"If Ilamin is right about the tracks, then the giants may turn up looking for water while we are in here. They also may be part of why this mine failed."
Azul looks over the tracks for a few moments.
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Guys: I've been having internet connectivity issues the last few days. My connection has been going out for long periods. I'm hoping that the problem is over but I can't say for sure. I'm going to try and get caught up but since my window for posting may be limited I will handle threads that require short posts first.
"If they're watching us, they'll see us stop and double back. I doubt we'd catch them unawares up top." "They have probably already seen us. I don't think there's much advantage to pretending we haven't spotted the ambush; walking in there would give the enemy a big advantage even with us knowing it's a trap." "So let's see if we can find a way up to the top. We might want to double back a ways if we want to bring the horses."
" Dis be trap!!!" shouts Makoa recognizing the danger they are riding into. ""My friend Makoa, I think you are right. But who set it? And where are they now?"
As the party reins in at the archway, Azul looks around. "Is something wrong?" he asks.
"Of course, good friend. You have but to ask."
"Well, it sounds like we are in agreement."
"Horrid things... they say the Rough Beast has a similar appearance, though obviously much larger." "While I'm sure these creatures are perfectly natural, nevertheless animals that prey on humans should not be allowed to live this close to human settlements. I say we destroy the eggs." Azul looks at the silver stag pendant. "Though it would seem that not all the victims of these creatures were those worthy of mercy..."
"Keep at it! It's surrounded now - it can't last much longer!" Azul keeps slashing at the horrid creature, while ducking to the left.
It's just an animated .GIF or .PNG image. Generic clipart. If you do a google search for animated clipart you can find lots of stuff.
Azul turns and faces the new spider. "Naturally there is more than one." He slashes at the spider, but his falcata glances of the spidery exoskeleton harmlessly.
He then steps to one side, not wanting to get caught between the two giant vermin.
I will slowly incorporate these quality of life ideas as we go on, Makoa. :D
"It's a giant trapdoor spider! It's venom saps your strength! It will try to grab you and drag you into it's lair!" Azul chants for a moment and waves his hand over his blade, which begins to glow faintly blue. He then advances carefully behind Makoa.
Also,The tricks to making the token "look right" are the crop feature and the mask feature. Happy to explain if necessary. Someone had to explain it to me the first time. :)Yes please! I have not heard of this 'mask' feature? What's that about? Do you know how to find the crop feature? When you select the image, it's the icon that looks like a letter L with an upside-down L behind it. It's in the section between Link and Comment on one side and "Replace Image" on the other. Right next to the Crop icon is a little down arrow. When you mouse over it you should get alt-text that says "Mask Image." Click that and you get a bunch of options based on shape. This is how I made tokens that were round instead of square. There are actually a ton of options here but most of them I never use. Does that make sense?
Makoa: I don't know if Vicon approved of my suggestion, but my suggestion was to replace the two 1d6 hoof attacks with a single 1d8 gore attack. That may not sound like a great deal but when the boar moves it only gets one attack anyway. Also when an animal has only one natural attack it gets 1.5 x the STR bonus for damage just like two-handed weapons do. Useful things to know:
The only problem with investing in these feats is that your horse won't gain HP or levels. So usually only guys with an actual mount or animal companion class feature actually bother. You can get an animal companion with feats.
I think there is another feat path that allows this too but I don't recall where it's from. So that's a lot of feats. But maybe doable for a fighter.
... 10-foot tall spider...
"Gods!" gasps Azul when he gets a glimpse of the creature. "It's like some horror of the abyss! Is it venomous?"
We are in kind of a lull. Things have moved along quite well for a while. I have noticed in many games there is a certain indecision when the group is at their "home base." But I think we have an idea of what our plan is now so hopefully we will get going soon.
Makoa: It might be useful to make a separate Avatar for your mount. Just give it a fairly generic name so you can use the avatar if you have another character with a mount. BTW GM Vicon: instead of two hooves a boar probably should have a single gore attack. My suggestion would be for it to deal 1d8 instead of 1d6 and since it is the only attack it can make in a round it will get a STR x 1.5 bonus to damage (like two handed weapons get).
"It should be a little ways over the horizon, thataway," Azul says, pointing to the direction of the bandit camp. "I wonder if it is connected to the bandits somehow?" "Nevertheless, even if we are headed that way, I feel that we should go about the task we have been sent here for, which is to explore. We can move gradually in that direction, exploring as we go."
