Forum: Public Forum

Owen,

Hum... this is odd.
I have added you as a "guest" and now you show up on the LoP (List of Participants).
What Len says above has worked fine, the system has checked the database and your username is listed in bold and as my "friend".
Theoretically you can remove yourself from that list. I advise you to do so and see if you can add yourself back.

I could have edited the page directly and put you in the list, but it seems there is not real problem related to your username once you are in the list, via being added as a guest (by me) or as a member (by yourself if you tried) or a member (by me via event edit).

The July 7th event may have been posted just before Len got the RSVP working, but this does not really make sense as you have checked the other events and they seem to work if you register for them.

Note:
"Vague Connections" is the entry for the owner of the shop "Vague Connections" where we play. He seems to still have internet access issues, so is not registered as a member, thus appears only as "text" in the list. Your username displays as a member.

Laurent,

Owen,

Wild guess:
You may be using Firefox like me and have all sorts of add-ons such as NoScript and the likes to suppress the crap out of what you see on the web.
If this is the case, in order to interact with this site you may need to flag it as trusted and accept all sorts of things like Java and stuff like that.

As it stands you should see at the bottom of the LoP a button to remove yourself, and no longer one to add yourself (quite logical too). You should still be able to add guests.

Laurent

I think it will have been just as you said Laurent. A trust issue. It all seems to be working just fine provided you don't tie BOTH hands behind the system's back.
Let this site use at least some of its features, and it can work. I know that some scripts are bad. But those used on this site are harmless, and firefox, actually use the same platform themselves.

I promise never to sell your soul to more than one demon.
If you start to get email from this site, it will be because you asked for it.

Len

Hi,

I am the friend Owen was talking about. Thought I should sign up for the site. I assume from the title that it will the Rise of the Runelords setting and adventure path?

See you on Wednesday.

Alex

Alex,

Welcome to the group and to the "Rise of the Runelords" game.
I will not be back until July 5th, so this coming Wednesday you will at best meet with the players and roll up your PC.
Same rule as for Owen for the character build up. Ginga, the owner of "Vague Connections" should be able to sell you a Pathfinder RPG corerulebook or at least order one for you if need be. There should be enough copies thereof around the table to share though.

Laurent,

Alex,

I use the "friend" list to identify my players.
You should have received a request from me.

Laurent,

Just to say I will be turning up tonight to see what's going on.
Ding

Cool,

Owen and I need to roll up our stats, so we will see you later.

Alex

Got a chance to meet everyone last night and roll up some stats so all ready to go Nice venue as well, really liked the downstairs area quite a cool gaming set up.

I'm guessing the next session (next week) will be the wrap up of Skinsaw Murders - not sure if you want us to jump in right away. I have played the end of it, but from talking to the guys I don't know anything they do not, basically the only difference was the their party retreated before they finished the final baddy but that is about it.

Otherwise looking forward to seeing everyone next Wednesday.

Cheers,

Owen

Owen,

The end game with Xanesha will be a bit different as one of the PC, the Thief, is charmed by the Lamia Matriarch. The old clock-tower has already been used once for the first attempt, and my bet is that the party will try to corner her at he inn she is known to frequent.

In other words the end of the adventure should be slightly changed from the original one.

Introducing the new PCs.

I will bring your Paladin as a member of the guard, special agent of the mayor. I do not know what Alex is playing, but he shall be with you.

Magnimar has a heavy bureaucracy with the mayor seriously restricted by a council.
Justice Ironbriar had powerful friends and made sure that investigations into gruesome murders never came to fruition. The mayor pays some of his guards extra to sort out problems on the side, bypassing the tribunals for instance. Your Paladin is one of these agents. He will be sent to contact the party and inform them that their actions are being watched and that as long as their goals match those of the mayor, however directly or indirectly, some of these "actions" - such as casting a fireball from the street into a well known business with many passerby as witnesses - can be overlooked. The two new PCs will therefore introduce themselves as observers and facilitators.

The next adventure is going to be a mission offered by the mayor of Magnimar, so this little introduction should be perfect.

