In my opinion there is not much that you can do against haunts directly without magic, which is discussed above. However, if your favored enemy is Undead, then you can help by noticing the haunts manifest.
By the way, Disrupt Undead is a very handy spell for your party wizard-like.
Remember that this is a horror campaign, so the event that you are completely useless in combat can be quite an opportunity for role-playing.
Heh. I walked into our IT department the other day, dropped my company iPhone on the desk, and announced, "I know you guys aren't supposed to help me with this, and that I'm supposed to have a HelpDesk ticket or something (which I don't), but if you can't make this g%$#+@ thing work right now I'm going to take a hammer to it."
Mr. Fabricator, thank you! I am fairly inexperienced, but I think these days being willing to do it and keep doing is more important than having an outstanding GM-resume...
I have collected the applicants' profiles under the "Recruits" spoiler in this page. By the time you are unbogged down (bogged up?) we will already have chosen our two players, but please take a look to choose your party, and hopefully we will find someone else willing to GM too :)
Actually, I am not. I am recruiting for two spots to round up my group in this campaign, and I feel really bad that I will have to reject eight of the applicants. That's really not nice, you know, that characters are getting rejected.
The reason I got into my first game was that when I said I was giving up because I did not want to be frustrated, people were super nice and encouraged me to come back.
So I would like to see if there are any GMs interested in creating a Carrion Crown game and giving these guys a shot at it :)
(If you are in doubt about GMing it, like I was, just go for it. It does not take up much time to catch up with the first adventure's content, you can do it over a week while commuting (the note-taking may take some non-commuting time, though), and the backbone of the story as well as enemies and stats are already laid out, so all you have to do is be creative, which is the fun part of GMing anyways).
While we are in this recruiting, if anyone would like to have some fun getting some ideas out, I created a thread for it. I propose the following format: if you want to create, you answer a question, if you want to know more (or give someone else the turn to write :D), you ask a question about what was written, and if you want to add something to what has been said, you ask about what you have in mind.
I hope people become very confused early on about the purpose of that thread if no one explains :)
From what I recall Ravenloft started as an adventure, so maybe we could get a feel of how collaboration would go by creating a nice-well rounded adventure and decide whether to go beyond the location where it happened into a region.
My opinion on all this is that the least lore (or world-mechanics and justification) we have to create, the better, so that we can focus on creating conflicts and plots (and encounters...) If we want to create the world first and then proceed to tell what happened there, before we start telling anything we will declare defeat because we realized Tolkien did an infinitely better job. Whereas for what happened, that's up to us.
We can also just pitch in ideas for themes and premises and brainstorm for a few days so as to get our minds running...
I will be happy to join, but I am sort of a crazy writer who does not write. Also, I like long sentences.
Just get the 13500GP-decanter, and fill a bag of holding with it. You can fit 14961 pints of blessed water in there, which takes exactly 24 hours to fill.
If you turn the bag inside out you either get holy rain (if the bag is emptied "in parallel") or a hose of holy water (if it is emptied "item by item").
29922d4 damage per bag :)
Of course, a hose would still do 2d4 damage per round, so you would need more bags... With 10,809,000 GP at hand, we would be close to having 1081 bags, so after about three years filling the bags, we would be ready for battle :D
The good stuff happens if the inside-out bag outputs multiple gallons of holy water per round.
I will wait for Grim, because I would like to know more about the Order of the Roses; I am sorry, Grim, to burden you with the need for your backstory so soon, but since you are the leading character, I think your backstory will definitely give the necessary "Argument de la Tragedie".
I saw the hiatus in the posting rate after Antoni's announcement... I also think he is welcome to post whenever he wants, or do another character when time allows for consistent play, if he deems it better.
I apologize for nagging to much or being controlling; I am individualistic in excess more often than not...
I don't want to be a rule lawyer and I don't want to exploit my particularly high diplomacy, but...
The stick rolled a 24 on Diplomacy; if the snakes are hostile and have CHA 9 or less, or if they are unfriendly and have CHA 18 or less, then the Diplomacy result moved their attitude one step up.
