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I think that's my favorite one so far:-)
From Templari sighing and piling all the people on the dazed frog barbarian to being covered in futile idols, and then getting smacked by a blinded Malek, all great visuals:-D
Quite amusing. :)
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So, they've finally reached Saventh-Yhi and it only took six months. Did they still win the race? Thanks for keeping us posted, Nobody'sHome.
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So, they've finally reached Saventh-Yhi and it only took six months. Did they still win the race? Thanks for keeping us posted, Nobody'sHome.
They're not there YET; they just know where it is...
Oops, I meant Book 2.
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So, of course, this week the kids utterly forgot about the nest. I even had all their figures arranged around it to start the session. They moved on. At the end of the session I asked, "So, are you SURE there's nowhere else you want to check for loot, like anything you might have done last week or something?" and they said, "Nah, we're good."
Reminds me of a moment when my party party's warlock carelessly accidentally burned down an abandoned hospital infested with kobolds before the party found treasure in the cellar.
The treasure was later found by three members of the city watch who sold it and invested into establishing a brothel... As suggested by one of the party members.
Fortunately for the group, this week Templari was with them, and she had the absolute opposite effect. She made the Hypnotic Gaze Will save. She made all 3 Will saves against the Hold Persons thrown at her. She made all 3 Fortitude saves against the Reduce Persons thrown at her. And with her AC of 26, the little critters needed a natural 20 to hit her, and managed to never strike a blow.
As would be expected from any paladin.
Apprently Voren didn't care, dropped a bomb on Templari, she rolled a natural 1 on her reflex save, and took another 10 points of fire damage.
Was that the case of 'failing only on natural 1' paladin save?
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Was that the case of 'failing only on natural 1' paladin save?
Nah; it's a paladin; Reflex saves are her weakness. I think she needed a 9 or so!!
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I regret to inform everyone that, due to the U.S. Labor Day holiday, there will be no game tomorrow, and those no chances for more silliness.
On the other hand, I never did get fully caught up, so I'll try to post more "moments from the archives".
Ah, how I miss Xethos!
Oh, what a coincidence! It looks like my next archive is "Phase VII: The Fall of Xethos!" Perfect timing!
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I truly enjoy reading your group's adventures, Nobodyshome!
It's hard to silence my laughs when I manage to sneak a peek on Paizo at work...
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Phase VII: Interim
I know I promised to kill Xethos in this write-up, but there's some intervening hilarity and I don't have a ton of time this morning. Xethos will live another day or two...
It looks like my archives pick up with the party successfully returning the stricken sailors to the Red Gull, then catching a ride home on the promise of paying for the healing of any sailors still stricken with Ghoul Fever by the time they reached Eledir.
Yes, those keeping score at home will note that the group never explored the Azlanti temple, never so much as learned Yarzoth's name, and otherwise managed an epic 'Perfect 10 of Failness' in concluding Book 1, with every single NPC ally dead, along with a pygmy goat, a wolf animal companion, two PC abandonments, and FOUR dead PCs, including THREE by the same player!
Yes, in a group of 4-7 players without adjusting the enemies at all, I "killed" 6 PCs in a single book, if you count suicides, disappearing players, and people choosing to change characters mid-island.
Wow... Just... wow!
Fortunately for the group, they made their Heal checks to care for the sailors, so even in the less-than-one-day trip to Eledir all but one of the sailors made their Fort saves, so they pulled into port having to pay for only a single Remove Disease spell from the temple. Even more disappointing, the cleric succeeded on his first roll, so the total price of failure was only 150 g.p.
At this point I realized that the authorities would be rabid to know what had happened to the Jenivere, so I checked the original roster and the only surviving passenger was... Malek! Of course it HAD to be Malek. Because... Malek. (Hooken was a survivor, but had taken the "Stowaway" trait, so he just got questioned to confirm Malek's bizarre version of things.)
Everyone at the table got to listen to Malek's debriefing. I wish I could do it justice here. Impus Major was in rare form, and Malek told an utterly bizarre tale of what was important to him. "And then I licked my eye. Oh, and we got poisoned, but when I woke up I got to kill some crabs."
"Wait! Wait! You were poisoned?"
"Yeah, and then I fought some crabs..."
"No! No! Tell us about the poison!!!"
