Iceman's page

Just finished Protean's Prank, so I'm going to give Damiel the "trap" ability from its rewards.

Great game. Kudos and thanks to everyone.

Catch you later!

"I suppose I've got an epic to finish. And maybe another to write. But first I think a touch of civilization - hot bath, hot meal, warm company - all the comforts an adventurer needs."

One of them should be down 11, no?

And thanks for that stirring speech, Yendi. 4 out of 5 ain't bad, I guess.

Hero point to Seggiatoire for coming up with the flattery option before the scenario told you what to do, and the verse!

Thanks! I'm not much of a poet, but I can follow a 7-6 metered pattern.

Diplomat's Badge: recall knowledge to increase the bonus from +1 to +2. Arcana DC 20: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (8) + 13 = 21

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 19 + 1 ⇒ (14) + 19 + 1 = 34

Scribbling furiously, Seggiatore nods along with all of the dragon's bragging and posturing. He mutters little "oh yes" and "indeed" responses from time to time, but is acting the part of scribe and poet to a tee.

Finally ready, he reads aloud,
"I wish I were a dragon
with diamond-studded scales,
with claws like crystal sabers,
and fangs like silver nails.
I would be proud and witty,
and known for being smart.
Legends would spread far and wide,
tales of my amazing art.

I wish I were a dragon
with eyes of shining gold,
who no one had the better of,
and nothing bad was told.
A dragon so impressive
I shine in night or day,
but not a wicked dragon
hiding my beauty away."

With apologies to Shel Silverstein

I think it said each pc can only benefit from one additional reroll.
Style points aside. :D

It's like blackjack - the house holds at 4 of a kind.

Seggiatore sends a second rope across the chasm, holding onto one end while the mighty warriors hold onto the far end.
He then leaps out into the chasm and begins plummeting as they give the rope one mighty tug. It barely goes taught as the gnome practically slingshots up over their heads and onto the ground on the far side.

Mechanically, leap 20' out and cast feather fall.
With all gear, I'm less than 7 bulk. An easy haul for 18 strength.
And a little whiplash, maybe. :)

Thrilled to meet Irlah, Seggiatore follows her to the tea and snacks. Unable to contain his excitement, he reverts to a hydrid of common and gnomish as he speaks to her.
"Thankyouverymuch. Andyes, Ididpickupabitofaninfection, soanycureyoumighthavewouldbewonderful!"

He catches himself and takes a deep breath before continuing, "The sandwiches look delightful and the cookies smell heavenly. Where do you get saffron down here?"

After the rest of Irlah's explanation, during which time Seggiatore devours a sandwich and a couple (aka four) cookies, he finally asks, "What of the other pathfinders? Have you seen or heard from them in the years since you arrived?"

Also spent some money and updated the macro sheet. Let's rock!

Have not played The Perennial Crown at all.
Played the other one with a different PC.

Welcome, Delorn!

Fortiva whispers back to Kyra thru the magical connection, "Raike's footlocker was locked and trapped, but I have not found anything incriminating in the contents."

Because these items almost never come up otherwise, let's try this...

She quickly pulls out a feather from her belt pouch, and snaps it in half, causing a chest about the same size as the footlocker to appear.
She dismisses the token's magic then slides the new chest into the spot where she found the footlocker, moving all of the mundane paperwork from the footlocker to the new box.
She then activates her lifting belt, hefts the footlocker, and disappears down the ladder, careful to pull the rug back into the place where it was.

Burning a feather token(chest) to take the place of the footlocker. It won't fool anyone, but it won't be as obvious as an empty spot would be. And just maybe she's lucky enough that the two are roughly the same size and color. More importantly, she's out of the tent before too much more time has passed.

Feats are on a separate tab.

Not much to note - Ki Strike and Experienced Smuggler (which applies to the earned income roll and rarely comes into play) plus the strong-blooded dwarven bonuses.

And no wayfinder yet.
Can't buy those with fame anymore, right?

I like it. Tempting to peak, and yet rewarding to not do so.

A dwarf joins the group partway into the journey to Mishkar, this one well-built, with muted, almost ashen-colored skin and dark hair.
(( See the token on the slides or click here for a full image - ignore the forum icon. ))

Spying the other pathfinders gathered together, he approaches them and introduces himself in a deep, whispery voice.
"Barrek Half-Dead," he says, then by way of explanation, moves one hand in a quick arc, where it leaves ghostly after-images in its wake. Grinning, he adds, "Never trust a monk to raise someone from the dead, especially with 'borrowed' components."
He produces a pipe, lights it, then takes a long inhale from it and says as he exhales, "Soo, Mishkar. Never been there before myself. Anyone else?"