List of equipment
Could you list all the special equipment the two new PCs have bought with their cash allocation?
I have a lot of Paizo Gamemastery Item cards, so any magical weapon, suit of armour, potion, headband of intellect, etc, can be given as an item card.
Please list anything magical, alchemical, or masterwork.

I will try to sort that out before the game.

Laurent,

Owen,

There must be a temple of Shelyn, this is a big city, if there is none in the write-up, I shall use my GM powers to have one!

Weapon cost:
base cost + masterwork cost (300) + enchantment cost (2,000 gp for a +1)
in you case the enchantment cost will be 8,000 gp (+1 to be magical, +1 to be returning).
So the returning spear cost is: 2+300+8,000 = 8,302 gp

Magical and MW cost for armour are halved:
Full plate +1 = 1,500 + 150 + 1,000 = 2,650 gp

Have a look at the Pathfinder RPG reference document:
Pathfinder RPG Reference Document PRD

Everything is online for free but I encourage you to buy the core-rulebook in the medium to long term.

Alex brings a Sorcerer?
This is good, two high CHA PCs in a party that used to be ugly as sin...

A Gnomish fop for a Paladin in love with himself, hum... someone is going to qualify for "Pride" pretty easily. If the Sorcerer chooses to go for the ladies, he will obviously get "Lust".

Of course the other five sins are available should you desire a particular one.

Laurent,

Owen,

You are in a city, the usual adventurer kit could be avoided. You have accommodations at the guard station, or something like that: cell at the temple if your Paladin is more religious than martial, however you want to play it.

As for the exact cost, you should be entitled to a +2 weapon (or +1+1 in cost) or a pretty good suit of armour, as you point out you may not be able to afford both.
As a hint, you may want to be able to swim or "not sink" in armour at some point during the next adventure. Keep in mind that Gnomes being small already gets a +1 to their AC, so a full plate could safely be downgraded.

Laurent,

Dear Players,

I have been back since last night, still a bit dozy due to a five hour jet-lag. Thus the game is on tomorrow.

[Owen]
Try to always use Post new message and not Reply when adding something to the thread. This way the messages stay in the right order and do not veer to the right. The threading option for the forum is on because of display issues when threads are longer than one page, but people usually liked the Meetup.com set-up with the messages ordered by default.

I run a game in Proper English so your potion is a potion of Eagle splendour. People can lose level pretty quickly you see...

See you all tomorrow night,

Laurent,

Dear Players,

At last you got to kill the Lamia Matriarch and finish the adventure.
As expected the fight did not proceed as planned.

Game:
The plan was to have Marcus run away after resisting a Charm monster, Xanesha to pick up her spear and start poking at Marcus if he did not.
Because Adam came up with some good role-playing, the party got an extra three rounds of prep, which Xanesha could not use to buff herself up. Xanesha would also have made use of her illusion spells and I had a silent image in mind of a gate to the Abyss and a Glabrezu about to step into the room as one of the party member decided to come back in.

The use of only one Charm monster was correct in the sense that once she realised the party was prepared for that, the tactical choice of using Deep slumber was sound, too bad she did not know about the party having elves and half-elves. The party would have been more useful to her charmed than dead, so Deep slumber followed by waking up the PCs one by one and using Charm monster at a DC 21, after the expiration of the Protection from evil, was what Xanesha had in mind.

Missing thrice in a row on extremely poor rolls cost her one kill, the Paladin should have gone down. Next she would have stepped to the window to skewer the Wizard that was giving those annoying +20 to hit. True, I forgot to use the special ability of the spear, but it was going to be only about spreading some -2 to hit around, so nothing really game-breaking.
Again, had she had not been disturbed by Marcus' glibness her AC would have reached 31 and she would have had an extra attack at +20 from Haste.

Once surrounded and after suffering a critical hit, she did not have enough HPs to risk five AoOs on her casting (again her AC was "low" at 26), so dropping the Paladin was the goal. Oddly enough she had the spells to escape, such as Invisibility and Dimension door but not even a single potion of CLW on hand, so the escape, reload and fight again strategy was unavailable.
Her spell resistance did wonders though!

Adam is now happy, somebody (Alex), had some crappier rolls than Marcus. The pesky SR 18 was impassable to the Sorcerer.