So eventually they got the story out of him, huddled together, and knew they were in for a financial shellacking if word ever got out that the entire crew and passenger list had been murdered by a single psychotic passenger and the ship's own captain. They HAD to pay off Malek to keep him quiet. They asked him how much he wanted to stay quiet. He took his necklace of fingers off, threw it on the table, and said, "Resurrect all of them."
Ouch.
I had Malek roll Diplomacy. A natural 20. Of course! If you've ever seen Lilo and Stitch, it's very much like the scene where Jumba lists all of Lilo's sins against him and says, "And you want me to help you, just like that? JUST LIKE THAT?"
And Stitch nods and says, "Eh."
And Jumba says, "OK."
When questioned as to this decision he says, "He is VERY persuasive!"
So they offered ONE resurrection. Malek immediately held forth Sasha's finger. The table exploded. "NO! You have to resurrect Jask! What are you DOING?"
"She was my true love!" (At which point you have to ask, "Did SHE know that?")
So my "NPC play" is that NPCs make a DC 10 Will save when being raised. If they make it, they agree to come back. If they fail, they want to stay dead. Sasha rolled a 3. The company regretfully informed Malek that Sasha did not want to come back. Sighing and acceding to peer pressure, Malek had them resurrect Jask.
At that point, I introduced Deady McDeaddead's NEXT character Izren, undine gunslinger (??) and member of the Pathfinder society. He was to offer the group 1000 g.p. to return to Smuggler's Shiv and explore the Azlanti temple. We roleplayed it as the classic, "You're a bad cop and this is your last chance to redeem yourself," moment, so of course when the party demanded 1000 g.p. EACH to return to the island, Izren promptly promised 2000 g.p., and the party agreed to return to the island, this time (hopefully) far better-equipped to deal with the dangers there...
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OK, OK. People are beginning to get a wee bit cranky that I haven't posted in a month. Unfortunately, we had some serious events among the kids' families (which don't belong in a "Silly" thread), so we missed a couple of weeks of play, and then the kids have had all kinds of issues doing their level-ups and buying gear from the Pathfinder caravan that finally caught up with them, so very little play, and even less silliness.
However, here are a few high/lowlights:
Voren. It's what's for dinner.
The party disappointed me in Tazion by being eminently sensible. They completed their shopping, upgraded their character sheets, traveled with the caravan to Saventh-Yhi, and then scouted ahead. On seeing the two routes in, they of course chose the high road, avoiding the fun of caravan wagons on slippery rocks surrounded by giant crocodiles. *sigh*
The only entertainment I got was when Athelya cast Murderous Command on one of the pteranodons, causing it to move squarely over the bridge, then having Voren drop a firebomb on it, dropping its burning corpse onto the bridge. Unfortunately, the bridge made its Reflex save (always sad) and did not catch on fire, so the caravan was able to cross it. Let's just say that Hooken with Favored Enemy: Animal is not kind to flying reptiles.
Another favorite moment: I warned them that the enemies in Saventh-Yhi were designed for teams that worked well together: Groups that buffed themselves, protected each other, and so forth. They took this very literally, and on reaching their proposed caravan site, cast all their buffs and made a ton of noise.
Being more than 1500' from any enemy, they only succeeded in burning a lot of buffs and looking very silly.
Nice idea, though.
In Saventh-Yhi proper, they moved into the merchant district and straight up to the buildings that housed the kech. All 18 kech poured out and got themselves obliterated: 9 dead, 9 unconscious without seriously harming the party. (Templari was the stand-out here, moving to a position to be an obvious target and then letting them swarm her while Athelya fireballed her. She had Voren's Draconic Reservoir to protect her. The kech weren't so lucky.)
Then came the "conversation". This was two and a half hours of session time spanning two weeks of real time. They had Silent Image and Comprehend Languages, so we got to roleplay out them trying to make their ideas understood by the kech, while they understood everything the kech said but couldn't get them to understand what questions they wanted answered. Yes, my intrepid group of 7th-level adventurers had yet to buy so much as a scroll of Tongues, much less have someone do something like, oh, say, learn the frigging spell?!?!?
It was... painful.
And it led to the worst metagamery, closest-I've-ever-come-to-falling-a-paladin moment.
They didn't detect as evil, but I had to explain to Talky McTalktalk that that could just mean that they were too low-level. So she used Smite Evil on one, and realized they were evil. She then declared that she was going to one-by-one untie them and then stab them.
