Matthew Bellizzi's page

In my campaign during the Black Magga event one of the parties fighter rescued her and the child from the school from the night night boa. She was ...ahem very grateful and I've used her as a foil to mess with the player. She became with child and moved to Sandpoint where she is talking up the locals about her and the players intention to marry (unknown to the player until he got her first letter). Needless to say that player has not dared to go back to Sandpoint yet since she arrived there.

So my group has gone into the runeforge and completed 4 wings. They found the component to plane shift back and they plan to do so at the start of next session. I what to make the game feel less static and have things going on in the back ground. Now the timeline in RotRL is fairly fast paced so doing so is kinda hard. I've decided that time flows drastically different in the runeforge. Something to the tune of 1 day in runeforge equals 2 months outside. So off the top of my head heres what I'm springing on my players

One player has a townhouse in Magnimar which is their main base there. It's going to be looted and a locale frequented by transients

A player will have a parent die

Two players in the Magnimar city guard will be dishonorably discharged from the watch for dereliction of duty

One PC had a fling with Tillia Henkensen after the Black Maga incident, She became pregnant and moved to Sandpoint and is awaiting his return to marry him.

ANNNNNNND I'll take any suggestion to mess with my players. I think of this as more of a RP possibility than a punishment so anything fun would be awesome

Yeah what NobodysHome said. I'd also nix any evil alignments and make it a requirement that the majority of PC's be good aligned. This will help you drive the story a bit. Monetary rewards seem to be significantly less than WBL and agreed any player who touts that needs a smack down. I would also second 15 point buy and I limited it Core and APG which seemed to work ok (although I have now opened it up). My group is mostly optimizers with some RP folks. Although I'm an experienced player this is the first time GMing and I personally need to take a page from NobodysHome's second post there...

One thing I'd like to bring up is that in the battle of Sandpoint the giants are hurling wagons and chimneys at the players. If a player is normal sized and a giant hits with such a thrown weapon then that counts as a collision. How the rules read is

Collision While Flying: If you are using wings to fly and you collide with an object equal to your size or larger, you must immediately make a DC 25 Fly check to avoid plummeting to the ground, taking the appropriate falling damage.

Which is going to hurt folks who don't have high fly skill ranks

Edit whoops I just saw the "flying by wings" part...disregard

You might also want to think of the purpose for getting together. For us it's a social occasion. Gaming is the excuse. What's your group's motivation?

This 100%. My group has been playing together for 13 years. We are are all 45+ and for us it's a social occasion. When we started in early 2001 a bunch of were friends who happened to work together. Only two of us had kids and one of us was married.

Now only two of us do not have children all of us have been married. One divorce and one widowing. We also booted a disruptive player.

Our schedule is friday every two weeks. Our wives know this and respect it as our guy's night. I mean would you rather your husband is at the bar or drinking beer and rolling dice with his friends.

We keep the momentum by some RP, shopping and crafting in between by email. Generally we want to hang out with each other and have fun.

Name of PC: Xin Po

Race/Class/Level: Human Monk 3
Adventure: Burnt Offerings
Catalyst: Tentamort
Story:
** spoiler omitted **

Here lies Xin Po. He may have only walked 30', but those 30' were right into our hearts.

Lesson for the kids: never, ever use constitution as your dump stat.

OMG thats just so tragic and... hillarious

So the party repulsed the giant army attacking Sandpoint. They also drove off Longtooth. I decided on his way back home Longtooth landed at some farm house outside of town and interrogated the farmers for as much info as he could get about these "Heros of Sandpoint".

Anyways fast forward to Jorgenfist. The party uses an invisible flying sorcerer to fly to all of the caves and study them. They pick a cave at random and teleport the party to.... Longtooths cave.

Longtooth is dissatisfied with Mokmurian and wants to parley with the party. He specifically names the paladin to talk to.

Longtooth and the paladin are discussing terms, how much treasure for his betrayal as well as some info on Jorgenfist when the LG fighter who thinks parleying with an evil beast is ..well evil

Corax the LG fighter Leroy Jenkins into said Longtooth. Which surprised everyone not just me and also led to some great RP.

Longtooth who had a readied action fires off his frightful presence. Next round he breathes on the party and leaves the cave telling the party " You will now be known throughout Jorgenfist".

Longtooth flies to Jorgenfist. One of the PC says "Oh they can't get up here" thats when they see two rocs, Longtooth, the two other younger dragons, three wevryns and some harpy monks lifting off from Jorgenfist with as many giants aboard as possible.

The party says "F This" and teleports back to Sandpoint. Where they rest up for a day and then teleport to Deathweb cave. They find the secret entrance to the small tunnels and plan on going forward into Jorgenfist.

Now the obvious thing is the fortress is on high alert and also poor Gavin Deverin is doomed to die a sacrifice. The not so obvious thing is what is Longtooth gonna do.

