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Dr. Salsa, report to surgery... Dr. Salsa...
Signing in! Although, Gnolls don't have a written language... yet.
Dr. Salsa reporting in.
Sweet! I'm working on the set up, setting description, and a mini-adventure.
Question: Would Shaggar know about your aversion to undead?
Probably not. That's not something that Kiley volunteers about herself, but if we do run across any undead, he and everyone else with them are going to find out real quick that she is terrified of them.
Fair enough. It doesn't change where I'm going to put you on the map but it does alter one of the reasons I chose that spot.
I'm working on some text and sketching out some baddies. I should kick off the game thread either tonight or tomorrow.
Woo!
Owie. That hurt! That thing packs a punch. I'm glad we have Maribel there to help, otherwise this would have been deadly.
Yep. I've used different versions of Jingle-Toes in 3 different campaigns now. Most recently on this board, a little more amped up version of him (with both Rogue and Monk levels) would have TPK'd a team of four 2nd or 3rd level characters, if I didn't have a NPC priest trailing the group to keep them up. That was a great battle and chase. And because JT was a monk, he was FOBing with his blade, his AC was higher, and his move base was 40'. They literally had to use sprint rules to try to get ahead of the little bastard. If you're curious, I can link you to that battle. It was some of my best and creepiest writing.
Please do! one of the things I love doing is reading through campaigns here.
Speaking of which, I did finish the Entombed with the Pharaohs campaign Shaggar was in that Dien ran. That was a blast to read.
Glad you liked it!
Here is Silent Gods at the point where they are about to dance with the doll.
If you decide to read it from the beginning, I was going for a moody atmospheric tone to it. I think it came out pretty well. The campaign ended abruptly. It was like pulling teeth to get many of the players to post at the end and I just reached my limit with that. Maybe I was too impatient. I really liked the world I was creating and the whole campaign path.
Anyhow, you be the judge. Please note Lyrica is a PALADIN. And in that battle, I've never seen another pally pull what she pulled.
Thanks!
I've played a couple of Paladins, so that should be a fun read.
Something I think you'd be interested in. It's Inktober, baby! That's not mine by the way. The guy's a great artist, though.
So, since it seems like this scenario will be wrapping up soon, unless you have some other nefarious plans for the witch, I wanted to see if you had any preferences. Silly? Serious? Goblins? Kobolds? Chase? Combat? Just a chat?
Yeah, I don’t have anything else planned at the moment. ‘Silly’ could be fun!
I do have those blurbs about how Kiley got her two other outfits. I think a scenario for the one she stole could be a lot of fun with the right set up.
Read up on the rules, I need to plan the chase and pick an appropriate town for the mayhem to happen.
Running out steam, so not posting tonight. I'll try to have it up tomorrow or the next day.
No hurries! I've trying to catch up on a bunch of stuff myself.
Hey, just a heads up that I won't be posting tonight. Feeling drained. I'll try to get something up tomorrow.
Oh, sure... MAKE me read the rules. :)
OK, so the chase rules are vague on a few points. And I got a few things wrong myself.
On a FULL round action, you have to do two tasks on the same card to advance. I got that wrong and did 1 per card. And that rule about 'failing by 5' is specifically used for a FULL round action which I didn't get initially, which makes a bit more sense. You have a chance to advance 1 square (instead of 3) even if you fail somewhat.
The rules say A character who wants to attempt to move three cards during his turn can... This bit is vague and open to interpretation. The question is 'how do you count to 3'. For instance, does '1' count as the square you are standing on? If so, a jump of 3 could land you on card 3. Or, if you count each gap between the cards as the 'hurdle' then 3 would get you onto card 4. That seems up to the DM. I personally feel like jumping from Card 1 to Card 4 seems like a lot (particularly when the average chase is between 6 and 10 cards). That could make a chase pretty short. That said, the choice is yours!
