Forum: Public Forum

Dear players,

Tonight, during the Legacy of Fire game, I will announce a probable change of locale for our Rise of the Runelords game. I intend to shift it to my place so as to allow an earlier start, I shall propose 6.30 p.m.

We shall discuss all this tonight or on this thread if you cannot make it to Ian's game.

Laurent,

Dear players,

As decided yesterday, we shall still play at the shop on Wednesday. However, I will try to make it for 7.30 p.m. as Andrew should be free to join us early. I will update the game event to reflect the earlier starting time.

In the days of old, we indeed played around 6.30 p.m. but I was living closer to.

Laurent,

Dear players,

I hope you did not mind the change of venue too much. The half past seven earlier meeting time allowed us to... well, start at eight at my place in the end.

Big fight.

For once everything went as planned for the GM, even the timing!
The monsters had a go at being dangerous, I think I dropped two PCs below zero. Sure the paladin still look as if nothing can get him, but one day, one day, he will have a bad roll on a save! And then revenge shall ensue!

So you have removed one Rune Giant and four gribbly giants. The Cloud Giants are meant to be the canon fodder in this adventure.

As you must have noticed, there is a serious encounter on its way. You will have but one or two rounds to clear out, hide somewhere (unlikely) or decide to attack.

Next game.

This should take place at the shop. Next week game, Ian's Legacy of Fire should anyway.

Laurent,

Dear players,

Just a reminder that the game starts at half past seven at the shop.

I have at long last decided to read my copy of the third bestiary and as usual, I have begun with the appendices. They have expanded a but on the universal monster rules, but while reading again the most common ones, I realised that we may have played Spell Resistance wrong.

The caster level check should not include the casting ability modifier. Basically the only way to improve one's ability to penetrate the SR, beyond the character level increase of course, is to collect feats to do so. Caster level check never include the ability modifier anyway.
The ability modifier is only added for concentration checks.

Laurent,

Hi all,

It appears the Gods of Social Calendars have willed their way into my life once more (and they seem to dislike RotR far more the LoF). I can't make tomorrow's session. Hope it goes well.

David,

No Rise of the Runelords, no chocolate!

Had I known you were going to show-up yesterday, I would have brought the chocolate bar you left at my place. Are you planning to attend the next board-game session?

Laurent,

I'm not sure about Monday's boardgaming session. I'm going to try an re-arrange the other online gaming group I have on a monday so I can attend more of them. Unless otherwise stated I imagine I won't be able to make it.

I don't know if I could have kept hold of someone else's bar of chocolate as long as you have.

dont worry about rearranging mondays. as of the 2nd week in dec the board gaming is moving to tuesdays as the store will be closed on a monday.

Dear players,

With Adam and David no show tonight, it was already likely that we would be playing board-games instead of a session of Rise of the Runelords.
Also I have not had the time to prepare the game properly - yes, I have had to work this week! I know about the next encounter of course, but since it involves two important characters I should revise the spells and special abilities.

At the pub last night, we more or less agreed to play Dominion.

See you tonight at the shop at 7.30 p.m. anyway.

Laurent,

Dear players,

In the end it was only down to James, Ian and I. So we retired to my abode and let Kieran close the shop and go back to his.

We played a game of Arkham Horror with The Dunwich Horror expansion. Because most of the gates opened in Dunwich at the beginning of the game and the move orders seemed to always target these Dunwich spawned monsters, we got the Dunwich Horror to show-up early. We had a pretty bad draw at the beginning with our equipment, with none of the three characters holding anything powerful, be it a spell or a nice weapon. We did not have really bad items overall, but indeed nothing that could be combined into a monster exterminator. So, nobody could possibly smash the Dunwich Horror. Somehow it never got activated despite its crescent sign. We chose not to use the herald sheet.

Luck was also not on our side when it came to critical dice rolls. The doom track was progressing slowly, because of a lot of monster surges, hence the appearance of the Dunwich Horror. We called the game to a halt around ten o'clock after a solid hour and a half of typical Arkham doom and gloom: Trips to the asylum and hospital, failed rolls to close the gates with tough monsters lurking at their locations - Yog-Sothoth was the Old One, upping the difficulty to close by one. All in all, nothing really ever worked and we decided to declare defeat.