How many of you would be interested in continuing with #1-11?

Definitely. Crunch is now level 2 and would be happy to continue with this group - whether they morph slightly or no.

I like how we waited for our bard when talking to the guy in the street, then no one hesitated to be all grumpy with his boss.

On the plus side, I don't need to correct anything. On the minus side, it's because my big morning post got eaten so ... argh.

Aw, man, that sucks. When the map changed, but there wasn't a post here, I wondered...

You want to make the emblem of Torag glow and think Crunch will object?!? Quite the opposite, I'm afraid - they might start asking for that enhancement when it's completely unnecessary. :D

How are we getting the chronicles?
Should we be looking somewhere besides here?

4/4/3/3 looks like it will cover us and the five people we are allowed to ship out by the cove tomorrow. Woot!

Fortiva is accustomed to manual labor, but this is still a new experience for her. She is quite pleased with the first barrel she converts, but destroys the second one thoroughly in a fit of pique - though it didn't need much help, really.

"Crunch + 3 hired: Rebuilding the Stairs"
Nope. Main Gate.
Trig, the carpenter, and two hires should focus on the stairs going up.
Happy to have Franzine chatting up the locals. Will find a couple days to do so as well, at some point.

The intro mentioned being contacted by a high-ranking priest - I think Azu is referring to the priest as "the person who penned that letter." I suppose it could have been magical contact, but a letter makes sense too. :)
I agree - unlikely a high-ranking figure would be here doing this job.
That said, I don't think any documents we have could imply that they're with us. We'll just have to hire them separately.

Crunch takes in the scene from the top of the gangplank and sees the family rejected on both sides. They tromp down the boards and onto the dock and stride up to the priest, helm tucked neatly under one arm.
Shield is on his back, hammer is tucked at his side - nothing threatening.

They give a slight smile, looking up at the priest. In their most polite but gravelly voice, they say, "Morning. Sorry for confusion. I want to help family settle here - what's total fee?"
Pausing and looking back at the kids, they add, "Child could chose priesthood, but should be own choice."

"Yes, young ones. You and your mommy are going to sneak past the silly Prunelord by going underground. And then your daddy is going to strut onto that boat like the bravest, most knowledgeable deckhand that ever handled a mop." Fortiva slaps Tellith on the shoulder as she winks at the kids.

As she takes the satchel, Fortiva says, "Thank you, Daffrid. Your understanding in these matters is apprec-eeee-aaa-what?!?" She turns to follow Erryn's gaze, more than a little shocked at what she sees.

(( 8 w/ inspire? :) ))

Sorry about that. It didn't even occur to me to keep the combat rolls hidden. Won't happen again.

With a hint of a smile on her lips, Fortiva chimes in, "M'lady, I might have need of your healing services sooner than later."

Looking between the acrobat, the flautist, and the barrister, she shrugs dramatically, "I just can't decide if it'll be my ears or my eyes that will need it most."

"But come," she says, extending her hand to each of them in turn, "I am Fortiva, and if you have my back, then you are all well-met on this little 'errand'."

I've got some open spaces in my Playdis Con 2020 table 146 for Escaping the Grave if anyone is interested in trying out Play-By-Discord. You certainly don't need any experience with Discord to join, just a willingness to learn a few new things. :)

Six at 144, 2 at 146. Maybe myself or the other bard should switch over, make it 5 and 3 - if you don't get more people by Sunday.

First, thanks again for producing such a great tool.

I really like that I can access it on my laptop for character setup and on my tablet during a game (without uploading, downloading, saving, etc).
But maybe more than that, I like that the Feat sections remind me exactly when each item was taken. Keeping track of ancestry vs class vs skill and so on is such a pain in the plain column-of-blank-lines world. :)

Update 1.1.0

Updated the sheet to account for changes in Errata 1.0.
Mostly added/adjusted notes, but more notably adjusted skill formulas to properly apply the altered Noisy armor trait and added a checkbox for wearing a backpack on the Equipment tab to account for some of the bulk within a backpack not being counted against the character's bulk limit. This is a first draft of how to account for this rule, so I am open to suggestions if there may be a better way to handle it.

I don't mind the checkbox - does it merely subtract 2 bulk from the Stowed equipment's bulk total?

As far as other thoughts or notes...
Bulk under Weapons. I missed it the first time, since it was on the second line. Since then, that hasn't been a problem, but I wonder how it would look next to Reload, since it is the same size as that column. Very minor.

