Fax's page

Slackers. :) We've been here since Saturday.

I don't know what the right party is for this AP. I wondered that from the start. Do-gooders are likely to have trouble with module 1. Bad guys are likely to have trouble with module 3. I like what my player came up with, and we've had a good campaign (almost ready to do module 6 now) but I made it work by sacrificing module 1. It's a really fun-sounding module, but if I'd run it for all that it was worth we would never have been able to run module 3, as the PCs' emotional ties would all have been to Riddleport.

For people who were successful with this AP: what...

(Your question actually got cut off, apologies.)

I was, as I mentioned earlier, part of the group the OP was GMing for.

I can't speak for the other two players, but my character's motivation initially was greed, for personal power to raise his standing within the church. That quickly turned into revenge; our party was quite petty in many ways. People or groups that crossed us tended to "draw back a bloody stump."

This worked quite well for the first two chapters; it became increasingly difficult to justify either the greed for power or revenge motivation for chapters 3 on. We did come back to the revenge motive during ...5? the chapter where you're imprisioned briefly.. and took it out on the Winter Council et al.

After that it was just sheer metagaming to continue the path to the end mixed with a healthy dose of eye-rolling at the inability of the elves to seemingly do anything themselves and perhaps some arrogance at our capabilities. This started taking shape in chapter 3 when we essentially operated as special forces for the elven army. We quickly latched onto the idea of being "elite" compared to the elves, and it went from there.

The drow were shown in an oddly positive light, particularly compared to the sloth of the elves. I think I remember that the demons had been seiging the keep/manor of the Winter Council for some ridiculous length of time when the party arrives. I don't recall the exact length but remember being surprised that it was so long.

In the end we saved them because we could, and because we wanted to complete the adventure path. Oddly the drow at the end were not particularly effective combatants; the demons and other things were much, much harder to deal with. (Probably due to our tilt toward drow-slaying in 3-5, but the "uniques" guarding the various runes in the Land of Black Blood were far harder to deal with.)

balterk_n wrote:

Really, was anyone supposed to like any elves at the end of this?

I too am troubled by how unlikable the elves are... Kwava in particular has nothing to offer the party in terms of information and yet is supposed to be their guide. Everyone in my group hates him and only tolerates him due to OOC comments from me. We have begun playing him a bit for comic relief and i can't wait to get rid of him. I plan to alter the story a bit in Armageddon Echo to portray the elves more sympathetically and try to rally the party to the cause. In the end the only reason they are following the path is because curiosity killed the cat...

We ended up calling him "Guava." Well, I did, anyway. :D

I must admit that I was the source for most of the elf hate; they really ran us around despite us being far far more effective than anything they could muster.

Yeah, we had a good time. It's a fun, epic romp with drow drow drow. (I played the cleric in this game.)

It is a bit of a stretch for more ...mercenary groups to take off and help the elves. Establishing a connection with the elves prior to the third adventure would go a long way toward this, if your party isn't inclined to help them because they're good or something.

Magic-heavy groups that don't have some way of defeating spell resistance are going to get pounded rather hard in the latter two chapters, I'd say, if not sooner--the drow are a nasty pain if you don't have Spell Penetration (and later, spell resistence of your own).

We really, really enjoyed the Riddleport sections. They fit the party's attitude quite a bit better than the latter parts, as noted. We also really beelined through this--we started characterizing ourselves as the elves' hit squad/ninja team/Mission: Impossible group and that helped a bit, but we really did churn through things as efficiently as we could. I think we probably missed a fair chunk in our zeal for getting quit of the stupid elves as fast as possible, which may affect other groups' opinions, particularly of the later chapters.

We also probably abused the magic item rules a bit, which helped. Granted, we were running a three (and a half) person group so I think it was necessary, but we really focused on drow- and demon-killing which made some of the later encounters significantly easier.

As noted flight/climbing powers helped immensely with a lot of encounters (either making them trivial or allowing us to bypass big chunks of encounters); we actually invested in some magic items tilted that way to improve our capabilities. And we didn't see 90% of the end area, since we Wind Walked around most of it and teleported back after clearing the encounter area around the runes.

All in all we had a really good time, though, and I'd do Second Darkness again in a heartbeat.

Happy to answer any player-end questions I can.

The impression I got from the discussions at Paizocon about Kingmaker was that the PCs were setting up in kind of a frontier region with a fair amount of wilderness around it. Having a hex map of the surrounding region and requiring exploration of those areas seems to indicate to me that it's going to be a pretty small-scale operation--far closer to the couple of hamlets and a bog than "here's Rydom".

