Forum: Public Forum

Dear Players,

As usual, the way I had played the adventure in my mind did not work out as expected, but hey! This is what the game is all about.

The adventure "plan" was indeed for forward scouting and fighting each set of enemies one by one.

The Shriekers could have been disabled with a silence spell, or even set off and destroyed using hit and run tactics by sneaky and/or quick PCs. The Kobolds would have sent a team in the typical 1D4 rounds, to be picked up by ambush.

Theoretically the king was to be encountered in his throne room, however it made more sense for him to join the fray, which was the way I ran it. I guess that if one PC had been captured, there would have been a throne room scene.

The Shadows were unlikely to be found, a bit like the Gargoyle and the Dire Bat last time. The way they were turned changed a lot of the final confrontation, making it tougher than it was meant to be with the dead Kobolds becoming Shadow generators.

Sean
I shall let you have a roll on a craft or profession check if you want to send reports to the Aspis Consortium, which owns the Lumber Consortium. This could give you access to poisons or strange alchemical substances at a 20% discount.

PC sheet policy
Those of you who consider themselves "regular" players can carry on with your PC the way you have them at the moment, i.e. PC sheets with a card holder sheet.
The regulars are currently:
Gram T. Wren, Zan, Emen, Render and Brant.

For the others, I intend impose the use of pregens, the old 3.5 Paizo pre-gens will do.

The problem I have at the moment is that if the loot is spread among "regulars" and "one shot" players, I end up collecting many character sheets and need to bring all the inventories with me.

XP wise, I will reset the levels every now and then to make sure the party aligns more or less with the adventure requirements.

Next adventure
You could finish the dungeon, what is left is mainy aimed at the Thieves in the party as you left behind what amounts to be trap challenges.
I shall nonetheless bring "Carnival of Tears" as the next adventure. Whacky carnies, evil feys, unaturally cold weather, sick jokes, exploited children, and much more!
"The Hollow's Chronicles" are definitely not about the generic happy-clappy little D&D village with its blacksmith and benevolent Druid.

We could also role-play Brant and his "reward", the disturbed recollection of one of Render's recent nightly adventure, and of course have a round of buy/sell activities and other magicking-up of the party's inventory.

The regular players can swap their PC for something else if they so wish.
However, I would impose a "standard races only" policy.

Laurent,

Surprise surprise, the players didn't do what the DM thought they would, and they made it more difficult for themselves to boot. - Where have I heard that one before?

Thanks Laurent. It has been a great game so far, and Gram T Wren will happily keep coming back.

XP and "Stuff" are for me are just the "side quests" to the real task of enjoying the game. So long as I have enough "Stuff" to make the play entertaining you have a happy Bard. Playing alongside the rude and brutish Brant, the gorgeously ugly Emen, and the subtle "Brenda" with the foil of that lying, cheating, untrustworthy, half-demon under the watchful eyes of the un-french DM keeps me coming back for more.

Len

Remove-d

Im sorry to say I will be in London I think on the 17th

Ok I can come now I have pushed the London thing backa week just so I can make it.

Also Im thinking of rolling up a new PC a Gnome Druid but I have to ask
dos one start as level 5?

TTFN

Hey guys. Due to unforeseen events I couldn't make the July game but I should be able to make August and looking forward to playing my sorcerer again if theres still room.

Dear players,

New rules

As pointed out at the last game, since we move to a new adventure, but still at the same location of Falcon's Hollow, it is time to reorganise things a bit.
Because of its drop-in/drop-out nature, the game generates far more character sheet than it needs. So, in order to lightened my bag and not wait for people to roll their PC every time (or update current ones to the appropriate level), I will make the game "pregen only" for non-core players.

Core players

Core players keep their PCs as they stand, or roll new ones if/when they die.
Core-players are players who have played at least five sessions and are dedicated to carry on playing. I need them as it gives my game some continuity.
So far they are, in reverse alphabetical order: Simon (Render "Brenda", Thief), Sean (Zan, Thief/Mage), Len (Gram T. Wren, Bard), Bruce (Brant, Barbarian/Fighter) and Becky (Emen, Fighter).
How to become a core-player?
Play at least five sessions, not necessarily back to back, there is no other unspeakable rite of passage... or is there?
Then you can roll your own PC, give them a name and a retroactive-continuity story to have them become a veteran party member.

