Since Rufus has the higher perception, perhaps Rendylyn should be aiding him! "What's that, Rufus? Timmy is stuck in some ice?"
I don't see any angles we've missed, so let's kick it off!
Anyone may lead off.
Is the captain in the fore of the knarr, spotting, or in the aft, steering? Are the sailors rowing or sailing?
Rufus has 7 INT. And Treesa has no problem speaking clearly to him, giving him direction.
I enjoy pushing that first stat bump on pets into INT, to give them a 3, and sentience. People will say "dude, a 3, he's a moron," and I'm like, "dude, that's a frigging genius of a horse/cat/wolf/etc."
Sorry I keep misspelling Rayse as Rayce!
Familiars start as "genius" level INT for animals, and increase as the caster levels up.
So one round of trial and error suggests that the DCs of the tests are somewhere from DC 15 to DC 20. (Some DCs may be higher than others, of course).
Furthermore, it seems that failing at rolls hurts us more than succeeding at rolls helps us. GMT wrote, "You'll need to make a set number of successes, and the accumulation of failed rolls could be potentially catastrophic." If failing rolls can sink us, it makes sense to stack Aid Another to max out our success to failure ratio.
Also, it's too bad none of us has Mending ready. We should probably eliminate duplicated party cantrips like Daze and Light and Guidance so we have more bases covered.
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Further discussion for the next round (if we make it there):
It's great if everyone aids one player get a crazy high perception. But I also wonder if rolling some of the other skills would also be relevant. Like I have survival +7. Treesa has knowledge nature +9. So, if everyone aids Rufus with his perception, I roll survival and Treesa knowledge nature, maybe these successes stack for the purpose of keeping the ship floating.
Thoughts?
In the list 2 weeks I've had significantly health problems. Not the sort of thing that would stop me from posting, but I'm starting to think this game is cursed for GMs. Not sure I want to continue.
Whew, we're back! I didn't know about the store maintenance until it was upon us.
Since we don't actually know the rules, I'm willing to go along with whatever dice-rolling strategy people like. But assuming that if we get a certain number of failures we fail catastrophically, the safest approach is to roll with as high a bonus as we can get on every roll we make.
If the DC is 20, then Vormog rolling Survival, Treesa rolling K:N, and Posh rolling K:G each have less than a 50% chance of success. That would mean we would accumulate failures faster than successes. At that same DC, Rendylyn, Posh, Treesa, Rayse, and Rufus using Aid Another to boost Vormog's perception gives us about an 85% chance of success on each roll.
I missed your post, GMT--by the timestamps, I must have been writing mine right when you sent yours.
I'm sorry to hear you're having a rough time! Your health comes first, so if you decide running the game is a hardship rather than a relief, I understand. I do hope you'll decide to continue, though, because I've been enjoying myself.
Would playing be preferable? We had discussed the possibility of rotating. Are we far from a point where it would make sense to switch GMs?
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@GMT: I feel you. I've noticed that more than a few encounters in this campaign are annoying you more than entertaining you. It is totally understandable if you want to step away from it.
I've been enjoying every step of the way, but it doesn't make sense if you're not. Do what's best for you. Unfortunately I don't have the bandwidth to take over right now, so I can't help you there.
Your health is obviously more important than the game, especially if you're not enjoying it.
I had said that I could take over at the second book. Would you rather I take over sooner? I haven't read the first book so it would take me a few days to figure out where we are. Than you could play again. Might have to just 'hand wave' the changes to switch Treesa for Kid. ?? This isn't a good place for player changes!
I'll finish the Frosthamar storyline. Go ahead and post in gp. Then I will reevaluate.
Just saying…. LOL!!!
I probably should have given more credit to Vormog there, but Posh had such a nice RP post previously that I wanted to reward.
I probably should have given more credit to Vormog there, but Posh had such a nice RP post previously that I wanted to reward.
Thanks!
"the PCs.. " sloppy work on my part.
"the PCs.." What other designation would be better? The group? team? Knot?
It was clear what was meant and it wasn't stated in character. "He gestures for the PCs" All good! If that is sloppy I don't know if I could take over!?! I'll be making lots of similar "sloppy" posts....
