isshou's page

So, what's the plan guys?

Do we want to find another DM to run for us?

Ah yes, holiday time. It's been busy for most of us I think. Enjoy your vacation Tim. Maybe when the holidays are over we can get back into the swing of posting.

At least he can swim.

I got a bit out of practice of checking every day during the down time. Let me see what I last did and catch up.

Sandara Quinn is now up on the details site. Her picture and name have the link, but it might be a bit hard to get to right now so here is her details.

Whew, Ondir has made it through his clash with filth fever. Will have to see how the others fare. Don't forget that If I succeeded on my heal check (which I think I made for everyong) that you get a +4 bonus on your saves against the disease.

Ah, I was expecting it to be in the gameplay thread. So we should have 740 and 540 respectively. Hopefully we'll get Valen his equipment then everything will be squared away.

When there's rewards for individuals it makes it a bit more challenging to keep XPs the same. Though it is something that can be managed.

Funny you say that, as I remember a character you were very intent on having not gain a level with the rest of the party. The system is designed to give those who are a little behind a push to get them caught up. So a slight drift isn't too bad, though if we get close to where we need to level so the level of the challenge is still fair hopefully Tim will have some leniency and let us all level when the time comes.

I had 500 before the two fights, as long as you got back your equipment.

If I recall, there was 100 XP for completing the first day of work.
Then there was 200 XP for dealing with the cronies.
After that there was 200 XP for those who recovered their equipment.

I don't recall seeing XP for the Rats. Assuming standard rats and Kevin's character still getting XP then that should be another 135, I think.
There was 400 XP for the bout with Owlbear, which Kevin agreed to split. So another 80 XP

So with those two fights we should be at 715 or 515.

Though, you should be asking Tim this question not me. We aren't guaranteed to have all the same XP. Also remember we are on the medium track for leveling, so the next level is at 2000 xp.

Math error, the ship has about 7900 ft. Still 36 people on the ship and a fair bit of that space is open (on the upper deck) or used for cargo/storage. Check out the ship details on the summary site, there's not many places to slink and search. Also not many places to go for privacy.

Hey Ross, we're still not on the next day. I figured since you posted up to the next day's morning you were expecting us to finish this day while you were away.
Also assuming I made my check to diagnose that you have filth fever and I make my heal check, you would have a +4 bonus against the disease. We'll have to see how that all plays out.

For me a fair bit of slipping below the minimum has just been waiting for responses/progression. It's a little challenging to post when you've finished the day and others haven't or during combat waiting to figure out what the result of your last round was.

I think we can get back to the 1/day minimum and now that our characters have built up a bit more of a relationship maybe if we get into a situation where the day is stretching out we can interact with other PCs to get a post or two in.

I think I have all the known attitudes toward the party up to date as of the fight. Please check the spreadsheet and let me know if there is any missing, or any you want me to fill in any that's a given.

Google Doc

Is a delirious halfling an improvised weapon? Lewis, I like how you're playing Antal's fever.

I knew Kevin's rolling was going to break the laws of the universe at some point, but if he rolls a zero isn't that going to cause a divide by zero error?

I've updated the site a bit, I might still tweak it a bit but it should be fairly well organized right now. Let me know if anything is missing or need to be changed.

The last rat will probably die if Kithranna hits, Ondir finally finished off the rat he was fighting. Then combat will be over and Ondir will no longer get his fast healing. That's pretty much what's kept him up. We can spend some time actually talking between our characters until you're feeling better.

Tim, should we wait for your post for the initiative for the monsters?

I think you are overestimating how much it will slow down by. We are at 1-2 rounds a day. Posting in init order will slow it down to 1 round every day or two. Of course that depends on people being able to post.

One tactic I've heard of is to arrange a common time when we can be online to post more frequently. obviously we can't do that all the time. But it can be a good way to get a handful of rounds done and in order over a few hours.

Slow is fine, but I think if we note something like

{OOC}Round #
Initiative ##
HP at turn{/OOC}

replacing curly braces with square brackets we should do fine. It's a bit of meta data, but it would allow us to post our actions when available.

Now there's one major boon to posting in order: I actually had to shift and adjust because Lewis posted (and Antal goes before Ondir) as I'm working on my post. I hit preview and see Antal do something that I should really play off of but wasn't intending to do based on the way things were at the start of the round. I think that would be more a reason to post in initiative order than just trying to track things so we don't skip or shift someone's actions.

