DM Salsa Presents - Chronicles of Kassen

Game Master AdamWarnock

Thanks for sharing Betz, both here and on the Discord server.

Merry Christmas, everyone. I'm grateful that you all decided to give me a chance and I hope that all of y'all have been having fun in this adventure.

It's still December 24th here, but I think I can be forgiven for giving y'all a little early Christmas present. Since we are using Hero Points and everyone should have two hero points with the level up, I want to give everyone a free hero point that doesn't count to the 3 hero point maximum. You can also use this one on the same turn you use a normal one.

Thanks, Sandy Claus!

Before you spoil'em, check the Naughty List. Some of them have the look.

Indeed. It appears that someone has *gasp**pearlclutch* sullied their elven heritage and is looking to do even worse!

You can only 50% slut-shame her! The human side is guilt free. :P

Okay. A break in the holiday Chaos at last. Sorry, I am very behind. I'm not that good at hero lab so will have to tinker at a time when my regular computer is working.

Christmas crackers, Casina!

That was a roll. I can see it now. Green jumps out and you smack him so hard he hurls into Blue, killing him as well.

Yeowzers! While that is an impressive amount of damage, Greataxes have a x3 crit multiplier, so Casina gets another 1d12+9 on top of the 37 damage she just rolled!

Casina go ahead and roll the rest of your damage. We're going to hold onto that for a moment. When this combat starts, You and Moon will have your readied actions kick off.

Okay. A break in the holiday Chaos at last. Sorry, I am very behind. I'm not that good at hero lab so will have to tinker at a time when my regular computer is working.

I'll see your Holiday Chaos and raise you an autistic 5 year-old and an elderly near-deaf Father-in-Law with a drinking problem, both of whom insist on being awake between 1 am and 4 am.

Of course, if my Father-in-Law could just be trusted to keep an eye on my son, no problem. Unfortunately for me, that's not exactly the case. As you can probably imagine, we're counting the hours until we drive him home.

I have several loose fragments kicking around in my sleep-deprived brain that I'll post as soon as I'm able to write three coherent lines of in-game dialogue.

Speaking of, does anyone have anything they want to ask of the Gerol and the others before they leave about the Crypt? Dimira's the only one that hasn't done the Quest for the Everflame.

Yeowzers! While that is an impressive amount of damage, Greataxes have a x3 crit multiplier, so Casina gets another 1d12+9 on top of the 37 damage she just rolled!

Casina go ahead and roll the rest of your damage. We're going to hold onto that for a moment. When this combat starts, You and Moon will have your readied actions kick off.

Look. At this point, I think it's safe to assume that any time I post anything, there will be some sort of issue. Tis the curse of the ever exhausted and overworked.

It's alright. I had to double check it to be sure. I just didn't want you to miss out on any of that juicy damage.

I legitimately had a typo in the extra damage post and JUST caught it at 28 minutes.

Oh trust me, I'm not about to twit anyone for formatting errors or typos. I mean, I find at least one of those ever dozen posts or so.

Case in point, I should have specified that I find a typo or formatting in about ever dozen or so of my posts.

Anyway, Here's the plan. I'll move us along sometime tomorrow. I'll try to have a loot sheet up and running this week. I'll also get Maidie's unseen servant marker on the map.

Loot Sheet!

I've already added the loot from the last fight. Anything the goblins had of value was pretty much given to Meep.

I've also got Maidie's unseen servant on the map. I've added in circles to show the range of light on it. Let me know if it's too subtle. I can adjust the transparency on them. I also grouped them to the icon so you should be able to select the whole thing and move it around pretty easily. Just make sure you have the whole group selected.

Hope y'all had a Merry Christmas and here's to a Happy New Year!

I don't care how many times you have to see it or how low the quality of the gif is, I 100% imagine this is how Casina attacks.

Just a heads up, remove the part after the ? to see the gif.

So this is one of those fights that proves the CR system is broken. This, supposedly, was a CR 5 encounter, except that three of the creatures would take AoOs to actually get into range, and none of them had HP in the double digits. Even if I hadn't decided that Casina's, frankly terrifying, critical hit mulched multiple enemies, this wouldn't have been a long fight. The skeletons had a flat 0 to their attack rolls, could deal at most 3 damage, and an AC of 15, and they were the most dangerous foes. The beheaded's attack is a +2 that deals 1d2 damage. The undigested have a +3 and deal 1 non-lethal plus 1 acid damage.

Basically, I knew this fight would be a cake walk, but according to the CR system, this was a deadly encounter.

Anyway, the point wasn't really to put y'all in danger, but to foreshadow some stuff and also have a bit of fun hamming it up.

Yeah, this is why you really have to know the game and what you are doing as a GM if you are adjusting encounters. Especially to accomodate for larger groups or stuff like Elephant in the Room.

As we saw in the last two fights, a bunch of low-level mooks can pose a real danger if they have the capability to inflict serious damage on a good roll or a crit.

Action economy is a huge deal. A CR 4 boss with three CR 2 minions can be more dangerous than a lone CR 6 BBEG.

On that note, you may want to reconsider your “drawing and drinking a potion is a move action” ruling. Messing around with action types is one of the easiest ways to screw up the game balance.

Maybe, but at the same time I don't think that one in particular is that big of a deal.

I do like Pathfinder, for all of it's flaws, but I think one of the ways 2e really did improve on 1e is with the way the action system works. You have three actions that you have every turn and what you can do takes up one or more of those actions. It's a lot simpler than the Move/Standard/Swift or Move/Action/Bonus that PF1e and D&D5e use.

