Dallimar's page

Last Friday my group took on part 2 of The Worldwound Incursion. As I am running a party of six I wanted to keep them challenged and continue to provide them with enough experience and treasure to make up for the increased party size. I think I may have over done it...

By the end of this section of the adventure the players were pretty frustrated, and I think they felt like I was out to get them. How can I strike that right balance between hard and fun without it becoming Mega Man levels of difficult. Do I increase the numbers, but play the bad guys as a little dumber, play up the intelligence/cunning of their foes, but leave the numbers alone, or should I be doing something completely different.

I want this to be fun for my group, and so I'm asking for their feedback, but I don't think they want to hurt my feelings either, knowing that I put a lot of work into the adventure for them. What say you forum goers?

Sometimes it's the little things that make me smile. Useless little bits of information that have no bearing on the story being told, or that have any impact on the game at all. Today, thanks to a finger being a little to itching on the mouse scroll wheel, I found out something new.

In The Worldwound Incursion (Adventure Path #73), on page 71, number 16, the name Kenabres appears at the end of the second line. Flicking the scroll wheel shows the name of the city in exactly the same spot on page 72.

This piece of totally useless trivia has been brought to you by the Society of People With To Much Time On Their Hands.

What are some things that you've noticed in your games that were totally pointless, but made you smile?

So, a little background. One of the players in my group wants to play a paladin of Arodan, gaining his power through faith in the teaching of the dead god rather than from a deity itself, but he may be taking the Touched by Divinity trait and, for our home game, I think it would be a great turn to have him be the son of Arodan (I'll be working up to a campaign later that involves this as the central theme).

I went through the Mythic Origins section on Godlings and I'm trying to come up with something that would work to reflect the teachings of Arodan, but I'm left scratching my head. Any ideas what direction I should go, or tips as to what the ability for this should look like would be a huge help.

Played a Swashbuckler Skull and Shackles. I loved this class at level 6 (I should see it in action at level 7 in a few weeks).

The skills worked out wonderfully, and with Signature Deed for Derring-Do I was able to use it every time I made an acrobatics roll, which I was taking a lot of advantage of to do things life balancing on the rail on the edge of the ship, or to tumble between enemies to get to a better position.

Due to some role-playing that had been going on I was caught without any of my gear but a Ring of Protection and my +1 Agile Rapier. After taking half my health in damage from a fireball I was attacked by the Big Bad of the encounter who, without any of my equipment, only had to hit a 16 to get me. If it hadn't been for Parry I'd have been rolling up a new character.

Here are my thoughts on what the class was like, laid out as best I can:

Opportune Parry: This was useful, but we had to house rule the costs after the first combat. I could make a parry as long as I had a point of panache and spent the opportunity attack. It otherwise functioned as normal.

Repost: When I used this it made the encounter. It helps that it was a critical hit but the chance to completely shift the tide of battle with this class ability was awesome.

Recovery: I used it once to see how it would play out and never used it again. The +2 to AC was alright, and we had enough space that I didn't provoke the opportunity attack, but in a tighter battlefield I would rather turn to Opportune Parry and see how it plays out. At least then I'm only getting attacked by one opponent.

Menacing Swordplay: Unfortunately this didn't come up, entirely because I forgot that it was there. *facepalm* Next time I'll be making better use of it.

Precise Strike: This was awesome. I get that it is really the source for the Swashbuckler's damage, and so it has to be pretty good, but I was getting a ton of extra damage from it by spending panache. The two-hander barb made a hit for 41, I followed up with two hits for 38. Her's was a crit, mine were not. It helps that I was given the okay for the agile weapon, so my dex was a factor, but otherwise I attribute my damage output entirely to this.

Swashbuckler Initiative: Free bonus to my initiative. 'Nough said.

Bravery: Never came up.

Swashbuckler Finesse: It freed me up a feat, and my GM cleared it to qualify for anything that uses Weapon Finesse as a prerequisite.

Nimble: As I was stuck in the rather compromising situation of having no protective gear other than my Ring of Protection, the dodge bonus offered by this helped me out on two different occasions. Thank goodness for dodge bonuses.

I admit that the dice were rolling in my favor on game night, and I rolled about five crits during the curse of the game, but I feel like the class is really well done. A few tweaks to the mechanics and I think that this will be a repeat class for me many times in the future. There's just something about the agile, precision fighter that has always drawn me in.

I'll post up more thoughts as they happen, but till then thank you for the awesome playtest, and thank you all for the feedback. It's been great to watch it all come together.