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Guys: I've been having internet connectivity issues the last few days. My connection has been going out for long periods. I'm hoping that the problem is over but I can't say for sure. I'm going to try and get caught up but since my window for posting may be limited I will handle threads that require short posts first.
Okay, that's two votes for climbing and one for splitting the party, with one abstention. Only Colvyn has yet to vote, since Brother Guiness isn't actually there and doesn't get a vote. Worth noting that Colvyn's mount has a climb speed so actually getting up the cliff is relatively easy. He can go up and lower a rope. Also I will assume that you will ascend the north face of the island, since this side cannot be seen from any goblins that might be on the mainland. I'll assume that is the case unless someone says otherwise. So the other question is: do you go now or wait until dark? I'll start getting things ready and I will get things going tonight.
This is correct. One of the beaches is in the inlet where the cave supposedly is, though you can't see the cave mouth from where you are. Unless you wish to try to moor the longboat in the water next to the island cliff face and climb the cliffs of the island directly, you will need to either cross the bridge or swim from wherever you left the boat. The Thistle River estuary allows you to approach by land without having to scale any cliffs, but you still need to cross the bridge. For the record, the bridge is roughly 60' long. It is also about 8' wide, wider than a goblin would necessarily need. The adventure is written with the assumption that you will come overland but there is no need to follow that route if you don't want.
He turns to the captain. "When is low tide?" Captain Ebhard eyes the shore. "The tide is still going out... maybe another half hour. And again in another twelve hours."
As the morning tide begins to go out, the Feathermoth casts off and sets sail. With some clever tacking the ship is within a couple hundred yards of Thistletop within two hours. There is an intermittent light drizzle, but it does not affect visibility much. Thistletop is a rocky islet about eighty feet high and one hundred and thirty feet wide. The top is fairly flat and amidst the scrubby vegetation you can make out a crude wooden fort or building of some kind on the top. The western face of the island looks vaguely like a face. The islet stands not far from the coast, which is equally rocky, though you can make out a few small beaches at the foot of the cliffs. To the right of the island you can see what looks like a narrow inlet with a beach on one side. Off to the east there is a break in the cliffs where a valley meets the sea. "This is about as close as we can get," says captain Ebhard. "For sure they've seen us by now, and goblins like to shoot flaming arrows at ships that get too close." "You can't see it from this angle, but there's a grotto there," Captain Ebhard points to the narrow inlet on the mainland. "A sea cave of sorts, that you can only get into at low tide. I've no idea how big it is, but you could hide a boat in there, maybe." "There's also a rope bridge connecting the island to the mainland, but you can't see it from this angle either." "That gap over there," Captain Ebhard points to the break in the cliffs to the east, "The Thistle River comes out there. It's not much more than a creek, really, and you can't take a boat up the creek, but at least you'd have a spot to put in." "We can drop anchor here and wait, if you like. But if you want to go further in, you'll need to take one of the boats; I'll not risk Feathermoth for the sake of your mission."
I still haven't heard from some people. Why doesn't everyone sound off if they have finished buying what they want so we can get underway. Once I get three people ready, we're going.
As I mentioned, if you are willing to delay your departure by one day you could get armor & shields enchanted to +1. Your buckler shield is masterwork already. A masterwork chain shirt costs 200 gp and you could buy it with the "store credit" you have at the Red Dog smithy, selling back your non-masterwork one for 50 gp.
As the group prepares to set sail aboard the Feathermoth, a group of Town elders gathers to see them off.
FYI: There are also two cloaks of resistance +1 currently available at 200 gp each. More could be ordered.