This is not so nice...
If we go on the "Way of the Burning Wheel" what we should do is say "I want to test my diplomacy to convince the snakes to allow me to take the hatchlings with me." I roll the diplomacy, and if circumstances help (i.e., good RP from me) I get a +2, and if Grim argues on my favor, I also get +2, we roll one test and that's it; if we convince well, they allow, if we fall short, they don't and we have to obtain the egg by force or look for other vipers, if we fail miserably they become suspicious and attack us. We cannot re-test Diplomacy unless the circumstances change in a significant way.
...or we can go with Grim's approach and then the stick can help arbiter the dispute. He rolls his Diplomacy, and he got a +2 for reciting the Oath. The stick promised to help him, but the snakes cannot understand its poetry, so no bonus there, in spite of the the attempt at an assistance. Alternatively, the stick can try to convince them in infernal (it speaks infernal and celestial, because it has INT 14 -- sorry for not posting the stats yet, but I have it done) in a much less poetic way, and then this may add a +2 if I can come up with a convincing content to the conversation in the evil language.
In either case, the procedure is the same: we set our goal for the test, saying what will happen if we succeed, suggest what will happen if we fail miserably, pitch in the role-play pro-bonus arguments, roll. The DM states the DC based on our goal, minus the bonuses he approves for us, and we play out the outcome.
Well, now I want to play the stick-bard! :/ It will be a skill monkey with mild healing capacities, though... Unless the group really needs a cleric...
I have my goals up. Though my character is True Neutral, its goes are quite nice, but they can be very annoying :D It depends on whether the party will or will not cooperate with the Herald!
That's the spirit :) I am having my thing with the speech because my character is a bard... Likewise, a melee character will have his thing with his weapons, dominating giant monsters and subduing villains! I am just linking to food for thought, and I am wondering for how long I can keep up with the rhyming. Of course, the snakes will speak too :D
I think the reason we are employing Pathfinder mechanics is exactly so that we don't trivialize combat (which was happening with the previous system), so I would not expect a de-emphasized combat, though I would like to be a good balance between fight and RP, rather than just us encountering non-sense enemies every fifteen posts or so :)
Hm, that's mostly what I would suggest adding :D Optionally (if Pathfinder admits those Eberron Hero Points) we could use Hero Points and the Artha mechanics for refreshing them.
Along the lines of 3., we should probably list two or three NPCs as well, in such a way that they end up somehow tangling the characters a bit tighter together, if the group so wishes.
What I meant before about being unorthodox is that I will still do whatever I want RP-wise, but I will have a "mechanic backend" for my character to interact with the world in a fair manner. That is to say that I will not play a particular race or class, but I will use their status as far as rules are concerned. Likewise for armor and weapons (although I will find a way to explain in case any foe uses disarm on me). Again, the mechanic backend will be used at all times, but I will narrate things differently.
The only problem I foresee in that would be using magical items like rings and such, but I already have an idea...
I have an idea for my character, but I will think about it for a bit more.
As you all enter the portal, you notice that the bear does not follow; it stays in the harem.
Spoiler:
As you cross into the underworld, you see the matter that constitutes the bear flicker for a fraction of a second, and then regain substance.
Spoiler:
As the fire was consuming the northern quarters of Castle Heydrich, the bear moved about in desperation, trying to follow its instinct and escape the deadly heat and the suffocating darkness expelled by the fire tongues. It was cornered in a stony room that it would not burn, but it could sense the smoke coming in: the bear desperately tried to breathe through the small peeking hole on the wall, but it was too small, barely any fresh air came from it.
The animal heaved against the wall, and scratched the stones, uselessly, until the smoke was too poisonous for it; the bear went into a deep, silent slumber, and perished.
Spoiler:
Whether the bear persisted as a phantom so as to destroy the minions of the count, or was condemned to roam the castle grounds as a tormented spirit, one of the very minions it died trying to decimate, it was not to be known.
