It probably had ranks, but they were likely neutralized by the size penalty (-4 for huge, -6 for Gargantuan...) and the maneuverability penalty (-8 for clumsy or -4 for poor) -- so an ancient Red is at -14 before adding any ranks to the skil at all (well, assuming he puts in any skill points, it's -11 since having a natural flight ability makes Fly a class skill)
I didn't know it was an optional rule, I was counting on it! Good to hear we are on the same page!
Thank goodness. Unless of course anyone has a Con of less than 10.
I tend to think that if you have a Con less than 10, you may not be cut out for the adventurer's life. A bit of natural selection in action.
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I wanted to take a moment to call your attention to the fact that we have crossed a threshold. Between the 2 game play threads of this story, we have made over 2500 posts. Amazing. I did not dare dream we would be still going when we started, but that we are is a tribute to each of you. Thank you for being part of this, for checking in regularly despite all the things you have going on in your life. Thank you for adding strong characters to the story, and taking the time to role play them so convincingly. Thank you for your patience with me as I get up to speed on rules, and for giving me the time to get it right, and being respectful when we come to a different conclusion. A special thank you to Elinor, who pushed me past talking about into doing, and to Bryndyn who took over for that span when I could not run things. If either of these things had not happened this post would also not be happening.
Like most of you, I have been playing some form of this silly game for more years than I have not. I cannot recall how many players I have played with but can assure you that there have been many, many campaigns and adventures in that time. You stand out to me as my favorite group I have ever had the privilege to play with. Thank you for all you bring to the game, and do to make this work for us all. I am looking forward to what comes next.
Sincerely
~Sigil
We suddenly play the poor hellknights who warned us not to come in? ;)
Been fun! Looking forward to more! I need to wrap up the rescue and get out there to pepper some of these chumps with arrows!
It certainly has been a privilege. I really appreciate all the perseverance from everyone. I don't know if I'll survive the encounter, but I sure have enjoyed the experience.
What Pluchak said. ;-)
Yeah! This one is a fun ride for sure. Thanks both Sigil and Brydyn for making it happen!
To my friends
I wanted to take moment to let you know what has been going on with me and why I've been remiss in posting through much of this scene. First my apologies - I really should be doing a better job, but I've been extremely distracted.
This falls into the job category. Two years ago, I was in my sixth year as an Executive Director for my company. I was doing well and very successful. Then, in preparation for a company sale (although I didn't know it at the time), my company decided to collapse my business unit into another business unit and they awarded the other ED the combined position instead of me even though my revenue for the past 6 years out performed his. I took this as a personal attack...and one that I was sure would lead to my dismissal once I completed some tasks they wanted me to do.
Sometimes, what goes around does come around...and just after he sale of our company (about 5 months later) the CEO and VP who did this to me were let go and the incoming owners wanted me to stay on. They couldn't move me back into an Executive role but made me feel respected again, which is important. I've been with this company 24 years this year and I really didn't want to leave. 6 months ago, the guy who got the combined job got removed from his Exec position and put into a Business Development role. I was actually given more responsibility under a different ED than I had when I was an ED. (Instead of covering 1/2 the army, I am now responsible for all of the army sites)
This may seem great, but when I "lost" my job 2 years ago, I had 70 employees working 4 sites in the Northeast and the other guy had almost as many working 3 sites. When I took over, we had 15 people throughout the Army (and only 4 sites total). Sequestration and budget issues have monumentally damaged our business.
I have been struggling to get back into a positive position among our customers and have made small positive steps. But the environmental issues we are dealing with in our business (Providing Program Management) has now moved from the defense sector to all aspects of our business. The new ownership group, while investing smartly in our company, is getting hammered by more losses.
Yesterday, we had a very bad day for the company. Over 20 people lost their jobs and everyone on overhead (and some in billable positions) lost a part of their salary. I lost 10%. This is a tough cross to bear given that my wife just lost 25% of her salary this month too. (She's a teacher in a district that is losing students faster than someone says "its a trap" in Star wars)
I'm thankful for having a job. I don't know yet just what that job will be (I think still in charge of Army business) but I think you can see why I've been somewhat distracted. (It doesn't help that no matter what I do here, I can't hit the broadside of a barn with Bryndyn).