In the list 2 weeks I've had significantly health problems. Not the sort of thing that would stop me from posting, but I'm starting to think this game is cursed for GMs. Not sure I want to continue.
Sorry to hear about that, hope you feel better soon!
GMT has messaged me asking if I would take over for the next part, the burning of Ballentyne. I will do so happily to keep the game running. However, he does not feel that this is a good place to bring his PC, Kid Vicious aka "The Falcon", back. Perhaps later if someone else decides to bow out. ??
I am concerned about keeping Treesa in. I don't want any conflict playing a character in a game that I am running. I wouldn't want to just have her hide behind Rayse or Vormog just putting Protective Luck on them. I did have plans for her, but could keep her "around" as an NPC to help the party. (Outside of the story-line) Maybe she could do some item crafting once she has the feats and levels? Increase the availability of simple items at crafting cost? Then if anyone wanted to take over at a later date I could bring her back to the group. ??
That does leave the party lacking an arcane caster. How important is that? I don't know since I've only read book 2 so far.
What are your thoughts? I'll need a couple of days (at least) to read the material so i think we have time to discuss/decide.
Sorry gang, but I feel this is the best thing for me right now to bow out, at least for a time. I'll take you through the end of the Frosthamar story arc. The next act does have a town that can serve as a base of operations and makes sense for Treesa to be continuing to support the party from there.
I'll support whatever your decisions are. I'm not particularly worried about lacking a full arcane caster at this level, but it is important to me that Treesa doesn't just ghost out like Dargon did. You might consider having her receive an assignment in the frozen north, perhaps with the horde. I'd be fine with GMT playing a new character until we reach a place where it makes sense to bring the Kid back in, assuming he'd still want to switch back.
This seems like a natural enough place to take on another party member or two, perhaps from Sakkarot's knot or horde: A goblin or bugbear could pass for human or demihuman using Dargon's circlet. Alternatively, we could find an Asmodean loyalist among the people of Aldencross. If GMT doesn't feel up to playing such a character, perhaps we could reach out to other folks on the boards, such as the folks who didn't make it in. It's always better to have a full complement of players.
I say just play her as a full on DM PC.
I do my best to not play player knowledge on the games where I have played before. (No issue with this one!) It's not always easy. I don't want to play a character in a game where I am the GM. I had planned to pull her to a supporting NPC role when I took over for book 2. I'll be fine with that now. She can take a position in town and provide some non-player assistance, crafting and maybe listening to rumors and such. I did a quick speed-read through it. There are listed rumors and such. Some are fun. Some are useful.
Personally I think the party might need a rogue more than an arcane caster. From what I see, +7 stealth is the best in the party? There's some good perception, but does anyone have disable device capable of magic traps? Or really hard locks? Not that I saw any in the quick scan of the chapter....
Everyone keeps bemoaning the lack of an “arcane caster.” Am I chopped liver? I’ve got the +7 Stealth! I could take a level of Rogue at 3rd, and Arcane Trickster at 6th, but that will kill my “Bardness” in many ways,
Some of the most memorable games I've had where those with unorthodox parties. It does place more emphasis on the GM since some encounters will need changes, especially at mid to high level. TBH from what I've read online this AP does need a bunch of GM edits anyway.
Posh isn't a full arcane caster, and that's fine at level 2. At levels 10+ there's a big difference in what a party can accomplish if they can, say, teleport. But we can cross that bridge when and if we get there.
OK then. And I didn't mean to insult Posh. Treesa's spell list was limited too, but not as much as a bard's. There are workarounds. Scrolls with UMD. Items that allow a spell cast once per day. Boots of Teleportation?
If it's important to the story that the PCs not know anything about Sakkarot's plans and don't have any way to communicate with or signal to him, then I won't press the matter, but if that isn't true, I'd like Rendylyn to have the chance to get answers to her questions before Sakkarot walks into the night. Opening the front gate of the castle would be meaningless if we did it without the horde there.
I did miss something. Good thing you know the AP better than I do.
If that's the goal, and we wanted to maintain the same "characters" I could do the AT route with Posh redone as a Rogue/Wizard, ain't no reason he has to be a Bard.
Indeed, much claps!
I agree, thanks GMT for running things so far and getting us here.