Reach for large weapons:
Link to Pathfinder RPG Reference Document
Xanesha was not "typical" in the sense that she was large with a natural reach of only 5ft (same as that large Undead Dire Bat you fought at Foxglove Manor), hence she had only a 10ft reach with her long spear.
The rule says that the natural reach is doubled as in Most reach weapons double the wielder's natural reach... when using a reach weapon.
Thus, a large long spear or medium longspear will not affect the reach of Elswyn should he fall in love with Xanesha's spear. Elswyn's natural reach is 5ft, so he gets 10ft as with his current spear.
The WIS drain effect was a Lamia Matriarch drain effect, the Impaler of Thorns allowed her to channel one point of drain through it. So unless Elswyn becomes a Vampire, this weapon ability will see little use.

EDIT
A medium PC cannot use a large two-handed weapon.
At best a medium PC can use a large one-handed weapon as a "medium equivalent" two handed weapon.
So, Elswyn needs to drop the spear, be the recipient of an enlarge person spell and only pick the spear up while large to use it. This would become a possible but complex and time consuming combat set-up.

As for the size penalty:
Inappropriately Sized Weapons: A creature can't make optimum use of a weapon that isn't properly sized for it. A cumulative –2 penalty applies on attack rolls for each size category of difference between the size of its intended wielder and the size of its actual wielder. If the creature isn't proficient with the weapon, a –4 nonproficiency penalty also applies.
Elswyn can therefore use the Impaler of Thorns but at a -2 to hit.

Timing:
We ran the one mega encounter spot on time as it finished at ten o'clock.

Next adventure:
"The Hook Mountain Massacre" by Nicholas Logue.
Next week the party will be travelling to Turtleback Ferry, a small town close to Fort Rannick, the fort that has not sent any report for quite a while.
The laws of random encounters dictate that whatever the choice of route (walking, horsies or river barge) there shall be one - and one only - random encounter before starting the adventure proper. See the "Order of the Stick" for an expose of this rule.

The party will have a week off, to stay in Sandpoint or Magnimar (the city is one day of travel away from Sandpoint) to spend their cash and letters of credit on wine, prostitutes and magical items of many sorts.
Some information gathering under a Diplomacy skill check and other Knowledge (local) check could provide more background and avoid simply bumbling into the bad guys once the party has arrived.

As mentioned before "The Hook Mountain Massacre" is for LV7, but after having run RotRL in Pathfinder RPG for close to a year now, the PCs are tougher than their 3.5 counterparts. True, the casters still have access to the same spell levels, but overall, feats and special class abilities make a PC stronger.
Thus I believe there should be no problem with the party starting just below the power curve. You now have slightly more wealth per head than your level allows for, again this should compensate for the LV7 requirement.

I may need to add some side encounters to the adventure to bring in more XP to adjust to a six member party. I did so for the first adventure ("Burnt Offerings"), but decided to merely add to the number of monsters for the second one, making "The Skinsaw Murders" quicker to play through.
The gaming rate should reach 2.5 to 3 adventures a year if we keep to a more or less weekly session as we have done so far. Therefore you should be talking to Karzoug at LV12 by January 2012. Levelling up should slow down a bit around "Fortress of the Stone Giants" and "Sins of the Saviours".

I shall post the event later today on this website.

There will be a Meetup.com event but only to attract one more player, so you will not need to drop an RSVP there.

I am no longer looking aggressively for an additional player, so the opening is only there for someone who is looking for a game.

Laurent,

Dear Players,

The event vignette is on the calendar, go there and add yourselves to the LoP (List of Players).

Laurent,

As mentioned, I can't make it tomorrow, but if someone could look after Marcus for me, that would be great.

Couple of things:
Marcus' wisdom has been drained to 7. This needs restoring quickly before he spends his gold on magic beans. He's got 4k from last time which can be used for this purpose if we don't have the spells. I've got some ideas for buying new kit, but best to wait until next time.

Other thing - Marcus has a base move of 40 because of his magic boots of magic, and since levelling up now has mobility (+4 AC against attacks of opportunity). You probably know what he'll do - if in doubt, sneak attack.

Incidentally, I forgot last time that he can only benefit from an extra +1 dex bonus because of his armour. A mithril chain shirt is on the shopping list....