Yes. Templari Bourne, stalwart paladin of Iomedae, goddess of Justice and Honor, was going to summarily execute a group of helpless captives for the crime of detecting as evil. Even on the most ferocious of paladin advice threads, I doubt I'd find many who could argue this was not a fall-worthy act for a paladin of Iomedae.
Talky finally asked, "Would that be OK with my goddess?"
I had him roll Knowledge: Religion. He told me he got a 10. I read him the riot act about "justice" and "honor" having very little to do with killing a bunch of helpless captives who, so far, had not been shown to have committed a single crime.
Then it turned out he hadn't actually spent any points on Knowledge: Religion, so he shouldn't have known that.
I didn't make him fall because I felt it would have been a jerk move to fall a paladin in the middle of nowhere for an unbelievably stupid act the paladin should have known better, but it still irritated the living daylights out of me.
Anyway, they searched the building, eagerly trying to find proof that the kech had done something horrible, but it really did look like they'd just walked up and slaughtered half a clan for the crime of defending their own home. Oops. Mistakes happen.
They told the kech they'd be back with food and someone who could communicate with them and moved on. Imagine my delight when they decided to investigate the pond. Imagine my greater delight when I drew the shoreline, and Voren moved himself to be just within the dire crocodile's sprint range. Hooken of course spotted it as it was swimming up, so I had everyone roll initiative, then I told Voren's player: "OK, whether you live or die depends on where the croc lands in initiative."
I proceeded to roll a very public 19. With a +4 was 23. Just ahead of Hooken's 22.
So the croc ran up, bit Voren for half his hit points, then picked him up in its mouth (I love grab). Hooken rewarded it with a 38-hit-point barrage, Athelya dropped a fireball on its back end (avoiding the square with Voren in it), and Templari and Malek moved in, Malek adeptly jumping over the croc's tail as it took its attack of opportunity. (Pretty much the only way I can explain the croc's natural 1 while trying to whack Malek as he came in.)
Of course they couldn't generate enough damage, even with Voren dropping an alchemist's bomb down the croc's gullet, so , down the croc's gullet went Voren, losing the rest of his hit points (down to -1).
In the dire countdown to the croc's turn and Voren's certain death, Hooken hit poorly, but Athelya's second fireball weakened it enough that Malek managed to send it to negative hit points. Templari performed the coup de grace that sent it to -45 hit points, and I was willing to rule that since the coup de grace did more than 10% of the croc's hit points, it was actually Templari cutting Voren out and saving his life.
After the fight, Talky looked down at his character sheet and said, "Hey, I have Paladin's Sacrifice prepared. That would have helped Voren, right?"
Ya think?
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Well, to be fair, a DC 10 Knowledge check can be attempted without having a rank in the skill. ;)
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Well, to be fair, a DC 10 Knowledge check can be attempted without having a rank in the skill. ;)
Believe it or not, yes, I'd forgotten that, and yes, that makes me feel better.
You'd think that paladin school would teach things like, "Detect Evil is not a hall pass for genocide."
Unless you're Torag, of course...
Torag doesn't soundboard people tho, unlike some gods:-D
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Oh, and as a side note, remember Izran, generally useless undine gunslinger and running joke among the party... until he saved their tails two weeks in a row?
Well, I was updating his character sheet while Deady McDeaddead was away and learned something very interesting...
You know how some people go with 25-point builds, and some go with 20-point builds, while the "traditional" AP version is 15?
Well, Deady McDeaddead has been keeping Izran going on a 0-point build.
Yes, you read that correctly.
Izran, 7th-level gunslinger and twice savior of the party, is a 0-point build character.
No wonder he's found it so challenging...
Did he at least finally take rapid reload :-)
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Did he at least finally take rapid reload :-)
Nope. Still shooting every other round. With his original 1d8 pistol, no less.
He has yet to ever use a Grit point, either...
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What?
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0-point buy?
Six times a straight 10 in stats? Oh boy. But maybe that's a good way to balance the gunslinger (at least at low to mid levels)... *hehe*
Anyways, as a long time lurker I have to say that reading your posts and spilling coffee many times when I had to succumb to a burst of laughter earned me quite a few funny looks at home. Good job and keep 'em coming!
Ruyan.
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0-point buy?
