A situationally useful ability is great provided you live long enough to use it. Have we had any occasions in which Priyya has run out of channels and it would have potentially cost the party their lives?
Priyya has been tapped out of channels two or three times that I recall when it would have been 'nice' to have a few extra blasts. It's led to some hairy moments from my perspective. Would we have died? Maybe. It was good we had that CLW wand and potions to fall back on a couple of times when Priyya was tapped out.
After much consideration under the auspices of several Pear Ciders, Priyya will go with Extra Channel.
Huzzah!
Pear cider?! My God, it's been years since I've had one of those! I wish I could find some here... :-O
Check your local beer place. Company called Spire makes'em and they are goooooooood.
How Priyya felt after that first Anti-Paladin hit... Priyya = Admiral Ackbar & first cruiser
That little guy with Landon pretty much mirrored Mals reaction.
They should have sub-titled the little guy's reply but it would have gotten the movie an R rating. I'm sure it was something like, "Fvck THIS! We are outta here!!!!"
Priyya swims back up to the surface, casts her spell, and gives everyone else the heads-up.
"Deprived him of his sword, have you? That should make things easier..."
, Dark Knight, Alis, Priyya;
This isn't waiting on me, is it? Do the parenthesis mean they've technically gone but the actions haven't been narrated? I just dont want this whole thing to be waiting on me.
The parenthesis mean readied actions have already been declared. When I have your name in bold, it means you're up regardless of where in the list of bold names you are. In this case, I put all the folks with readied actions in alphabetical order.
Cool. Erik (Eric?) pointed that out to me earlier as well... color me embarrassed.
No worries, I missed copying the part that said (readied) when I did the last update it seems.
BTW, if you guys have another idea on how to keep the formatting for the initiative clearer then I'm open for suggestions. :)
Cool. Erik (Eric?) pointed that out to me earlier as well... color me embarrassed.
Check the profile spelling, he he.
Check the profile spelling, he he.
Yes, that would have been the smart thing to do, huh?
Check the profile spelling, he he.Yes, that would have been the smart thing to do, huh?
:P
Ok loot time again…
My suggestion for dividing the loot:
All Evil Stuff: Give to Priyya for donation to Church of Alita and subsequent destruction.
Full Plate: Sell it.
Belt: Priyya
Brooch: Lureene
Cloak: Mal
Shield: Sell it
That was about my take on the loot as well. The only suggestion I'd have is that since Mal's saves are already better than Alis', it might make more sense for them to swap cloaks so that she's not as far behind.
Without items
With items
versus
I don't think Alita has a church in this burg - so any good aligned church will do. :) I think the only things that have to be wrecked - at least from Priyya's POV are the sword and those life-stealing medallions.
I have no objections to how you want to divvy the goods particularly since it gives ol' Sarah a wicked right hook. :p
Lureene will purchase 5 potions of Cure Light wounds from the priest. Mike, let me know if he has them available. At 60% of the cost of each potion, which is 50 gp, the sale price is 30 gp each.
She will spend a total of 650 gp here, 500 for the dagger, and 150 for the potions.
Updated Equipment and Bank funds.
i'm fine taking the lesser of the two Cloaks. I'll update my sheet.
Rawr-bump!
Sweet, now I can start replying at the top of a new page in the main thread!
Sorry for the lack of updates. Work and personal life have been insane this week. Getting 3 hours of sleep each night hasn't helped. Funny thing is, last night I laid down on the couch at 10:30pm to let all the stress subside with a nap. I fully intended to wake up after about 2-3 hours, make a couple of posts and then go to bed.
Instead, I woke up when my alarm when off at 8:30 in the morning. Feels kinda nice to be well-rested for a change. :D
BTW, House Rule question for you guys...
Critical Hits: I like the crit rule that Justin has in which threats deal max damage regardless of whether or not you make the confirmation roll for the additional critical hit damage.
Would you guys like to use the same rule in this game?
I guess so. Doesn't benefit Mal much, but you guys will all get good boosts from it.
I am hesitant, if only because L is not a combatant. Still, we can try it out for our next inevitable conflict...
Having play-tested it a bit now... I still like it. :p There is nothing so depressing as rolling a possible crit and then rolling a 1 or 2 on the base damage. :)
And it does make the badguy with the greatsword seriously unfunny.
And it does make the badguy with the greatsword seriously unfunny.
Yah, coming from the guy who gets Crit constantly, this was my first thought (and reservation), but seeing how much fun I'm having with that same rule with Jayse, I say go for it.
OK, since the two folks who like to fight are in favor, I'd say that's a majority.
Mike, did you tell us how many XPs we netted or did I miss a post on that subject?
Evidently I missed the post on that subject...