I'm sure he wants to hurt the party. I'm looking for something nasty that a pissed off Red Dragon would do. The obvious would be to fly to Sandpoint and raze it to the ground.

So lets hear em....

Well I'll add an update to my Jubrayl intrigue. As expected the party went to the Fatmans Feedbag in a show of overwhelming force with the Sheriff. Jubrayl admitted to nothing (very poor diplomacy rolls on the parties part) and was jailed and then later cleared (much to the sheriffs dismay).

After Foxglove manor Ameiko had asked the party to help guard a wagon she had hired since they were going to Magnimar anyways. Ameiko had stripped the Kajitsu manor of objects of art in an effort to sell them and get capital to get the Glassworks running again. When the party was halfway to Magnimar, coming the other way was a wagon with mounted caravan guards. Who tried to ambush the party. The party captured two of them alive. Through intimidate rolls the party was able to get one of them to sing. Turns out they were Sczarni from Magnimar and that Jubrayl had used the info of the valuable shipment to pay off a favor and also make a statement to the party about how he felt about them coming into HIS BAR to arrest him.

Turns out when they got to Magnimar the party turned the surviving miscreants over to the guards and were given a date to testify in court in front of a certain Justice. Who of course took these men under his wing and were at the Sawmill fight.

The party also turned in the dead miscreants at the Golemworks for cash...

Needless to say the party was pissed and I heard many a "Oh when we get back to Sandpoint Jubrayl!" with much shaking of fists in the air. Turns out though they got diverted to Turtleback Ferry.

I think I'm gonna steal Gluttony's idea for the Battle of Sandpoint which should lend itself to some good RP with Jubrayl.

HAHAH it's prolly a moot point now. Where we left off last game the rogue said "Oh while the spellcasters are resting I'm going to disguise myself, leave my weapons with the spell casters (since it doesn't work with my disguise) and recon the tower". We decided to do this over email as I have their sheets in Hero lab. If the rogue was going to just check the outside of the tower no biggee but, no the player went in...

Whats even more awesome sauce is this player was our GM for 12 years till I took over. I can remember one occasion where I wandered off alone and my character was outright killed...

So the Scarecrow both out hid and out perceived our rogue (bad die rolls on rogues part). The Scarecrow grappled on the surprise round. Rogue has failed to break grapple. Scarecrow has tied up rogue.

What is going to happen next over email (our group gets together this Friday) is Xanesha is going to charm the hell outta said rogue (as said rogue has really crappy will saves)

Xanesha will prolly use the rogue for info as well as use the rogue in the more ahem broader sense of the term (Xanesha's opposed CHA check is pretty harsh). Then she'll use the rogue for bait...

It's good to be a gansta

So my players just finished with the sawmill. Ironbriar escaped and the players released the raven etc...

So currently I've been playing up the paranoia. About who is or is not part of the cult. I've even had a small hit tried on them by assassins dressed in city watch clothes. They do have some support of a friendly guard sergeant but they are totally noobs here in the city. Anyways they are resting at least for 8 hours. In the mean time their talking about buying fly scrolls and just flying to the top of the tower.

So Xanesha was warned by Ironbriar. I was going to have Xanesha wait a few days then start hunting if they didn't get off their asses. Well now I'm a little worried that they'll bypass the Scarecrow and the Bell and aw wheres the fun in that.

I could of course limit what they can find in the way of scrolls. I have mentioned that the city is in the grip of fear. Not a lot of commerce has happened and when they did go shopping before they had a native guide who did intros and who is no longer around.

So my question is Is it a punk move to block them on this?

Question about dispelling Vorrel's mold. Just how is a 6th level party supposed to do this as all of the spells listed require a 9th level Cleric. I guess they could figure out what spells are needed and then go buy some scrolls. It just seems like a very long shot that any party would do this instead of just moving on to Magnimar.

An apple farm you say...can't wait to hear about the the light brown apple moth ghouls...

I'm going to mod the start of the Skinsaw murders. I want to bring Jubrayl Vhiski into the story a bit more. So Jubrayl's name will be on the note found with the first "two" murders. The Sheriff just wants the PC's backup in detaining him for questioning. Jubrayl will go calmly to jail suggesting that the good Sheriff would rather have him fight so an "accident" could happen while he was resisting arrest. I'm not going to reveal much about those first murders. Like I said the sheriff just wants the PC's help as muscle. However a day or two later when the second murders happen and a PC's name is found on a note.. (which of course clears Jubrayl's name). the back story will be Jubrayl had a bad feeling about this and skipped the meeting. However he arraigned to have a man hired as the guard (who becomes a ghoul).

Well for this fight we had 6 players all 2nd level.
Shoanti Paladin of Sarenea
Halfling Summoner with snake Elidon
Cleric of Kalistra
Monk
Witch
Rogue

The fight was spread out over two sessions.

