JonGarrett's page

Ack, I'm so sorry! It turns out those days off never happened, so I've done about 12 days straight now. I'll try and get something up tonight.

I'm sorry to hear that. I know I've been struggling as well, as my posting rate my indicate, but I'm sad to see you go.

Yeah. You spend 1 AP you go your Agility modifier in meters. 2 AP is your agility modifier x 3. 3 AP is your agility modifier x 5. So you can do it twice, going a total of 40m in a 6 second turn. Which, if my math is right, is around 25 mph, or a little slower than Usain Bolt. Huh. However...

Halfway down the passage, the party hears, "Hello?" To the left-hand side, in a clear patch among the undead, a young teen boy holding a short sword in trembling hands, looking worried, stares at the party. "Um, I think I went the wrong way? I was trying to find the test." Several of the undead start looking for the source of the noise.

Not yet. But I could make something like that. I have this power. And yes, you have the basic idea - half movement not to not slip and fall, an Agility check needed to go full speed, you need to get across the chasm somehow.

As you enter the chamber the voice announced. "Life fears the cold that marks its end. Heat is life. Cold is its lack. Be wary not to slip and fall."

Zandora's assumption is correct, as she moves to the crevice. The lever is on the far left end, about a meter down and easy enough to reach - but not obvious from the room. Of some concern is the bottom of the crevice seems to be a little bit on the bottomless side.

OK, apologies. Yes, the turn off is right by the door.

It would be Here. I should probably do a more Mage Hand/Cantrip style one at some point, too.

It's pretty much this versions of the Craft (Such and Such) Items feat, meant to make magical gear. You'd need Telekinesis to move a lever (once you find it) but it could probably make a temporary filter. It wouldn't last long, and you'd need to roll for it, but I like the idea of creating temporary magic items like that.

Yeah, basically the symbiote doesn't have any arcane failure, so I'll hold off on gestalt until I can think of something more useful then.

Jon what do you do with the breastplate? Jon please clarify if you have it being light armor or something else, also what form does the symbiote take?

For now, it'll get packed away unless someone else wants it. And no, using it in heavy mode - the Symbiote has no ASF, and Armorist gives me proficiency in heavy armour, so this is the one suit of heavy armour I can actually wear.

It means Pulling Three Levers and that I cannot spell.

Sure. Symbiotic Knight Armorist.

It's a Spheres class with the Low caster side of things, full BAB, and a gimmick for summoning all the gear you could need.

No one is obviously watching the crime scene, and Jennifer able to slip in without any screams or yells to stop. The crime scene was as unpleasant as one might imagine, having yet to be cleaned. There are a number of tags in the location, and a lot of blood. Even after having seen quite a lot of violence Jennifer is surprised that one person could lose this much.

----------

The old man snorted. "You a cop, or just nosey? Eh, don't matter. I was here, and the cameras can prove it. Didn't see nothin', hear nothin', know nothin'."

Hello all! We've successfully completed the first Test, but we have sadly lost some of the players due to real-world issues and the like. As a result, I'd like to grab some new players.

As you can see in the first post, this is a test for a game I wrote myself with some room for further development. I've gotten some great feedback from this game and an IRL test game, and the game has been modified as a result, but I want *more*.

The Character Creation rules are available here, and the backstory is the same as the first post (a world is being developed, but I'm having to prioritize crunch for now) but if there's anything you'd like to see then feel free to hit me up.

Yeah, the dice gods of Paizo just know hate and spite.

I'll work on an Aid Another idea tonight, hopefully. Got some other stuff to do.

I suppose the simplest method would be to list the difficulty including Normal (+0) when asking for a roll, and maybe expanding the list of modifiers, perhaps adding ways for players to make a roll Easier or Harder? Something akin to Aid Another?

Hmm. So even if the math more or less plays out in a similar fashion, the fact this one is percentile gives an impression of hopelessness? It's not something I'd considered, but I guess it's why some of the games I've seen using D100 tend to be horror or darker.

I'm not sure if much can be done about it, though. I suppose it could be used to play into a slightly grittier setting where you're not gonna end up a floating god of devastation? I'll try and think of how to turn that into something more positive.