Between the cathedral and the academy there are also twelve pearls of power available for sale at 200 gp each.
would I be able to score a mithral shirt? sounds like it would cost 220? (1100*.2) A normal masterwork chain shirt costs 200 gp. So I'm not going to let you have a mithral one for 220 gp. Mithral isn't magic and isn't affected by the price modifications. EXCEPT: the price for mithral items includes the price to make something masterwork, so the change in price to make something masterwork does reduce the price of a mithral item a bit. This means that since a masterwork chain shirt now costs 200 instead of 250 under the original rules, a mithral shirt will cost 1050 gp instead of 1100. You'd probably be better off getting a masterwork steel chain shirt and get it enchanted to +1. That will cost 400 gp and will set you back a day. Or +1 leather lamellar would cost a total of 320. Sadly none are currently available for sale.
Okay, let's see... The Handy Haversack and Eyes of the Eagle will be beyond the normal buy limit for the town. You can commission them to be made by either the priests of the cathedral or the Turandarok Academy. The Haversack Looking around in the various stores reveals these items available for sale: __860 gp +1 bashing heavy steel shield
Items with a value below 325 gp are much easier to find and it is very likely that they will be present. These include 1st level wands. Scrolls and potions of 1st level spells are guaranteed for the more common spells. Masterwork weapons and armor could be enchanted easily enough. Accelerated crafting adds +5 to the DC but that is still doable with taking 10 if you are looking at a +1 item. So enchanting a +1 weapon or armor will take a day. The eyes of the eagle could also be crafted at an accelerated rate and would therefore take a day and a half. The handy haversack is a lot more complex; Ilosari could make one for you but it would take the full two days.
Guiness: sent you a PM.
Working extra hours again last night. Next post this afternoon or evening. I'll need to generate some magic items for the town.
So if it normally costs 50 gp to buy, and there are no discounts, it costs 10 gp? Explain, please. Am I missing another rule somewhere? Are things just automatically heightened to caster level at no additional cost? No, as a house rule the price of all magic items and enchantments as well as alchemical items has been reduced to 1/5th the normal price. The amount of money that artificers can make is so out of whack with the kind of money that the rest of the people in the economy have that I decided to change it. It always drove me crazy that a potion of cure light wounds costs about the same as the amount an unskilled laborer makes in about 20 months. For the record this does means that you get less monetary treasure. Also the value of mundane items becomes a proportionately bigger slice of the pie. Actually, I'm just spending the last of the character creation money that I was planning on spending (in an in-game sort of moment). Well, since you just used the original rules to generate your base wealth, then in that case yes, use the normal rules for stuff you have before you actually "begin." One thing though... any loose coin you have left over you should divide by 1/4 to account for the change. The Ioun stones included one that was held by Laurana, and she would have had a share in the party loot overall. I was originally going to have you generate wealth as a 1st level character and then "transfer" Laurana's share to you, but since you have generated wealth as a second level guy I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Thanks for letting me know. I have to turn in though so I'll have a look tonight. I was originally expecting that the group would have left town before your character was ready but Now I am thinking of throwing you into the mix before everyone leaves.
Guys, I'm out of time and am turning in. I'll get to the rest of the questions soon.
Actually, CL2 scroll of a first level spell would normally cost 50 gp to buy, which means that under the house rules they cost 10 gp each. It is acceptable that you use the rest of the evening as the time to do this. But aside from the change in price for all magic-related things (which includes the time to craft, so 8 hours of crafting gets you 200 gp worth of work done), and not requiring feats, all other rules for crafting are the same. This means two things: 1. When scribing a scroll, you also need to actually cast the spell (or rather the prepared spell is triggered in the scribing process and is lost, but the spell effects are stored in the scroll). So you are limited by what spells you would have had available when you arrived in town. You probably cast one or two spells escaping from the goblins. 2. Technically you can only scribe a single scroll in a day. However, since scrolls that have lower costs can have their time to scribe reduced if they cost less than what you can make in a day (to a minimum of 2 hours each) I will say that you could scribe up to 8 hours worth of scrolls which would be a maximum of 4 in one day @ 2 hours each. I'm going to say for the sake of simplicity that the length of time it takes to scribe a scroll is always divisible by 2 hours. The other thing you need to remember is: Buying a scroll from a wizard in town will cost the exact same amount as scribing it yourself. There are no crafting feats but no discounts either. If you want a scroll that they don't currently have, you could let them know tonight and they will have them scribed in the morning. There are only so many people there to do that so if you want 50 scrolls then you might be out of luck.
