Vandis is up in bare-bones form. :)
Powers and feats look pretty good. You may want to consider revising your AC now that the update is out though. Battleragers gain temp HP when they hit now, not when they get hit. It's one of the more major updates I've seen in 4E.
Ah yes, of course. I remember reading that now. I'll swap out hide for chain or scale.
Dagobert is ready. Sort of. I doubt he's an optimal build really, but we'll see.
Invisible Castle seems to be down for me. Using hamete virtual dice server at dicelog.com I got a 8 for the Beggar King rumors, but I don't want to plop that into the thread ATM 'cause it can't be substantiated.
Or should I care that much at this point?
Depends on how TGZ wants to run it. I've just home-rolled my rumour check and posted it.
Heading off to darkest Derbyshire shortly, but will try and get online later if I can talk my hostess into releasing her computer to my tender care.
I might change Vandis to a Tempest Fighter - it may fit better with the sort of fighting style I'm thinking of for him.
Fin: Home-rolling is fine when that happens. I'm willing to put some faith in everyone's rolls when IC goes down for awhile. Afterall, when you cheat at D&D, who are you really cheating? :)
Fabes: Tempest fighter is fine as long as you use the updated Dual Strike. I'm willing to let anyone switch stuff around at 1st level as long the class and race stay the same. Oh, and let me know when you do it of course! :)
Greetings All,
Since I believe all of you used the Character Builder, could you please e-mail a copy of your character builder files or a PDF of your sheets? It'll save some time if I have any specific power rulings to make.
I won't have home internet for another week or so, apologies.
Back. Catching up. Will send you Dagobert.
Vandis' summary is updated and changed to Tempest Technique.
Vandis' summary is updated and changed to Tempest Technique.
Alright, got it updated. May want to consider grabbing chainmail and a defensive weapon, though, since you're the party's only defender but we'll see how it goes.
Just as a reminder, d'Anconia is dropping out of the game. He's had to drop from one or two other games as well and has just become busier than he thought he would.
As such, I've put up a post on the Gamer Connection forum to try and grab another player before we get too deep into the Beggar-King's lair. I will likely just be retconning the new player into Samael's place as it would be far-fetched to do the swap roleplaying-wise this early in the adventure. I think it would ruin the flow of events coming up.
That's a pity, but it happens. This is a lot of fun and I'm enjoying Dagobert immensely. Whether he's enjoying himself is another matter. He's feeling a bit bruised and put upon for some reason :)
Working on getting a new character in right now. He'll be playing a deva shaman and will hopefully be showing up before the end of the fight.
I'll get him to introduce himself in the next day or so.
Working on getting a new character in right now. He'll be playing a deva shaman and will hopefully be showing up before the end of the fight.
I'll get him to introduce himself in the next day or so.
Good to know I'll be showing up soon.
Nice to see you again Davi. Galad too.
More of these purple weirdoes!
Hey everyone, it's been a month and a half since we had any discussion here so let's have some!
How is everyone enjoying the game so far? Seems to me like it's progressing at a good pace but I wouldn't mind some feedback. What do you like, what don't you like? What would you like to see more of?
Remember, this is my first time DM'ing a PBP so any thoughts are welcome.
Characters and interactions are great and the maps are excellent too. I don't know what Dagobert is going to do or say next and that's always a good sign for me.
My only real suggestion would be for all of us to post a set of contingency actions for when life takes over and posting gets slow - that way TGZ can move things on without anyone feeling guilt-stricken.
I'm having a ball. Agreed with Rosey that we need some stronger way to move the game forward during posting lulls; something I've also struggled with.
It's good fun. I like the feel of it - very swords and sorcery. Vandis fits right in.
I'd have to agree on the sword and sorcery feel. It's turning out to be a very gritty and dirty kind of campaign isn't it? Doesn't get much more disgusting than writhing, reeking otyugh grubs but I'll see what I can do. :D
The contingency actions sound like a good idea. Perhaps they could be placed in a spoiler under your Paizo profiles?
Also glad to hear people are enjoying the maps. They were originally going to be very very simple but I started to get carried away as I learned more and more things about the GIMP software. The next one should be even better!
Dagobert is pretty simple. He'll chat endlessly about rodents out of combat and smack stuff into oblivion when he's in combat. I've posted his preferred contingency actions, but of course do whatever seems best at the time.
I also use GIMP - would you be able to give me some pointers? Your maps are great.
I also use GIMP - would you be able to give me some pointers? Your maps are great.
Why certainly. First, I recommend checking out The Cartographers' Guild website. Their forum has an amazing collection of tutorials. While most of them are for Photoshop, several techniques can be transferred over with a little ingenuity and they also have some tutorials made just for GIMP.
I also search the Dundjinni Forums for map objects all the time. They have everything from beds to braziers. The user created ones are just as good as most of the professional ones and they're free to use.
With those tutorials you should just be able to tweak it to your desires. The patterns that come with GIMP are a great place to start adding color, and a well-placed drop shadow can add an amazing amount of depth. Also, put everything on a separate layer when you can. It makes removing or shuffling objects a lot easier.
For the play-by-post maps I create one huge map and then put the coordination rows and columns on different layers so I can move them around for each individual combat. This way I can keep an overall progress map for everyone and "zoom" into individual combats while keeping the same coordinates.
The "Fog of War" that I use is just a separate layer of black that I also added a grid pattern onto. Each time a new area is revealed I just turn the layer's opacity down do I can see what part of the fog needs to be erased.