It was also the first time James played the game, but he learnt quickly.

See you next week for Ian's Legacy of Fire; the next Rise of the Runelords game should be on January 9th, 2013.

Laurent,

In passing, I was wrong to use Storm of Spirits to switch from Lore to Fight for the current combat. The spell card shows two hands, hence I need to be using it for its ability to be active.

This means that using this spell is a huge gamble: If it cannot be cast, the player is very likely set with Fight at 0 or minimum (to maximise the horror check) and top Lore; hence does not have a chance to defeat the monster. Of course, if it goes off normally, a good spellcaster usually has high lore, the spell is pretty good (not that great I agree for a two hand cost, but still good).

Laurent,

Dear players,

After a long period of quiet, Rise of the Runelords was back in action.

As mentioned in the after-game discussion, I may have gone a bit heavy with the "gribbly ladle" for the not-so-random encounter and scooped one too many Storm Giant. The session ended with a Paladin catatonic on the floor from wisdom drain and the rest of the party wisely escaping through a window.

This will lead to a hopefully different game session next time as the party will have to infiltrate the enemy stronghold without the usual bashing. The Paladin will have to go through a little chat with Most High Ceoptra as this lieutenant of Karzoug will be especially curious about who the party are, what they know and what are their goals. He shall therefore be kept alive.

Laurent,

Dear players,

It has been snowing intermittently today, but as of now (quarter past four) nothing Arctic about it. So the game is on.

Please drop a line here up to around half past six if you cannot - or decide not to - make it for the game tonight due to the weather conditions.

Note that the game is advertised for 7.30 p.m. and this should be the time I expect to run it (not 7.00 p.m. as with Ian's Legacy of Fire).

I have texted Andrew asking if he is coming, no answer yet.

Laurent,

Dear players,

Andrew was in for the game tonight... then can no longer come due to tram issues.

About to leave for the shop.

Laurent,

Dear Players,

Time to post about the last session I guess before it becomes more than a week away.
I have updated the game page, something I had not done in a while.

Dagar's rescue operation.

Having fallen foul of Most High Ceoptra and her patrol of Storm Giants the party had lost Dagar who was taken prisoner in a catatonic state. A new NPC has made an appearance: Chellan the Sword of Greed with its ego of twenty-five and its LE motivation to help Karzoug reclaim Shalast, now mostly Varisia.
Dagar had been selected as the next Champion of Greed, but somehow refused the entreaties.

As mentioned during the game, I am not playing intelligent items as a manifestation of spells like dominate or charm monster but as tools and guides for their owners. The PC who holds an intelligent item must do it willingly. Of course, the advice and guidance given by said item may not always have the health and safety of its owner in mind. This is now a moot point as Dagar refused Chellan, hopefully others will not scorn a +5 sword, with a lot more attached to it, like that!

The rescue operation is on its way, with some funny business in that cell under an anti-magic field going on. The party got to see the face of their Dwarven friend Thorak, something they had not seen in ages!

The Astradaemon guardian has been badly whacked, but is in the process of being healed by Most High Ceoptra. With the alert having been sounded, Viorian Dekanti, the current holder of Chellan might join in anytime soon.

Beware that Dagar is in his small clothes at the moment, with an AC of 10+DEX modifier and whatever paladany-spell abjuration he might decide to cast; more to the point the hopes of snatching back everything now are probabilistically small.

Next session.

Hopefully we will get our fifth player back. If not, we can decide to either invite a replacement part-time to play the 15th level Cleric, or agree on finishing the campaign with four players and no, or very few, healing/abjuration magic.

Re-balancing.

I have never bothered to check, but the revised edition may call for Level 18 PCs, not 15 as it used to be. I may have to give you the extra three levels then.

Laurent,

Dear players,

I have at last spent some time to more than glance at the revised edition of Rise of the Runelords and indeed, you are entitled to a couple of more levels. If it was down to me you would have got stuck at Level 3, but the rules are the rules... wait, I am the GM, I can do what I want!

So, according to the guidelines:

• 17^th level when entering the Pinnacle of Avarice.
• 18^th level just before having tea with Karzoug.