GM Vicon: An interesting tool for calculating maximum line-of-sight (assuming Golarion and Earth are about the same size) is here:
https://www.everythingrf.com/rf-calculators/line-of-sight-calculator According to this, a guy standing on the battlements of Oleg's fort (I am assuming they are about 20 feet high, so his eye level would be about 25 feet) is 9.8 km which is a little over 6 miles. A goy on foot would have his eyes around 5 feet up so from there the horizon would be 4.4 km away, or about 3 miles. HAM radio guys need to know this kind of stuff. :) Sailors too, actually. The hexes are 12 miles across, so if it is 2 hexes away that is 24 miles, well over the horizon. 3 hexes would be 36 miles.
Do you know what it is called or how to do it? Sadly, I don't use Herolab and am not sure. But I know that such a feature does exist. There may be a way to do the "Output Statblock" in formats other than PDF. Some of the people in our other game might know.
If a Giant Boar is an actual thing, I get this from the Monster Advancer: Boar ( Giant ) CR 3
The monster advancer doesn't get everything right... Reach is incorrect here. So is flat-footed AC. Looks considerably better than a heavy horse in combat, but a bit slower.
I don't know that giant boar is actually a thing; I just threw that out there as a random example. Even boar animal companions never get to be large. There is a type of creature called a steam hog that fire giants sometimes ride. But that is a CR 7 creature. There are a variety of other types of animal mounts. A combat trained aurochs costs 450 gp, according to Animal Archive. It has higher STR than a heavy horse and a better attack, but less AC. If you save your gold, a combat-trained woolly rhino costs 3000 gp. :)
Ah, my bad!
By the way Vicon, as to the barding for the horse, all I could find was the section in the core-book about armor for unusual creatures, so I did pay the 4 x price for studded leather as for a large non-humanoid creature, but I have no way in Hero lab to do the 4x weight. But so my Large/heavy warhorse, is wearing studded leather armor 'barding' if that s okay with you. I've never had a character using a horse for anything besides as a mode of travel before, and less yet the barding, so I don't know if there was anything I should keep in mind or need to know. Makoa: 1. FYI if your mount is a horse, it is not an "unusual creature" and you just need to buy large-sized studded leather armor. This just costs 2x the normal value. If you end up with a giant boar or a griffin or something weird, then that counts as an "unusual creature." But animals that are normally used as mounts do not. 2. Furious Focus vs. Weapon Focus: If you plan to always use power attack, at this level Furious Focus is better because it applies to any weapon. So when you use your Lucerne Hammer or any other weapon the Furious Focus still applies. HOWEVER: if you plan to almost exclusively use the nodachi, and aren't always going to use power attack, then Weapon Focus may be better for you. You could get all three feats at this level: Power Attack, Weapon Focus, and Furious Focus. BTW: Herolab does have a feature where you can get it to print out the string of text that you would use to make the character appear in your profile rather than having to like to an off-site resource.
"Ah... yes, it sounds like you have found us. Did the swordlords give you a charter like us?" Asks Azul. "And yes, my kind are known as 'Shabti.' There are very few of us, especially in these parts. I have not seen any aside from myself since I came to this land." Knowledge Planes DC 15:
Shabti are artificial people created by wizards for the purpose of avoiding any punishment that might come to that wizard in the afterlife. The shabti is created to take the wizard's place in that afterlife. Shabti are infertile but also do not age, and cannot be made into undead. Their long lives allow them to accumulate a great deal of knowledge. The principle of creating shabti was first discovered in Osirion and is mostly confined to that region, but any wizard with the right knowledge and resources could make one. "I have found that no man can be accurately judged merely by his face." Azul smiles and inclines his head. "Wise words indeed," says Azul. "Were you sent here by the Swordlords also?" "Bah! Dreams get worse! Makoa no like this land! How one get good night sleep here?" Azul nods. "It is worrying. Things were not like this when we first arrived. Clearly something is disturbing the natural order of things." "These dreams show us that something is wrong, but not what to do about it. So I propose that we do what we originally came to do: explore. Perhaps in so doing we will discover clues as to how to deal with this menace." "I would suggest sticking close to Oleg's at first. But since the area we are to explore is rectangular, and mostly south of here, it would make sense to me to start with the north end and work our way south. How does that sound?"