Also, not as big a boon, there's a good boon with the attacks of opportunity as it would make things more clear for when someone is in dire need of healing or not quite yet when a healer's turn is up. It would avoid he posts that are done in spoilers.

I agree, so what if I have to roll a new character. Generally a "dead" character gets shelved for the next time such a character is appropriate. Obviously I'm not going to play Ondir2, who's an exact copy of Ondir. I'll shift and adjust based on what wasn't working. So death is really just a way to refactor characters for me.

Combat's getting a bit wonky without any notation of when your action vs another person's is. I think Kithranna and Riffelan have shifted and swapped initiatives this last time since Kithranna responded to Riffelan's request to move over, even though in turn order his action should happen before hers. Maybe that would be a benefit to have less adherence to the initiative order, but it's just too hard to plan and track.

Calling out the round in your action would be good, also probably for me or the map/site would be to post the current Initiative order or have it included in each round somehow.

For example I'm trying to parse the combat: (assuming rats have 5 hp)
Round 1: Works out fine, everyone attacks and order is maintained.

Following initiative (Antal, Rats, Ondir, Kithranna, Riff)
Round 2:
Antal: moves to flank and scores a good hit (5 damage to rat 3)
Rats 1,2,4,5,6: atacks 4,5,6 hits Kith, Riff, and Ondir respectively (2,1,3 damage)
Rat 3: Attacks Ondir, misses, but since it's at 0 (disabled) it falls unconscious
Ondir: Hits rat 6 (thanks to flanking and justice) for 2 damage
Kithranna: Hits rat 4, dealing 8 damage knocking it unconscious (moves, in response to Riff)
Riffelan: miss, calls out for Kithranna to move. (makes acrobatic check to move.

Round 3:
Antal: Move, misses
Rats: 1,2,5,6 attack. 1 and 2 hit Antal, 5 hits Kithranna, 6 misses Ondir
Ondir: Attacks, misses - switch to healing
Kithranna: Attacks, hits rat 5, crit, massive damage. Moves over to help antal.
Riff: Moves? States attacking defensively but makes no roll?

And here's how round 2/3 plays out in the posts:

Round 2:
Antal: moves to flank and scores a good hit (5 damage to rat 3)
Rats 1,2,4,5,6: atacks 4,5,6 hits Kith, Riff, and Ondir respectively (2,1,3 damage)
Rat 3: Attacks Ondir, misses (stays alive)
Ondir: Hits rat 6 (thanks to flanking and justice) for 2 damage (but not the rat 3 that's still hanging onto life)
Kithranna: (apparently nothing)
Riffelan: miss, calls out for Kithranna to move. (makes acrobatic check to move.

Round 3:
Rats: 1,2,5,6 attack. 1 and 2 hit Antal, 5 hits Kithranna, 6 misses Ondir
Rat 3: Attacks Antal, misses and dies
Rat 4: Attacks Kithranna, hits deals 2 damage
Antal: Move, misses
Ondir: Attacks, misses - switch to healing
Kithranna: Hits rat 4, dealing 8 damage (it's still hanging onto life)
Kithranna: (again?) Attacks, hits rat 5, crit, massive damage. Moves over to help Antal with rats 1 and 2.
Riff: Moves? States attacking defensively but makes no roll?

See how odd it's playing out compared to what initiative maps to?
This is our first combat of the game and I think we are all new to the PBP model, so this is just a criticism so we can improve on how we're playing.

We're off to a grand start to combat... we'll have to see if Riff can do any better. Or just wait for the next round of combat to redeem ourselves. At this point the attack that would have likely hit misses because of miss chance and the attacks that likely won't hit passed their miss chance. This seems oddly familiar to a recent combat in another game.

Oh and don't forget if you do get hit by a rat, you'll need to roll fort against filth fever.

I notice there's a Master Scourge and a Mister Scouge, I assume the latter is Mr Plugg?

Anyways, I've added these to the compilation. As it is kept up to date I may opt to actually work on the design, though I'll likely keep it simple.

