So this is a thread for my players in the savage tide, (since the savage tide boards have spoilers splattered about),as well as whoever feels liek reading and replying. The party consists of Austin, a Fighter focusing on unarmed fighting. Quarion, and elf conjurer, and Lu'kerik a human artificer.
So feel free guys to post ideas, thoughts, problems, a rundown of the story so far and any funny things that happen as we go. I'm sure the super helpful people on the messageboard will join in on the fun too.
Thanks,
Jay
Savage DM
So far this campaign is pretty cool. I'm really excited about playing an artificer. :o)
I want to describe more what I'm doing when I'm artificing though. I know we were in a hurry, but in the future, I don't want to rush, especially in the begining. I think it's important for us to get to really develop our characters and undestand what we are wearing, how we will talk, how our characters use our skills, etc.
That was something I wanted to bring up next time, but hey, this thread works too, as long as Jeff and Gabe read it :oP
Artifice rocks!
I really wanted this first night to just sorta be about meeting Lavinia. I probably shouldn't have rushed on into the encounter on the ship but i got excited. Feel free though to take as much time as you need when describing your spells and items and things though.
The other thing is I know some people don't really get fully into their character until they start playing them, so I think its fine to start off with a lil bit of a blank slate and develop some stuff as we go. Now that we've started we can slow things down and get more descriptive, and take more time roleplaying. I was just afraid if i forced a bunch of roleplaying on you gusy, and expected a ton of description at first, you gusy wouldn't know where to start, because you need to play your characters a bit and get a feel for them.
Oh well, let me know next time if the pace is too hurried or if you need more time to develop things.
Sorry my bad this time.
Jay
Didnt feel too rushed, plus i had to leave early so that might have been part of it.
Anyway, Jay, im making a bit of a change to my characters backstory which will make for some fun in the future adventures. No change to my actuall character, i loved taking those two guys on the docks out like they were nothing.
I was all like *BAM!!* and they were all like *BOXES!* gabe was all like *MONKEY!!* and steve was all like *GREASE...?... KICK!!*.
My avatar is a werewolf. Which is sweet.
Just so you guys know on the spoiler heavy (meaning please don't read any of them) savage tide boards I started a thread and talked about your awesome plan. Everyone loved the plan, especially the part about the monkey and the fact you are gonna use disguise self to look more like those two guys you beat up.
They also loved the concept of the brawler fighter, so woot woot.
Just so you know I'm fine with any character background you wanna change or retcon. In fact I'd veen be ok with changes to the actual character to an extent if you really need to make a change.
I'm really happy that so far most of my group has posted. Feel free to use these boards to ask questions, and to recap what you guys have done so far. You could even post your character backstory here if you wanted to.
Hello, guys
I started reading your journal. My players and I are currently playing the Shackled City AP. You can check out the "Playing Shackled City in a Steampunk Setting" journal if you want to.
I was curious about this "awesome plan" you had come up with. I guess anything that involves a monkey is bound to be fun.
Hope you have a lots of thrills playing your Savage Tide campaign.
Hey! sorry it took me so long to reply- yesterday wasn't a very good day for me, but now I'm good and I'm ready to recount some awesome D&D action!
Long story short, I really like this campaign so far (even if it's just begun). I also like the idea of posting about it with the other members of the group- Kudos Jay! Anyway, I'm glad that we were just sorta thrown into starting the campaign rather than waiting until we were all done, mainly because, as has been the trend lately, we often make characters, and say we're gonna start something with them, but then spend too much time making them, and end up not actually doing anything. So now that we've actually started with these characters, we've got one heck of a lead over any of our other endeavors (four specialist wizards ring a bell?). Not only that, but as Jay said, I often have a lot of trouble feeling like my character before we start, so now that we've already played with them for a bit, I've been forced to flesh out my character's personality through roleplaying- thus giving me a better base to start with. I'm still toying with a few ideas of how my character looks, acts, and commands monkeys, but at least now I have something to go off of.