Heads-up: At least for me at work, Paizo is not showing me that there are new messages in the tabs at the top. I have to actually open the tab and scroll down to look. You may want to spread the word. I have noticed this too. I think it affects everyone.
...a Cleric is sent for, who takes up residence in the Trading post -- His name is Keshurgin, and is a cleric of Desna. Azul brightens up when the newcomers arrive. He bows when they introduce themselves. "Greetings strangers! Keshurgin, Makoa, Pyros, welcome! Well, perhaps I shouldn't say welcome as this isn't my house... the master of this trading post is Oleg over there. But it is a pleasure to see new faces. I am Azul Aros. We are taking a break after doing some exploring in the Stolen Lands. What brings you here? I see you are staring... no, it's all right. This isn't a mask, it's my actual face. I am not human, though my father was. Well... it's a long story."
The party has earned a fair bit of cash from completed quests, so I think we would be okay with you not chipping in on the wand. If you are starting with a masterwork weapon and a light horse, my own recommendation would be to switch to a regular weapon and a heavy horse. A masterwork weapon is only 1 point better on attacks... a heavy horse on the other hand is WAY better than a light horse. +2 to all rolls, +4 AC and HP, and increased damage from its attacks. Either way, buy barding for the horse. Leather Barding has no armor check penalty and costs 20 gp (the formula is 2x the cost of normal armor). The mule might be superfluous if you have a horse. Your warhorse could just have saddlebags. FYI the mule doesn't go as fast as the horse.
By the way, I see you have a link to a map in ROll20, but I can't seem to locate that map? I would like to see it since I have never actually used Roll20, even though I do have the basic free account. Really would like to learn more about it, but ... I need about 20 more hours in my days!!! Hahaha! FYI: We got rid of the Roll 20 thing and are using google slides.
I'm sure a masterwork dagger is fine. In fact, why not make it a cold iron one? Only 2 GP more. A steal unless you are planning to have it enchanted. BTW do you have the knife master archetype? They specialize in daggers.
Any issues with a Nodachi sword?Nodachi is fine, as long as there is some justification for it in your backstory. Stormstrider: If you don't want your character to be from Tian Xia, you should know that a Falchion is almost the same as a Nodachi. Average damage is 0.5 HP less but it does have the advantage of having a minimum damage of 2, and more consistent damage closer to the average since you are rolling two dice. Cold iron doubles the price of the base weapon but not the cost to make it masterwork. If you are going with two-handed weapons you should know that we will be outdoors a lot and having a reach weapon would also be a good idea. The Lucerne hammer does the best damage and can deal blunt or piercing damage; the bardiche crits more often.
having a mount would be helpful, as everyone else has been travelling with mounts. Andreas had his own mount but the rest of us were using the horses that the bandits had when they arrived in the first encounter. I don't recall how many of them there were in that encounter. But for the record, Azul would be just as happy walking. Aside from solving carrying capacity issues, the main benefit is overland travel speed and I don't see it being a problem moving more slowly while exploring the wilderness. Meanwhile, the horses probably look pretty tasty to a lot of the animals we will find in the wild, and they are a difficult to protect. At the same time, we could sell them off and make a bit more cash. What do you guys think?
At this point the potion of cure disease becomes necessary to acquire, I'll place you at 1 Str right now and your friends can further attempt to help you or wait for you to rest (and receive reinforcements) "Oleg, do you know a cleric we can hire? I'm afraid Ilamin's illness is beyond my means to assist. Someone who can remove a disease, hopefully. If not perhaps you can send for one with your next rider."
"Be careful out there, word is that agents from Numeria have been sent into the area to deal with your party -- According to an assassin the Altdori caught in the capital. Best be on your guard, as they surely weren't the only one Numeria has operating." Azul is taken aback by the notion that someone might be hunting him. "Well that is worrisome. But why us? We are supposed to be simple explorers. Is there something out there the Numerians don't wish us to find I wonder?" "Do you know anything else about these agents?"