Session 1
The party pretty much made a bee line to the cathedral. Since I'm running six I had beefed up the sinspawn to 2 already there and she cussed out the party and summoned another sinspawn. She then used SMI(grat) and SMII(gspider) and fear affecting only the rogue. She then commanded the snake elidon to flee. The party just pretty much waded through everything and yet did not hit Erylium. For some reason only one person has a bow? At this point she turned invisible and fled barely escaping getting trapped in the cathedral when they shut the doors.

Erylium became pissed and started stalking the party

So the party continued on and walked into the Vargouille room. I again increased the Vargouilles to two. The Paladin was able to crit one so it had like 1hp. One vargouille shrieked and stunned two thirds of the party for 7 rounds. The other Vargouille made his (it's?) kiss attack on the paladin. Who failed his save errr I mean who made it (hero point). Erylium started attacking the rear most stunned character. The two remaining active players were able to dispatch the wounded Vargouille and then two rounds later the other Vargouille.
Erylium was still stabbing stunned people until she saw both Vargouilles drop. she again turned invisible telling the party off and fled. End session 1.

Now my players are good roleplayers, amazing optimizers and excellant tacticians. I decided to truely give them a challenge next session. So thought about it and came up with Erylium's plan B. Which was that at the top of each prisoner pit was a rope spiked to the ground. In case of emergency she would tell Koruvus (who I bumped to 4th level fighter) to free the Zombies. I had to plot out how fast he could move and how long it would take the zombies to get out of the pit. So the zombies would attack in waves of two spaced 30' apartSo the party recovers from the Vargouille fight. (I'm slowly counting rounds off in my head). They proceed forward to the collapsed stairs going up. They turn around reach the varguoille room and see two zombies charging down the hall to them.

Ok at this point I have to admit my players are crafty. They form a line across the pool. The first zombie charges and engages the paladin. As each zombie moves into the room he takes multiple AOO's and meets the paladin with the two handed sword (2d6 +6 DMG). The paladin becomes the tip of a zombie killing machine. At the tail end of the zombie train Koruvus and Erylium show up. disappointed not to see a scene of zombes eating the adventurers. Only one or two zombies are left and the summoner sends the elidon at koruvus. Erylium uses her slumber hex on it and Koruvus does a coup de gras on the eiledon (god that thing is annoying). Koruvus moves into the room.

Koruvus is engaged with most of the melee types in the party. The summoner casts summon monster I and summons an air elemental. Erylium is running out of spells so she flies behind the party invisible and casts hold person on the paladin(the cleric of Claistr gives him luck to get out of it in a round ). Now the summoner fesses up and say whoops I can't summon that. Now I learned a lesson...do not give your players an inch or they'll take a mile. Rather than rework stuff I just go with it. I tell the summoner mark off three spells and we'll just say this once you really extended your powers. On the next round the summoner uses the vortex power of the air elemental to push Erylium into the collapsed stairwell and they shut the door. So she's trapped. The rest of the party finishes off Koruvus

I'm not sure how this is going to play out but, some of the ideas the party came up with had me trying not to laugh. Stuff like everyone charge in the room and stab upwards.... The cool thing is I did a write up of the game session from Erylium's point of view which was fun.. Sorry if this is a tad long

I really really like what Malag has said about sczarni an also about Jubrayl. I feel that he should be especially hard to nail down on any crime. He is a slippery eel and has wheels within wheels always in play. My players already encountered him at the dragon races as a smooth talking man behind the scenes. The sheriff has already told the party his suspicions.

I really really really want to say thanks to you all. Your not only helping me run a game and saving my gaming group from falling apart but, you've helped me help a friend in very hard times. All of the maps, errata and extra material have really flushed this out and so far my players are wanting more. I should explain a little why this help has been greatly appreciated. My gaming group (of 7) has been playing together for the last 12 years. When we started only one of us was married and one of us had kids. Now all of us have been married, all but two have kids and one of us has been widowed. The timeline went like this...earlier this year our regular GM at the completion of a campaign announced he needed a break (he was GM for 12 years so..OK). One guy stepped up and said lets play pathfinder I'll GM. So we started the process of learning slightly new rules. On may 7th this year my friend Shannon Cathleen Collins who was walking down the street to a hair appointment was randomly and brutally murdered by a crazy man who should have never been on the streets. She was klilled by a knife wielding crazy person. I had introduced Shannon to one of my gaming buddies (Ken Vincent) 7 years ago and they hit it off and got married immediately. Ken in fact was the officiant at my wedding.. Anyways after that event understandably my friend didn't want to play a game involving bloodshed and edged weapons. So game night became drinking and board games. Then he told us he wanted to play. We looked towards our new GM who basically had over committed his time (newborn, 2 year old and working at a start up). We staged a GM coupe de'tat and I threw my hat in the ring. I've never GM'd so I grabbed the anniversary edition of RotRL. The rich detail in the AP and all of your guy's work made it a breeze to hook my players. From the bottom of my heart thank you. You guy's (and girls) you sitting around making stuff up has made a difference. Thank you