Summer holidays are drawing closer and I'm stupid enough to think it would be fun to start up another game once they arrive.
Conveniently, Tomb of Horrors is due out at the end of July.
At the moment, I'm thinking of about 5-6 players, starting at level 12. Game would not begin until end July, so there's time and plenty to get organised. It would, for example, be useful if I read the adventure first - a thing I cannot do until it's published and Amazon work their magic and send it to me.
For those that are unaware of my nagging tendencies, this will be as fast-paced as I can manage in pbp terms. I will ruthlessly DMPC absent characters and follow up with a barrage of worried messages asking if you're OK. Note that my record for maintaining and finishing games is good :)
Until I read the thing, I've no idea if this would be a one-shot or the start of something larger. The offical description is "mega-adventure for levels 10-22", but I'm inclined to start with just covering a couple of levels and taking it from there.
I have one taker already, but is anyone else out there interested?
I'd love to play! I've never actually played any Tomb of Horrors!
I'm a bit rusty on my 4e, but I've played before, at low levels, so I'm sure I'll pick it up.
Who's planning on playing what class? And on what world will this be set?
P.S. I like ruthless forward pushing and am a regular poster on the boards and in my PBPs.
Sounds great! Thanks for the link in that other post Rosey :D
I'm the "one taker." I have character ideas a-plenty, though I've tentatively got a defender statted up.
Bluenose, I'm fairly certain I've seen that Wizards has taken into account that people will be familiar with the original and written accordingly.
Would love too :) a controller or striker is what I would be looking at if possible. Well anything at all really just those two as first and second choices.
Never played 4E, but have the basic three books. This might be a great way to try it on. I'd be interested in a shot.
This looks promising :)
Thanks for the interest, everyone. As this is early days, I'm not drawing up player lists just yet. If interest really spirals and we end up with many potential players, I'll either ask you to submit some kind of character outline or bite the bullet and run two groups. Probably the latter as I'm not really a fan of audition recruitment.
By the way, I'm quite happy to help out new 4e or pbp players. We've all been there and done that at some point. Despite my fanactic devotion to moving games on, I'm quite a flexible GM in other respects.
I've never played Tomb of Horrors either. At least, I don't think I have. My very first ever DM was a brutal killer, so we might have done. It was hard to tell what we were playing and quite hard to care as well, when one of the conditions was to turn up at sessions with three pre-rolled pcs "just in case".
Just so you know, I'm not planning on making that a pre-condition for this game.
Errk, Tomb of Horrors...dare i torture myself again with this...after playing in 1e and 2e and 3e incarnations, ehhh sure why not...
I am thinking of a wizard...but maybe I will do something else, he he
I hated that I missed Spellguard, I was paying more attention to the game than the discussion. :) *this is detritus*
Interested as well, looking crowded
The interested are:
Pat516 - it's his fault I'm doing this. Possible defender
Bluenose - played ToH before (not a problem for me, only for him)
vagrant-poet
Tristan Mcleod
Ragna (detritus) - preferably as a controller or striker
Rad - possibly bringing Kidlat the susceptible swordmage back to life
Scranford
Eric Swanson
bmars3
9 so far. List stays open for another few days. Some may have to pull out, others may want in.
I'm perfectly amenable to running two groups if it looks like I need to.
As far as balance and classes go, since I haven't read it I can't offer any kind of guidance. One thing I would suggest based on past experience is that you make sure you have all the skills covered. I had one group discover that they had nobody trained in thievery at a moment when quite a bit depended on it.
Setting will almost certainly be the default Points of Light.
You should all note that I've never yet run an adventure that I didn't tweak extensively. My default position is to heavily telescope published stuff as pbp has its own momentum and needs. If that offends any purists, so be it. You are warned.
A by-product of my telescoping habits is that encounters are often a bit tougher than the printed level. I offset that by awarding double XP, as I like players to level fairly regularly.
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As far as balance and classes go, since I haven't read it I can't offer any kind of guidance. One thing I would suggest based on past experience is that you make sure you have all the skills covered. I had one group discover that they had nobody trained in thievery at a moment when quite a bit depended on it.
BAH!!! It's the Tomb of Horrors. Your fate is sealed when you step inside. And not just because two out of three "entrances" are deathtraps. The best you can hope for is to do well enough to provide Acerak with a few more souls.
Setting will almost certainly be the default Points of Light.
Blasphemy. The Tomb of Horrors is in Greyhawk.
A by-product of my telescoping habits is that encounters are often a bit tougher than the printed level. I offset that by awarding double XP, as I like players to level fairly regularly.
