Forum: Public Forum

Adam,

Yep, sorry, that should teach me to type about D&D when fantastically bored at work because of a report that does not type itself up.

Forget the +2 circumstance bonus indeed, but keep the house rule "You can take 10 with YOUR wand, the wand that YOU bought with its user manual, when non-threatened."

This would work only for wands of course, strange and somewhat dodgy magic items found during adventuring would still require to be activated blindly as per the rules.

Laurent,

Marcus certainly did buy his wand (along with 'Wanding for Dummies') when non-threatened.... anything else would have been folly.

In other news, a self-typing report would be a superb innovation. Get onto it, science!

Dear Players,

I have checked my old Meetup.com archives. The first post on the old thread was on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 11.41 p.m. thus an hour or so after the end of the first session.

The post told of Goblins disrupting the fayre in Sandpoint, so yep, Rise of the Runelords has been going on for a year and four days at time of typing this.

The party consisted of (copy/paste from the old post):
Niskala "The Blinder", Male Gnomish Sorcerer, Cayden Calean
Elswyn "The Blinded", Male Elven Cleric, Pharasma
Alahna, Female Human Fighter, Iomedae
Mandrain "Manny", Male Half-Elf Rogue, (no god, soul doomed to oblivion)
Nelias, Male Human Fighter, Sarenrae
Drak'Van, Male Half-Orc Druid, Sarenrae

Laurent,

Elswyn, May he be screaming Repent in hell now!!!

Dear players,

I will be late tonight. I shall be able to make it for seven though. I will call Andrew if I get delayed further than expected. Damned report at work...

Laurent,

well after crowing about downing a dragon after last week i suppose that had to come back at me. dam you karma!!!! getting mugged by 6 ogres and getting pumlled in 2 rounds will do that to you. bloody stupid karma

Ian,

Last week, after the death of Longtooth my lovely Juvenile Red Dragon I caught myself saying "By Grabthar's hammer... by the Sons of Warvan... you shall be... avenged." Classic quote from a classic movie.

Having the six dumb Orgres Barbarians swarm Gideon was not really planned, but as you have already deducted by yourself, having Pacu doing a tactical retreat on his own without consulting with the rest of the party indeed left Gideon in a difficult position.

There was a time when a more courageous Ranger by the name of Eigan would have stood his ground; but gone are the days of old! Today, it is all about instant gratification, Phantasmal Killer, Maximised Fireball, two-weapon fighting, shuriken throwing, running around and jumping like mad. Adventurers of yesteryears were indeed more likely to be made of the stuff of legend. As your actual party leader would say: INSERT MOCKING BRAY

Laurent,

all hail sweeb the mighty!!!

He'll always be Donkey Oatey to me.....

2.8 adventures to go before the ultimate fight between Karzoug, Runelord of Greed and Sweebe the Mighty.

Never has a mule lived that long in a D&D adventure.

Where are you going to leave your quadripedal party leader then when you get to that hole in the cliff?

Laurent.

leave him??? surely not... Swebe will probably go back to the fort and rally an army, leading the hook mountains to a totalitarian dictatorship based formally around carrots and getting up really step mountains...

Either that or as always he will be left tied up to something and only remembered when we need to start lugging things around...

Dear Players,

I would like to advise you strongly to order the following book from "Vague Connections":
Pathfinder Player Companion: Inner Sea Primer.

This is pretty cheap, and should prove to be a very good introduction to the Inner Sea part of the world of Golarion. The Inner Sea region is the big map I show you every now and then to locate various countries. It is the equivalent of the Flanaess (the east of Oerik) in Greyhawk or the typical Forgotten Realm map of Abeir Toril in FR.

As this is not a "core" book, it may become difficult to obtain in the near future, so you should get your order in with Andrew now.

Laurent,

Dear Players,

Attendance.

It sounds like we have a game tonight.
Paul and James have not signed in yet.

I have looked at my Windows Live Mail address book lately and I am missing James' email. So James, when you have the time just send it to me in a Personal Message (PM) via the website.
I hardly ever email players but I tend to keep an up to date delivery list for the gaming group. I prefer emails to PM via the site by the way, being lazy it is easier for me to reply to them.

Game.

I have read the most obvious dungeon complex entrance the party is likely to go through. Have I said "Most obvious?" . Of course if you decide not to go through there, this would not be the end of the world, I will just ask for a few minutes to familiarise myself (refresh my memory) with the layout of "the next room".

Playing at this level has its advantages: you need a crap load of XP before levelling up. Therefore all the monsters that you may or may not go through to reach Mokmurian are of similar CR. In other words, there is no real gain, or fear, to be had by getting in from the back door as there would be in a low-level adventure. At earlier levels, by-passing the minions (XP bags) to get to the Big Bad Evil Guy is not always the best thing to do.
The "twelve encounters" per level design rule (for D&D Third Edition) does not really hold here. The design of "Fortress of the Stone Giants" favours groups of monsters of slightly lower CR each than the party EL, hence the "you can enter from anywhere you want" approach.
There is one very important thing though: resource management. As you already know me, the dungeons I run are not static. This one is a pretty big one. I do not expect you to do it in one go, but you should definitely think about spells.
I may require you to track your food supplies, filling up your daily waterskin should not be an issue though, you would merely need to get back outside to reach the river.

Unlike the previous one, this adventure lets the PC decide a lot about how to tackle problems. There are still objectives of course, but the rails are not as obvious as in "The Hook Mountain Massacre" which was great because of the various settings, but was also very linear.