How tough would it be to add an option somewhere in Feats & Proficiencies to indicate Untrained Improvisation was taken? Putting half-level as a conditional bonus on all untrained skills (and then changing it each level) is doable but a bit of a pain.

Cheers!

Thanks for pulling that note out and highlighting it. While packing, I began to wonder. :)

No ACG side for the special this year? Phooey.

So that you can examine the entire thing, naturally. :)

PS: Bonus shout out to player Cat (I'm really not good at getting last names) who played ALL FOUR characters in the qualifier and the semi-finals. She was awesome.

Wait, when you say "played all four characters", are you saying she was a solo player? Nice!

The special boons would be the half-sheet OP Rewards.
Which is why those volunteers were handing out the red raffle tickets - turn those in at the desk, roll a die, get a boon.

I picked up two, and they're both pretty cool.

Open Feedback:
1) Put the same cards in all of the locations. Do not simply pull from the box.
This should have been obvious - teams had wildly different experiences based on what they encountered.

2) Put the cards in the same order in all of the locations. Do not simply shuffle them to start the scenario.
Again, this should have been obvious.

In the second round, we were told the top-ranked team was 10 points ahead of 2nd place, which we can only imagine means they had lucked into top-decked (or nearly so) henchman and were done with the 6 locations in 10 turns or less.

3) Create a more dynamic scoring system and make sure it is shared with the players.
Monsters killed plus blessings left was not only bland but very clearly unbalanced.
Total levels of monsters killed might have been more dynamic (compensating for the # of turns randomness) but not necessarily more fair (because other than henchman, it is not unreasonable to see nothing but B veterans).

4) Have a player handout and a gm handout.
Some of us like or even need to read the scenario special rules in order to grok them. We need to be able to refer to them throughout the scenario to make sure we haven't forgotten anything. Etc.

5) Get the event listing right!!!
"Bring your favorite class deck" was not the same text as any other event, which meant it was written explicitly for this one - yet it was dead wrong. No correction on the blog, no response to any thread here in the forums.
Thanks for wasting everyone's pre-con prep time.

6) Keep using the newer class decks.
It was great to see the Magus and two Tales characters.

7) Keep tying the characters to the story.
Being forced to use Character X from our deck was a cool conceit.

8) Keep implementing cool mechanics.
The vampiric energy drain was a nice puzzle to have to work with and around. Kudos for keeping it balanced with the "bury that type of card to uncheck a card feat" (since that was our first thought).

I know the Open from the last two years was far more work to set up and run, but it was not only more fun, it also actually rewarded top-level play.
This year was more of a unique scenario from which random teams advanced to another unique scenario, rinse and repeat.

Special feedback:
1) I'll repeat the player handout idea, but with the caveat that you only need it if there's protected gm text on the page as well.
No matter what, consider multiple copies of the sheet, so each side of the table can have one.

2) Do not use henchman that do not allow you to close the location.
This is a timed event, with multiple scenarios to get thru as quickly as possible, and the B scenario hit us with the biggest, grindiest time-suck in the game.
I don't think there was a villain that we could have chased around - if there were, then that lowers the grind level some. Almost entirely eliminates it, if we have an idea where he starts the game.

3) Keep doing fun, interactive-style things like Reinforcements.
It was a nice boon to take advantage of, and also nice to walk over and drop it on another table.

4) Keep doing fun, special-level stuff like opening up new locations based on choice of faction (or faction successes).
It was a nice opportunity to customize the scenario to our group to be able to say "we like these guys" or "we're really good at this thing."

5) Tell the Syrinscape guys that they should use someone with a deep, booming voice to be their deep, booming-voiced character. The modulated-voice sounded soooo fake, it was laughable. :D

Cheers.
-Vic

My primary suggestion is to think critically about all of the various groups sizes and how that affects each scenario.

Tipping the Scales:
Generally, when the goal is to close everything, it's "# of PCs plus 1" locations (instead of plus-2). A 6-character group will not find four locations exciting. A solo character might find it overly challenging.

Tactical Retreat:
So, a solo character would have just the marketplace and could win after as little as 2 turns (blessing, fail combat, repeat)?
Not sure a minimum of 24 'turns' will be fun for 6 players, but it doesn't sound too bad (again, if you can handle 2 combat damage, you can ignore the Soldier and speed things along).
Still, maybe find a middle ground -> 4 minimum plus 3 per player. Or roll (d20 + # of PCs) under the number of blessings. Keep the 'may win', letting them dig more boons if desired.

