Forum: Public Forum

Adam, there is one small problem with the alternate Fridays to Kingmaker... that's the week that Giga runs the Carrion Crown game.

(Although I take the point that Kingmaker is "almost" fortnightly..due to RL commitments and fitting in with Carrion Crown(

As talk of a Thursday game is about... and Ding has mentioned he'd like to run a game fortnightly... I could offer/play in a game on the alternate Thursdays if it was wanted (assuming Ginga can accommodate)

Nick,

As I mentioned, we may have problems to play on a Thursday; but it would be nice for me to go back to two nights of gaming a week, well at least one more night every other Thursday.

Laurent,

Laurent,

I fear that Thursdays may not be possible at Vague (due to Ginga's prior commitments). Although if we were to set up a Thursday game at a different local I'd be interested.

My Wednesdays are looking as if they may become free for gaming again, so if there is a space in RotRL(or the game that is run after the end of the campaign) I'd be interested. (Hence my keeping an eye on the thread)

Nick,

Back to RotRL

Despite being in a dungeon cut-off from the world, your PC can come back any time. The problem they have is not to get in, but to get out.

In game time terms, it has been only days since Bester left the party.

Tell us which session you need to come back, slap a level on your old PC and here we go I guess.

Other venue

We could do that indeed, but let our host come back from his LARPing weekend first. I will try to drop by the shop tomorrow evening.

Laurent,

Laurent,

I should be able to come back for the next RotRL game (on the 21st). From memory Bester was about level 10(ish) wasn't he. (I think you have the charicter sheet for him).

Nick

Harper,

I spoke to Ginge a bit ago about if there was a spot open on Thursdays, at that point I think there was. If you'd like to offer to run a game on Thursday's I'd gladly let you take the slot I discussed with him as long as I, my friend and possibly one other could play (the one other would only be about for a couple of months before she moves). As I said before, I'd much rather play than run, I've still got a lot to learn before I could take on something bigger than one off modules.

All,
Would it be worthwhile moving the dicussion regarding a new game to another thread?

Ding

Another thread.

We should talk there.

Bester's return.

Humm... I need to check on that character sheet once I am home. You might need to slap a level or two, I think the party is LV12 at the moment.
They are getting fried by LV9 NPCs right now though!

Laurent,

Nick,

I have the character sheet for your PC Bester.

You can show-up on Wednesday and level your PC up while the others finish their little encounter with Vrarexis' clones.

Laurent,

Dear players,

I know it is bad taste to mention politics, but last night I could not help thinking about what could happen if this brave Herman won the US presidency next year.

Those old enough, and dedicated enough, will surely remember playing "Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun" and the over-the-top NOD video cut-scenes.
Especially this one.

"In the name of KANE!"
"Peace... through... Power!"

Laurent,

Dear players,

Encounters.

Another fun session to run last night, despite the utterly ungentlemanly behaviour of the party. if the GM offers a range-weapon encounter, it is considered cheating to use dimension door and engage in old boring melee!

Anyway, for once it proved useful for my monsters to roll high for their initiative. Eight Human opponents with five levels of Evoker each meant eight fireball spells before the party could act. True, they did not last long after that, but there functions was that of mere speed-bumps. The tough encounters are for the end of the Halls of Wrath.

About the sunbeam spell, not all the Human Eldricht Knights should have been blinded. This was a ray spell. Unless you mistakenly used sunburst which is an LV8 spell.
This is a moot point as Bester wiped out the board by zapping them. Still, there was a problem I think with the spell effect resolution.

Role-playing Delvahine's gifts.

After leaving Runeforge I expect to spend at least half a session on levelling-up, cashing in the loot and buying/enhancing items for the party. I shall come-up with some side-stories, colourful ones of course, about the necessary changes in Marcus behaviour. I shall propose a few things for Adam to choose from for his PC.

The last adventure.

One more adventure with Spires of Xin-Shalast before getting invited at the end of it for a cup of tea with Karzoug the Claimer... who of course is only a wizard.

Laurent,

I was going through my charicter last night when I got home. It would appear that I had short changed myself of a Feat, 2 traits and couple of spells. (I will be adding these in for next session so that).

I didn't think that my chain lightning spell would be so effective, or the 8 fireballs to be so ineffective against me (I took in total 6hp damage from all of them)!

Laurent,

You're quite right, I must have skipped between sunburst and sunbeam whilst reading the rule book.

Sunbeam, isn't nearly as much fun.

Ding

Dear Players,

Nick will not be able to come to the game tonight, so we shall park Bester. I can ret-con the return of Marcus. Nick mentioned updating his character sheet, considering the problem of running a spellcaster belonging to an absent player, it is best just to remove him from the fight.

According to the text message I received, Nick should be able to run his Kingmaker game on Friday, so no change on that matter.

Laurent,

Bester is a bit easier spells wise .. as you only need to know how many spells per level had been cast. (No prepared spells to worry about).

I will look about to see if i can find a charicter sheet that I can record how many spells per day I had cast. From my notes, Bester had cast 3 2nd level spells one 3rd level spell and 1 6th level spell.