GM Vicon:
Numeria is an interesting choice. How closely are you adhering to the canonical description of Numeria from Paizo material? If you want to change Numeria to a more standard type of kingdom now is the time to speak up before I start making assumptions. But canon Numeria is a pretty weird place.
https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Numeria Canonical Numeria isn't a nation state so much as a region. There are basically two significant groups in Numeria:
The Technic League is interested in technology from the crashed starships and other stuff scattered around the country. Numeria is the setting for the IRON GODS AP and has robots and lasers and whatnot in there. But the Technic League doesn't rule most of Numeria directly and really doesn't care about areas where there isn't any technology. If there is going to be technology in the game that's cool. It's a neat twist and setting wise it isn't inappropriate since Numeria is right next door. But be aware that it also means a lot of new rules depending on how much stuff there is. But if there is a crashed UFO in the Stolen Lands then the Technic League would definitely want to keep it for themselves. The technology guide stuff is still available online on http://legacy.aonprd.com/. On the other hand there could be barbarians who see the Stolen Lands as part of their ancestral homeland and want to keep people out. Or perhaps they have other reasons. And since barbarians can move around as mercenaries they make better spies than the average person would think. The barbarians technically owe fealty to the Black Sovereign of the Technic League but the two groups mostly ignore one another. So the "agents" could be Technic League or Barbarians. Or you could decide that in your game Numeria is different than in other game worlds. "Well, what other bounties do you have back there, Oleg? Seems like that could put some serious coin into this venture." "Indeed! I had not envisioned that this task would make me so wealthy. Oleg, perhaps I can use your trading skills. This weapon of mine is called a Falcata. They are uncommon outside of Taldor. I hope to find one of better quality than this one, preferably also made of cold iron. Can I leave such an inquiry to you? Surely you have contacts with the weaponsmiths in Restov and other places."
I could maybe tap some of the people from my Emerald Spire game. --------------- In the meantime, the bounties we have received make the treasure situation very different. With another 2200 gp suddenly if we split the gold we have found five ways this leaves us with 640 gp each. GM Vicon: Will we need to include the "new character" in this wealth? Or will the new character start with wealth as a 2nd level character? Either way I feel pretty good about the idea of having Azul order a masterwork weapon from Oleg at this point. Everyone Else: Do you guys want to have a "party fund" for overall party expenses that will be separate from individual wealth? And if so, do you want to try to arrange to get a wand of cure light wounds with it? Azul is happy being the party healer, but wouldn't want to have to bear the cost of consumable party healing.
"Be careful out there, word is that agents from Brevoy have been sent into the area to deal with your party -- According to an assassin the Altdori caught in the capital. Best be on your guard, as they surely weren't the only one Brevoy has operating."
Vicon: FYI I tried this just now and I no longer get the error message. So assuming it was a website issue it should be good to go. Make sure you uncheck both the character's and the player's "active" box. If you only do one but not the other he will still get campaign messages.
"Let me see if there's anything I can do for you, Ilamin..." Azul says as he rummages through his bags. He pulls out a variety of herbs and begins mixing them into a paste to apply to Ilamin's wounds.
Vicon: In case you don't know how to do that, you do it by editing the campaign page. After you hit "Edit This Campaign," scroll down. You will see a variety of checkboxes. You need to uncheck the "Active" box for the character Andreas and the player Jovich. FYI I just tried it on one of my games and got an error message, so you may need to wait.
"No, dragon people," Azul says calmly to the kobolds. "I know this is your way, but it is not ours. Human dead must be either burned or buried." "We do this because sometimes when a human body is not buried properly, that person's ghost returns to haunt the place where he fell, or haunts those who abused his remains. I would not want as mighty a ghost as that angry with the Sootscale tribe."
Azul looks down at the body and sighs. "Well, Pharasma has him in her keeping now," Azul says. " I suppose I ought to perform a service of some sort, though that could wait until we return to Oleg's if we are burying him there. Does anyone know if he had a patron deity at all?"
Sadly I have no power over personality alchemies at "the table" so I view this event as seemingly inevitable. That makes it easier for me to take to have Sir Andreas Quit -- especially considering I very much had great plans for his character... or at least envisioned great things. Guys, I apologize for all of this. I didn't want it to go that far... I just wanted Andreas to back off. For a while I tried not to engage but it was getting really irritating. But Andreas was right that I should have sent him a PM. I didn't think of that at the time. I do want to say that I am enjoying the game so far. I am enjoying playing this character and the pace has been very good. I am pretty flexible about whatever new character we get but I feel we need a "heavy." Someone with a high STR who can deal a lot of damage. We have plenty of DEX-based characters and I don't think we need another.