As to a rogue or arcane caster. I don't want to swap people right now unless you are unhappy with your character. How about we start the town/castle next chapter. If we see any needs we can decide on how to resolve it then.
Posh's Diplomacy is good. Rendylyn's Sense motive likewise. If you decide that a rogue is 'needed' for something, maybe one could be found in the town that could be hired? Not everybody in town is good....
Good thing you know the AP better than I do.
LOL, I would hope not!
I enjoyed your tenure as GM, and learned from it--in particular, about the strength and limitations of AI as a gamemastering tool. It served well in generating interesting, detailed descriptions, giving your under-mansion adventure a strong atmosphere. It sometimes threw in hallucinations, like that reference to Thay, and had trouble keeping details straight, like how the weather in the Triton fight started foggy and switched to clear skies. Seems like maybe it couldn't recognize what was important in a Sakkarot section, too? Still, very interesting.
If you decide that a rogue is 'needed' for something, maybe one could be found in the town that could be hired? Not everybody in town is good....
Rendylyn intends to use Detect the Faithful covertly in the next town. Perhaps we could open submissions for locals who would ping as Asmodeans? Alternatively, we could have picked up stowaways from the horde.
As for what we need covered, I made a quick survey of our character sheets (minus Treesa) to see what skills the party has well covered, which we don’t, and what skills we have low bonuses in. Some of these, like Fly, are unlikely to be important anytime soon. Others will almost certainly be important, like Disable Device.
When we finally level up, after leveling up any skills we each alone possess, we can consider covering our weak points using any free skill points we happen to have. However, I think we'd be better off recruiting one or more PCs to cover them--covering all our skill bases seems more important to me at this level than class balance.
Skills No One Has Ranks In
Acrobatics
Disable Device
Escape Artist
Fly
Knowledge:Engineering
Ride
Swim
Use Magic Device
Skills No One Has Better Than +5 In
Climb
Handle Animal
Knowledge: Planes
Slight of Hand
Skills Only One Person Has Better Than +5 In
Appraise
Knowledge:Geography
Knowledge: Local
Knowledge: Nobility
Linguistics
Stealth
Survival
You really have no idea how much I put into this game, Rendylyn. Best wishes, GMWT.
It's been enjoyable, to be sure.
I use AI as both a GM and Player tool. You do have to ride herd on it, a LOT. And once it determines some feature is interesting about a PC, it cannot help but speak to it EVERY post you ask it for.
I should have simply expressed my gratitude for your hard work, GMT, and asked if you wanted honest feedback. My apologies. Thanks again!
AI is indispensable for those times when you're not feeling it but want to keep everything moving, and when you feel like you owe the players more depth to a conversation. It does not solve problems well and developing a scene like the Map room takes hours and hours of world-building, mostly my ideas but with AI helping to smooth out the narrative around the mechanics. I invested at least 12 hours on that room alone, going through countless drafts. Even after that the product wasn't perfect. I felt it was a little too easy to guess but for something like that there's a tipping point where if you go just that last bit more obscure it becomes impossible. There's also the balance of encouraging teamwork and rp against the use of dicebot to arrive at a solution, which is where the ice flow failed.
AI helps but the onus is still on the GM and this AP frankly has a lot of holes in it, both in the content and presentation, as most of you know. I took this on because I felt like this group got cheated by bad luck. The thing I've learned, this being my first time GM'ing Pathfinder, is to allow your GM some grace.
Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to run with this. The AP really starts to ramp up now - the exposition is over at this point. I'm sure you'll have fun.
That was good research on the skills Rendylyn. As a suggestion, in one game I played a while back a sheet was created cross referencing everyone against the skills. That way each person could update their skills on level up so everyone would know the strengths and weaknesses for the entire party. It also really helped when deciding on using individual rolls versus aid others.
I really liked that spell too. Wish it was available to arcane casters.... Some arcane casters worship a deity!
Been distracted sorry!
Re boon of the tyrant's flame, what kind of action is that?
Been distracted sorry!
Re boon of the tyrant's flame, what kind of action is that?
Sorry, that's a swift action.
Meh dicebot >< Still DC 18 might be enough to intimidate him. Note Rayse is doing this for RP reasons.