Here's a quick compilation of the details in spoilers (in the discussion posts). I didn't spend much time on it but it should suffice for now. I think I might add links to the characters. Or we can see if we can't pull this info into the Campaign info here. In the time being it'll be handy to have a reference, one that's easily bookmarked.

http://wanderingcode.net/ShacklesPBP/

Tim, let me know if you want anything added or removed from the compilation.

@Tim

Do you know if we could consolidate some of the info spoilers for things like the Pirate's day, Ship actions, and the different job's tasks onto the campaign info or some other central location? It'd be handy to be able to get to that information quickly, eventually it'll be buried in the posts here.

We'll miss you Kevin, still planning on trying to post if you can or did you determine that's going to be unlikely?

Tim,

Is there anything we can do in character wise to determine a NPC's initial attitude towards us? Sense motive check would probably work, but would it be a ship action we have to take or maybe as part of the influence action?

isshou wrote:

On a side note, curse you Lewis. Stop having the same idea for what our characters are doing. We should just have our characters run into each other as they are trying to do their activities.

I am about to stab Mister Plugg next if you want to start it off.

No, no you seem to get the drop on me in these sorts of things. Here you can take my dagger if you're still lacking one. Besides, Ondir so far has not gotten on the wrong side of the whip or rope. That's surely to come...

Though wouldn't it be a better idea to start from the top with the Captain or maybe start with the boatswain, who seems to have it out for us more so than Plugg.

@Isshou,

Hey I not trying to be weird, gross, or off putting here, this is just something she would do. We have been gaming together for some time and you are a great role player so I expect only your normal excellence, and will play off of your style in the best way I can.

Whatever you decide to do with Ondir next is fine, but I only want to be so descriptive.

It's ok, kinda saw it coming. Poor Riffelan has to compete with a Goddess, though Besmara's teachings don't restrict her followers in that area of their life. We can only just see what happens later.

Dustin Kane wrote:

Maybe Kithranna should not talk to people. Sheesh.

I think Kithranna should participate in more diplomatic efforts, it is hilarious.

Would that count towards entertaining the crew? Maybe Kithranna can take up comedy... maybe form a comedy duo with the charmer that is Valen?

Just as long as his antics doesn't cause any issue for Ondir. Then it'll have to stop. If they cause issues for Antal, that's fine.

On a side note, curse you Lewis. Stop having the same idea for what our characters are doing. We should just have our characters run into each other as they are trying to do their activities.

I have only put the ones that we are sure about, there's a fair number we can guess.

I know I'm keeping somewhat of a list so far, but was only doing it for my own use, I can tidy it up a bit or format it so I can pull out NPCs attitudes for various people of the party.

Here's the initial list (all crew and officers): google doc

Now that we're getting experience, are we going to handle experience on which track? Or go with the listing in the APs for recommended leveling points?

The line between them is in game terms pretty simple: After evening meal, rum and bloody hour, nighttime begins.

I agree with Lewis. Declaring actions at the right time will help keeping the overview.

I know it wasn't obvious but I was holding back declaring mine for that reason (and shifting what my nighttime activity would be or who I was deciding to influence).

To be honest I've read enough back when the 1st AP book came out (both me and Lewis have the books) to know the model, in general we'll have morning call, a daytime work activity, a daytime ship activity, and some potential for additional RP/Encounters/Etc during the day. Then everyone is supposed to attend to bloody hour, meal, and then rum rations. After that you get your nightly activity and then maybe more. There is, of course, some deviations to this as the plot gets told, but I'm actively trying not to remember all the details I first read.

In general, don't speed ahead, let Tim set the pace by these key events it hard to put it down than a few days later you get to do the action, or having to keep reminding what your action is going to be.

I'm fine with whatever, just as long as we're decided on it so it won't cause any second-guessing. Though I imagine Ross' re-roll would be a bigger boon than mine and Lewis' - after all 1/day vs 1/week is a lot different. Then Ross' re-roll becomes 2/day at 5th, 3/day at 10th, and 4/day at 15th, though we'll probably not reach 15 as part of the AP.