That said, I agree with you that messing with the action economy is the fastest way to mess things up. I remember the first time I ran a 5e game and found that while in PF1e 2 PCs vs. 6 goblins is a hard but doable fight, the same fight in 5e was a TPK. On the other hand, given that balance in a game this complex is more of an illusion anyway, I don't think making potions more efficient to use is going to drastically affect things. I think I may change the bit about not provoking an AoO, but unless it becomes an issue one way or another, I'll leave it as is for now.

On a different note, I do think that there's something to be said with how Dungeon World handles things. The PCs act while the enemies react based on the roll of the dice. It needs some structure in PBP, otherwise those that can post more are going to dominate combat encounters, but it has a nice flow to it. PC does thing, GM describes how thing affects the world, repeat for each PC. I don't think it'd work for PF1e, or any D&D d20 derivative, but I think it's a good example of how to make a simple action system work.

Betz, just curious, but what god(s), if any, do you worship/serve?

I don't care how many times you have to see it or how low the quality of the gif is, I 100% imagine this is how Casina attacks.

That game's been sitting in my Steam Library...unplayed...for years now. GUILT!

Betz, just curious, but what god(s), if any, do you worship/serve?

Generalized lip service to Torag and the rest of the dwarven pantheon with some Nethys on the side. She's pretty casual and mostly just prayed how her parents did, went to temple with them, and since Nethys' holy books often pull double-duty as textbooks of magical theory, she couldn't help but absorb some of that doctrine while apprenticing with Holgast.

Alrighty! Thanks for answering that.

I'll move things on in a bit. I want to give everyone a chance to react to that little revelation of Meep's. After the fight and searching through everything, it's taken about five minutes off Maidie's spells. I believe both last for 2 hours, correct? She'll have 1 hour 55 minutes left on them when the doors open.

Correct, 2 hour duration for both spells.

Thank you for confirming!

Just letting everyone know that I am recovering from the flu and playing catch-up.

The 28th I felt unwell and on the 29th I struggled to get out of bed but I'm at the tail end of it so, I have a lot of catching up to do.

Glad you're feeling better. I know that had to suck.

My wife and son went to my sister-in-law's for 4 days and it was suppose to be my own little getaway as well. I had plans to play some games, watch movies I picked, and eat what I wanted.

But you know. Best laid plans and whatnot.

That's rough buddy.</zuko>

Brutal. Every father in the world feels your pain, man.

I'm glad you're recovering. I'm grateful to have some time to recover from the holiday chaos myself recently (working a hotel for New Year's is aggravating!). And my folks are glad too, because my mom's sister is getting surgery for that breast cancer I mentioned a while back, and my mom's gonna be spending the night with her at the hospital. Hoping it goes smoothly!

Same here! I'll be praying for your aunt. As for working a hotel for New Year's, well, there are some jobs that I don't envy and then there are jobs where all I have to say is better you than me. I think you can guess which one that one falls under. :P

Glad that we appear to have everyone! I'm planning on picking up the pace a bit now that the holidays are over and it looks like most everyone's caught up. :)

Sorry to add to the pile, but we've got a funky cold ravaging the house here and while so far I'm better off than others it is slowing me down

Sorry to hear that! Hopefully, that's just a funky cold and not a funky cold medina.

Geez, At this rate I'm going to be the only one who's not sick. Hope you and yours get better soon, Grob.

Now THIS is a surprise! :D

I've had that planned since you applied with Betzolte. :D

Question about these HeroLab files. Do I just...like, download them or something and use them as a replacement for Betzolte's original file or am I supposed to use it to adjust Betzolte's sheet?

The .POR file is the one that has everyone's stats and gear in it. This is like the .PSD files in Photoshop or the .DOCX files in Word. For it to work, you'll need the .HL. The .HL file is like the .ABR file for photoshop brushes or a font you use in Word.

So, what you'll need to do is download the .HL file first. Save that on your computer's drive and note the location. Open HeroLab, and on the Select a Game screen, click Import File. Navigate to where you saved the file and open it. Click Import File then click Yes on the warning text box that pops up. After a few moments, it'll finish installing the .HL file and you'll be able to use it. I don't know if you'll have to check a box to get it working or not since I'm the one that made the file, and for some reason it doesn't include those in the checklist of sources. If you don't see anything when you're on the Configure Hero screen (Character > Configure Hero or CTRL+K) go to the Weapons Tab, click New Magic, Custom, or Masterwork Weapon and see if A Father's Love is there at the top of the list. If it is, and it costs 502 GP, then you should have everything installed and working properly.

Once you have that installed, you should be able to open up the .POR file without any issues.

Just waitin' for Moon to alert us to the danger so Betzolte can go "I knew this was too easy!" XD

I'll admit, I seem to never find that happy medium between almost killing the party and it being a cakewalk. Hopefully this won't be too hard on everyone.

At least there aren't goblins with bows... then I'd REALLY be in trouble.

XD

I dunno, if I start rolling like I did with them, I really will have some dead characters on my hands.

And no, not using fumble rules unless y'all want me to.

Hey, wanted to make sure that everyone's alright. I know combat has a tendency to drag in PBP, so I was wondering if there was anything I can do to help keep things going. It feels like this one's been slower than the others, and I'm not sure if it's just that everyone's busy or if it's something that I'm doing that's not working.

Working on a post right now.

My wife's grandfather fell off of stepladder Thursday so we've been running errands to and from the hospital and their house.

All things considered, he's doing okay and got released Sunday but they just needed some extra help.

Man, you cannot catch a break, can you? I'll be praying for you. Sorry to hear that about your wife's grandfather. I know when someone up in years gets hurt, it can take a long time for them to recover, if they ever do.

The last couple of months have been ridiculous. I don't know if I angered a swamp hag or what but it just keeps on coming.

Have you tried appeasing the local swamp hag with muffins? I hear that does wonders.