Anyway, for anyone who reads this (and if anyone besides myself, Jay, Jeff [Terras], or Steve reads this, I apologize in advance if nothing makes any sense), here was the run-down of our plan: We arrived at the ship at night, and saw all of the workers loading stuff onto the boat. Lu'kerrik first "stumbled" onto the ship, acting like a misguided nobody, to guage how the workers would react to someone walking in on their operation- and they threatened him, telling him to leave. So he left. Then, I (Quarion, the elf Conjurer) summoned Bombo, the Celestial Monkey, amidst all of their crates, and had him jump away down the dock, where the three of us had hidden ourselves behind a bunch of crates. Two of the guards, thinking one of their animals had gotten loose, followed Bombo, only to fall victim to our trap- Austin bull rushed one guy into a stack of crates, knocking him out. Lu'kerrik attempted to cast Grease, but failed the Use Magic Device check. Bombo attempted his once-per-day Smite Evil ability, but seeing as how his attack roll didn't exceed a 7, and the target wasn't evil, he missed. With a wave goodbye, he disappeared (as, even though it was Extended, my 1st-level-caster Summon Monster I spell only lasted two rounds). Austin then made short work of the remaining fellow, and we had to call game for the night. Austin and Lu'kerrik plan on dressing up as the two of them, and putting me inside a crate (to make animal noises.... geez, you'd think years of wizard training would be worth more, but NOOOO). We'll see how it goes from there.
Once again, good job Jay!
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Hey! sorry it took me so long to reply- yesterday wasn't a very good day for me, but now I'm good and I'm ready to recount some awesome D&D action!
Long story short, I really like this campaign so far (even if it's just begun). I also like the idea of posting about it with the other members of the group- Kudos Jay! Anyway, I'm glad that we were just sorta thrown into starting the campaign rather than waiting until we were all done, mainly because, as has been the trend lately, we often make characters, and say we're gonna start something with them, but then spend too much time making them, and end up not actually doing anything. So now that we've actually started with these characters, we've got one heck of a lead over any of our other endeavors (four specialist wizards ring a bell?). Not only that, but as Jay said, I often have a lot of trouble feeling like my character before we start, so now that we've already played with them for a bit, I've been forced to flesh out my character's personality through roleplaying- thus giving me a better base to start with. I'm still toying with a few ideas of how my character looks, acts, and commands monkeys, but at least now I have something to go off of.
Anyway, for anyone who reads this (and if anyone besides myself, Jay, Jeff [Terras], or Steve reads this, I apologize in advance if nothing makes any sense), here was the run-down of our plan: We arrived at the ship at night, and saw all of the workers loading stuff onto the boat. Lu'kerrik first "stumbled" onto the ship, acting like a misguided nobody, to guage how the workers would react to someone walking in on their operation- and they threatened him, telling him to leave. So he left. Then, I (Quarion, the elf Conjurer) summoned Bombo, the Celestial Monkey, amidst all of their crates, and had him jump away down the dock, where the three of us had hidden ourselves behind a bunch of crates. Two of the guards, thinking one of their animals had gotten loose, followed Bombo, only to fall victim to our trap- Austin...
Sounds great guys. Just out of curiosity, how did your character exetend Summon Monster I at 1st level? I was just curious because that would be an awesome thing to be able to do at low levels for a conjurer, but it takes a slot one level higher to pull off. I was wondering if there was a feat or something that let you do that and if so where it was so I could take a look at it. Overall great plan to get on the boat. I am anxious to see what my group does once they get that far, and be sure to check out my Savage Tide Campaign Journal titled "A Campaign that is in a word, Savage..."
Thanks for sharing!!
Hmm, i forget how he extended it. I think he took the 'Sudden Extend' feat from 'Complete Arcane'. Someone want to confirm that?
Jeff supposedly posted, but I can't se eit so I'll just wnaser anyway. Gabe used the sudden extend feat. Three times a day you can extend a spell without having to increase the spell level. And actually the feat only grants one use, but we house ruled it to three because we hate once a day things becasue they frequently go unused for fear of their depeletion in an important situation.
But oh man! I totally forgot that we haven't even put gabe in a box and tried to sneak onto the ship yet. I am also psyched that I don't have to worry about my scrolls dissappearing if I fail checks. That's sweet. Caus eI was afraid that I would fail three checks and not be able to disguise myself. I'm starting to develop how my armor looks and I'm thinking it'll be pretty distinct.