The Easy, Simple, Challenging and Difficult modifiers are indeed already a thing. They didn't come up much in this one, because you automatically found the basic clues you needed for the Test.

There is also an 'automatic success' idea for basic tasks that a character would struggle to fail unless the situation is odd. You won't kill everyone cooking breakfast, but if you need to create a gourmet banquet then it's time to roll them bones.

Mathematically speaking, I don't think the d100 system is significantly more unfair than the D20 Difficulty Check one? If you have 50% in an attribute, then you have a 50% chance to succeed. If you have +4 to something in a d20, and the DC is 14, then you have a 50% chance to succeed. If you put more points in and get a +7, then you have a better chance of doing the thing - but the same is true if you got your Attributes higher and got some modifiers.

The biggest difference is there's a hard cap on just how amazing you can be at something. You can never get better than 90%, although again, that's only in stressful situations where failure has a consequence.

I was hoping that getting rid of the penalty for social skills would help with the feeling of not having the skills. Do you guys think it will, or do you think more needs to be done so people feel more competent?

Alright, so first and foremost, other than some clarifying and re-wording - thoughts on this Test? Feedback on the system as a whole? Suggestions or ideas you'd like me to consider?

Second, we do seem to be down to two players. Jeremy has obviously left. Is anyone else still here? I'm gonna go and try and drum up some interest in joining the game here, and possibly doing a re-recruitment, but if you guys wanna bully convince anyone to try things out then I'm open to friends.

Thirdly, anyone who wishes to can do a complete rebuild - race, archetype, etc is free to do so. Otherwise, feel free to update your character with the updated rules - primarily the changes to the social rules where they now no longer have the penalty for being untrained.

Most of the changes can be seen on the front page, although I've also added the Pactmaster Archetype (someone who uses Spirits to do what they need) and made a few edit to this and that. As ever, feel free to ask.

And thank you for helping me with all this. I really appreciate it.

Nope, it has blankets neatly folded at the end of the beds and the drawers are empty.

Alas, I do not have time magic. If I did I'd be posting from the my throne of secrets as I controlled the world from the shadows.

...which, in fairness, I could be doing. It's not like I'd admit that I'd really taken over the entire globe with time based shenanigans, blackmail and such. But I wouldn't leave it in this state.

Shall do, and no worries.

No worries, give us a shout if you need anything.

Alright, thanks for the help anyway!

I needed gear in a desperate attempt to die. Alas, it was not to be. I'm happy to have left at 9am or earlier to be there, though, or to make some con checks.

The game has been updated with a variety of changes, most notably the suggestion to remove the penalty to Social talents. A couple still have a penalty, or can't be used without taking them as before, but most of them now give a bonus to something instead.

I also Did Some Other Editing.

As mentioned, the plan is to let you guys do a rebuild when you complete the current Test to allow for these new rules, so I thought you'd appreciate a list of what has changed.

OK, Upper Floor is up and linked. I fixed the ground floor link while I was there, as I finally worked out that was the broken one not the second floor one while I was linking stuff.

Yeah, I've been slow about fixing floor 2. Work has been a pain in the rear. I'm off tonight so I'll try and get it dealt with.

In fairness, you found quite a lot in Ured's room. It was just 'don't touch, magic will eat you' stuff and nothing murder relevant.

But yeah, that's a solid summary. You have three rooms upstairs you've yet to visit (including the two potential suspects) and three downstairs, plus the garden and greenhouse.

No worries Ashermain. Join as you can.

And yeah, it's pretty different. That was why you get Social Talents and Combat Talents, as I was trying to divide the resources so you didn't have to pick Combat or Social. The idea was that there was as much focus on what you chose to do with your non-combat stuff as you would with choosing a class, or picking a feat.

But the penalty might be too much, and too harsh. Hence the above - would removing the penalty on Social Talents and re-doing the first rank for the ones you can do regardless be better, or would a reduced penalty be more balanced? And which is more fun?

I have altered the rules so everyone gets Perception as a talent, so no penalty there. We'll implement the change (and allow rebuilding, etc) at the end of the test, unless folks really want to do a quick change now.