Six times a straight 10 in stats? Oh boy. But maybe that's a good way to balance the gunslinger (at least at low to mid levels)... *hehe*Anyways, as a long time lurker I have to say that reading your posts and spilling coffee many times when I had to succumb to a burst of laughter earned me quite a few funny looks at home. Good job and keep 'em coming!
Ruyan.
Oh, no. He was far more creative... er, no. He just has an undine, so it's:
STR 8
DEX 13 (he DID use the point he got at 4th level)
CON 10
INT 10
WIS 12
CHA 10
Look out world, here comes Izran!
EDIT: And, unfortunately, with experience and age comes wisdom. The kids are doing far fewer silly things these days, which is why this thread is slowing down. Heaven forbid it turn into a boring old campaign journal! Ah, well, here's hoping they continue to find ways to surprise me...
Did he just roll that badly or did he forget to assign his stats?
Before we begin.
Since I know your players read this thread (or at least one).
NO READING THE SPOILERS; THANKS!
Thanks.
And it led to the worst metagamery, closest-I've-ever-come-to-falling-a-paladin moment.
They didn't detect as evil, but I had to explain to Talky McTalktalk that that could just mean that they were too low-level. So she used Smite Evil on one, and realized they were evil. She then declared that she was going to one-by-one untie them and then stab them.
This sounds excessively reasonable.
Yes. Templari Bourne, stalwart paladin of Iomedae, goddess of Justice and Honor, was going to summarily execute a group of helpless captives for the crime of detecting as evil. Even on the most ferocious of paladin advice threads, I doubt I'd find many who could argue this was not a fall-worthy act for a paladin of Iomedae.
... I would. And I'd do it even with the information you've given.
For example:
In Saventh-Yhi proper, they moved into the merchant district and straight up to the buildings that housed the kech. All 18 kech poured out and got themselves obliterated: 9 dead, 9 unconscious without seriously harming the party. (Templari was the stand-out here, moving to a position to be an obvious target and then letting them swarm her while Athelya fireballed her. She had Voren's Draconic Reservoir to protect her. The kech weren't so lucky.)
This, and,
Anyway, they searched the building, eagerly trying to find proof that the kech had done something horrible, but it really did look like they'd just walked up and slaughtered half a clan for the crime of defending their own home. Oops. Mistakes happen.
... don't quite square to my sensibilities. While other information may well change my mind, what it reads like is:
Party: Hark, a building! Let us look!
Kech: RAWR! SLAUGHTERMAIM!
Party: Attack back!
Kech: OOPS WE ARE DEAD
Party: Are they evil? /check: success!/ Okay! We kill them, since they kill people that just wander through here!
Effectively, the party has no reason not to kill them, as-presented. If the party had attacked first (not due to winning initiative, mind, but generally, "Hey, there's a creature: I kill it!"), I would definitely reconsider my position, but as-presented, I can't see any reason (that the party could justifiably know) for them to so aggressively "defend their home" - it feels a bit to metagame-y to me that a party who was assaulted as they were exploring, and discovered the people that assaulted them were evil, would go, "Well, we can't do anything until we've proven their criminals!" because by attacking the party they did prove they were criminals: that's criminal assault.
(Of course, it's only criminal assault in civilized areas: in wild regions like Savith Yhi, there are no "crimes" in terms of law to really commit. But given the Kech actively catch and devour sentient humanoids on a regular basis, I'd be very surprised if there was not "evidence of crimes" that the party might feel are crimes within or around their homes...)
1) They are evil.
2) They eat people.
3) They attacked you.
There doesn't seem to be much more need for justification, to me.
"Evil" doesn't mean "They've broken the law" but it means "They've done bad things, and consistently enough to earn their alignment."
Detecting as evil doesn't mean you've earned an auto-smite. Detecting as evil and attacking the paladin? You're pretty much there.
But that's just me as I read it from your presentation. However it works best for you guys, your gaming sensibilities, and what actually happened is actually the "correct" interpretation.
I was mostly just responding to the "No one would defend this!" comment, as, from my read, her response was perfectly reasonable.
Anyhoo, my being a GM-killjoy aside, I love this thread! So much fun! I'm glad they're enjoying.
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...Before we begin.
Since I know your players read this thread (or at least one).
NO READING THE SPOILERS; THANKS!
Thanks.
** spoiler omitted **
I will accept your disagreement without turning this into a paladin alignment thread.
Does this make me evil?