If you want more details about how I personally start a map or have a question about a particular map, feel free to drop me an e-mail sometime.
Ah, yes, I joined the Guild a while ago. I must check out the tutorials.
One thing that I have trouble with is creating the grid co-ordinates. The grid is the easy bit!
Would you be able to point me a tutorial on creating a wilderness encounter map? I've been looking myself and found 1 that's very involved. I suppose I will have to knuckle down!
Grid coordinates drive me nuts and explains exactly why all my maps are the same size. I did it once on a blank map and saved it as my standard starting point.
If you can enlighten me on getting that sorted, I might even venture into different shapes.
What Rev said.
I made the yellow coordinates you see in my maps once and just drag them into each new map that I create. Saves me all the time of making all those little text boxes over and over again. I've never found a fast way of making them. I just made one really long set of each and use them over and over.
I'm not sure how I would handle a wilderness encounter map. You could Google search for some grassy GIMP textures and start from there, but I'm not sure how to do transitions and gradients just yet. It took me awhile just to figure out how to do caves but I finally found a method I liked.
The Dundjinni Forums might also have some trees or bushes you could use. Another option would be to find a PDF of the official Wizards of the Coast wilderness tiles and then cut and size them as needed. I made the map for the fight with Old Thom by using Wizards of the Coast tiles and a few added objects. The initial work of making the tiles takes a bit of time but then you have them saved forever and can just drag them in whenever you need them.
Making wilderness tiles from scratch is probably beyond my abilities right now but with the WoTC tiles you could throw something respectable together in a couple hours.
I'll let you know if I find something though.
EDIT:
I found this promising looking tutorial after a quick search. It even has a method for getting dirt layers to show transitions between textures. Could look really good as the basis for a wilderness battle. Beware, though, it is a photoshop tutorial so using it in GIMP may take some ingenuity.
Check it out.
I got bored studying at work so I put this little test map together to show you what a basic layout could look like for a wilderness map. I just used the tutorial above. Only thing I might change would be the brightness. To really make it pop I'd probably redo my patterns in lighter colors. I'd also try and find some bush and tree objects to spice things up. Maybe throw in a tent and a campfire. I also should have made the grid an off-white color so it was a bit more pleasing to the eye but this is good enough for government work.
It took me about 20 minutes to figure out the textures and make some patterns and now I can reuse them over and over again. It's not perfect, but it worked well enough for a rough draft. I could easily make a simple roadside encounter with this.
I started working on a map last night, very basically, from a sketch I scanned in. It's not art and is quite cartoony but it does the job. I'll link to it later.
I started working on a map last night, very basically, from a sketch I scanned in. It's not art and is quite cartoony but it does the job. I'll link to it later.
Looking forward to seeing it. I don't have much penmanship or drawing skill so I've never tried using a scan before.
I did it quite quickly but it does the job.
I did it quite quickly but it does the job.
Looks alright for a quick job on the go. Learn to color a bit better and use some textures and it'd be a great way to get a map up quickly. Do you have a specific method for determining the scale or do you just play with the grid settings until it looks about right?
I just played with the grid settings, based on the original map of the adventure I'm running, which had no grid. I guesstimated by eye and it came out pretty well.
Yes, the filling is atrocious but I'm already working on that, after trying out the Old School Dungeon in GIMP tutorial (blue maps!).
I just played with the grid settings, based on the original map of the adventure I'm running, which had no grid. I guesstimated by eye and it came out pretty well.
Yes, the filling is atrocious but I'm already working on that, after trying out the Old School Dungeon in GIMP tutorial (blue maps!).
That's exactly where I started! That's why the stairs in my map are blue. I never found a texture for them that I liked. :)
If you scraped all my layers down to the original everything would still be blue.
Ha! Awesome :D
Have updated profile with new armour and weapons. Also had forgotten my bonus damage from Tempest Technique, so I will now pack more of a punch!
All we have to do now is survive to level 2 without falling over our own feet.
All we have to do now is survive to level 2 without falling over our own feet.
Indeed . . .
That fight just goes to show how tactics can influence an outcome. By keeping you all on the steps and in the bottleneck it was easier for them to wear you down, especially with Irocar firing arrows for half the fight. It was surprisingly effective.
Fabes,
One of the D&D blogs I frequent has started a series of map making tutorials using GIMP that look quite amazing.
Check it out HERE.
That is awesome, thanks!
It should be interesting to see how things'll be going with the new makeup. Hopefully having two strikers will be more damage controlling.
It should be interesting to see how things'll be going with the new makeup. Hopefully having two strikers will be more damage controlling.
Yes, but panther shamans aren't known for their healing skills, if you catch my drift. I'll be improving my healing as much as I can, but our healing's going to go down by a good bit.
As long as Vandis can keep from falling down so often . . .
Dagobert might venture into the realms of healing. His base stats favour it.
As long as Vandis can keep from falling down so often . . .
I think Dannad has more of a problem with that than Vandis. ;)
As for party makeup, you should be okay for a little while at least. You have a surplus of healing potions right now so you probably have enough resources to get yourselves to level 2 when you can all start branching out. I think it makes perfect sense for Dagobert to pick up some healing.
I'm also going to borrow a page from Pat and allow everyone to rebuild their characters at level 2 if they'd like. Primal Power has come out since we started and that may help our shaman friend.
Invokers also have some useful utility powers along those lines -- Rev, mine was particularly fond of Wall of Light at level 2, even though it's a daily.