Yeah, looks like I did a poor job of explaining it. Sorry about that. I think I agree with you on most everything. Just two points:
Usually, when a chase starts one party has a lead on the other, so moving up three cards is a way to let the party that's at a disadvantage take a bigger risk and possibly get ahead of the other party.
As for the movement rules, I don't think the moving three cards thing is open to interpretation. In every board game and table I've played at, you start counting from the first space you move into. So if you move 0 spaces, you stay at the same space. If you move one space, you move to the next space. Think of it like a number line and where you are is 0.
In other words, I think you're overthinking it. Treat it like it's a board game where you can chose to move one space or three spaces.
I've been accused of overthinking the Pathfinder rules before and drawing the wrong conclusion... which is fair. I would say (as a tech writer and process developer a lifetime ago) that the rules are often vague and could use better editors. In the case of the Chase rules, a single concrete example could clarify a lot. :)
That said, if you are good with 'move 3 spaces' gets you to Card 4, knock yourself out. I still think it represents a hell of a jump in a short chase... but that's a personal opinion. It strikes me that it could make normal chases so short that they are no longer 'cinematic' from a descriptive sense. But that is just my feeling about the aesthetic coolness of a good chase scene. YMMV
I'm not suggesting you change how chases should be run. I'm just offering my opinion. And since we are play-testing the rules for your machinations, I'm happy to go with how you want to run it.
Thinking about chase scenes, I think (to make a truly memorable chase) doing branching paths could be really interesting. After you finish your test, I may try to create a lengthy and convoluted chase sequence.
Works for me. I like the branching paths idea, but that would take a lot of work and planning to keep things from getting too samey.
Yeah, you'd have to get pretty creative about the narrative bits and/or the design to keep it from becoming a lot of the same rolls over and over again.
Well, given that chases are a species of skill challenge, you could just layout the cards like they are rooms in a roguelike dungeon. Define what's in the area and how this card connects to the other cards and let the players pick how they decide to overcome the obstacles. You'd have to have some caveats about picking the same skill multiple times, but that could help with the same skill rolls issue.
So, what did you like about that chase? What could be improved?
I liked the branching paths. I'd want to run through a few more before implementing any major changes, but I think two things that we could do would be to have some choice on the parts where the paths branch and vary the skill DCs on a challenge.
Let me mull it over a bit. I think we may also want to get some others involved if we are looking at really trying to refine this.
I would have liked to vary the skills a bit more as well.
Initially, I was thinking of throwing in some Knowledge skills as well but - with 1st level characters - it was nearly pointless and would have forced you into having to roll Skill X because you don't have Knowledge Skill Y. I did have some cross-over points but the way the rolls worked out, they didn't happen. For instance, if you look at the map, there is a two-way arrow between 4b (Low Road) and 5a (Bird in Hand). Had you blown your 4b roll and fell down the waterfall, I was going to have Shaggar (on a successful roll) choose to head to 4b to follow you down the waterfall and rapids. As it was, you aced the roll so it didn't happen.
That's what I figured. I was thinking more along the lines of Roll X or Y to go one way or Roll W or Z to go the other way. Another idea might be to have which check you pick determine the path.
And I didn't really have a problem with the skill variety, I was talking more about the DCs. When you have two things with the same DC, it'd be dumb not to go with the one you have a better bonus to. If the DCs are different, then that makes things more interesting because then it's less a numbers game, and if make which skill you pick determine what path you go on, that adds another layer to it.
I think it is always going to be something of a numbers game but varying the path based on the skill roll picked or (as I was trying to do) letting people pick the path they want after a successful roll (based solely on the teaser names of the upcoming areas) has merit.
I don't think I'd try to turn it into a whole refined game mechanic but I think it would make your standard straight line chase a lot more interesting and possibly strategic.
There is that. It's also be an interesting way to run a dungeon crawl or a skill challenge.
Hey, should I deactivate this?
Probably. I don't think we need it now.