I will bring Paizo D&D 3.5 iconic character sheets for the appropriate adventure for others to play. You can even play with an official Paizo mini, painted by Andrew from "Vague Connections", Nottingham. Core players have to bring their own puny mini.

Experience

I may do away with XP and say "You all go up a level" at some point in the adventure.
I run only published adventures, so I know when PCs can and should go up. This would speed up the game a little.

Sean

Funny enough, the Paizo Druid iconic is a female Gnome with a big cat as an animal companion. You could claim Lini as your own PC. If you want a new character you can roll one indeed.
The next adventure starts indeed at LV5.

Paul

Hey guys. Due to unforeseen events I couldn't make the July game but I should be able to make August and looking forward to playing my sorcerer again if theres still room.

There is always room. You will most probably get Seoni if you want to play a Sorcerer again.

I will most likely bring some or all of the following:

• Amiri (Barbarian)
• Lem (Bard)
• Kyra (Priest)
• Lini (Druid)
• Valeros (Fighter)
• Seltyiel (Fighter 1/Conjurer x)
• Sajan (Monk)
• Seelah (Paladin)
• Harsk (Ranger)
• Merisiel (Thief)
• Seoni (Sorcerer)
• Ezren (Wizard)

Laurent,

Re-mov-ed

can we bi Speels in this town if so how much do they cost and what can we get?

Sean,

Fancy armour

You can only get stuff from the "Player's Handbook".
This game seriously frowns upon min-maxing and other fancy items from the worst and most game-breaking days of "D&D 3.5". So, as said on the game page: Only stuff from PH, DMG and MM.

Spells

Yep, anything you can afford, basically you need to buy a scroll for the spell, minus expensive material components if any; i.e. a scroll that is only meant to be copied into a spellbook.
For instance a standard scroll of identify would cost 125gp (100gp for the material component + 2*cost to create), but the same scroll aimed at being scribbled into a spellbook would cost only 25gp.

Follow this link for: the cost to create a scroll.

Market cost for all items is twice the cost to create, with the exception of costly components that contribute only their value, as in the case of a standard scroll of identify.

Laurent,

Having missed the bit about the clowns, would it be possible to get a potted story so far? I felt like I was in the same place I left it, but that much had happened in between that I was unaware of. I am sure some of that was readjusting from a week of nursing a new cosmos into existence under 4th Ed rules. Some was the tiredness, but surely some must have been similarity between where I left and where I re-entered the game.

Len

Len,

Basically last time, and you played, you killed the Kobold King and rescued the kids.

At the August Big Meet, I ran a short (TPK) Pathfinder story then sort of reluctantly at the time ran "Hollow's Chronicles". Because I only had four players, I decided to run the last rooms of the upstairs dungeon, these had some interesting loot left, namely "Droskar's Fist".
The party merely spent some money upgrading their weapons and/or suit of armours using the boon from the local Necromancer (you saved his kid) and their own savings. After that, they merely got back to the dungeon, avoided one or two rooms, found the evidence of Vargouilles having kissed a deceased adventurer, then proceeded to the lodestone trap room, where you joined I believe.

After you finished clearing the upper dungeon, I called it a day and decided to postpone "Carnival of Tears" to the September Big Meet.

Basically the party will have some time for R&R, spend more money, split the loot, etc. Then a month or two later it will be close to a pretty chilly late-Autumn early winter and a circus will come to town; with clowns, illusionists, rides, ice carving contest, freaks and other paraphernalia.
As I mentioned earlier: What could possibly go wrong?
This will be an "event based" adventure, thus the players truly decide what to do and in what order, well, up to the point where the plot goes bang of course!

As for the players, you and the other regulars keep your PC, but everyone locks in at LV4. I shall not give XP anymore.