See you tonight, I should be there closer to the usual half past six today.

Laurent,

Edit: Game page updated.

Dear Players,

Poison.

Having recently been on both sides of the fence, as a GM nearly killing players and as a player nearly losing his PC due to CON loss; I have been thinking a bit more about the Pathfinder RPG rule changes to the poison mechanics in D&D.

Clearly the poison mechanics were usually inconsequential in D&D Third Edition (3.0/3.5), encounters had to run for ten rounds to see the secondary effect kick in, in case of a failure on the secondary save. Thus low-level PC hardly ever died during combat due to poisoning because combats at that level last at most five to six rounds; and when they did die, they died after the encounter, therefore the poison mechanics did not really impact on the suspense of the encounter. At higher levels, with only a second save after ten rounds, the effects of even potent poisons were still not that exciting during combat.Pathfinder RPG changed that with the continuous damage mechanics. To balance the effect, they have switched most D6 damages to D4 or D3, but as you have realised, rules for resistance imply two consecutive saves for an average poison, or even three on the trot for very tough substances; only the weakest poisons require only one save. CON poisons, the most interesting ones become far deadlier (D2, D3 or D4 instead of a couple of D6 notwithstanding), and way out of the CR of the creature inflicting them, if luck is only midly against the player.

I have realised that I have been misinterpreting the "require n saves over p rounds" formula.
What I do at the moment is:

• Ask for a save on the hit.
• Ask for saves for p rounds unless consecutive saves happen.

Thus if p is given as 6 rounds, I ask for seven saves. This is unfair.

What I should be doing:

• A monster, on its initiative, hits a PC. Or on PC's initiative in case of an AoO.
• Deal damage, say nothing.
• Next monster turn (PC turn in case of AoO), before acting (attacking, moving, etc): Call for a save from the PC who was hit.
• Apply poison effect.
• Add one to the poison counter.
• Then the monster (or PC in case of AoO) acts.

Playing like this would ensure only a number of saves equal to the number of rounds (assuming all fails or not enough consecutive saves). This would be fairer. It would also be more realistic in the sense that the poison would require at least one round to act on the PC's immune system.

Other poison mechanic rules should work as published of course: The +2 cumulative to save DC in case of multiple hits, the lenghtening of the p effective rounds, etc.
What I am doing sort right is to allow a +4 to saves from other PCs who succeed at the Heal check. There is also no penalty for failing by five or more. Failing is already negative enough for the PC who requires the aid of his friends.
In fact the rules as written never mention "failing by five or more" in the description of the Heal skill. I shall henceforth play by those rules. There is also no restriction on PCs attempting a Heal check on themselves, thus rolling twice: once for the potential +4 and once for the actual save (with or without the +4 circumstance bonus).

I have said "sort of" because the Heal check should happen when the PC is rolling the saving throw. This implies that only one Heal check should be rolled per saving throw attempt, thus only one person can help (usually the PC with the highest skill modifier).

The Heal skill is available here.

Wednesday game.

I have updated the game page.
See you on Wednesday.

Laurent,

Dear players,

Yes, it has come to that, behold the Pathfinder RPG version of the chicken.

Forget the Wyverns, I am going to give fifteen levels of Barbarian to that beast and watch the party get wiped out!

Laurent,

An interesting nugget of information, but a 15th level Barbarihen would be a poultry opponent and would end up roasted. Perhaps a Paladhen would be better, especially with laying on of eggs and a divine spell rooster.....

Adam,

Any more puns and you could end-up writing leading headlines for "The Sun".

Game tonight

I have just received a PM from Paul. He will not be able to play tonight, someone will have to play Nagri the Sorcerer.

Laurent,

Dear Players,

Yesterday evening's session.

The session played out as expected with a long but otherwise not really threatening encounter with the Redcaps. I guess the adventure design is such that a typical party does not see the need to sleep and refresh their spells after the Wyverns, Deathwebs and Redcaps so as to make the encounter with Enga Keckvia the Kobold Barbarian more memorable.
Now that you have entered the complex proper, I should read again, and again, the whole layout and the story of every monsters present. Not all of them have a duty to help their neighbours from the next room, but most do. Also, for those who have an incentive to move away from their room, they still have specific battle plans.
Enga has a simple battle plan: jab and slice anyone standing with five feet and lob a bead from her Necklace of fireball (type IV) every now and then. She also benefits from my house-ruled 50% increase to HP for being a named or important NPC. The Redcaps saw their number increase from five to eight to balance the two extra party members.

Intelligent gaming.

James should be forbidden to propose intelligent courses of actions. Because of his idea about interrogating a Redcap the party now has some pretty good data regarding the layout of Jorgenfist. Thank God, Andrew decided to go back to basics and not talk too much with Enga. He should also be commended for ignoring all the pointers and hints about the Kobold being slightly more proficient than the standard CR 1/4 Kobold Warrior 1 to be found in the Bestiary.
Expect a longer than usual encounter for this one as, again, I tend to have my dungeons as "dynamic", hence reinforcements, or cannon fodder, will most probably join the fight soon.

The game page has been updated.

Laurent,

Dear Players,

Only two players signed-up for tonight (Ian and David), so three with Andrew.
We already know Adam is not coming.

Hopefully James and/or Paul will show-up.

Not that the encounter was going any badly, after all this is only a Kobold.

Laurent,

sorry snowed in wont be able to make it tonight. hopefully thawed out before next week. try to think without me:) apologies again james