But getting nothing but the stuff you would normally get is not a reward. Add a weapon, armor, or item to it for each Corrupted Soldier defeated. Add one more of each card type that's in it. Something.
Remember that every B scenario in Wrath handed each character one card of a certain type plus everything they acquired. :)

Offer You Can't Refuse:
Interesting balance of scouting and time pressure. No locations need closing, so no worries about using Tangle Traps. :)
And you can avoid the whole 'base' thing (which isn't bad, just awkward)...
"Treat Anevia as template for Cultist of Baphomet, Aravashnial as template for Blackfire Adept, and Aron as template for Cultist of Deskari. When you would banish one of these henchman from a location deck, display it next to the scenario instead; then you may examine any location deck.
You win the scenario when Blackfire Adept, Cultist of Baphomet, and Cultist of Deskari are displayed next to the scenario."

Oh, and for the Mythic path card - no d20 replacement option?
I feel that that becomes fairly crucial as the henchman and villain checks go up as they do.

I honestly find a number of other characters better all-around - Kyra and Seelah to name two. But there are a lot of great characters here.

A wide spread of skills is important. Get someone with fortitude, with knowledge, diplomacy, survival, etc.
Healing is highly desirable. Have at least a secondary healer (paladin, hunter, inquisitor) to back up a primary (cleric, shaman).
Armor is rather nice, evasion is pretty awesome, other types of damage reduction will see a lot of use.

And one thing that can really affect your fun is the mythic paths. Look at them before you choose your characters. Note which skills your character will use most and which paths work with those skills.
I enjoyed Adowyn from start to finish (scouting, self-healing, nova-strike ability, what's not to love) but am still annoyed that no Dex-Wis path exists. In fact, Wis is only present on one base path (so Harsk and Imrika have similar issues).

Have fun!

I hear ya, but think of it like the CD Damiel - Unearthly Aim question (or was it Charm Person? Regardless...):

Did you play a spell?
Did that spell have the attack trait?
Then you have to banish (or bury) the card you played.

I can't think of a way to possibly answer No to either question. :)

I've played thru everything multiple times (except Wrath - only finished it once, second run starts after xmas), and so far we've played all of the MM we could.
I have to say, this set is very, very good. It may be my new favorite.

The scenarios have plenty of variety and often force you to think rather than plow ahead. The boons also have an incredible variety - they never seem stale and instead create all sorts of dilemmas about what to keep and what card feats to take.
The challenge level is just about right. We have yet to blunder into any kind of death trap or negative play experience, nor have we cake-walked a scenario without taking a single point of damage (or scourge, etc).

Plus, we really have enjoyed the marrying of theme and story with mechanics. Whether it's the constructs that you can salvage items from if you don't break them too badly, or the way the town almost burned down that one time.

-Vic

So 'when' is a keyword now?

That is, the rule referring to 'when something happens' doesn't really mean that the power has to use that specific 'when' phrasing?

jones314 wrote:

Joshua Birk 898 wrote:

What am I missing? How can Damiel use things like the Flame cannon without a ranged skill?

Everyone has at least a d4 for Ranged. Throw 4d8 on top of that and you have a big boom. Or you put 2d8 on another combat check, Ranged skill or no.

Apologies, I did not clearly articulate the problem. Damiel's power requires him to make dex based combat checks. But he cant do that with the cannon without the the ranged skill. Does Damiel have some other way to allow him to make a ranged based combat check? It seems odd to pair him in the preview with a card he cant really use all that well.

Much like the RPG, I expect him to have plenty of ranged weapons that use Dex and thus will be the basis of his offense. Meaning he'd use the cannon (repeatedly!) for its 2d8, which is an awesome recharge-a-card boost.

Beyond that, yes, it would take an as-yet-unseen feat for him to use the Cannon for his combat check, and still discard some other potion to add his Int.
(( Or, as Tanis noted, maybe the text is not 100% accurate. :) ))

What I love about these previews is also what I hate - they make me want to play all of the characters and I just don't have a group for that. Heh.

We actually love the pirate theme and the fleet aspects of Skull and Shackles. Swashbucklers, alchemists, and gunslingers, yay!

We do Not love the release schedule. RotR may have been too slow for some, but it was perfect for us.
There is every likelihood that we're going to start skipping every other AP just so we have time to play, replay, and generally enjoy what we already have.

Additionally, we were disheartened to learn that the cards from RotR, while technically compatible, were not usable with the new set.
Obviously, you cannot make Everything an expansion of the base game. But one adventure path and done forever was more than a little off-putting.

Cheers.
-Vic