I will probably let you have your fifth level near the end of the adventure. Having a lot of people joining in and out means I need to simplify things a bit. Any new player will have to choose a pre-generated character. I will need to sort out the item cards too.
Notwithstanding the latest happenings, I was aiming for a reset of "Hollow's Chronicles" anyway.

Laurent,

That is quite fine with me. The whole XP thing is for me a bit superfluous in many games. I don't play regularly in any game where XP is a main driving force. I am totally happy with the concept of levelling up when the DM thinks it is right. Even if the DM is French, I think it might work.

Please do not take this as a blanket condemnation of the XP concept anyone, as it is in many circumstances a valid method of formalising character progression.

Len

Regretfully, some posts on this topic have been moved to a private forum to avoid offence.

This action was not taken lightly or in haste. I apologise if the posts caused concern, and if continuity of the thread is slightly disrupted as a result.

Len
(As Forum Moderator.)

Dear Players,

Well, this was a cosy Big Meet, so I decided to start the game early. The confusion about the booking of the upstairs and downstairs at the pub allowed us some kind of half-time and rotation of players.

This was in effect a new adventure located in "Falcon's Hollow".
The place as quickly presented on the game page is not the usual happy-clappy "village of Hommlet" style D&D location, but a pretty dire place.
So far North in Andoran the Fey World still has a strong influence, all the Feys, good and evil, ressent the presence of the Lumber Consortium.
What has happened recently is that the good Fey creatures have decided not to join the evil ones (the Cold Rider and his followers) into the planned eradication of the Falcon's Hollow settlement.

Sorry that I had not revised/prepared the whole adventure, it being event-based, or in other words having its timeline decided by the players, it makes it harder to plan for. As mentioned I was not going to force the party to check on every single attraction before and after the coming of the Cold Rider's Fey army. I guess you have all picked up that the local Nymph queen is on your side and does not like seeing her own followers corrupted by the Cold Rider. The encounters are tough, but remember you are "in town" so can buy all sorts of scrolls and potions.

The rest is obviously straight from the deranged minds of the joint authors: Tim Hitchcock & Nicholas Logue.

I hope you all enjoyed the game. It was definitely more enjoyable for me to run this time around. As stated I will not be making the October Big Meet, but "Hollow's Chronicles" should be back in November.

Laurent,

Dear Players,

Well, The Hollow's Chronicles was not on at the November Big Meet for two reasons:

• I was enjoying my game of 7th Sea
• No heating upstairs at the pub made people plan to go home early, including me.

In any case, the game is on again for the December 2010 Big Meet.
Drop your registration on the Evening Session calendar event.

Laurent,

Dear Big Meet players,

Of late I have been thinking of dropping The Hollow's Chronicles in favour of truly one-shot D&D adventures using the Pathfinder system. This for two reasons, the first is one of availability both of the "core players" and that of the GM. The second reason is the mini-campaign effect in a gaming system (D&D 3.5) that is unlikely to attract new players. It used to work well when the afternoon game was Grendon and I collected Grendon 4e players, who happened to be former D&D 3.5 players, for the evening session.

As for my availability, I am enjoying playing in 7th Sea Adventures and tend to cancel The Hollow's Chronicles in order to extend play on the afternoon game.

So for the Evening Session I would swap to short D&D games with pre-gens only; maybe as soon as the February Big Meet.

D&D 3.5 was a great edition but I guess it is time for it to rest in peace and let D&D Pathfinder take over, at least in my games.

The use of pre-generated PRPG characters of course allows people who know D&D 3.5 to join a game very easily.

The Hollow's Chronicles could be revived as a low-level campaign at Vague Connections at some point in the distant future.

Any comments from players or would-be players?

Laurent,

you could try running some pathfinder society modules, either as PFS, or just one offs if people dont wanna be so 'formal'

John,

This is indeed what I had in mind when I typed the message.
With Andrew (Vague Connections) attempting to come to Big Meets, he could also collect some "official" results from my PF scenarios if the game happens to attract PF Society players.

Laurent,

good plan

anyone started Serpents Skull AP yet. Its brutal. Though am loving my witch from the APG