The Feathermoth will be able to get you close enough to just take one of the longboats and row it ashore. Rowing is the kind of activity that you don't need to roll for unless there is rough weather.
Guys: Acording to the loot sheet, you guys now have 1961.25 gp in unspent loot (assuning you sell pretty much everything). You also have the 500 gp in "store credit" at the red dog smithy. That's a lot of cheese, considering the house rules lowering the price of magic things. No sense leaving it in the bank... Post purchases here. Kargas: Just for expedience, I'm going to suggest that Kargas feels an urge to keep the +1 spiked shield you found in case you ever use a one-handed weapon.
It won't be long before you meet someone who can really use it. :)
Guiness - Mechanical Stuff: TRAITS I usually open a page of traits on nethys and then use ctrl-f to find keywords on the page like "perception." * Blooded is a very good trait for this campaign. * Remember that you can take a drawback for a third trait as long as one of your traits is a campaign trait. Monster Hunter and Giant Slayer are both decent ones for you, though Giant Slayer includes bonuses that won't stack with Blooded. * The Militant Merchant trait is a race trait for dwarves that works for caravan guards. It is a 3.5 trait so replace spot and listen with perception. GEAR Cold Iron isn't too expensive despite the masterwork requirement. But it's worth mentioning that the party has a number of cold iron weapons already. An alchemical silver warhammer is more expensive but could be worth it, since silver doesn't reduce the damage of bludgeoning weapons. You might not want to bother with masterwork armor since you are likely to find better armor in the dungeon, and if any of it is heavy armor then you are the only one who is proficient, so it will be yours. I would recommend just getting a suit of regular chainmail for now. BTW, it came up in another game I was in, but because dwarves' speed is not affected by armor or encumbrance, FYI dwarves can use acrobatics to tumble while wearing plate mail. They won't be good at it mind you. :) ABILITY SCORES I don't want you to think you can't play a character with a 5 CHA... just work it into their description and behaviour. It can be limiting in many ways though.
Guiness - Background Stuff: The basic concept of your background is fine. I think I would rather your character be from Janderhoff than Five Kings Mountains. For three reasons: 1. It justifies that your character would have a bit of knowledge about Varisia in general.
Janderhoff is as much a "dwarven kingdom" as the Five Kings Mountains, only smaller. ----- I'd rather your position as a caravan guard not have to do with Constable Hemlock (note that he is not a Sheriff in this game, because a medieval Sheriff is something very different). As a mercenary it would make more sense that you were hired privately as a caravan guard, or had your own reasons for travelling with the caravan. Constable Hemlock would not have been sending guardsmen beyond the walls, as he needed every hand he had just to garrison the town. Shalelu Andosana provides the scouting he needs better than any of his men could. Likewise, if you were in Sandpoint during the Swallowtail Festival, I'm sure you would have fought goblins yourself, but then it begs the question as to why you didn't become a town celebrity like the other players did. As a result, I'd rather that either you weren't there for that or that there is some reason that you kept a low profile.
Ioun Stones: You found these at the cave with the ettercap. The first four were already identified. Cade may have had one I think but I'm going to say he left it behind when he left. So there are:
* Cracked Amethyst Pyramid (grants +2 to knowledge (religion) checks to identify creatures)
The two which have now been identified are: * Cracked Pale Amber Pentacle (works like a wand of read magic with 15 charges left)
You can decide who gets what. If you already have one of these let me know; I don't have it recorded.