We seem to have lost some of the other players, although I know a couple are busy or ill-suited to this kinda task and are quiet thanks to that. Thankfully all the other tests are different - one is a dungeon, one is a test of speed and endurance, one is stealth and cunning, one is diplomacy and guile and the last two are fairly general.

I wouldn't worry too much about getting the test right. I've written it so that simply checking the rooms will find the clues involved - no roll needed - with some rolls to get additional info. Oh, and a funny secret encounter. The two complications is one of the witnesses will lie, and there are some (very poorly fabricated) red herrings.

On a related note, it's been suggested that cutting the Attribute in half for anything you don't have the Talent in might be too much. When I did it that way I was kinda thinking of how you can only have a limited selection of skills in Pathfinder 1e and D&D 5e. Heck, there's a bunch of skills you simply can't roll for if you don't put points into them in Pathfinder. But just because those systems do it in such a way that you're gonna really suck in some skills doesn't mean it's fun.

I've got two ideas - the first is removing the penalties, at least on Social talents, and modifying the first rank of each to do something else. The second is to keep the penalty, but instead of halving your score you take a -10% to the attribute.

OK, here is the How to Do The Thing list as it stands. Suggestions for more esoteric suggestions would be great, as I'm tired and having writing blocks with the thing. Is it useful? If not, what'll make it useful?

Thanks. I'll get the thing working, and add anything Jeremy's scent would pick up on if you happen to be in a scenty area.

I'm not sure if you've asked, but the short version is they either die in the fire or more directly. They just get to sleep through the experience.

I was thinking of one of two things for Cantrips - either making it a Talent tree and letting people select a couple of effects every couple of ranks, or adding a bunch of effects to the General social talents.

OK, just so folks are aware I've made a second version of the Google Doc character sheet. It's mostly modifying the Talents section to try and include all the info you need. See what you think.

For those not on the Discord, I've added a number of advantages to character creation. It might be worth perusing them as I will be allowing character tweeking between Tests, if folks wanna.

Finally, it's been suggested that I might wanna throw in the Perception talent as a freebie and add a drawback to remove it if people wanna play an oblivious character. Thoughts?

Whoop, rolling for cash.

Cash Money: 3d6 ⇒ (5, 1, 2) = 8

There is nothing obvious in the room. You can roll to take a peek Perception is Intelligence plus any bonuses from the Perception talent - to see if there's anything else in here.

Yup. You can roll regardless, but it would be with Half the attribute score if you don't have a relevant talent to give you some training or experience. I will note that a medical or healing talent would also be cool. And yes, I really need to finish the How do I Do The Thing? list.

There is nothing in the store room that looks like a murder weapon, but the trail of footprints does continue to the north door.

Ooooh, alt fight! Let me prepare the arena...

Hello! I'm Jon, and I'll be running the second part later.

Hey Caster!

I'm up for something along these lines. I have two or three quirky little games I've been considering running, and I'd be happy to do a swap.

I'm fairly neutral. I don't mind folks doing e-rp, hell it was how my wife explained she was initially interested in me, but if it's getting a heavy focus then fade to black/spoilers/private messages are probably the way to go. Especially if other players are less comfortable with it. It simply seems polite to consider everyone's needs and comfort.

Honestly, my assumption was that pretty much all 'adult encounters' had to be fade to black thanks to the Paizo community guidelines. Personally, I don't care about them - I'm not expecting any kinda of adult activity for this Jon, since he's just been told his wife and kids are two hundred years dead and that tends to put a dampener on the libido. Or it would mine, at least.

I'll allow Wraithing, yeah. And yeah, you've nearly caught them.

Yup, it was two votes for the Test of Knowledge, I believe.

OK, we seem to be stuttering a little, and a few folks aren't posting much.

Two questions, therefore:

Where do you wanna go first? Is there a consensus?

And whose still around to make such choices?

OK, slow going as this thrice damned bug and working all the hours has left me exhausted, but here's the start of the How Do You Do The Thing? section. Only got Weapon Skill so far, but I'll try and do a bit more.

Thoughts so far?

If you wanna follow, or chat more, or investigate for more clues around the house, all are an option.

Thank you for the summary, Jerry. Don't worry though, we're heading right towards the first murder.

It has a handle, yeah.