I want to thank all of you for your patience with me as a player and understand my desire to get back into the game on a daily basis. Things will even out again. Kudo's to all of you who are doing so well with such a large game. Great job to you Sigil for keeping everything moving along.
Hang in there Bryn! My fingers are crossed that things will turn the corner for you in a more stabilized manner.
Hey Bryn, in spite of all of that you picked up the game when it might have needed to go on hold or collapse altogether. You're a big part of why we've gotten as far as we have. Sorry things aren't going well, but give it the attention you need to. I'm pulling for you and will be sure to pull for our big scaly buddy too!
Maybe, since I'm hors d'combat you can use my dice luck. On the other hand, since I'm hors d'combat you probably won't want to.
All the best of luck with work. I'm in a lucky position because the organisation has, over the years, put a lot of resources into me in order that I fulfill a statutory role, so to all intents and purposes they can't dispense with my services even if they wanted to. On the other hand, the job is changing under my feet so that at some point I may have to cut my losses and look for something else.
Keep smiling, and as far as you can, keep playing!
That sounds tough good luck
On a personal note Sorry for the lack of posting. The move 3000 miles across the US went well. I have secured housing and employment for my self and my family and will have Internet again on Friday where my posting should pick up again. Thanks for your patience.
TPK! In three, two...
Heh. There are quite a lot of us. Maybe Bryndyn's superb dice luck will be enough to save the day.
At this point good help would be most welcome.
Let's at least hope my animal messenger made it xP
Some new definition of the word "fine" from in the linguistic archives of the Mayans recently discovered in the jungles of Mexico, I take it.
Even if we win, we'll have a hell of a time "escaping" when everything is faster by far than even the mounts, and more on the way. Maybe the tunnel will go someplace.
Might need to hide, wait them out, then run again. Two unconscious up top right now?
And Taedric, unless he's got other (non-combattants) to defend would hold back with Abbas, despite being the fastest of us.
I'm not sure who's going to carry Elinor or Pluchak - both of them weigh a lot (P especially since he's bigged up).
Don't worry, the enlarge only quadruples my weight or something. But it does wear off in three minutes. Which means... two and a half minutes to go. Can you hold off the zombie horde for that long?
Pluchak, Elinor, why don't you each take a celestial dog to play for a few rounds while you drool into the dirt?
Cheers for that appealing description. I think on -11, Elinor is WAY beyond drooling. I thought that Pluchak was back down significantly below zero again after his momentary rally (since the rage goes away again when he got knocked over again)?
Re. your comment about the rl samurai, as a rl gm I have a bit of a problem with my regular group in that the tank fighter's AC is usually 10 (yes, 10) points better than the next person in the party. This means that anything which can hit him on a 19 (and boy, am I tired of throwing a dozen dice looking for twenties) can hit the person standing next to him (or, when they can manage it, sixty feet behind him) on a 9. And of course, the amount of damage being handed out at L11 is pretty significant so I'm always anxious that I'm one critical away from a TPK. Any suggestions?
RL has taken a couple interesting turns recently so I'm happy enough to watch from the doors to Valhalla to see how it turns out. Did Bryndyn just actually hit something? There may be hope yet.
I actually played a Hellknight build some time ago that had the same problem with the party. Me and the Draconic Sorcerer both had huge health pools and AC, but the party (Bard, rogue, something else) were pretty paper-thin.
My GM just rolled with it. Sure, I was a tank on the battlefield. But man, did I feel stupid on a hot day when we didn't fight anyone, or when we had to search an underwater lair to find a group of missing girls.
The thing is that there are a lot of different kinds of attacks in pathfinder, including maneuvers (disarm, sunder), swarms, touch attacks, rust, drowning, cave-ins, even diplomacy.
My suggestion is to, in general, reward that player for his strength in combat. Let him feel like an untouchable machine every now and then- that's why he built the character. But, at some point, he gets invited to the ball, or the boat starts sinking, or the ogre just smashes his shield like so much tinder... and then he has his moment of vulnerability.