So part of the point of the AP is (I think) taking your small starting area and building it up into something significant. So no, you're not a major player (or even a *minor* player) at the start, but you're strong enough to provide protection and leadership to commoners and warriors. By the end, when you're 15th+ level, you *are* major players.. because you'll have become that through your own actions, not because someone handed you the crown.

For those wondering how the BRAZEN STRUMPETS came to be, I dug up a link to the famous harlot sub-table:

http://obscurearchives.stupidquestion.net/D&D.html

Next year the Slovenly Trulls must make an appearance, I think.

Fax! Yes, poor Trosk...but at least he got to fight in the final encounter. I spent most of it unconscious after a rather unlucky punch to my sternum...

Well, we did quite well given our.. impetuous method of dealing with things. :)

And I must say, the memory of Steve the valiant farmer will live on...and if you were there, you know what I'm talking about ^_~

Poor, poor steve...oh, yeah, and the dwarf barbarian pc that got killed >_>

Alas, poor Steve, we hardly knew ye. Ah, Trosk is riding whales and quaffing with Cayden now. :)

Fray, on a personal note, I want to thank you for taking on the role of the opening act at our table. I laughed so hard at your CoCT stories that it hurt. No matter what my players get up to from here on out, at least they haven't set any peasants on fire yet.

I'd like to second that--you kept us all chatting when we should have been sitting with perfect Gamer Aloofness. Just made the whole night that much more fun.

It was a blast--we'll definitely be back next year (with another year of gaming under the Lady's belt, this time!).

I'm sorry; I have to drop out (if you haven't dropped me already). Life got very very busy all of a sudden, and I don't think I'm going to be able to post at anywhere near enough frequency. Good luck, and my apologies.

Arrrgh!

I'm sorry. I actually posted a reply yesterday (or thought I did) but apparently it was eaten. :( I'll post one this morning. Sorry sorry sorry.

Hello, friends.

One
I've plugged everybody's Pathfinder combat stats into one spreadsheet, and everybody's skills into another. (Hint: if Orislav or one of the wizards wanted to switch a skill point into Appraise, so that somebody in the party had it, I'd allow that.)

I'll probably pick it up next level just for the identification of items. Wasn't super concerned about it right off the bat.

I could probably pull the point in Sleight of Hand and put it in Appraise if it's necessary, though.

Have fun with the music, and we'll see you Tuesday.

While we have a few new messageboard features on our to-do list, none of them are particularly high on that list right now.

Fax wrote:

...the RSS feed updates at seemingly random times, which can be a pain for following, say, a PbP campign you're involved in.

The timing of RSS updates is determined by your RSS feed reader. In most readers, you should be able to adjust it, and also to check manually.

Thanks for the response, Mr. Wertz.

Fax wrote:

2. A thread bookmark feature. I'd love to be able to bookmark a thread and have it add to a page (somewhere off my account page, perhaps) that has all of the threads I've bookmarked. Would make it a LOT easier to find threads that I'm interested in. And yes, I know about the RSS feed, but I'd like something that aggregates all the threads into one page on the site.

Thats why the threads are RSS feeds

I'd like a page here, on paizo.com, that lists the threads I've bookmarked. Why? Because the RSS feed updates at seemingly random times, which can be a pain for following, say, a PbP campign you're involved in. If I can bookmark a page in my browser for paizo that shows all my bookmarked threads with last updated etc etc, then it's a double bonus: I can keep up with everything easily, and I'm not hunting around for threads I'm following or participating in.

No clue if this is the proper place for this or not, but there's a couple of features I'd love for the messageboards to have.

1. Thread in the "add new reply" page--put it under the area where I'm typing in my post, order from newest to oldest so that the post immediately previous to mine is at the top and they go backwards from there. Can filter so it's just the last ~10 or so messages in the thread if db hits are a concern. Would help the flipping and extra window/tab opening I have to do to see what I'm replying to in the thread.

2. A thread bookmark feature. I'd love to be able to bookmark a thread and have it add to a page (somewhere off my account page, perhaps) that has all of the threads I've bookmarked. Would make it a LOT easier to find threads that I'm interested in. And yes, I know about the RSS feed, but I'd like something that aggregates all the threads into one page on the site.

3. Jump to Unread Post. I'd love to have the ability to click a button next to the thread subject and jump to the first post that I haven't read. It's a phenomenal timesaver, particularly in long threads.

Thanks. :)

I'll answer to Dan, Zosimus, Fax, or "you! there!" though the latter works better in person, I've found.

As I posted there, if we're not in combat, and if there's an obvious attribute or skill roll your PC needs to attempt, I'll go ahead and do that for you, to keep the game moving. If you want to try something out-of-the-ordinary, or when we're in combat, I'd want you to roll the virtual dice.

