Bodak

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It was great. I played it again and again for a week or so.
There is one thing. I managed to get three of four possible endings. I don't remember which ones I solved but I think it was like "All dead", "All OK", "Dragon", but I couldn't get the fourth one.


Well, Bard in my group nowadays usually comes with someting like this:
1. round "I use my wand of fireballs."
2. round "I use my wand of fireballs."
3. round "I use my wand of fireballs."
...
and because, he usually rolls one of the highest initiatives (it looks like the theory of probability doesn't work :-) in case of an "orc encounter" he does most of the damage before anoone can do anything else...

OK, there are time he uses Inspire Courage in the way Singing, firing bow, spellcasting, but it really depends on the situation. There're times, he simply looks around the room, or watches "the other corridor" in case something tries to flank the group.

And in regards to barbarians, they're different than "tin can" fighters, but that would be a different thread I think.


Just to clearify, I didn't mean any concrete situation, but I have to admit that I was inspired by Maure Castle, level 2 and 3.
Another issue with my party is, that everybody starts to pay attention when I ask "So guys, what're you doing?". Of course I use this phrase now and then so they really don't know if it matters or not, but still they always get suspicious :-(
The camping is one of good ways to do ambushes, because usually fighters need to get out of armor to not get penalised next day so it's quite easy to hit them, but my party usually uses Rope Trick, which looks like it's hard to overcome (if even possible).


Hehehe, I usually play an employee and an father :-)
From the tabletop games I play D&D only, and while I don't play Necromunda (noone around to play with :-(, I like to paint the models...


In many situations, the monster/npc tactics in a dungeon go like this:
"If fight goes bad, one of npcs breaks off and alarms the evil fraction leader. Leader then assembles remaining forces and retreats to XYZ for last stand".
Sometimes, especially when my players run out of spells (or use spells harshly), they just simply go to sleep in a safe room or use spells like "rope trick" to get out of sight. The logic says, that the villain leader won't just wait in XYZ forever and probably will go to search for PCs or do some other intelligent decision. If this "sleep break" happens at the end of session, I do have time to adjust the tactics to this non-standard situation, but if it's in the middle of a session, I have quite a hard time to quickly get some kind of devious plan the villains do, while PCs are resting. And I don't like the idea "uh boys, smalltalk for 15 minutes, I have to think a little bit what next".
How do you guys solve such issues? Do you prepare in advance, improvise or do something else?


Well, for the last scenario I had to use the english version, but I did give the players some clues.
But the "language barrier" was really shown in the sick sailors scenario (don't know the exact name) which I ran in english too. One of players started to speak aloud letters of the sentence that where / where not (don't remember the correct solution right now) on the letter ring, and in the final try, she simply spelled out the "Command word ..." text out of it. But even she new it was english and she knows english quite good, she simply didn't realise that she spelled it out. At that point I simply handed her the text, because I think that native english speaking person would solve the problem at that time.
But it was fun and all three players talked about the session for another two or three weeks.


Well, using symbols is a great idea, but using smaller fonts for some sections could help too :-)


Well, I'm from Slovak Republic and I'm subscribed via The Place for Games as at the time I wanted to subscribe (two years ago), Paizo didn't accept International subscriptions.

As for arrival times, Dungeon comes at the start of month and Dragon at the middle of month, both before the month issue is for (e.g. September issue of Dungeon 1st August week, Dragon issue 2-3 August week).


My players moved down to level 2.
The Iron Golem felt quite easy with three players only, but two of them didn't survive:
1. Buffed up cleric failed (roled 1) save to resist petrification.
2. Barbarian/Frenzied Berserker did finish the Iron Golem, but was left on -87 HPs at the end of frenzy, so he died too.
3. Halfling rogue was of no use but to get Stone to Flesh (few days off) to revive cleric that raised the barbarian from the dead.
Somehow, the party managed not to steal the Symbol of Death tapestry (don't know why, probably because the 'collect everything' bard didn't play that night).
Of course, while noone wanted to open the door to the Succubi statue, 'ahh, come on gyus' cleric persuaded the rest of group so the Barbarian and Fighter fought for the "ownership" of statue. Barbarian won, but (un)fortunatelly managed to save against getting 7 negative levels.
I've tried some more advanced tactics for the Seekers, but my 'we are burning down the village' bard used quite a few fireballs and I had problems to escape with Llyral from the fight (god bless Mr. Gygax for lots of secret doors)...