Just the opposite! :D
EDIT: For the record, I was not protesting any decision you did or did not (or almost, but did not) make. Rather, I was explaining a different point of view from my take on the text as-presented. As noted, your games run your way are the correct way to run your games. And I'd love to be a player in that game.
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Just the opposite! :D
EDIT: For the record, I was not protesting any decision you did or did not (or almost, but did not) make. Rather, I was explaining a different point of view from my take on the text as-presented. As noted, your games run your way are the correct way to run your games. And I'd love to be a player in that game.
No; I understand your position and it is logically sound.
I just deleted a wall of text because we really should avoid such discussions, but I prefer to be much more restrictive with paladins in my games because:
For those reasons, I will also never, under any circumstances, allow an antipaladin in any group I GM.
It sucks to be good. Just watch Saturday morning cartoons where you get stuck with recurring villains because you aren't allowed to slit their throats the first time they show up.
I'm like Mikaze -- I prefer a lot of nuance and hard moral choices in my game. So far, I've received nothing but compliments from my players about how I run paladins, and our other Pathfinder GM comes to me for advice on how I'd manage situations with his paladins in his game.
So as you said, to each his (or her) own.
But you're right. You have an absolutely solid, logical argument that would allow the paladin to execute the prisoners. I'm still a bit queasy about the "untie them so they think they're being released and then stab them in the gut". That sounds a wee bit on the evil side to me. (And yes, that's what they were planning on doing...)
EDIT: Oh, total aside, but I think you've read my RotRL campaign. I still believe Raesh was the best-played paladin I've ever seen. Once she'd defeated an enemy, she evaluated it carefully, then would publicly announce its crimes and ask, "Does anyone believe this creature should be spared?", and she'd give it a quick, painless death. If she couldn't find any crimes, she'd negotiate with it and say, "And if you ever violate the terms of this agreement, *I* personally will come back and find you."
She was really, really fun to GM, and even though she killed more than she saved, it led to some epic new directions in RotRL. (In my Golarion, Sandpoint now has a lasting peace treaty with the stone giants, and one tribe of stone giants is led by a lawful evil oni who was still willing to negotiate with her as to which atrocities he was allowed to perform, and which he wasn't... It's hilarious because under the agreement she got him to make, he's better for the tribe and the surrounding sentients than most stone giant leaders have been...)
EDIT 2: And yes, she really did roleplay out having her sorcerer teleport to check in on the tribes she spared...
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Ah! See... now that is where I would vehemently disagree with the paladin.
(I had not context for the "why" of the untying, only that it was done.)
Blech, to that.
Either: execute cleanly and well, with honesty; or untie and grant them 'a chance' (however unlikely that is) .
:D
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Ah! See... now that is where I would vehemently disagree with the paladin.
(I had not context for the "why" of the untying, only that it was done.)
Blech, to that.
Either: execute cleanly and well, with honesty; or untie and grant them 'a chance' (however unlikely that is) .
:D
Well, I must admit, that is *my* interpretation as the kech of what was going on. The kids' statements were:
Athelya: I cast Silent Image around all their heads so they can't see. In effect, I want to blindfold all of them.
Templari: OK, once they're blindfolded I untie the first one and stab him.
Hard to interpret what their intent was, but after the kech had been healed and fed, the act of untying naturally leads to the assumption you're about to be freed, not stabbed in the gut.
But who knows what the kids were thinking? That's what's so fun about running this group!
Hah! Gotcha. I understand now! :D
EDIT: Because it looked like I was saying, "AHAH! I CAUGHT YOU!" Rather than, "Ah! Now I understand!" - I meant the latter.
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Did he just roll that badly or did he forget to assign his stats?
Looks like the character took all 10s, added racials and the level advancement ... and has all of his point buy just ... sitting there.
NBH, I suggest a "religious epiphany" or somesuch for that character to bring his ability scores to where they should be.
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Did he just roll that badly or did he forget to assign his stats?Looks like the character took all 10s, added racials and the level advancement ... and has all of his point buy just ... sitting there.
NBH, I suggest a "religious epiphany" or somesuch for that character to bring his ability scores to where they should be.
I *LOVE* it.
"Gozreh rises from the lake, lightning crackling around her as she gazes down upon you approvingly. 'Izren, my child, you have been given the ultimate test. You have been mediocre in a field of those who are more than mediocre. And you have not only survived, but you have saved them. Saved them not once, but twice.
