JZ's Carrion Crown - (Wake of the Watcher) (Inactive)

Game Master JamZilla

I know, it's crazy.

Guys I wanted to ask you two quick questions.

Firstly, what are you thinking of the pace of the game and number of posts per day? Are you satisfied with it, feel like we could push on more quickly or in fact that things are going too fast?

Second, I am going to recruit to replace Raj's character. I was originally planning to do it at the end of this book and I still might depending on your opinion. The other option is that I do it more or less immediately. Would you prefer to continue with Raj as a GM-bot or bring in a fresh victim new player? In either case, what do you feel the party needs at this juncture?

I feel like we're moving at a good, healthy pace. Any faster and I fear people might be overwhelmed at the speed. Personally I could go faster, but I like to manage my expectations to make them realistic :P

I would be fine either way. You're doing a good job of botting him, both mechanically and flavor wise, but I know it puts a strain on you and we're just delaying the inevitable.

If we need to recruit a reliable, fast-paced poster who likes to play frontliners, I have a very good suggestion. He's one of the players in the campaign I'm running currently.

Cool, who is it Zed?

Equally, if anyone else has suggestions please let me know.

Feral. He plays Bjorkus in my homebrew campaign.

How the F does he have 48k posts since 2011?? That's impressive.

Yup, he posts a lot.

Zed's suggestion sounds fine to me! If Feral isn't interested I could also check some of my other games and see what that turns up. Either way though, I'm happy to add a new player whenever it's most convenient for you JZ.

Regarding pace, I'm fine with the pace. We've been able to move through the dungeon-crawl aspect of Harrowstone at a pretty decent clip and same for most of the combats (disregarding instances where people have been understandably busy IRL).

Ah. That Feral. The one that forced me to add a dumb little apostrophe to the end of my Feral! That big stinker!

Forgot to answer as to what we might even need...hum...hard to say. Although I think we've got skills largely covered between Kaz and Zed, plus the rest of us filling in gaps here and there, a bard is never a bad idea for support and some additional magic and fighting capability. Or maybe a class with some ranged support? Hazel does have a bow but she'll largely be focusing on melee combat and I'm guessing Zed will be doing the same.

I'm not sure what sorts of magic Vala and Constantin are planning to focus on as we progress so I'm not sure if extra arcane or divine support would be useful or not.

I'm largely going "themed" on mental stuff - telepathy and telekinesis. While I will have some blasting and controlling thanks to this, I will still probably lack battlefield control, buffing, and ability to affect things that are immune to magic (like golems).

Vala will be able to adjust her spells and even her hexes a bit as we get a bit higher in level, but I don't really have an aim to make her, let's say, 'mechanically perfect'.

I really enjoy trying to make decisions based off of and informed by what happens in the game and tying my build into the narrative as much as I can. For instance, if I had the wandering spirit ability right now, I'd probably go with a fire spirit, given the fire that burned this place down instead of a life spirit, though life would obviously be more helpful versus all of these haunts and undead and such.

In general though, I do see her filling the role of an offensive caster more often than not, if that helps.

I am happy with the pace, and very happy with the game in general.

In terms of a new party member, I really think that we could use some additional melee muscle. If the remainder of this book is this haunt-heavy, It might be a little rough for him or her, but I would guess that later books may have more corporeal enemies to contend with.

Also very happy with the rest of the players in this little band. Very enjoyable crew, folks!

This book is somewhat ghosty. But even not everything wandering around Harrowstone is incorporeal.

I'll start thinking about a replacement and sound a few people out. I'm certainly not going to replace Raj until this whole flesh warped see thing is resolved by confronting the Lopper so let's see how it goes for now

Reminder, we've still got several unclaimed CLW & Lesser Restoration potions on the loot sheet if anyone needs them!

Just so you know GM, I add 4 to initiative.

Updated

Oh hey, I've been forgetting my campaign trait. I did 1 additional damage to the gravedigger.

I'm supposed to be doing 1 additional damage to all undead. Can't believe I haven't been remembering that.

Heh, I'm bad to forget little things like that too if I'm not careful. You'd think it would be easier to remember stuff like that with PbP but apparently not!

I have to look up this creature's statblock after this combat is over. It sounds insanely cool.

Also, does the water count as difficult terrain? I have a feeling it does, but if it doesn't then Zed will take a 5 foot step to the north.

I'm going to say it isn't difficult terrain.

Also, this whole thing is a mish-mash, you won't really be able to look up it's stat block. I made up the Gravedigger and Delphine the Weeper to account for the extra PCs we had for this game (6 instead of 4). I wanted to put some extra prisoners in there to balance things out.

The Entomber is a creature from 3.5 Tomb of Horrors but it was CR5 so I changed it in various ways and also gave it this aura of silence. Remember the rhyme....?

Cover your mouth, without a sound
Put you down into the ground

Also, the picture is of a Charger from Left 4 Dead 2 lol.

Even with my new hilarious carrying capacity I'm overloaded :(

Damn DM, you really do care. Custom monsters and everything :')

Dude, I have soooo many plans :) If you guys stick with this game, I promise it'll be totally worth it.

I'm also trying to keep things atmospheric and creepy with this weird thing.

Pin as a free action and it takes 2 rounds to escape instead of the normal one, plus suffocation, plus he doesn't even have to maintain it. That's disgusting...I'm definitely going to use it against my players.

Well the suffocation is purely due to the fact you went under water when he did it. Otherwise it wouldn't be an issue.