Speaking as a PbP n00b here, how exactly do you want to handle this? I roll a physical die and report that in ooc? Or some online method?

And you might have studied at the Academae, actually--they're known as being one of the best summoning schools about. You'd have to escape from them somehow, though, as I don't think they let people leave prior to completing the coursework or not.

Man, if the criminals of Carrion Hill were looking for easy marks who were holding several thousand gold pieces' worth of loot...

*cough* Perhaps some have merely chosen to join the party in hopes of finding an even bigger score with this crew of bulging purses?

:D

Yalka Kross-Darn wrote:

Fax, sounds cool that you're going for the Harrower class...
(and I beleive if your Harrow deck is a Bonded Item, it's free!)

Fax wrote:

Yep, it is. But it's not Zosimus' bonded item, that's the amulet of Desna he wears. I liked taking ranks in Craft(Harrow deck) and am going to work toward a masterwork deck. :)

According to Beta, pg 49, "Objects that are the subject of an arcane bond must fall into one of the following categories: amulet, staff, ring, wand, or weapon." So, the Harrow Deck wouldn't have been a valid bonded item.

(And, please let me know if you think I'm reading the rules wrong. We're all learning Pathfinder together.)

Nope, you've got it exactly right and that's why it's the amulet of Desna, mechanically speaking. Zosimus is quite focused on his deck in other ways, though; thus the Fortune Teller feat with the Harrow deck as the focus there.

Cool beans,

I worked up a pretty good Character Sheet for Yalka...
Whenever you want to, Chris, look it over and tell me if anything looks off. I'll work up a bit more background/flavor and post that in the Discussion thread when it's ready...
(I realized I can't afford even crafting a MW Melee weapon OR a Horse, so forget about that post.
In her skills, I figured that Spears are covered by Craft(Bows&Arrows), just tell me if it's otherwise...)

Fax, sounds cool that you're going for the Harrower class...
(and I beleive if your Harrow deck is a Bonded Item, it's free!)

BTW: I noticed this bug on the forums, if you want the "Languages" field to show up in the Profile page, you need to fill something in for the "Homepage URL"....

Yep, it is. But it's not Zosimus' bonded item, that's the amulet of Desna he wears. I liked taking ranks in Craft(Harrow deck) and am going to work toward a masterwork deck. :)

I think it's pretty possible to wing most of the monsters; you don't need full lifepaths and all that for most of the creatures the party is going to face, so as long as you've got a good handle on the mechanics it shouldn't be too hard to come up with goblins and such.

The magic will be an issue, though. You're probably going to have to use something like Burning THAC0 or make it up if you want to emulate D&D/PFRPG magic. Might be simpler to just use one of the existing magic systems (I think there's a few available on the wiki) and modify the enemies to use that. That's an interesting theme for the path, actually, if you emphasize that the current level of magical ability is far, far below what it was in the Thassilonian era. Drop some custom magical stuff on the party as they move through the path and gain some knowledge and it'd be even more memorable.

I, too would be interested in how you approach it. I love Burning Wheel but I've never been able to find a group that was interested in playing it.

NPC: Urskine Cramer, cooper. NG Human Expert 3.

Urskine's a pretty normal sort. His business as a cooper is moderately successful, he's reasonably well-liked among his peers in the Drovers' and Coopers' Guild, and he has a loving wife. Up until five years ago, however, he and his wife were childless. They tried everything--prayers to Erastil, consultations with the clergy of Shelyn and Calistria, cure disease on he and his wife, propitiation of Pharasma. He even contemplated a sacrifice to Lamashtu but decided against it--the thought of what might be born from the offering was too horrible for him to even contemplate.

And then, one winter's night, they had a child, age five. Neither he nor his wife were ever quite sure how the child arrived, but they didn't even question it, simply took the child into their hearts and built a family around him. Since then, other children have arrived in the same way, and each is accepted just like the first.

The Cramer family is now eight strong, and Urskine and his wife are busy but happy. Occasionally, when Urskine's had a mug or two more of ale than he should, he'll try to talk to his wife about it, but she shushes him and murmurs about the children being taken away the same way they came, and both of them are quiet with fear before changing the subject.

Working a character now, and hoping to make the cut. :)

To follow up, I'd lean toward either a rogue or wizard, and I'm not involved in any PbP at the moment. Also just pre-reg'd for the con, so.. :)

I'd love to be involved in this.. and it'll make going to PCII even more fun. :)

I'd be interested in playing, if you've got room. I'd also be willing to help out with GMing duties, if things work out. Email is faxsemmar at gmail dot com, if you'd like to get in contact that way.