XP? Ha! Adventurers who venture into the Tomb of Horrors shouldn't expect XP or treasure, they should simply hope that their deaths aren't as horrible as they might be.
Then again, this is 4e. Which means the Tomb might be mechanically the same as every other dungeon. :P
I take it you're not volunteering to join this happy gang then :D
Once the gates of doom close around them setting will matter but little. I merely offer the default position for those who want a deity to pray to when spikey death is about to ensue.
Yay! I would like to play a melee striker please! :D
I was looking at rogue, assassin, or monk for stiker, and wizard or psion for controller. Leaning more towards striker.
I have a 4E wizard already created for another PbP, now defunct, so I will just update him to level 12. Unless everyone else wants to be a controller, he he.
Current state of play and expressed preferences.
Obviously at this very early stage, feel free to change roles as you want to. Once things settle and I get the format sorted, I'll need to ask for definitive preferences, but that time is not quite yet.
Pat516 - Possible defender
Bluenose - leftover tiefling warlord
vagrant-poet
Tristan Mcleod - preferably a melee striker
Ragna (detritus) - preferably a melee striker (rogue/monk/assassin) or a wizard/psion controller
Rad - possibly bringing Kidlat the susceptible swordmage back to life. Defender
Scranford
Eric Swanson - leftover wizard
bmars3
Peasant Railgun
Seems like a nice break even so far with 2 maybe defenders, 1 controller, 1 leader
There don't seem to be too many leader offers, I'd happily play a bard, warlord, fighter or if allowed Swordmage from the Forgotten Realm's player's guide.
Put me down as a reserve player.
Cotesia - you're welcome on all counts.
vagrant-poet - swordmage is fine.
Everyone - general guidelines.
You can play any race or class that appears in Character Builder.
Feel free to pick a background. I'd ask you to avoid the traits which nail you to specific places in Eberron or Faerun, but otherwise, no restrictions. You can take as many backgrounds as you like for flavour, but you can only have one trait bonus.
You will start at level 12, so you have a paragon path and associated powers.
Starting gold is 13,000 which you can spend as you wish.
Starting equipment is one magic item of level 13, one of level 12 and one of level 11. Let me know if you want some other combination (10, 11, 14, for example) and I'll take a look on an individual basis.
I need you to put full stats with FIGURES in your player profiles please. If I ever need to run your pc, it will help enormously. You and you alone are responsible for keeping your hp/surges/AP useage and used powers up to date.
Please keep an eye on each other's powers and effects. At this level, you'll all have actions that affect each other a lot. Speaking from experience, it's incredibly easy to miss things.
It looks to me as though we have 11 interested players at present, so I'll go with two groups of you.
I'd suggest you split yourselves by class, but it's up to you if you want to build a group composed entirely of strikers/leaders/defenders.
A tentative suggestion based on current preferences would be the following, but of course, this is subject to any changes you want to make at this point:
Group 1
Pat516 - defender
vagrant-poet - leader (bard/warlord) or another defender
Peasant Railgun
Ragna (detritus) - melee striker (rogue/monk/assassin) or controller
Scranford
Group 2
Cotesia - defender
Bluenose - leader (tiefling warlord)
Rad - defender (human swordmage if he goes with Kidlat)
Eric Swanson - controller (wizard)
bmars3
Tristan Mcleod - melee striker
Xabulba, if you want in, you're welcome. That would be two groups of six, which works fine.
Any other interested parties will go onto an alternates list. We're still over 3 weeks away from kickoff and a lot can happen in that time.
Seeing as we have an unusual abundance of defenders on offer, I've just done up an alternate melee striker.
We also have several of those, but based on experience, too many defenders and too few strikers make for a slow fight, especially in pbp.
Hmm.
Three (nearly four) weeks is a long time to make everyone twiddle their thumbs.
How about I open up a proper discussion thread, you all get statted up and I run a sweetly lethal trial combat for you? Gives you all a chance to test-run the pcs, gives me a chance to run two groups. Everyone wins.
More to the point, it lets you sort out anything that doesn't work before we really get going.
Aye!
OK count me in. I'll make up a 12th level version of Saint Tavar.
Excellent Xabulba. Tavar was wonderful. I remember him fondly.
Awesome Rev! I'll work on creating a 12th lv character after work if that's alright.
Well after much difficulty I was able to sign up for D&D Insider this morning (Unable to last night for some reason). Since I'm only a little familiar with 4E I'll probably take the weekend, and go through 4E for dummies, and the Character builder to create my character. Any help / suggestions are appreciated from the people that know 4E on here.