Dear Players,

A game session that started in a standard manner against the remnants of a wave of gribblies, followed by another short encounter of other relatively low-level opponents (compared to the party's level). Of course the last twenty minutes have left us with a proper cliffhanger. As briefly mentioned after the game, this is going to be a key battle, with an encounter level - I still shall use the EL denomination even though in Pathfinder RPG only "CR" is used all the time - about five above the party Equivalent Character Level. Hence, a "tough one".

Old battles.

The party has faced such encounters before, at all levels. The original fight with Nualia, the last BBEG of Burnt Offerings was pretty tough. I think the first encounter with Xanesha from The Skinsaw Murders was the most "very challenging" so far, because of the terrain (a tall tower with broken stairs) and the amount, and type, of spells abilities the monster had.

Current encounter.

Shemhazian Demons have gained an increase of 2 to their CR compared to their Third Edition version as listed in the adventure bestiary section. I shall play them as such because I believe that LV12 PCs in the new system are tougher than their counterparts from Third Edition/3.5. The Shemhazian could technically try to summon one of his own own at 30% chance of doing so, I will have him try to summon 1D4 Vrocks at the given 60% chance. This could spice-up the fight even more without making it impossible.

Note that you are all aware of what Shemhazians can do. They can as expected use true seeing at will and use invisibility on themselves. Have you noted the gaze attack? You better take that into account. Check on the rules for fighting monsters with a gaze attack.
And that Rend... have you seen that Rend?
The bite is nice too, I just love the STR drain even on a save. There might be some buff spells against that.

High Lady Athroxis should of course not be dismissed as secondary even if her CR is below that of the Shemhazian. She is the spell-engine of the fight, hopefully she will see a couple of Vrocks appearing soon enough.

As for your current tactic and latest action, as the GM I shall allow myself a bit of meta-gaming and tell you that giving Bester the cape of the mountebank to teleport between High Lady Athroxis and the Shemhazian was not the best idea ever, especially since poor Bester is within reach of the gargantuan monster!

Potential TPK.

Again, as mentioned after the game, this is a big one and one combat where the opposition is honour bound to follow you, should you decide to flee. Once the alarm was rung, at the very first fight in the Halls of Wrath with that variant Iron Golem archer, High Lady Athroxis has been using clairaudience/clairvoyance on the party. I have checked and she can do that without calling for a saving throw or a perception check from you. Basically, as I said during the game, she has been expecting the fight and relishes pitting her skills against yours. If you somehow manage to get back to the teleportation circle with a living Bester (the only wrathful PC in the party), and stay close enough for you to be without touching distance of him, to try to escape, the opposition will follow. This could develop as a strategy if for some reasons you believed that wide and open spaces run against your tactical combat abilities. However, doing so will cost you roughly one round of positioning, initiative delaying, etc. so as to be together on the teleportation circle for Bester to activate it.

If the sh*t hits the fan, I advise you split the party: Some of you carry on with the fight or gull the opposition into following them. These PCs are doomed to die. While the rest of the party can hide somewhere in Runeforge long enough to cast plane shift. Doing so would keep the campaign continuity alive and avoid having an entirely brand new party being rolled-up for the last adventure. This hypothetical brand new party would need runeforged weapons in any case to make Spires of Xin-Shalast more playable, thus would most probably need to come back to Runeforge.

Obvious observation:
The party is not properly buffed-up. Even if it is going to eat into your round/level spell durations, you need to cast far more abjuration spells and other buffing spells before you even think of getting into initiative. Do not even laugh at a bless spell, as you know in D&D "A +1 bonus is...a +1 bonus is... a +1 bonus!".
Check the stacking rules, but you have enough spell-casting classes on-board to mix your morale, deflection, sacred, profane , and whatnot bonuses.
At this level, you can safely expect energy drain effects, death effects, and other "save-or-die-or-at-least-be-seriously-inconvenienced" - effects.

Anyway, you are not dead yet as the combat has yet to begin.

Edit: The game page has been updated. I have also added a few more instances of the RotRL event on the calendar for you to sign in.

Laurent,

Hi Guys,

Sorry I won't be able to make it this week. I need to catch up on some uni work. Who would have thought that taking such a relaxed attitude for three years could bite back.

Ding

Dear players,

My wife and I spent a nice weekend in London, but I have come back with a nasty cold. It is not getting any better at the moment, so I would rather cancel tonight's game; sorry.

You may show-up at Vague Connection to play a board-game or something.

See you next week,

Laurent,

You may show-up at Vague Connection to play a board-game or something.

Can we? That's kind of you

If we're not playing I think I'll have a night in instead. I think I've got a cold on the way too...

Adam,

What I meant obviously was that there is a semi-established rule about games being cancelled due to having not enough players - or nor enough GM as it was in this case - people who show-up play a board-game of some sort.

Things should be back to normal next week for Legacy of Fire, unless it becomes Ian's turn to be ill.

Laurent,

Apologies in advance. Work (again) is getting busy. And as such my Wednesday nights are becoming increasingly filled with work.

As such, and as I'm not in a position to be able to predict my availibility I'm going to have to pull out of RotRL's.

This will not be effecting Kingmaker (which I'll run on Friday as planned).