And thus, Izren, my gift to you is... non-mediocrity!'
KABOOM!"
YUS! :D
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And so he shall rampageth upon the world.
This is why my games don't really bother with alignments... and why the Paladins often are NPCs. Who worship the Goddess of Death (and Healing).
Of course in that situation it would be kill the nine, then heal the remaining nine if they agree to play nice, otherwise kill them outright. Marashieb is a fun Goddess to worship. ^^
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Maybe you could give us just a short highlight or something on sessions when they don't do anything overly silly please?
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Maybe you could give us just a short highlight or something on sessions when they don't do anything overly silly please?
Sure, that's easy. I was just worried about putting non-silly stuff in a "silly" thread.
Sounds like Kwai Chang'll be back tomorrow night. Mr. Stereotype's dad desperately wants to play more, so I gave him permission to show up "occasionally".
A 6-player game is bad enough. A 6-player game where they're all 11-14 years old is an exercise in patience, management, and being willing to tell teenagers, "It's not your initiative so I don't want to hear it." (Yes, I have to say that frequently. :-P)
Adding a 7th player just leads to logistical nightmares, both physical (fitting 'em all at the table) and in-game.
But he'll be around tomorrow night.
As indicated, they've entered Saventh-Yhi, formed a very tentative alliance with the kech (still not sure how I'm going to play that one out -- the kech really NEED that alliance right now, so I think they're going to stick to it for a while. But they are on the far evil side of evil, so they may get an opportunity to break the deal, which I'm sure would make the paladin very happy), and done battle with the crocodile.
Sounds like they're going to investigate the ziggurat in the merchant district and search for the dragon tomorrow night. Should be a full session...
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You can adjust by having more responsiveness from the bad guys, perhaps. Given the players' edge in numbers kinda balances against the overall n00bness of said players. I wouldn't worry about it too terribly much.
NH, have you ever seen these?
Basically any of them other than hourglass sound relatively perfect for your group.
It allows them to move into and out of the campaign if-needed; allows people to kind of forget about familiars, mounts, and so-on until needed; and allows the kind of tactical teamwork that metagame chatter tends to generate with in-character reasoning.
This allows the kids to have a tangible, sustainable impact upon the "world" and gives them the sense that, no matter how SS ends, they, personally, have impacted and altered your "shared" world, for the purpose of gaming. Forever after, later, you could refer to them as "mysterious relics found in ancient Savith-Yhi" whenever you introduce them.
Anyway, you may well easily choose not to - but I thought I'd mention, just in case that helps you.
(Incidentally, suggesting putting the painless slivers into fingers means that the necklace as another purpose beyond just being gross and taking up space.)
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NH, have you ever seen these?
LOL! I'm sure V (from Order of the Stick) could have totally used the "Figurine of the Concealed Companion". As it is, the PCs have only one animal companion (Heron the wolf, who never leaves Hooken's side), and they tend to just leave their horses "wherever" and there seem to be no predators on Golarion who hunt unattended horses...
My kids resolve all regrets in character creation through character death. Pretty entertaining, in my mind!
I *love* the Scar of Destiny, but we have a "blue glowy" mechanic that is a little less poetic, but no less effective: Occasionally, PCs just turn into blue glowing balls similar to will-o-wisps and follow their companions about, unable to affect the world or be affected by it. Fortunately, with the Pathfinder caravan about, all the absent characters have been hanging out at the caravan, drinking themselves into oblivion. We apparently have a very alcoholic lot. Only Malek and Hooken seem able to refrain from drunken blackouts...
And our table is very strongly anti-metagame. If one of them pops up with something he shouldn't know (Mr. Stereotype is the most guilty of this), the others berate him immediately. They like their immersion.
What's entertaining is how well those magic items reflect what goes on at a real table -- someone thought out that list rather well...
...they just need the "bag of Infinite Holding" so the GM and players don't worry that a dragon hoard weighs 38 tons, yet they insist on taking it anyway. (In one AP my players ended up spending a week paying a temple of Abadar 10% and providing them with transportation to and from a hoard just so they could get every last copper. It was depressingly realistic, but really?)
And our table is very strongly anti-metagame. If one of them pops up with something he shouldn't know (Mr. Stereotype is the most guilty of this), the others berate him immediately. They like their immersion.