The thing I wanted to talk to you about jay is that I have a way I want to do scrolls and the like for my character. You know how we always have character specific variants of what scrolls end up being. I really like the idea that artificers just reverse engineer the universe and sort of program magic. So I envision treating artifice very mechanically like moving bits of air around and rotating bits of string and all sorts of stuff that will probably look really odd to an outsider but makes sense to my character. As such, I want my scrolls to be transferable achelmical tatoos. A sort of film like a window cling. And they would be like blueprints or reminders on how to unlock ceartain effects. Also going with this idea, because I indented to have most of them be on my arms probably, I wanteed to have my armor be designed so that there are tons of compartments I can make peel away to reveal the scroll tatoos I have underneath. I was thinking it would be cool since I made the armor if you have to make a use magic device check of like five or ten in order to make it work like that so that only my character or someone who know how to work magic could get that feture to work.
i thought it would be a bool way to start working in magic items to my character without being game breaking because it really would be for flavor and wouldn't give my character any real advantage. so, just wondering your thoughts on it.
Oh, and I planed to make the studs in the armor circle the border of there the pieces would dissappear. I thought that would be cool. It would make for an interesting pattern on the studded leather.
peace
Of course it shows up for me after I post that I couldnt see it.
Oh, and my avatar is a werewolf.
:oD
Wait, is there someone here with a Werewolf as their avatar? Because that would be cool.
...Anyway, to confirm what's been said twice, I did in fact use my Sudden Extend feat to summon Bombo, the Celestial Monkey. As SteveHJoseph said, it's normally once per day, but we've houseruled the Sudden Metamagic feats to be three times per day, since otherwise they never get used. I also have Sudden Still, in case I ever get tied up, and I need to summon something to untie me. You know.
Anyway, I plan on trying to make a picture of my character on Heromachine. It should be cool.
By the way, I thought I'd take this moment and mention one little thing I'm gonna be using as a basis for description regarding my character. As people who were at the game may have noticed, my character wears more or less a suit, but with a reversible black-on-one-side, orange-on-the-other robe over it. My reason for the orange? Well, you see, I was thinking about it the other day, and whenever I think of the different schools of magic, I instinctively picture a color in my head- for most of the schools, anyway. For Abjuration, for example, I think white. Enchantment is yellow. Evocation is sometimes yellow, but mostly red. Transmutation is green. (Maybe because Jeff was the one who made a Transmuter, and we know how much Jeff loves green!) Necromancy is a sort of blood red, or black. Illusion's kinda transparent. Divination is white, or blue maybe. And, as you may have guessed, Conuration makes me think of the color orange.
Bam! Some insight into the chaos that is Gabe's mind.
So guys. First off I'm real happy at how everyone is posting.
Steve, about your armor, if you make a dc 20 craft check you can make your armor with the break-away pieces. Anytime you want to break them away (a free action) I'd say dc 5 craft check, or if you want it to be part of use magic device I guess we could say Dc 5 UMD but I kinda see it as a mundane thing.
Steve also remember how Lei D'cannith had her armor, the studs were actually magical sensitive and she would cast infusions into the studs, like the armor was made to be easily infusable. Just a thought that came into my head when you started talkign about the armor.
Jeff, if you could call or email me with your character background changes that'd be great. I had soem ideas for stuff that i wanted to do with you so it'd help me to keep me up to date on any changes. If you want to keep anythign secret from the group thats cool, but let me know. If you want everyoen to know heck you could just post stuff here.
Gabe, Hero machine picks would be cool. I also like the color for spell schools thing. I always picture illusion as smoky grey. I like that you picked orange for conjurations. Cuz you know who wears bright orange and summons alot of himself.
Two words. Uzumaki Naruto!!!!!!!!!!
Two more words. Believe it!
anyway... I hope you guys will wanna play tonight I'm excited. Plus if we finish the boat and the short vault part right after it, then you guys should have enough exp to level up.
so gimme a call when you guys get free tonight.
Thanks,
Jay
Hmm. The colors with the magic schools got me thinking, and this is how i see them in my head.
Conjuration: Red. Mostly because of Summon Materia from FF7
Illusion: Violet. I find the blend of two Primary colors can be very distorting to the eyes. Also Red and Blue are the colors of 3D glasses wich create opitcal illusions.
