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Welcome to the Dungeon of Graves.
A few "Stream of Consciousness" thoughts:
(1) I doubt anyone applied to this game without having an idea of the style adventure Rappan Athuk is, but just in case I'd like to make a warning. This game doesn't have the same style as a Paizo adventure path with challenges geared specifically to certain party levels. You'll end up facing a few moderate difficulty encounters, some easy ones, a tough one, and then walk straight into a potential TPK if you aren't paying attention. That's not a bug in this game, it's a feature.
It's one of the reason I'm not worried about a high point buy and 6 players. There's no particular balance here anyway.
Pay attention and if it looks scary, run away.
(2) (kind of a continuation of #1) Don't be surprised if a character dies. I expect it, not because I'm out to kill characters, but because there will be a lot of tough challenges and everyone drops a 1 on a save eventually. There will be plenty of resources to fix broken characters if the party is smart. If you don't want to fix your broken character, then you can make a new one and insert it.
(3) Much like a random mixture of tough/easy challenges are written in the adventure, there's a great deal of treasure inside Rappan Athuk. I expect the party to exceed typical wealth-by-level guidelines. I don't really see that as a problem because it just goes back to the 'balance' theme (or lack of).
What I am going to do is play with the rules about the availability to buy magic items during the game. You can trade in whatever cool item you find for gold, but only items up to 16,000gp are going to be available 'off-the-shelf' in a big city and only if you make the 75% or less roll.
More expensive items will be available, but you will have to either contract having them made (and wait for them) or make them yourself.
(4) Expect smart bad guys to be smart. Part of the fun for me is trying to plan out how the smart bad guys react. If you end up in a protracted guerilla war against the Temple of Orcus or the goblin city of Grezzor, expect the bad guys to adapt to fight you.
(5) I want to say right up front that: I will make mistakes!
There's a whole lot of system mastery in the group of players I selected. I expect that if I make mistakes, you guys will figure it out.
If I screw something up, I'll fix it. Don't take it personally, don't get mad, don't assume any intent to disadvantage your character.
I may bend the rules or put my thumb on the scales occasionally if I think it makes for a good story. I won't do that if it will create a situation that's un-fun for a player.
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Hello all! Thanks for the invite to the game.
And mistakes happen. Most of the time it can be easily fixable. :)
I actually made a goof to my equipment. My gun is a little overpriced since the magic bonus is equal to the half cost and I missed that it passed the max bonus when I first posted. Should I just remove the Distance bonus and wait to have that added later?
Hey Malinor
Thanks for the invite DMoG, your explanation makes perfect sense. I'm a little nervous without a full divine character, but ting purchased his own CLW wand so hopefully were good to go.
So mistakes means "free stuff"? right :)
Hi Malinor and Ting Ting Ting.
Happy to be onboard for this one guys - thanks for the invite and the thoughts Dungeon Master of Graves.
Gonna echo Ting Ting Ting's words and share my concerns about the lack of full divine characters, but I welcome a challenge.
(4) Expect smart bad guys to be smart. Part of the fun for me is trying to plan out how the smart bad guys react. If you end up in a protracted guerilla war against the Temple of Orcus or the goblin city of Grezzor...
Aaaaah, this brought a smile to my face :D
Like I said before, I hope there will be time for some storytelling on top of the dungeon delving. And I also hope we can keep a good pace going in the game.
Hello all and thanks DM Graves. Kind of what I expected from the description of the game and really what I thought it would be.
I'm on my tablet in a hotel at the moment so not much of a post. Will be home tomorrow and can do a better starting post.
As to the lack of a pure divine caster, if there's lots of coin there's no reason we can't all have CLW wands. Just need to survive the combat so we can get healed up after! 😁
I can't wait!
What a great team this is, going in!
Let's look at what we've got and try to nail down what our strengths and weaknesses are.
1) Tessai (oracle 1/paladin 5)
2) TingTingTing (Slayer 6)
3) Garados (transmuter wizard 6)
4) Malinor (Gunslinger 1/Inquisitor 5)
5) Lothorian Sativa (arcane trickster)
6) Wyran Zuranan (U-Monk 1 / Shaman 5)
Several of us cover several of the Big Four, but none of us cover divine magic very well (i.e., we're short one cleric). But we absolutely rock on both melee and ranged DPS, two of us can cover arcane magic and Lothorian can cover thievery.
Wyran, how's your healing?
As an aside, my character Garados is built to be wading into melee. I'll be a bit of a glass cannon, to be honest. A crowd-control caster would be more useful, but screw it! I've wanted to play a combat transmogrifist for years!
What else do you folks see?
Not great at the moment. I have the healing hex and of course I can take cure spells. Just haven't 'cause I'm set up with how I would have traveled here. Once we gather I can change to the Life Spirit for wandering and can swap out some of my spells for Curing.
That said, my build was supposed to be a hex striker, so I'll want to be right up in the fight. Never played the build before but I hope I got it right....
... and Lothorian can cover thievery.
The bird pauses and gives Garados an odd look.
Divine casting aside, how are we on knowledge?
ting is built for traps and then combat. He'll prefer using a sword so he can flank and pick up the sneak, but can switch and use the bow when needed.
DMoG, can you open the game thread so we can 'dot and delete'? That way it shows up on our que.
No high Int so I only "Know" enough to be dangerous....
Knowledge (nature) +8
Knowledge (planes) +5
Knowledge (religion) +7
I'll get the stat line set up later today once I get home.
Tessai so far has Religion and History, none of them impressive.
I would love to have more, like Planes and/or Dungeoneering, but Paladins and skills... Well...