Actaully that's one of the best reasons I've ever found for these: the "metagame" aspect is actually folded into a non-metagame aspect. Turned from an "oops" into a "that's part of the story." :D
What's entertaining is how well those magic items reflect what goes on at a real table -- someone thought out that list rather well...
...they just need the "bag of Infinite Holding" so the GM and players don't worry that a dragon hoard weighs 38 tons, yet they insist on taking it anyway. (In one AP my players ended up spending a week paying a temple of Abadar 10% and providing them with transportation to and from a hoard just so they could get every last copper. It was depressingly realistic, but really?)
Yeah, I find them really well-designed.
I actually especially appreciate their impact on the game in game-positive ways.
... but 'dat bag, though - so useful. My guess is that they didn't add it in exclusively because of the things like bag of holding or such.
... turns out that it was unicorn hide (though she didn't know it at the time). She effectively made a suit and bag capable of moving the ancient treasures out of the pit.
She is currently debating whether or not it would be better to keep the stuff (or if that would be dishonorable to their lives) or somehow destroy or bury it (or if that would somehow be wasteful in their death).
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I remember when I did Kingmaker for Pea Bear and her 9 year old friends, 4 girls, 4 Druids, all with Animal Companions.
First combat (technically the 2nd, the first being a pushover) and I ask "what do your animals do" 4 horrified looks "what do you mean by that?" "Why would my cute little bear fight anything!" *hugs Badger* "I'll never let anything hurt Little Dreams Fluffyclaws!" (Yes that's the real name) I GM'd the group until 10th level, eventually with 6 players only the boy with the Cavalier took his animal into combat, ever.
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Laughing... too... hard...
That's even better than Impus Major naming our hopped-up-on-pregnancy hormones "Princess Lily".
Before the hormones wore off and she became little miss, "I hate everything and will make you bleed for it..."
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All I'm going to say as a prelude to this post is: Watch what you talk about! The players read this thread regularly!
You'll see what I mean in a few.
We are now up to 8 players: Malek, Hooken, Izran, Templari, Athelya, Voren, Kwai Chang in a return engagement, and a new 11-year-old playing Derpy Cat, cleric of Nethys.
See, Tacticslion? My kids are totally into immersion and realistic characters!
A little (lack of) knowledge is a dangerous thing
The party finally decided to listen to the Pathfinder's complaints and investigated the Haunted Cenotes. Remember how I told you sensibility is the rule of the day? The ghostly ants started appearing. Athelya hit them with Burning Hands. Nareem took offense and started killing her. The other party members started pulling her away from him, and she ended up just running away (I did get her down to 12 hit points). Unfortunately, Hooken watching everyone else run around doing very little about the ghost, just started shooting the living undeath out of him. Over 40 points (halved) in the first round. Ouch! Malek, being Malek, totally ignored the swarming army ants and just walked in and started beating on him too.
He got in a few more good hits, seriously damaging the noob cleric and having his ants nauseate Kwai Chang, but even Templari was on the "almost totally sensible" wagon and used Smite Evil on him. Then crit on her first hit. Ouch again!
Malek, being Malek, just kept whacking with his tiny little hammer until ghost b gone.
The only really "silly" moment came when Templari used Paladin's Sacrifice to protect Athelya from the ant damage (3d6), but forgot that the ghost had an attack, too (7d6). Also, no one ever bothered to ask what kind of creature Nareem was. Turns out not even the paladin has Knowledge: Religion! Everyone was so reliant on Narmina that when she died, all knowledge skills went out the window.
Fortunately, the noob cleric (I refuse to use that name in my posts) noticed he had Knowledge: Religion and they realized the ghost needed to be satisfied. They searched for and found the journal, had the Pathfinders translate it (no one's taking Linguistics, either, apparently), and realizing that he wants recognition they've decided they're going to wait 2 levels and Hallow his sorry butt.
I like.
Now they're down at the south end of the merchant district, spotted the chimera approaching from 320', no one has a decent Knowledge: Arcana (of course), so without any knowledge or ability to prepare they're just going to bring them in for negotiations.
We'll start in on the negotiations next week...
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Is the name Buffy, Pea Bear tried that one with her new Inquisitor (guess what archetype:-D).
I said no.
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Methinks "that which shall not be named" is the aforementioned Derpy Cat.
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a new 11-year-old playing Derpy Cat, cleric of Nethys.