The fact was: the bear remained in Castle Heydrich, whereas the others ventured into the underworld.
I am in for all of this, but I will take a bit of an unorthodox approach. I will post properly later. One thing we should have is the "-wise" family of skills from BW.
The bear missed a few rolls when it had SKILL 8, but now with SKILL 11 it is a machine! :D
Well, I am not that resistant to pathfinder rules, you know. I am perfectly fine with us transferring into them and all; I am afraid of the adventure becoming too combat-oriented, something like button-mashing, or those wretched D&D Encounters.
Do you know that feeling when you create a character, that you have to maximize Diplomacy, or damage, or having at least one attribute at 18? I don't like that feeling, but at the same time I don't want my character to be crap.
I will go with anything, really; if I start to feel uneasy, I will complain :)
Well, early in the game I was already considering that issue, and I tried to work it out in my head, but I ended up asking myself the questions one would ask when developing a combat system. The question is: how can we introduce a combat system that balances randomness and player's choices? How can we generate a combat that is neither too hard nor too easy? Also, we should aim for lite rules, at the same time...
I am not a game designer, I think there is no one answer to the questions above, and ultimately we would have to trade-off control over the combat and simplicity. I think, of course, we should be asking ourselves more fundamental questions, such as: what do we want to get out of combat? Of course, if every combat is a life-death situation, we do not want to ever lose, and that imposes a great deal of weight on the control side. If we can do things in such a way that a failure in a combat does not mean death, but a particular fork in the story -- sometimes with death, yes, but if so choose the players in agreement with the DM --, then we can apply lighter rules to a combat, e.g., roll a d100 with a 70% chance of beating an opponent.
I am fine with using Pathfinder stats if we stick to the Burning Wheel testing principle: we should only roll dice (test) when there is something that we wish to achieve, which, if we fail to attain, will affect the outcome of the story. In their example, you have to climb stairs with no one around, then you just climb the stairs, but if there is a whole platoon after you and you have to climb stairs, you had better roll your [sports] skill with a success, otherwise you will trip and the pursuers will catch you!
Of course, (even) Burning Wheel applies different rules for combat...
That is to say that there's no such thing as "Roll Spot DC 15" "20+10" "You saw nothing, because there is nothing to see."
There are other options, like the system they use in Polaris; you negotiate with the antagonist on the facts (using keywords) until an agreement about what happens is reached, and if you disagree after a couple of negotiation rounds, you roll a d6 to see which of the stated facts happen. You can exhaust themes to achieve particular outcomes you desire, and these themes are refreshed on specific occasions (which we would have to twist for our needs).
Dilacerate!:2d6 + 11 ⇒ (4, 2) + 11 = 17Rebuke!:2d6 + 9 ⇒ (5, 4) + 9 = 18 As Lilith speaks, the bear attempts to tear her kiss-blowing lip with a claw attack, but she rebukes it with a swing of her wing at its face.
Hulda Astrud is not dead yet. Coming up next: Rattus, Antoni, then Bear, Rattus, Grim, Antoni. I think that if we do each round in any order things will go faster and without any problems... So, for this round, Rattus and Antoni must act :D
Hulda Astrud, the six-foot-one, full-bodied undead blonde, was the next in the bear's line of attack. A fierce fighter, she awaited with sword in hand, her contracted muscles further sculpting her beautiful nude form into that of a Norse war goddess. Yet her beauty was of no matter to be bear, and her attractive proportions only made her one thing on the bear's eyes: larger game.
Brute-force!:2d6 + 11 ⇒ (2, 3) + 11 = 16Hulda Astrud:2d6 + 7 ⇒ (3, 3) + 7 = 13 The black bear recklessly advances face-forward onto Hulda Astrud, who is trampled over by the animal...
Black bear:2d6 + 11 ⇒ (2, 2) + 11 = 15Revenge!:2d6 + 7 ⇒ (6, 3) + 7 = 16...but reacts, cutting the bear from below with her sword, and escaping its deadly grip.