Okay, so new character. Let's have a look. Guiness - Mechanical Stuff: Okay, in no particular order: TRAITS
If you don't want to worship Abadar then Seeker does the same thing. There are a couple of regional ones too that grant Perception, if you were from Daggermark or from the Underbridge district of Magnimar. 2. You also have taken the Ancestral Weapon which indicates that you are from Numeria, except that in your story you are from the Five Kings Mountains. I think I will veto this one altogether though, because what is effectively a +1 to almost all attack rolls and a free masterwork weapon to boot is a bit too much. I think the assumption is that if you took this trait you would be in an Iron Gods game where cold iron and silver are mostly unnecessary and you really want adamantine in that AP. Signature Moves also gives you a free masterwork weapon, though it is a social trait and you couldn't also take Seeker if you took it. 3. The Guildsman trait fits well, but there is no "Soldiers' Guild," so you can't take that one to have a bonus to Profession (soldier). It occurs to me though that a "Man-at-Arms" caste trait might be appropriate and if you think that would be better then I'll work one up. STATS I have no problem with the way that you have distributed your Ability Scores, but the 5 CHA should have a definite impact on how you play your character. It can be fun to do if you play it up for comedy value. Perhaps he smells really bad or has an accent that's nearly impossible to decipher. But make sure you think about how this affects the way you present your character. If you are not comfortable doing that then I would suggest not dumping Charisma. SKILLS Looks fine... BTW I am comfortable in having you have one craft skill for "metalwork" rather than one for armor and another for weapons. This will mean that you won't be able to make stuff from leather or wood but I doubt that is a problem for you. RACE ABILITIES "Rock Stepper" is fine and is a decent alternate trait. It's worth mentioning that there is also an alternate racial trait "Fey Thoughts" which replaces Hatred. It adds two skills from a list as class skills and Perception is on the list. GEAR FYI I have a house rule about Cold Iron. Cold Iron is described thus:
The description seems to imply that the material ought to be rare but game-wise it is trivially easy to get. So to bring cold iron in line with the description, the rule is that cold iron is only ever used in masterwork weapons. Also: You will only need one set of tools for working metal, not two. CLASS I see you plan to take a prestige class. Stalwart Defender should be interesting. FEATS No problems here.
There was a search feature, though it didn't work that well. And yes, I think they got rid of it.
The strip of parchment reads:
A lot of times I'll find an icon and make a character based on it just to get the look of the thing right. Yeah, I do that occasionally. Such as Sir Bleeparolo The Deft. In our other game: Numalar's icon isn't exactly how I pictured him either but was what I could find that was "good enough." The problem with coming up with an inventive description for your character is that you won't find an icon that looks like him. But changing the icon later still works. It only took me a week or so to get used to her look when Celyne changed her icon. So... all right. But, well, don't take too long.
Right back atcha. Got it. It didn't seem like you needed a reply to that one. Do me a favor though... even if you haven't found an avatar image that works for you, pick one that is workable for now, and swap it later. It's just easier to put a face to a name. I deliberately chose an inanimate object for my GM avatar because the GM posts typically contain narrative rather than dialogue (with some exceptions, of course). Oh, one other thing about Kellek: Remember that your Arcane Reservoir starts the day at 4/5 rather than 5/5. You can only get it above 3+1/2 level by using the consume spells ability.
Quick note, the most recent thing to go sideways on the message board is the PM notification. The "red dot" no longer shows up indicating you have messages. I only mention this because I know for a fact that Peet got at least 3 today. ;) Just answered them. :)
No worries... and welcome!
The rest of the day passes quietly, with the group exchanging ideas about their plans and stories of their past. As afternoon passes into evening, the quet day is interrupted by a hubbub outside. Mayor Deverin and Constable Hemolock are both making their way towards the Rusty Dragon, in the company of several guardsmen and a few people you don't recognize. They stride in and head over to the group.
BTW I also made up this map a while back that shows the area around Sandpoint (the hexes are 1 mile wide). Don't know why I didn't share it but it will be a bit more relevant soon.