See, Tacticslion? My kids are totally into immersion and realistic characters!
Sounds totally reasonable to me. >.>
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What you do is get a baby name book (a thick one, with lots of obscure names and cultural variant spelling) and say no Tom, Dick, Jane or Frank unless it's in Persian, Swahili, Arabic or whatever.
I have to break it out every time I get a Buffy, I let Anne for her Android slide, but don't get me started on her pirate Elizabeth Swan
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Phase VIII: We FINALLY Get to Kill Off Xethos
Going back, back, back in time to the party making their fateful decision back in Eledir...
...having been promised a whopping 1,000 gold pieces EACH to go back the Smuggler's Shiv by the mysterious (and as we know now, entirely mediocre) Izren, the party rested for the night, spent a day shopping, and headed back to the island they'd just escaped.
Getting into the Azlanti Temple was a feat in and of itself. The party miraculously remembered that there were clues in Nylithati's lair, but as usual (and as has become a running theme), no one could read the language, nor did anyone have Linguistics. *sigh*. I have gotten all too depressingly familiar with Malek's cheerful, "Is THIS one written in grippli? No? Oh, well, I've done my part!"
So instead I read them the description of the pictographs, they were utterly convinced they had it, and they returned to the Tide Stones. Splash blood on the runes? Check! Xethos was perfectly happy to cut himself in the name of science! The idea that maybe, just maybe, he didn't have to use his own blood for a possibly-unholy ritual never occurred to him. And 4d3 damage to a 4th-level sorcerer isn't small potatoes. The snakes, though... the snakes get a win!
The party needed snakes. So they rolled Survival and Knowledge: Nature. They found the biggest, nastiest venomous snake they could find, and Xethos ended up getting bitten during the attempted capture and subsequent killing of the snake. So they decided on a non-venemous snake. Then they did the "pour the water over the stones" and were clever to yell out, "Ydersius". Nothing happened.
They went back to Nylithati's caves, made an excellent Perception roll to see the fangs on the snakes, uttered a communal, "D'oh", and went back to the stones. 4d3 more damage on Xethos convinced someone to slap a Cure Light Wounds on him, but he was still down 9 hit points as they completed the ritual (with the smallest venemous snake they could find)and the gates finally opened.
(As a total side note, they'd found Ekubus during their previous exploration, and were utterly delighted by his insanity. But he played absolutely no role in the AP, other than causing Mr. Stereotype to declare him, "My favorite NPC of the AP so far," a few weeks ago.)
Gazing into the darkened ancient temple, someone suggested the corridor might be trapped. Malek shrugged, grabbed a fish almost as big as he was (GREAT Survival roll to do it) and tossed it into the now-dry, still-utterly-dark corridor.
To say that "nothing happened" would be a lie.
When no traps went off, Hooken tried to rush in to save the fish. Malek grappled him, saying, "No, there might be traps!". I can only imagine new party member Izren staring agape as them thinking, "These may not be the droids I am looking for." Narmina gazed in astonishment at the mess, wondering just how she had gotten caught up with these people. , fed up with the lot of them, marched forward into the temple.
Well, it's pretty hard to argue with, "The two undead serpentfolk stand on the bridge and hurl javelins at any targets they notice in the room below."
Their Perception rolls were MUCH higher than Xethos'. Their initiatives ended up MUCH higher than Xethos. And Xethos had wandered into the room without a single buff -- no Mage Armor, no Shield, no Mirror Image... nothing.
So, as detailed here, four javelins hit Xethos (including a crit) before he even had a chance to react. Already down 9 hit points from the ritual, he was dead before he hit the floor.
Malek rushed in for far more-expected results. The javelins bounced harmlessly off his armor, and the mindless skeletons eventually charged forward to engage with a hammer-wielding barbarian. Not the height of undead evolutionary intelligence, skeletons are...
Searching the room, the party peered down the hole in the northwest corner, and saw... movement. Little dolls crawling toward them with knives!!!
Impus Major has a serious puppet phobia. So Malek, thinking fast, grabbed the first large object he could find (Xethos' body) and stuffed it in the hole to keep the dolls from getting up. The other party members objected. Malek just stomped harder.
Eventually they were able to convince Malek to replace Xethos' body with some driftwood and seaweed they gathered from outside, but it was definitely a... memorable entrance to the Azlanti Temple...