I did play Challenge of Champions IV when only three of my players cuold attend and it was great.
The only problem is, that both CoC IV and V (don't have older issues) is quite language dependent (especially the last scenario). So I need to translate and customize the text. Plus I have to redraw all the pictures, because a "custom" picture means that I changed something and what do I need to change? Language elements of course.
But it was fun to watch the players, smoke ascending from their heads as they where looking for solution. I especially liked the Totem scenario (don't remember exact name right now), while "Elf Hive" was simple matter of time (my wife used to hold record in Mines game).
But it was really cool.


My group always starts to laugh when they encounter a ghost. It's because of their first adventure ever "Raiders of Galath's Roost". When few of party members (1st level) entered the elven tomb and encountered the guardian ghost, party's bard started a smalltalk. And when the ghost grew inpatient and asked the party to leave, bard started the last sentence:
"Oh Allmighty Casper...".
This was of couse followed by frightfull moan and the party stopped running in few minutes.


I totally agree with Patrick, Bard is from my point of view party's speaker (social), library (knowledge) and support (combat). And with Use Magic Device skill (which is fortunatelly for Bard based on Charisma) he can use offensive magic stuff too, like Wand of Fireball etc.


While I personally incline to fighters (especially to dwarfs), barbarian is quite intimidating class: Rage (incl. the increased Will save), Speed (this is IMHO quite powerfull feature), DR, Uncanny Dodge, D12 are quite a match for disadvantages: light armor (if speed to be maintained), normal number of feats. And the rules are not so difficult to learn too.

In regards to bards, I personally think that even a simple "For the King" or "For Homeland" cry at the start of the battle can inspire quite a courage and it does not take 6 seconds. The trick is to give the "good guys" emotional reason to fight, not just for gold and (maybe) glory.
Human bard in group I DM is usually singing (he'd preffer to play electronic guitar, but he couldn't do much more with it :-) while shooting from his longbow (Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot), so I can't agree with GGG he is for no good. And btw. in the heat of battle, combatants don't care if the cure spell was cast by cleric or bard.


I allowed my 6 players (all beginers at that time, some are still :-) to have the primary attribute "roll" of 18. This of course changes quite a bit (sometimes) so I usually run an adventure that is 2-4 levels higher than majority of the group but I was not sure with the Maure Castle when I read it. But I finally gave it a try. So I run the Maure Castle with 11. - 13. level characters, but I didn't need to change anything right now. I'm a little bit afraid of lower levels (right now they managed to "postpone" the Iron Golem encounter by foolishly using Forcecage). But as I know them, they'll make it (they're used to buy quite a lot of Raise Dead scrolls :-)
Arley is really cool. I sold all the magical stuff to group (for cca 100K :-) and Arley even agreed to make a "special" show cloak (with lot of flames) to bard, so he was a nice way to get rid of too much gold the party got.
I also liked the room that "eats" all magical things (7a I think). The Rogue lost all his equipment in there...


The only thing I don't like in Adventure Path is that our group will (I hope) finish the Zenith Trajectory adventury this weekend ;-( But the first two adventures were great!

You did a good job with Adventure Path. Thank you.


I don't believe it would be a huge problem. OK, they'll have to filter the questions, 'cause sometimes even I ask stupid things, but if The Sage lives at Paizo (sageadvice@paizo.com) it really should not be a big problem.


Just wondering, could you guys create a Sage Advice messageboard on your web site? It could be just read-only with Sage be the one posting new entries there, but I honesly don't believe that Sage gets only 10-20 questions per month (that's about the amount that's printed in single issue).