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Previously I said I intended to leave the campaign once we next returned to our base. However, it's now been 3 months since that date, and I think I'm going to go ahead and drop the campaign at this point. Feel free to have my character wander off, join the NPC roster of Silver Ravens, or bot her as needed if you'd like to use her to solve the current encounter. It's been a fun time and I wish you all well.
"I gotta plan, I'll go first what, and if it's all clear, our guys are on shift, after I get to the other side, I'll shoot glitter into the sky!" Is Nez's plan.
That is it indeed. Overall, I found myself sort of dreading logging into Paizo to see all the things I needed to respond to. So, out of the four roleplays I was in, I'm dropping three to hopefully change things around.
If it's any consolation, yours is not the only one I'm dropping out of. Three separate games for various reasons.
Figure I should give some advance notice. I'm intending to leave this campaign when a good narrative opportunity presents itself. Figure the next time we reach home base, Nez could theoretically swap into being "npc tier" Silver Raven member of some squad or whatever, because if she goes off on her own, there'd be a lose end of someone knowing where their base is.
"I figure we might be safer if we don't and just leave the traps intact. There's somebody what's been squatting here, and I figure the more we break his stuff, the more likely we're to have a fight." Nez offers a different approach.
"Do we really feel so safe that we weren't planning to watch in shifts even if this guy wasn't here?" Nez asks. "Still, I'm okay with the bell plan if you are." She offers the ghost.
"But how's he to know us to be true to our word? We're seeming no different than brigands from his side. Man, I'm starting to think I'm not cut out for this hero business if it's like this. This ain't sitting right with me at all." Nez still doesn't seem comfortable.
"Uh... Is that how we do things? If someone told me that I'd figure it's time to fight to the death now, rather than have my throat slit after I let myself be tied." Nez seems a bit startled by Boros' ultimatum and looks around to the others to confirm.
"Alright, we all good with that? I'm good with that, we don't want none of this swamp, so we'll be gone on the morrow." Nez's hold starts to loosen. It seems she's forgotten about the school situation.
Nez pauses for a moment. "F!~!, exorcist mercenaries sounds cool."
Make my mate start movin' again then!" Nez just focuses best she can on holding onto the man, despite the state of her stomach from the stench.
"Hey, ghosts can't get bludgeoned!" Nez points out before going to tackle the man. Perhaps it wasn't the wisest thing against someone who appeared to be able to paralyze people with a touch, but, well, Nez wasn't at the top of her game maybe after the long day of marching.
Nez lets the brave Boros take the lead, cheering him on from a slightly less forward posture. You know, just in case.
Nez jumps at the screaming, but, glancing around and a moment to collect herself, inspired by Boros' bravery, she gives her own taunt. "Oy, lights and noises? Any popinjay wizard can do 'em." She casts ghost sounds, to make- spooky ghost sounds.
And everyone else is following Boros' lead because they don't have the energy to argue as far as I'm aware.
"Oh I'm sure they wouldn't mind some company." Nez winks, but draws her blade anyway.
"Aye, aye, always be cautious, but I don't fear anything in the mansion near as much as a do the dragon deciding to flatten it on a lark."
"Well, let's have at it then." Nez shrugs.
Nez's keen nightvision helps her stumble into the mud a little less, and whatever youthful vigor she had was enough to get through the night.
Nezari works alongside Boros.
"Well, how bout we give it as good as we can in say, half an hour, then move out whether it look good or bad? Try to find the first good spot to hide till night." Nez offers.
"... I'm halfway ready to just try mu luck running right now." Nez seems quite concerned about the idea of a burrowing dragon popping its head into the hidden shrine.
"We keen to just let folks die while we're waiting? Thought the working plan was to pretend there was cave in, then make our way out at night." Nez opts for a different plan nonetheless.
"Well, we gotta move by night, so, in a way, we got all day to plan our little rock cave in. The real kicker is if the dragon shows back up while we're plotting it, or worse, doing it."