Survivors: / 4 shares = 325
Combat: / 6 shares = 1600
XP: +2225 each
Just out of curiosity... the Blackguard was 9th, yes?
Yep, he was 9th, the cultists were 4th. Since gestalts and >15 point buys break the CR/APL system, the way I've been balancing encounters is this:
I could each party member as being 1 level higher. Each non-gestalt enemy I count as being 1 CR lower. So far it seems to be working out fairly well... at least in my opinion.
Yeah in my opinion this works for me as well...unless you want to bring back LA for races and all that stuff. *shudders*
Can't complain, after all we only lost 5 NPC's this time, he he.
Just to help Mike out with the calculations... :)
Defeating/Escaping Scylla: 76,800 XP
Avoiding Charybdis: 25,600 XP
Total: 102,400 XP
102400/20 (approximate shares between PCs and NPCs) = 5120 XP + 18K (our current XP) = 23,120 XP
5th level is at 23K... sooooooo everybody LEVEL UP!
Ummm, Justin, I hate to tell you this but you are WRONG, he he.
One of the abilities of the Scylla is to summon the Charybdis, which is included in the CR of the Scylla.
So, take out the XP for the Charybdis, and using your calculation, total xp is 3840 per person. Not quite enough to level, sorry man, but them's the breaks. At least the sailors all leveled, he he.
Also that's the XP for defeating Scylla, not surviving her. You did a whopping 16 HP of damage to her, all of which she healed within 2 rounds. :P
We have no idea if Scylla summoned this Charybdis... therefore, they could be 'buddies'. And since XPs are a matter of subjective viewpoint (a threat is a threat if you think it is a threat) then my original figure stands. :p
As for defeating her, that's a matter of definition. According to the SRD, "...characters advance in level by defeating monsters, overcoming challenges, and completing adventures". Since we overcame the challenge of Scylla... cha-CHING! :)
So I'm gonna start rollin' some HPs now... Feel free to tell me exactly how much over 23K we are. ;)
Counterpoint: post indicates the Charybdis was in fact summoned.
As for defeating Scylla, I would say she has not been defeated, merely escaped from. So that would be a partial XP reward, he he.
If you want to use the challenge angle, that is OK, but don't be surprised if this is used against you in another game, he he. We overcame the challenge of the Dweller, so how much XP do we get...
BTW, I'll give you max HP, but check with Laith first, he he.
Bah! That's purely conjecture from Aerys, not proof. :p
As a total aside and being a bit more serious, at least in regards to how I figure XP in my game... here is a definition of 'defeat':
1. to overcome in a contest, election, battle, etc.; prevail over; vanquish: They defeated the enemy. She defeated her brother at tennis.
2. to frustrate; thwart.
3. to eliminate or deprive of something expected: The early returns defeated his hopes of election.
Please note, I am using Scylla here as an example. I'm not saying how I think Mike should adjudicate the value of the encounter, that is entirely his deal.
Soooooo, to the question at hand.... Since Scylla's goal was to capture and eat us, and the best possible result we had any chance of achieving was to escape... how does that NOT count as 'defeating' Scylla by definitions #2 and #3 above? It would also, I think, count as a reasonable interpretation of 'overcome in a contest'.Now, flip the argument on its head. If your definition of XP-earning 'defeat' is limited to killing/banishing an enemy... then you would never get points for outsmarting or outwitting an enemy. There also would be very little point in even attempting to fight an extremely challenging monster or ones with defenses you can't hope to overcome... short of RP/alignment requirements because the odds of earning XP are so low as to make the encounter fruitless. I think when you have no hope of killing an enemy then escaping/foiling and/or living to fight another day are VERY reasonable 'victory conditions'.
As for my campaign... if you face the Dweller when you have a massive disparity of levels and somehow manage to outwit, outsmart, or skate away with your skin intact - you can absolutely expect I'll count that as some sort of victory worth a chunk of points.
Eric: You make me proud for picking up on that hint. ^_^
Justin: Nice try, buddy. Not handing out +19,200 per character for essentially holding on for their lives though. ;)
OK, now for the breakdown...
Charybdis was indeed summoned by Scylla. These cliffs open and close so a creature without the ability to fly (like Scylla) would get crushed without some way of exiting the channel. Also, if Charybdis were not summoned, then you can bet your ass there would be a second one appearing, otherwise Scylla's CR would have to be lowered for not fighting at full strength.
Also, surviving and defeating an enemy are two different things. After all, any ships sailing thru here after you still have to contend with Scylla so clearly full XP would be absurd. In terms of level of success, I'd say there are multiple levels:
1)- Complete Defeat
2)- Driving enemy off
3)- Retreating/surviving
If a complete defeat is full XP, I'd gauge each successive level below that as half of what the next greater success is. That would make surviving/escaping/retreating from Scylla with no fatalities:
76,800 / 4 = 19,200 XP
Since we didn't, I'll multiply that by the percentage of the effective capability we escaped with...