Necromancy: Black. Necromancy i relate with Evil, Anti-life, and the chill of darkness.
Enchantment: Green. Green can be related to alot of different things. Greed, Envy, Nature, Growth, Life, Friendship, Sickness. all of these effects cant be related to enchantment spells.
Divination: White. I see Divination as a guiding light to its caster.
Transmutation: Grey. When i think of Transmutation i think of changing the structure of an object/creature. The most common example of tramutation to me is the spell stone shape. Taking a raw material like stone and changing its structure. Stone having a very dull range of colors, i think of Grey when i think tranmutation.
Abjuration: Blue. I relate the color blue with good, protection, and Law. Since Abjuration is all about protection i see it as blue.
Evocation: Any. Evocation is the creation of energy which could be anything from Fire(red/orange/yellow/blue), Ice(blue/white), Acid(Green/Yellow), or Electricity(blue/white/violet/yellow). With the exception of Force and Sonic wich would be a transparent energy.
Now this is all as i see it. But i still think its cool when the flavortext of spells have a theme that relate to the Caster and not just the color i have in my head. Like Gabes Shakled City character with his "Peppermint" magic missles. =)
That reminds me... I'm never gonna be able to cast Magic Missile. :-(
...Darn prohibited schools...
Yeah but you will be able to cast summon celestial whale. Which is way better than magic missile. So Gabe what specific animals have you created for first level? Have you start working on summon monster 2 at all?
Only six other people have this avatar. Stephen = cool. Stephen also = going to kill six other people, brb.
so we continued the game last night.
Let me just say adventures are scary and hard at first level.
Who wants to start off talking about what happened in last night's session?
P.S. Stephen does indeed = cool. Especially for rolling with the punches on those use magic device checks he wouldn't even let me (the DM) fudge things. Its ok you'll be kicking ass soon enough.
P.P.S I'll be posting bonus xp in a lil bit.
So I am going to be giving you each 300 bonus xp for roleplaying, cool character concepts, (making a character who actually bull rushes and grapples Jeff, Steve for cool armor design and resourcefulness, Gabe for Good summon descriptions and sticking to his "preparted summons"), for fun and for messageboard posting. I was originally goign to give each individual different rewards and amounts, but then the more I thought about it the more I realized I was impressed alot by all of you. I actually want to give more but I am afraid to give too much right now. Bigger rewards will come at the end of the adventure.
So altogether the xp total from the adventure so far was 1200 per character. Make a seperate box for your bonus xp of 300.
Remember you can use Bonus XP to purchase feats or as experience for magic item creation. You can still use normal xp for item creation too.
So have fun leveling up. Remember it might be a good idea to get some healing stuff since you don't have a cleric. I think Lu (steve) can make potions now but you'd have to ask him.
Sigh. Yes. I can make potions.
Gabe, at some point I need to get the loot list so that I can use the merchant's feat to try to get the extra 5% on everything. Jay suggested that I take over that job possibly in the future since I'll have to do this every time.
As for last night. Well, I pretty much was the hero of the night. I was shooting off successful scrolls left and right. And then left again. I probably used so many scrolls successfully that our enemies probably should have been taking peanalties for being shaken while in the frightful presence of a super high level seeming artificer.
Also, Jeff is Terry Tate office linebacker now. And Gabe can only summon creatures with cronic SSS(Seythorn-Serras-Syndrome).
They were there too, but it was mostly Lu who got the most out of his actions last night. Either that or he drunk himself silly after being almost completely ineffective this adventure and being very pissed about it. But it was probably the former.
Really.
Don't worry about it. Ask gabe sometime about being a low-level monk and how effective he was. First level can suck. But you paid your dues, now you are second level, and can make better use magic device checks. Plus if you wanna retcon anything about your character build i said It would be fine until the end of this adventure.
Anyway Gabe is both equally great and terrible at naming things. Great because he is incredibly creative with his names and makes them interesting, and terrible because they all sound the same. He has no right to get on our cases for calling them the wrong names because they are the same name as far as I am concerned. Bobo and Pompo are cool, but at 2 in the morning their names become Dog and monkey as far as I'm concerned. (just to clarify I love your creativity and dedication and I don't mean to hurt your feelings but the names were incredibly similar.)