There are really two big pitfalls here: You want every character to spend some time out of his element, but not feel like you're punishing him for being good. Every time the party does something, ask the player if he wears, or if he isn't, if he dons his armor. The first few times you do this he's likely to say yes- but once he realizes that this is not always practical, due to penalties inherent and designed, it will become much less of a sure thing.
TL;DR: Attack him without rolling attack rolls.
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Thanks Taedric.
Nope don't stint Sigil. This is a test and a half for us and that is when some of the best roleplay can come out, players and DM alike.
The only way I have found to deal with that kind of AC problem is to used mixed creatures in combat. So that some of the party can still take part. But its hard to keep doing that.
As for Elinor, Abbas will not leave her lying down. It's not in his nature.
Cheers
I know what you mean about the AC thing, but there are a lot of "little ways" to get around that sort of thing.
In our RL game, the party's alchemist tends to try to blast anything he sees in heavy armour because the touch AC is usually pretty weak (and, in fact, it's often harder to bomb the "squishier" mages [though after he drinks a dex mutagen and reduces, he's not very likely to miss even them...]).
Incorporeal creatures that ignore armour do wonders in a case like that, also.
And, of course, there are summons -- again, in my RL game one of the party's a Holy Vindicator with a Phylacerty of Positive Channeling -- so he literally bumps his AC by +7 by using the Vindicator's Shield ability -- so the opposing (lion) druid spent 3 rounds calling in 7 lions (yay for d3-1!) to basically surround and pull him down. (He was wildshaped into a lion at the time, too, plus his animal companion, so they weren't having any luck stopping him from casting thanks to his mobility, and totemic summons are standard actions...) Sure, they only hit on 17+ (even with Augment Summon and Flanking), but that's a 20% chance -- and there were, literally, 21 attacks coming at him (14 claws and 7 bites, with grab).
Or just mix and match the opposition a little -- so the bad guy giant or barbarian (with big str bonus and BAB) goes after the super-tanker, while skirmishers and flankers with other nifty abilities go around and deal with the squishier targets.
Having said all that, though, I agree with Aidan's comment -- if you make that build, it shouldn't be an "I win" button, but it also shouldn't be the GM's duty to make the character feel useless -- effectively penalizing them for their choices. You need to let them shine as the brick walls they are sometimes.
The Vindicator and his ability to not be hit has been a "shining moment" more than once -- for instance, he and the paladin stood shoulder to shoulder "filling the gap" in a hallway while the witch and alchemist in the back used bombs and hexes to soften up the oncoming hoarde of Warrior Cultists -- letting them defeat many times their number.
I have fond memories of GMing a game where the noble fighter faced down wave after wave of enemies whilst the rogue tried to open the door, which was magically trapped, beating the DC by enough to keep the trap intact. Quite hysterical when they closed the door in the faces of the enemy.
Point is, there are also other things for the party to roll and to help with, even if you need to tweak rules so not everyone is always rolling to hit.
On the other hand my group tends to think anything without a 1/1 BAB is just there to look pretty while they hit it with their axe.
Oh absolutely. If the game is only combat, that's a pretty limited campaign -- and not the sort I'd like to play in.
You're certainly overdue Bryndyn!
Now *that*'s a crit! ;)
Ha, just a little slowdown I think. I'm sure things will pick back up again soon :)
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I am enjoying the challenge of it all. You like your large scale encounters and that is something haven't seen succeed so well on these boards.
If Abbas goes down, then he is going down fighting. The biggest danger for me is getting paralysed. I once ran a party into the moathouse in the Temple of Elemental Evil and they decided to scout ahead in a large room. One by one they were paralysed and then slotted. Ghouls are possibly the monster I have killed more PCs with than anything else....especially with coup de grace.
Cheers
I've killed more PCs with air elementals than I can count. One time I actually TPKd because the wizard cast fireball and the elemental had readied against a spell, to swoop down and disrupt it. Even though it didn't disrupt the spell, it was detonated early, killing the entire party.
I've knocked people off bridges, impaled them on cathedrals, smashed them against other party members...
Aidan may soon take measures to ensure that you are not. Resistance would be a good start, but I figured he'd try and fend off some attacks first. We need Pluchak back up, but the best way to do that is get Elinor so she can heal him. Twofer, that'd be.