Guys, I have invited a GM in another game to create a character. It looks like he is going for a straight-up dwarven fighter. Probably a heavy armor-wearing character of some sort. Character-building is occurring as we speak. I will probably introduce the character as a prisoner that you rescue. This will mean that we don't have to wait for him to be ready to get moving. An introductory post for our new character will be coming tonight. After that you should be able to head out on the next quest.
The other question we have to deal with is the replacement of Cade. We have a wizard (Kellek Zaderan) who will arrive in town at the end of this game day (you came back from the island before noon). The question is do we want to replace Cade and if so with what sort of character? Cade was a DEX-based frontliner, whose main schtick seemed to be that he was generally really hard to hit. This kind of thing could also be done with a Rogue or something similar. The other alternative would be a tanky-heavy armor sort of character. Since Colvyn can handle many of the rogue-ish types of skills, we don't really need another skill monkey (not that it will hurt). Kargas is a fantastic damage dealer but he does get hit a lot. Cade's main job I think was to play anvil to Kargas' hammer. Cade never did a lot of damage but his class abilities meant that he could generally stand in a spot and not have to worry much about getting hit. Note that there is nothing wrong with proceeding with 5 characters if you want to do that. I am thinking that since we don't want to delay the game waiting for someone, this new character might be encountered along the way as a prisoner of some enemy. Your thoughts?
Rig would be interested in upgrading his armor to masterwork chainshirt if we can swing it They are also cheaper than before. Under the newer pricing scheme they cost 200 gp rather than 250. So the money is there. I'm going to update the loot sheet soon.
Is that 500gp each or party total? Party total. Remember that the price for masterwork weapons has been lowered substantially. For the record, I will always list treasure as the total amount unless something is being given to specific characters. You can decide amongst yourselves how to spend it. You also have the two gems from the eyes of the statue which are worth 40 gp total. The scroll you found could be sold for 37.5 gp.
Everyone feels better after emerging back into the daylight of the dreary autumn day. Gingerly carrying the remains of Simon Korvut, the group carefully makes their way down the cliffs and back to the town. The group finds Das Korvut sitting by the cliff edge again, looking out over the bay at Chopper's Island.
Remove me from the game... Cade: I am currently getting an error message when I try to access the page to do that. But I will keep trying when I revisit the page later.
Okay, guys, I suppose you deserve an explanation. This is basically my fault. Cade and I were both players in another game. Lately in that game, Cade's character Andreas had become vocally critical of my character's actions, generally based on his appraisal of tactical situations, which clearly disagreed with mine. For a while I tried not to engage. But I felt his comments were insulting and were detracting from my enjoyment of the game. So I asked him to back off. But I did so in a spoiler in gameplay rather than in a PM, and as a result of this public airing of grievance, Cade's reaction was to quit that game, and though he hasn't said so I expect that the personality conflict is what made him decide to drop out of this game. I would hope there are no hard feelings but I suspect under the circumstances that is too much to hope for. I'm sorry it came to that but we can only move on.
"...Did it ever take on the boy's appearance?"
Colvyn's shot strikes the jumble of debris that is the Attic Whisperer dead center, and the creature falls apart, bits of detritus tumbling to the floor, until the bizarre bird skull clatters to the floor and rolls into the middle of the room.
An examination of the room reveals little of interest. The papers scattered around seem to be more insane writings and sketches based on the worship of Pazuzu. One however, was noted to be magical earlier, and it turns out to be a magical scroll that will call into being a fiendish winged constrictor snake for a short time. The item held by the remains is a small stuffed toy dog, that you can tell is reddish in colour despite the dirt and dust covering it. Much as Das Korvut's dogs are at the Red Dog Smithy. After several minutes, Kargas wakes up. He is still quite tired, but otherwise healthy. Around the same time, Colvyn and Floredana find themselves able to speak again. |