And Finally, YES, Jeff pities the fool who tries to stand near a ledge.
LOL I love this campaign.
Let all those in my path take a 5-foot step from any ledge. I cant wait to play again, ive made the final few tweeks to my character and im ready for some real bull rushing action action.
"Woooo! You kill the Jo you make some mo, else you in for a long day, cuz Triple Ts up in this B*TCH!" -Terry Tate
Now im not really sure i understand Overrun. Its a standard action thats part of a move action and you can do it in a charge, but you cant attack at all if you overrun, it just gets you through their space and makes them prone if you succeed. But what if you want to get through more than one things space (if you have the movement) same rules or do you get a penalty for each extra foe?
Now im not really sure i understand Overrun. Its a standard action thats part of a move action and you can do it in a charge, but you cant attack at all if you overrun, it just gets you through their space and makes them prone if you succeed. But what if you want to get through more than one things space (if you have the movement) same rules or do you get a penalty for each extra foe?
It doesn't neccesarily cover it in the rules, but I think that the standard action is used up knocking the person down,(which is why you can't attack). Therefore I would rule that you can't overrun though more than one person, since you don't have more than one standard action. Also remember that even with the improved overrun feat the opponent still gets an attack of opportunity, they just can no longer choose to avoid you and you get a +4 on your check.
I hope that answers some questions. Anyone else have any questions about their character? Jeff? gabe? Steve did you make any of the changes you were talking about?
Hey gang, I lurked on your campaign journal after reading about the summon monkey trick, and I just wanted to know how the "hide in the box" trick went. Care to enlighten?
El Skootro
Hey gang, I lurked on your campaign journal after reading about the summon monkey trick, and I just wanted to know how the "hide in the box" trick went. Care to enlighten?
El Skootro
Well, I suppose it went well (considering I survived to tell about it), although I think we could have planned it out a little better. Basically, Lu and Austin were disguised as workers, while I was hidden in the box. Upon carrying me on board, they were told to put my box down in the hold with the others. So they did, and I was lowered (along with all of the other animals-in-boxes) down into the hold, while the two of them stayed up top, continuing their work (while talking quietly about their plan). I, unfortunately, was left on my own.
So, I slowly and quietly opened the box, which (luckily) was facing away from the one guard on the bottom level (who was watching over the weird spider-thingie). As I climed out and glanced around to see the guard, I realized the only thing I really could do was try to sneak into their bedroom. So I snuck in there, saw that someone had been cheating at their card game, and tried to think of a plan. The best I could come up with was to dress myself up as a pirate, and walk out to the spider-guard, hoping that he/she was an idiot and wouldn't recognize me as not being one of them. (I also took the time to grab something that could be used as a club before leaving the room.) I walked out, and acted like I had been back in the lavatory, sick- but, due to a terrible bluff roll on my part, this person could tell I wasn't one of them. He/she then screamed, "We've got an intruder on board!"
And we all went into Initiative.
Really not knowing what else to do, I hurled the club at this person (rolling amazingly, and dealing max damage, but failing to take down the guard), and bolted back into the bedroom, hoping that he/she would follow me, where I might be able to get a bit of a drop on them. However, a round passed, and nobody barged in on me, so I looked back out, and saw him/her holding a torch over a large amount of kindling next to the crates of animals- and I knew if I killed the person, the torch would drop and light everything on fire. If I didn't, they'd probably drop the torch and light everything on fire. Not knowing what else to do, and knowing I couldn't do anything else on my own, I quickly climbed the ladder up onto the top deck, joining the others in their battle with the rest of the crew.
So, in other words, if you're gonna separate yourself from the party, have a plan! :-P
Im trying to deside if i should take improved overrun. it just dosnt seem worth it. The short description says it gives a +4 and no attack of oppertunity, the full description say +4 and they cant choose to step aside, but no mention of the attack of opertunity. I have a suggestion that may make overrun actually worth using. With the improved feat, make it an attack action as part of a move. That way once somebody has a second or third attack they can knock down a second or third foe, if they have the movement, and there would most likly be a penalty for each additional foe hit seeing how each extra attack has a lower base.