"Ok, so, but never can be sure that'd work, so best we also move quick'n'quiet by night, right?" Nez figures they should plan on the ruse being discovered, and move under the assumption that it won't work. No second chances with a dragon on the hunt, after all.
I am also down for plan inviso scout.
"Will it take longer than two days? That's our remaining time to get back at the right shift, right?" Nez asks.
Yup, just little special things are a bit tougher, meaning you have to be a bit stilted with the RP. In my case it was a character having to save his diplomacy check to sway his sister to turn back to the Draconis Combine until after the battle was effectively over so I could just end the battle instead of trying to make a unit switch teams mid battle.
Having GM'd a hybrid PbP/Megamek campaign set in Operation BULLDOG, it's not perfect because the difficulty of doing GM interventions into the battles, but it's still pretty fun.
"I feel like any plan what involves the dragon even knowing anyone is here or alive is a bad one, so I think Miranda's got the best plan. If we go with a distraction, the dragon might keep up the search for more survivors after it knows there was at least one."
"Oh aye, sure, let's see what else we can find in the swamp what can kill us." Nez smiles, and seems to be mostly saying it in a joking tone.
Well, Granny is starting to take shape. Apparently she was an Ulfen Raider in her youth.
I remember one time we has a REALLY rough fight, and had to spend a whole 50 minutes recovering. In game time, out of game time it was just counting how many people needed a heal. Well, by the old 8 hour 4 fight adventuring day, you could take a 50 minute rest after each fight and fit in 8 fights.
There are tons of easy healing options in Pathfinder 2e that either refresh with 10 minute rest or 1 hour cooldown. After a little bit we just started handwaving the healing. I think the simplest way to A. Not require anyone to take healing options and B. To ensure everyone is full hp at the start of each fight, is to just say that a 30 minute rest gets you back to full HP. At least, that's what my party with a sorcerer with Medicine and a Paladin with Lay on Hands found was our average recovery time when we did do all the math.
Okay, so, I play the OG "monsters are not yet balanced, we assumed the players were gonna break the system in half like PF1e" Age of Ashes with a bunch of first timers. That is my primary play experience. - To now bullet point: 1. I like the RP aspect of actually getting wounded. Spoiler:
It makes sense and is consistent "Oh, I used my pluck, grit, and determination to avoid actually being injured by that bolt of fire... and am set on fire. I guess it nicked me?" I like it when the barbarian warrior of legend who is strong enough to wrestle with a troll and engage it in a headbutting contest, can get stabbed with a dagger, look down at it, laugh at the person who did that, pick them up, and fling them over the town wall. PC's have such incredible offensive power that it personally strains my suspension of disbelief that Mrs. Turns into a Werewolf and Hulk Smashes through a Wall is just as easy to kill as a normal person on the defense side. 2. Health regeneration between fights is a problem that is already fixed, with Lay on Hands and/or Medicine. Spoiler:
After the first 2-3 fights, we realized anyone with those abilities can get to work, use the refreshes/refocuses and get us back to full HP. We quickly realized we could handwave "and we spent 30 minutes and healed back to full HP" as just part of our gameplay, and didn't worry mathing out whether we needed 20 minutes this rest or 40 minutes that rest. 3. The Dying system fixes the problem of in combat healing. Spoiler:
You don't need to worry about that person in your party at 5 HP getting hit and insta-dying. The Dying system gives you tons of telegraphed warning with a nice tick down timer. There's tons of ways to be a viable in combat healer, but it's not needed. You can damage race the enemy down and then metaphorically CLW wand after the fact just like you can in PF1e but better. 4. What problem then, exactly, is Stamina fixing? Spoiler:
Stamina as a system adds significant complexity to make it less easy to just assume everyone gets back to full HP. There are two good things. 1. No player in the party has a positive wisdom score or wanted to take Medicine as a trained skill. Ok, I guess this fixes that problem. 2. Steel your Resolve. To which I say, if that's the vibe you want to give your game, just give everyone a "Once per encounter, heal half your HP as 1 action" Free feat. Because otherwise everyone's going to take that as a feat tax, and you're going to re-introduce the 5-minute work day to all your martials as they burn all their Resolve in the first two fights and then we have to leave and rest for a day. Instead of just assuming everyone treats their wounds for 30 minutes. My preferred method of health management is "Alright, you may take a 30 minute rest to heal back to full HP after each combat." So the only time the players don't go into a fight with full HP is if they run directly from one fight to another. Because, if you're looking at a Stamina system, that's really what you want, and there's no reason to complicate it with Resolve points and a second definitely not HP bar.