@Ross, normally in games the DM asks you for a roll but doesn't even tell you what you need to beat. Re-rolling is supposed to occur at that moment after you roll but before the DM tells you if you passed or failed. It makes it a guess/risk to keep a fair roll but one that might not be enough. Say we are making a profession sailor check, I roll a 7 and get 15 on my check. Fairly reasonable. However we know the check is something harder than normal due to circumstances (a storm, being attacks, currents, etc) so I might guess that it's not enough and making a second roll I have a good chance of improving my result or I might risk it and save my weekly re-roll for a worse roll. Now the DC could have been below a 15 or it could have been a 16. So my choice to re-roll or not re-roll could either mean success or failure.

In pbp the DC is being posted with the request for a skill check. While we can set it to the side in our mind it doesn't get rid of the fact the result, whether we fail or pass, with any given roll is just sitting there and a good chance sitting there from where we can see our own die rolls. All of the players know each other but Tim doesn't know us well, so I would think it is best if it we agree on how to use these re-rolls. Ideally Tim would know he can trust us to use them as if we didn't know the result but that's up to Tim how he want's to handle it.

Its a class ability for me, involves certain knowledge checks.

So once per day re-roll of specific knowledges and linguistic checks (+1 per day at 5, then every 5)? Should still probably follow the same way decided to roll (for checks with DCs posted beforehand). We've been posting for about a week and are still playing the first day, so plenty of rolls that you might have aimed to take the re-roll on.

I'm just saying that because of the way skill checks are being done it should be an established model that everyone uses. Obviously since the forums keep track of your rolls you are required to show both. The main drawback with a specific choice is you are given more details than you should have when making it. This could affect how you perceive the value of a roll, after all being told make a knowledge check (no dc provided, no results to work off of) is different than being told to make a knowledge check (DC 12) and

1d20 + 8 ⇒ (9) + 8 = 17
1d20 + 8 ⇒ (20) + 8 = 28

Did I roll those at the same time or did I roll the first and preview then roll the second (and waste a nat 20)? You can't tell, you'd just have to take my word on it. In this case I rolled, previewed, and rolled again.

I usually tell you the result of profession-checks in advance.

You just name a corridor of natural rolls (e.g. below 10) and if your natural roll is below this number, the trait activates, if it is still unexpended.

What do you think?

I know, in a spoiler, that's why I wanted to ask. Since I have the rolls, and then I can look at the results, it seems just activating it would be problematic.

hmmm, it might work but it'd be hard to just specify a blanket value for all situations. Pretty much all I need to use it on right now (in terms of jobs) is a roll of 1, which is probably a given. I could probably go with if the roll is less than a 5, then use the ability. If the initial situation, before needing to make the roll, is adverse I might say it'd be good to bump that up to less than an 10 for re-rolling. And if the situation is dire/life threatening less than a 20 for re-rolling. Since the trait is take the higher of the two rolls, getting two rolls on a dire situation to try and maximize the chance of success wouldn't be a bad thing.

Lewis has the same trait, did anyone else take a feat that allowed for a re-roll?

Tim, with the campaign trait I took I get one reroll for profession sailor checks a week in game. It has to be used before a result is known. How do we want to handle it?

But I wonder if we shouldn't put a bit more info on our characters, in same tab, so we can get a better idea of what they look like.

It might be good to build out our character's profile. I've done a bit on mine so far and will probably edit it as time goes on and everyone learns more about him.

Hey Guys,

just wanted to ask, how you like it so far. I know it´s pretty early, but since this is my first pbp in English, I feel that I need some feedback.

So far, it's good. No problems with the English and the pace seems to be alright.

I do want to make a point that we should all watch our formatting tags. Computers being stupid don't work well when one tag isn't properly ended. Please use preview or read your post after it's posted so we can catch the tag mistakes during the editing time (only 1 hour). I know I've had to catch my own errors a number of time already.

Do we know who all is available to be influenced and how are we going to influence NPCs? Just diplomacy rolls or are other skills applicable?

Yep snuck a rank in climb there on ya. Figured it would be pointless to be on a ship with no ranks. Same for swim, but I am a bit better there.

However Jobs! No one said Jobs! lol Riff may have to bunk her way out of this one.

Also I was wanting to sneak in a Diplomacy check there, but I thought casting then a skill check was a bit much for one post.

That's good, with that roll you would have fallen off.

Come now, press ganged onto a ship and you expect to not wind up with a job? Last I checked there wasn't a prime need for certain trades on a pirate ship. After all if we're stuck a hand short out at sea then no sort of comfort is going to get us into a port.

