I should've been. Apologies for the silence, I'm feeling much better now.

Onwards to adventure!

As far as I'm concerned (as a former healthcare worker), recovery always takes precedence.

Regarding marching order ... I think we previously decided on Braxton, Ankha, Dolgrin, Ku’Hania?

@GM: What kind of knowledge check is it to know more about the enemy? Local?

Pinging Braxton. You out there?

Oops, missed the question here. My apologies!

Local would be appropriate here, yeah.

Braxton gets to attack again since he goes before the goblins, right?

I've started to use grouped combat in one of my other games, thanks to Poly, and was curious if the three of you wanted to do so as well. Basically the party would go first all together, then the enemies would do the same. I'd do this for all fights that aren't boss fights, essentially.

Would that be something you'd be interested in? Would hopefully help speed up combat and keep up the pace a bit.

Thanks, I can move my token now!

RE: Grouped combat. I would still like initiative to matter, so maybe add the following tweak?
1) PCs who beat enemy initiative go first.
2) Enemies all go.
3) All PCs go.
Repeat #2 & #3 ad infinitum.

Also, it looks like we have 3D combat, so I have questions!
a) How tall is the building?
b) In order to hit Ankha, those rooftop goblins must be right at the edge--otherwise the roof would be in the way. Can Ankha reach them with her polearm (10' reach)?

I'm usually opposed to group initiative when it's brought up after a game start, but it doesn't look like anyone invested in feats that affect initiative so it's not a big deal. (group init makes feat and class features affecting initiative useless).

I'm fine with it in this case, since there's less chance of everyone waiting to take their turn on the person who's up first.

I think that is a fair tweak to the system, and don't have any issue using that. I think it'll help speed up combat if I don't split up the enemies. Good idea!

The roof is indeed 10 feet tall, and they are at the edge (well, minus the one that just fell off the roof), and you can reach the one still left.

I prefer group init for PBP. Turns combat into one round per day instead of one round per week, and post rate of probably the most important thing to keep a pbp game going.