The way Focus works, as long as one person has lay on hands, you can regen to full between every fight with little trouble. It's only 10 minutes to refresh the heal, and most classes get a Level 12 feat to regen 2 focus per Refocus.
If we need a healer, there's no reason I can't pick up healing by level 2 with Blessed One. Okey, 9 goes to 10.
Technically, anyone can function as a healer with the Healing Touch Champion Archetype feat! But waiting till level 4 to get your healer is a little iffy. And, as funny as it would be to be a rogue, I think I've settled on a backstory of: "Former witch who abandoned her patron when the price of power became too high, now she's slowly learned magic the old fashioned way." Aka, wizard. And, yes, you've got me pegged. I'll give it another shot. At the very least, as the proper scientist would do, hypothesis must be tested by experiment. Repeatedly, because you probably messed up the experiment the first three times.
So, we've got 7, 9, 11, 12, 17, 14. Hmm. I'm glad Wizards only need one stat.
My current plan is to play a crotchety old lady, and trying to figure out which class would make that the funniest. Started with witch, the classic, but then I was thinking rogue would be very funny to have an old grandma creep up beside people and bonk them over the head with her cane. -- But yes, what this has inspired me to do, is keep working on my "feat rework of 2E", where just, all the feats offer you fun options with flavorful feat names. For example, this would be my idea of a Level 1 Barbarian feat. Doom of Kharnak, (Risky Strike)
Or for example, when I take an existing feat and rework it to do what I thought the name was going to imply, of an interesting new option. Haste of Mardun, (Adrenaline Rush)
vs the original. Adrenaline Rush
Every feat should be something you're excited to consider as an option, not something that you go, "Oh yeah, I remember now, I have +1 status bonus to leave my lover's arms while raging." The only base level one feats for Barbarian I would include unchanged would be Sudden Charge (simple, versatile, thematic, the one Barbarian feat I'm 100% on board with) and Moment of Clarity (not something I would probably ever take personally, but hey, there's a Barbarian Wizard out there somewhere). Raging Intimidation gets a special dishonorable mention for "why the f!%@ does it take a feat for me to being allowed to frighten people as a frothing raging barbarian?"
So many classes I look at, it really feels like they went "Ok, we're gonna give each class a core cool ability." "Awesome." "Now, what do we put in the feat sections?" "A feat that lets someone make two attacks if they're a martial. And if they're a caster, the basic metamagics." "Good start. What else?" "We have no other ideas."
I looked at rogue. Maybe skill monkeys have their own niche. Why is Plant Evidence a feat? Why isn't that just part of Thievery? Why is its prerequisite, Pickpocket, a feat? Why isn't that just part of Thievery? Things not included in Thievery: Stealing things out of pockets. Things included in Thievery: Stealing things out of pouches. Because those are vastly immeasurably different things that is worth being super detailed about, in this edition about SIMPLIFYING things and making them flow better. It is a legitimate question from your players "Now, does the villain wear pants with pockets, or does he use pouches? I can't steal from pockets because I didn't take that feat." You should feel pain that "whether the villain has pants pockets" is a legitimate question your Adventure Path should include details on.
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