So im not sure if any of you are checking this messageboard very often anymore, but i just wanted to say that im looking forward to the next time we play, be it Savage Tide or Age of Worms. Sadly i cant play on the weekend. Thursday nights are usally good for me but i know that stevejoe has class untill after 10, so thats out i guess. If we can plan to play in the Mornings or early afternoons that might work. Maybe. Anyway i hop someone reads this soon or that we all get in contact soon enough to plan our next session.
For all of those wondering. Yes, Warforged are still awesome.
Hello,
I have a question for Jay. You wrote on this thread about assigning extra XP for the players.
Would you care to describe in detail how the XP is awarded and the ways in which it can be expended? You have written about item creation, feats, etc. If it's not too much trouble for you, I'd really appreciate if you could include the exact amounts players would have to pay in XP for those things.
Thanks, and may you keep having fun!
Hello,
I have a question for Jay. You wrote on this thread about assigning extra XP for the players.
Would you care to describe in detail how the XP is awarded and the ways in which it can be expended? You have written about item creation, feats, etc. If it's not too much trouble for you, I'd really appreciate if you could include the exact amounts players would have to pay in XP for those things.
Thanks, and may you keep having fun!
As you may have noticed by the lack of posting we haven't played this campaign in awhile, and I don't have my notebooks with me at work here but i'll try to explain my system from memory.
The whole reason this came up, was that since our party has only three characters, I realized that they would be getting way more xp than a bigger party and leveling up faster. I didn't want them to be doing the second adventure at like 4th level.
Basically I figured out the total xp they got for defeating the villains plus bonus xp for good roleplaying and creative tactics. Then decided how much xp I wanted them to get for actual leveling up purposes, and subtracted that from the total. The leftover I gave them as bonus xp that could only be used for item creation and feat pruchasing. The equation is sorta like this. say they got 1400 xp each. 1400-1050(how much i gave them for leveling)=350 (the bonus xp)
I think i decided that feats would cost 100xp +50xp per prerequisite x the character level. So dodge(one prereq of dex 13) would cost 300 xp at second level, (100+50)x2. Characters still have to meet all prerequisites for a feat. The prerequisite cost is to make feats that require more prereqs cost more.
Characters can also use bonus xp for item creation. In our games, we let characters work togetehr to make magic items, meaning that fighter can pay the xp cost of an item that the artificer or wizard is making for him. This is so that one character doesn't fall super far behind all the others just because he has item creation feats. Normally the players work out the money aspect, so that characters who pay the xp cost pay less than market price for their items, but the character with the item creation feats can still make some profit.
I hope this answers some questions, please feel free to aks more questions if you want me to clarify or elaborate on anything.
Thanks,
Jay
Thank you for taking the time to describe your system, Jay. I might try it (or an implementation of it) in some future campaign.
I wouldn’t worry much about your characters advancing faster. I have not played or read the Savage Tide AP, but am pretty sure three is less than the recommended number of players.
The party has to have a way to compensate for the fact that they may lack a sufficient number of members. The risks of a TPK increase, since there are less people to face the threats when one of the characters goes down.
The party also loses a lot of versatility when one of the four normal roles (fighter, arcane caster, healer, rogue) is not available. No class is absolutely indispensable, but adventures become harder when you don’t have access to the skills or spells necessary to overcome certain obstacles. The Player’s Handbook II describes all of this in great detail, so I won’t repeat that here.
On the other hand, the self-correcting nature of the XP system ensures that higher-level characters receive increasingly less XP when facing lower EL encounters. So in the end, it all evens out.
So it’s not the end of the world if the average party level is a little higher than what the adventure is designed for. When compared to a group with a higher number of characters, the party will always have less attacks and spells available during combat, and monster will have to divide their attacks and abilities against fewer targets.
And finally, if you feel the characters will not be significantly challenged in a portion of the adventure, you can always do what good DMs do: you can adjust the challenge ratings accordingly.
Thanks for your advice.
I normally like to keep my players at the level the adventure is designed for even though we normally have less players. I normally find other ways to compensate for this like giving them lil special abilities or every once in a ahile awarding them feats, skill points or other things. This new xp system is just one way to award them while keeping them at the right level. Let me know if you use the system and how it works for you. We're treating it as a test system for now, and mightmake changes to it along the way.