As for tanking and healing, I am 'hoping' Tessai's durability to come through, but this being Rappan Athuk, we never know. She won't be very good at peeling adversaries from others though, so we could do with another resilient frontliner.
I've got most of them covered, but Garados is no genius, either.
Knowledge (arcana) +12
Knowledge (dungeoneering) +11
Knowledge (history) +10
Knowledge (planes) +11
Linguistics +12
Spellcraft +12
As for tanking and healing, I am 'hoping' Tessai's durability to come through, but this being Rappan Athuk, we never know. She won't be very good at peeling adversaries from others though, so we could do with another resilient frontliner.
In popobala form, Garados has five attacks per round plus two grabs. Three of those are at +10 to hit. His AC in that form will be 23. So, not bad for tankiness at this level.
yeah, ting only has dungeoneering + 5 and local + 4 so almost no help at all.
Garados, is that with Monstrous Physique? And... What the heck is a popobala? :/
Looking at character sheets and getting ready for a first post.
Garados, is that with Monstrous Physique? And... What the heck is a popobala? :/
Yes it is.
I'm thinking of saying that his knowledge is mostly academic - his master had an extensive library showing details of hundreds of monsters. Would that work for you?
@Tarondor: Just giving you a hard time about your obscure evil bat spirit form. Just a story thing.
Yeah, that's fair! For a list of forms I'm likely to take over time, you can see Tarondor’s Guide to the (First Edition) Pathfinder Transmuter Wizard. I'll avoid the ones I warned GM's to disallow for their complete OP brokenness.
Levels 6-9: Popobala
Levels 10-11: Gegenees
Levels 12-13: Either an Annunaki or an Occult Dragon
Levels 14-15: Occult Dragon
Levels 16+: Occult Dragon or Mountain Troll
What's up with the voidglass falchion? Does that do anything special for you?So the voidglass falchion is from 'Dragon's demand' the grioths (minions of the dragon) used voidglass weapons. Trying to keep him close to the original character Ting would have claimed it from the Grioth he killed. That's it's backstory, as for mechanics:
Grioths wield weapons fashioned from a strange sort of transparent material called voidglass. This material is as hard as steel, but made of crystals that voidglass shapers on unknown worlds grow into the desired shapes. ... a voidglass piercing or slashing weapon deals 1 additional damage on a hit—bludgeoning weapons gain no benefit....Voidglass has 30 hit points per inch of thickness and hardness.
Are we meeting anyplace or being hired by anyone specifically?
Nice images, I'd never seen the gates of Zelkor's Ferry before :)
Done.
MW exotic bastard sword and the Mithril dagger. Originally he kept a vooidglass kukri for two weapon fighting, but this iteration went 'switch hitter' so no TWF so he 'kept' the falchion instead. I hope that explains. Wasn't quite sure what you were looking for.
@Ting: Just curious.
@Malinor: Reactive is nice as a combat trait, you might think about 'Never Stop Shooting'.
@Everyone: Over the last couple of weeks I've evolved the story a bit in my head. Instead of Nerosyan, the game will begin in Egede. Each of you has been summoned to Egede to do a task for Baron Warwynd.
No real details about the task were revealed. You could have been in Nerosyan or some other city when you were summoned.
I put a variety of npcs for you to attach hooks to in the intro gameplay post.
You could either have been recruited by your church, by Mellikon, the master of the Crooked Tower, or by Odo the retired Pathfinder who serves as the Baron's confidant.
@Ting: Just curious.
Cool, just working the idea that, not really having a preference, he keeps different weapons he finds. With your permission ting will be hired by Odo the retired Pathfinder. I'm assuming he could have discreetly looked into finding a 'trapfinder' for the expedition.
Are we all meeting at the Barons abode for an appointment, or with our individual contacts?
@DM Graves: Quote: "Did a fair bit of reading on your spirit. Wanted to let you know that I researched 'stardust' and came down on the side of you needing to be able to see of touch the target."
Absolutely! The wording says "As a standard action, the shaman causes stardust to materialize around one creature within 30 feet." So, I would argue a touch requirement. But I can't materialize it around something that I can't see! It isn't an area affect like the glitterdust spell!
Malinor: Why not both? They've both called for us. Coincidence? I think not!
Posted a few introductory lines for Tessai in Gameplay - aiming at having Odo being her contact, and old acquaintance of her deceased mentor.
so saw the responses in game, I guess that sort of answers my earlier question, I will get a post up shortly.
Is Tessai still at Odo's? I didn't know if this would be a good time for Ting to meet another member of the crew or not
No, he's drinking the liquor she gave him earlier
ahh, didn't know if Ting was in time to meet her. That's cool
All of the NPCs will point party members to The Traveler's Rest.
Party can introduce themselves to each other there.
Adjusted my gear as requested.
Lothorian "Lefty" has an 8 or more in all the knowledge skills. High int, but he has a lot of skills to keep up, so he hasn't put many ranks in them.
Now I know why the old "meeting in a bar where a wizard gives you a quest" start to a game is a classic .... it's easy.
Everyone likes easy...
Hi, nice to meet you!
Let's kill stuff.
Instead....
each party member enters the town from a different direction....
strolling along with their own ideas about who to talk to....
and where they want to get to, prior to getting to the bar....
where the wizard gives them the quest to go kill stuff!
Lots of RP for the GM to respond to!
I believe we are :)
Hi Lothorian.
DMoG Malinor has raised an interesting question, how much do we know? Ting has knowledge dungeoneering 5 and local 4, Since were calling it the dungeon of graves, I felt comfortable calling it a tomb. Would anyone have any more to share?
No one has told you anything about the mission involving rappan athuk yet.
You'll know some general stuff around the legends, and some more recent rumors.
posts incoming
Yessir!