"Can't say I'm interested in heading back the way we came, in case that troll is more... active. Of course, we'll probably have to deal with him eventually. Shortest route is fine by me." "That is a good point about the troll. Hopefully he can't swim." "I feel that we should definitely return to Oleg's to report in. Then once we have done that we can begin the task of actually exploring. I would prefer to explore the regions closest to Oleg's first."
...all could have been overrun before we knew it. Azul frowns, and looks Andreas in the eye. "Young man, that is precisely what would have happened if I didn't do as I did. Save your lectures." Andreas: Okay, I'm going to step out of character for a second here to address you directly.
I'm really not sure what your character's objection is about; it really doesn't make any sense to me. So it feels like you are just trolling me here. That happened to me in another game and it really kind of ruined that game for me for a while. But if you are going to try to tell me in character that my actions were stupid and that I "need to think next time" this is just going to piss me off personally. I had to wait to post this because I was rather angry when I first read it. If it matters to you why I acted the way I did in that encounter, read this (but it's not necessary that you do): Spoiler:
I have noticed in our Runelords game that Cade often misses the nuances of social encounters and needs to have things pointed out to him. Perhaps there was simply a misunderstanding here. As a GM myself I could see exactly what Vicon was looking for, and I gave it to him.
My actions were actually quite measured and thought out. They did not put the party in any danger the party was not already in to begin with, and in fact they got us out of that danger. Consider:
So to avert an all-out attack, Tlax needed to be discredited. And since the chief didn't call him out (which is what we thought would happen when we gave him the statue instead of giving it to Tlax), I did it for him. Yes, it's possible that if Tlax had a body of firm loyalists that a "civil war" would have broken out. Having kobolds fighting each other at the same time as some of them fighting us is still much better than all of them attacking us as a united force, which is what would have happened if they still obeyed Tlax's orders. And if Tlax had those kinds of loyal followers, then with the kind of villain that Tlax is, a fight would have happened anyway no matter what we did (unless we just ran away, of course). Some bad guys can never be reasoned with; the game gets boring if you can just diplomacy your way past everyone. In the meantime, Azul also eliminated the worship of a false idol (a worship that would offend lawful characters), and promoted his own faith at the same time. Destroying the statue is a good and lawful act on its own, and even better when it helps liberate people from an evil tyrant. Your appeal to the chief might have worked on its own, but would not have prevented a civil war if Tlax was willing to fight one. And please don't blame me for Tlax escaping. Tlax was able to escape because of script immunity. You will note that no initiative or perception rolls were allowed and Tlax got away without anyone being able to intervene, even though we should have had a pretty good chance to do so. This happens when the villain is needed at a later point in the adventure and cannot be allowed to die at the current point. A more experienced GM might have made this less obvious, but the fact that no one even got the chance to attempt to react means that Vicon is keeping Tlax alive for later, and there's nothing we could have done about that. I hope I've shown how my actions were well-reasoned and thought out, and were appropriate for the encounter. If you don't believe me, or you think my reasoning was flawed, well then, there's not much more I can do to convince you. I'm not going to argue about it further. ------------------------------------------------------ In the meantime, I ask that if you don't like the way I am playing my character, you keep it to yourself. This isn't the first time that Andreas has criticized Azul, and it's getting tiresome. It's not good roleplaying to create strife with the other members of the party, and I don't enjoy roleplaying arguments with other player-characters. I suspect you are grumpy because I have had some good luck so far with some very well-timed critical hits and good rolls. Perhaps you feel I am hogging the spotlight. If so, I am sorry that you feel overshadowed, but my luck with the dice can't last forever, and I would hope that you would allow yourself to enjoy the moments as they come. Andreas will get his turn to shine. Just let it happen naturally rather than trying to tear down someone else to get them. Fair?
At low levels the "give it to who can use it" approach is generally best, but at higher levels it is usually less necessary. In this example, there is one item worth 2500 gp (the boots) that is worth more than everything else added together. It would be foolish to insist on selling it so that everyone can get equal shares, since we effectively lose half the value of the item. In fact, I would be willing to keep the money earned in a pool, and spend it on the same basis; i.e.: the first masterwork weapon we buy should go to the character that can deal the biggest potential damage with it. Obviously we need to make sure that everyone is getting their fair share sooner or later. I suggest that we keep track of our individual total wealth on our character sheets so it can be checked periodically. |