I was considering giving him grab and then using another action to pin you into the ground but I thought screw it, you guys can take it. Besides, you've given this guy a real hammering with ranged attacks so far

Yeah that's what I was expecting, two rounds to bury. Also the 2 actions to get out is brutal. I didn't think good tactics would make the enemy more powerful :(

You are also subject to the cursed belt Zed. As GM fiat I could just say it's a free action for you specifically because you're so weighed down by his belt. That seems fair right? Right!?

You may find I do this sometimes, sacrifice rules for cool factor. That works both ways though so if you want to do something that stretches the mechanics, but it would be a "man that was awesome!" moment, I'd support it

Cursed?!

Well yeah. Not cursed as in remove curse only. Just like the flute and holy symbols, they were bad but once the Piper and Charlatan were down they reverted to simple magical objects without the horrible rider effects

Same will happen for this belt and that's what we are counting on for Raj's arm

Hi guys,

Sorry for the disappearing act. There have been a stack of changes at work: our group was re-org'd, got moved to a new department - which doubled our area of responsibilities, and we acquired a new Director with 'big ideas'. I went heads down to knock out some critical objectives hoping that I could come up for breath in just a couple weeks *hollow laugh*. Unfortunately, more stuff keeps getting tossed on my plate faster than I can clear projects. At this point, I'm going to be working like crazy until some time in May - at a guess.

So, I'm going to have to drop out of every game for the foreseeable future. If you've already replaced my character or dropped me... that is totally fine and I apologize for the inconvenience and for not digging myself out of this work pile earlier to let you know my situation. If you've been generous enough to NPC my character in my absence - thank you for keeping the faith and I'm doubly sorry that I can't come back to pick up where I left off. You have every right to berate me, so feel free to scourge me via PM. I won't put up a fight, I've earned it.

Again, I'm quite sorry for leaving you all in the lurch and I'll hope to play with you good folks again at some point in the future.

Thanks,
~sr

Really hate to see you go Raj but it's good to hear that everything is okay with you otherwise! It was fun playing together :)

Yep I'd echo Hazel's sentiment there. Not sure if you'll be back to see this message but I really enjoyed your time in this game. I hope things settle down for you soon and I'll keep an eye out for you in future.

I wonder how likely it is that we could get a wand of infernal healing...both convincing the party and actually acquiring it...

BEst of luck Raj. Hope to see you 'round the boards.

In Ravengro, very unlikely. In future, probably

Hey folks, as a heads-up I wanted to let you all know that pending a clean preemployment check (which I don't anticipate being an issue since I don't do drugs and I'm good at hiding bodies) I should be finally rejoining the workforce within the next couple of weeks. As of now I'm not sure what this will mean for my posting rate but I'll be sure to keep you updated as I learn more! :D

Well that was a very nice message if it wasn't for the hiding bodies part ;)

My current girlfriend's father owns a funeral home. The first time I came over to meet him he told me "Just remember, they don't count the bodies."

Fingers have been crossed in your honor, Hazel! Good luck.

Yaaay! Here's to work-life balance. ;)

Thanks guys!

@Zed - Hah! If that was a 'dad threat' then that's definitely a new one!

A preemptive congratulations Hazel! Don't worry about posting rates, of course being in a new job means you are going to be busy, especially early on. No doubt you will prioritise this game over all others though so it's all good :p

Also, apologies I was out of commission yesterday guys. Someone convinced me to do a 6 hour bootcamp for charity :/ My FitBit says I burnt over 4k calories during the day so I quite literally passed out as soon as I got home.

Still, despite muscular agony today I am back and raring to get this show on the road. Let's push on to the end of Book 1!

Weapon versatility is very cool

Yes it is! I'm also finding that warpriests themselves are very cool and surprisingly versatile. Hazel probably won't ever have as much sheer damage output as a character like Zed or Raj will given her focus on the starknife but I'm liking all the nifty tricks they can pull to boost themselves in combat. The spontaneous casting of cure spells and the limited channels (starting at 4th) are a nice touch as well to add some utility to the rest of the party.

They actually did a test to see what class was the most powerful, and not only did warpriest win, it practically embarrassed the other classes. It's not that anything it does is particularly explosive, but it just does so many different things so well. Self healing, good spell selection, fantastic class abilities, summon as a swift action...the list goes on.

Uggh, swarms of weak enemies. I feel your pain, casters.

I know sometimes a good choice is to aid another to assist the frontliner's ACs.

Really? Huh...in that case, maybe Hazel will be mighty indeed if she lives long enough!

Truth be told I don't play melee characters often, hybrids or otherwise, so I've got a lot to learn. That's partly why I like trying different classes each time I join a game or submit to a recruitment thread, so I can increase my overall system mastery.

You're honestly doing really good. You don't have the same single-hit damage as Zed, but nothing really trumps a 2h weapon with power attack at low levels. At level 1 a character can easily do 2d6+9 with a pretty typical build. Going hard can get you up to 2d6+14 if you start a raging class.

Heh...given I'm working on my first bloodrager for another game (where the party unfortunately TPKed on the first combat d'oh), I'll keep that in mind. Then again the party already has someone else doing the 2h thing so I might choose something different for her as far as weapon/fighting style goes.

I mean, there's a reason 2h is used so much. It's just so damn effective for so little investment. Eventually 2-weapon fighting gets more DPR, but that takes a lot more feats than just power attack.

I dunno, I think 2 weapon fighting only gets more DPR if you've got something to ride on it like sneak attack or smite. Otherwise your traditional 2-handed warrior type will take it all day long.