Survivors
Captain
First Mate
Cook
13 sailors
Casualties
Second Mate
7 Sailors
The White Pearl escaped with roughly 60% of her crew. (The crew would get any bonuses for ensuring all their passengers survived.) In terms of weighting the importance of the crew members, I'd say the cook is worth 2, the First and Second mates 3, and the captain 5. So you could say the ship escaped with about 70% of their capability intact.
19,200 * 0.7 = 13,440
That would then be divided amongst the survivors.
So the last thing is determining the number of shares. I'd think it's fair to say that Ieana and Captain Kovack both merited full shares. I'll do other named NPCs at 1/2, and then sailors at 1/4 share...
Sailors: 13/4 = 3.25
NPCs: 5/2 = 2.5:
PCs: 6:
Total: 3.25 + 2.5 + 6 = 11.75 shares
13,440 / 11.75 = 1,143 per share
FWIW, that's roughly about the same XP per party member as from totally defeating a CR 8 enemy like the blackguard.
It's a real shame that we'll have to kill Aerys now... since clearly she is an agent of Scylla to know her ways so intimately without a Knowledge check. :D
Mal, would you do the honors? I healed her so having to undo my own work would just suck.
Figures you land-lubbers wouldn't know a damn thing about Scylla and Charybdis!
*hits the kill-switch on Priyya's paladinhood and clerical abilities...
I'm going Evil High-Priest/Anti-Paladin... you can kiss the crew goodbye. :)
I'm going Evil High-Priest/Anti-Paladin... you can kiss the crew goodbye. :)
"Ach, I takes full responsibility fer dis...I be owin' ye all an apology fer breakin' 'er heart."
"Damn you Traker! You and your lust for hot devil chicks... you've created a monster!!!"
Alrighty, so obviously there's going to be lots and lots of overland movement involved. Much of this island would be considered difficult terrain. From what you can already see, it obviously has beaches, cliffs, and jungles to contend with along with who knows what else. It's quite possible that a great deal of it will be trackless.
My default assumption is that you guys will generally be moving at 1/2 speed so as to allow the rangers (Mal and Sasha) time to gather food, not draw undue attention to yourselves, etc. That would normally work out to 1.5 miles an hour. However, to keep the overland movement multiples playing nicely with my desire to keep the size of individual maps down, I'll assume that in the span of 15 minutes, you can move up to 4/10th of a mile provided it's not difficult terrain. That works out to 1.6 mph instead of 1.5 — big difference, right?
What I'd like to try is to use something akin to the 'overland round' house rules that I've seen floating around in the forums here. However, those are designed more for counting each day as a round whereas we need something a bit more granular.
My first thought is that we make an 'overland round' equal to 1/2 an hour. This would be divided into two 15-minute actions. A move action would entail walking at half-speed while foraging and not calling undo attention to yourselves (i.e. up to 4 squares). A standard action would entail engaging in a combat encounter, and patching up afterwards. Free actions might be things like characters casting a couple spells, whereas a swift action could be doing a sweep of the immediate vicinity (not the entire square) with detect magic. A full round action might be used to take 10 while everyone fully explores a single square.
Thoughts, gentlemen?
I realize that we're not apt to figure out all the particulars of such a system in the course of a single day so I'm expecting this will be something of an iterative process. Have a look over those house rules (linked to above) ad see if you can figure out a good way of subdividing things into actions. Heck, we might even decide that we prefer a 15-minute overland round where the move action is moving 4 squares and the standard action is spent on either stealth or survival (with a certain quota of successful survival checks needed before a check can be made).
Ugh...this will take a while...but I am gonna look at my old 1E PHB/DMG for some movement rules...My first impression is doing the one hour turns would be a good place to start. That would give 8 turns in a normal day. Ahh old school...I miss those days.
Like I said earlier I prefer for there to be more granularity than 1-hour increments. The island is covered in jungle so there are very limited lines of sight. It doesn't make sense to post huge maps when you might only be able to move relatively short distances.
I'm all for keeping map sizes reasonable and simplifying the process. To that end, your 1/2 hour rounds and 15 minute actions seems like a decent place to start. Why don't we play-test it and, if it proves crappy, adjust as needed.
As a player, I'm not concerned if switching scales and overland adventuring costs me some 'realistic' movement. If the island takes a week to walk across or 9 days, it's all the same to me.
I'm fine with trying something née out, too. I haven't had a chance to look at the rules, and I likely won't over the next few days. Work went from crazy-busy to "Oh God! Oh God! We're all gonna die if we don't complete two weeks worth of work in two days". Let's just say I won't be on the boards much for the rest if this week (at least).
Sorry.