Now I guess you will have choices to make, so you can select from the following classes if you wish:

• Expert (Dwarven hair stylist)
• Expert (Marital aids designer)
• Commoner (Turnip grower)
• Expert (Kobold scale manicurist)

Or the more sedate core and prestige classes as published by Paizo.

See you tonight at 7.00 p.m.

Laurent,

David,

About your Storm Druid question sent to me via text messaging:

You can indeed change to an archetype, in fact I would encourage people to play archetypes.

Your problem is that this is not "taking two levels of archetype". You will need to rework you whole character from LV 1, i.e. have a LV17 Druid (Storm Druid archetype). This is not too much work though as you usually swap standard special abilities for alternate ones. You will just need to remember that when playing.

If you have collected levels in a prestige class, those levels would be unaffected by the archetype switch.

Laurent,

Dear players,

Last session.

The whole team was present yesterday and I think we had a pretty good game.

Note to self: CR11 gribblies can be dangerous to LV17 PCs if given keen weapons on 15-20 with average to good dice rolls. Oh well, you survived thanks to some well-timed high-level spells, so no harm done.
There was of course no need to carry on with the party on full-health and two badly hit Lamia Priestesses as it was already past ten o'clock.

Next game.

Next week is Legacy of Fire as usual, but we may have to play Rise of the Runelords for the whole of March to finish it before I have to leave Nottingham. Ian and I will mention that next week.

Starting time.

I can make it for a seven o'clock start, so the game time can switch to that time - the same as for Legacy of Fire

Laurent,

Dear players,

Last session.

Well, a kind-of-lame battle with the Champion of Avarice.
Some abilities, both class and weapon related, are clearly "not right" for a high-level encounter of the melee type.
I guess you have noticed my efforts to save my supposedly high-quality encounter, from the miss chance to the healing abilities of Chellan the intelligent sword. All of this within the rules of the game and without even cheating.

Now of course, I should now add a little "GM fiat" to my game: As of next session, the Pinnacle of Avarice (the building you are in at the moment) will have an antipathy like effect for LG characters, who will need to succeed at a DC 78 Will Save before every attack or suffer a -50 morale penalty on attack and damage rolls.

Special mention to James for playing without his character sheet, which I had forgotten at my place. It is now back in the folder.

And another honourable mention to David who had made special efforts to play with spells we never use. This indeed makes a change from the usual cure light wounds and similar wash-rinse-repeat spellcasting options.

Games on Thursdays.

As discussed, we shall now play Rise of the Runelords every week. Every other Wednesday as usual and every other Thursday too shifted by a week. I shall put the events on the calendar forthwith.

Laurent,

Dear players,

A quick update on the game.

Of serious NPCs and dangerous lower CR gribblies.

So far all the fights I expected to be memorable have turned out to be damp squids due to the kind of game breaking brilliant energy weapon special ability that can be switched on by a high level Paladin. As discussed during and after the game, we play according to the rules and I roll without a GM screen, so do not "moderate" them to suit the outcome.
Ironically I get all my rolls between 18 and 20 for the CR12 monsters, which at this level are like Goblins to LV6 PCs, and Lord they hit!

Most High Ceoptra.

She could become the first - and the last! - of the named NPCs that could decimate the party thanks to her wisdom drain attacks. She is no longer using air walk as the dispel magic went through, but she is just about to go full-attack on that cocky Dagar, the Paladin of yours. One never knows, she could do something useful and last more than a couple of rounds.

The final battle.

Karzoug will be accompanied by at least one Blue Dragon (no, not the one you killed, another one) and one Rune Giant. I cannot remember but he may also have one or two Wardens of Wind (low-level cannon fodder). I will read the combat again. This is far better structured than the older version.

Technically the PCs cannot know that, but they would definitely heal-up, raise from dead (if needed), rest and buff-up before going through the Anima Focus.
You will also need to pump-up your character sheets to LV18.

Weird spells.

Although I have all the Pathfinder RPG books, and have read them once, I do not know all the new spells by heart. In fact I only vaguely know some of the LV9 spells that we all now use, either as PCs or as GM's monsters/NPCs. We shall discuss them before the combat, so that we know what to plan for our respective tools, be they monsters or PCs.

See you on Thursday for the game,

Laurent,