You can always describe intent or OOC intent and wait for a response to roll a diplomacy check. Though it probably means waiting a while to post up part 2.

Yea, staggered condition allows single actions each turn. Thankfully it's not like disabled where you run the risk of taking an additional point of damage.

Hmmm I didn't think Riffelin had any bonuses on climb checks.

It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the jobs are dolled out.

Yeah, that was dumb. And I cannot edit it now. Maybe Tim can delete it.

EDIT: Fixed. I guess one can set default aliases for each board.

Hmmm, is that so? Where would one set the default alias for the gameplay section? Or do you just have to repost as the alias you wanted? It's good that it's got the correct name on it, unfortunately Lewis is still a character in the game as well. Maybe that's something Tim will be able to deal with. If not it's not as big an issue as the post from the wrong alias.

I see we have an almost three way tie, I didn't know we were creating a party of monkeys. Well, with a +0 I don't think Ross' character will be joining the monkeys at the top.

Uh oh, I didn't know you were joining the crew personally Lewis. Can you edit who you posted as or will we need to handle the mistake some other way?

isshou wrote:

I love that the deterrent for the unwilling recruits in being out to sea, to an aquatic character that really isn't much deterrent. The brutes, whips, bows, and being without equipment on the other hand would be. Though I imagine being fished up in a net would be quite embarrassing for anyone trying to swim off. It's a good thing Ondir was looking for his chance to become an infamous pirate. Good to see us get rolling on our ways to being a scourge on the high seas.

Yeah... I haven´t really thought about that... Maybe those pirates just keep a little closer look on you Fishmen... I guess that would be best to give you a plausible hook for the adventure.

Yes, of course but Ondir's already set on becoming a pirate. Being a priest of Besmara he's not going to just let this situation go to waste. Though makes you wonder how much normal crews have interacted with fishmen or other races that are quite comfortable at sea.

Though knowing the seas of Golarian, being unequipped is deterrent enough. Otherwise one might be telling a tale of how they got eaten by a lowly shark, not even dire!

I love that the deterrent for the unwilling recruits in being out to sea, to an aquatic character that really isn't much deterrent. The brutes, whips, bows, and being without equipment on the other hand would be. Though I imagine being fished up in a net would be quite embarrassing for anyone trying to swim off. It's a good thing Ondir was looking for his chance to become an infamous pirate. Good to see us get rolling on our ways to being a scourge on the high seas.

Oh, and Tim, are we just using the built in dice roller for the board? Any particular formatting for them? They don't allow OOC coloring, but they are already colored green. Italics? Spoiler tags?

Yes of course. It was just because one or two of the NPCs are used to speak quite profane. I guess I will find a good middle ground.

To be clear, I don't mind NPCs that do it often, just not overboard to where it gets hard to parse what they are actually saying between the cursing. I was thinking mainly of PCs, since by definition we're active throughout the story, NPCs are going to come and go.

Dungeon Blaster wrote:

@all: One more house rule, I especially like. Please don´t discuss tactics in combat. Everyone please decides just on his own what to do. If someone establishes a telepathic connection, then you can discuss tactics as much as you want. I consider this rule especially entertaining, because it gives mind-linked characters a spooky kind of "perfect coordination".

Is that okay for everybody?

That is as it should be and how we try to play it in our games. To clarify though, if we know a battle is coming and we have some time to plan, our characters can do so, yes?

Assuming we stay in character to do so it might be fun, especially if a few of us have different goals in tactics. We could end up arguing until the battle comes and miss out on a chance to get our tactics down.

I say this as I'm reading up on teamwork feats. If I play the inquisitor I get 6 teamwork feats as part of the class progression and can treat allies as if they had the same feats to see if I benefit from the teamwork feats. So far the conditions I've read in them are fairly easy - they usually rely on being next to an ally, enemy, and/or a specific situation occurs (like an ally feinting successfully)

Alright Tim, I've sent off my character sheet for approval. I'll wait until it's approved before beginning since I went the route of an aquatic character (Undine, amphibious racial ability).

Halfling pirate coming to your inbox soon, Tim.

I hope you all don't mind having a captain under 3 foot tall.

Who said you are going to be captain? Maybe captain's foot stool...

Besides we need to survive starting off as being captured into the crew and many things first before any of us can even hope at gaining captain status.