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Fun Stuff => CLIKC => Topic started by: Gyrre on 10 Aug 2018, 11:09

Title: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 10 Aug 2018, 11:09
From some of the polls over the past year, I know I'm not the only one who plays.

I couldn't find a general thread for either that wasn't dead. So, tell stories, talk about your character(s), talk about homebrewed stuff, ask questions, call my a bellend for liking 5E. Have fun. Follow the standard forum rules.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 10 Aug 2018, 11:26
In regards to the poll commentary; those were jokes. I get that 5e is a bit of a different beast to its predecessors and why that would be off-putting to long time players. The outright immunities for some creatures makes sense and it sucks that those got nerfed. I'm playing a sentient clockwork who only gets resistance to poison in 5e.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 10 Aug 2018, 14:14
Lemme see.  In the Pathfinder game I'm in right now (we play again tomorrow), I'm playing a female elf witch who is lately the group's healer and sole caster (our cleric is taking an indefinite hiatus from game.  And game has gone strange lately.  I'm trying to convince a reluctant assassin (who was trying to kill us until I knocked her out with a slumber hex) not to kill herself by putting her in charge of helping a bunch of women who were taken prisoner and tortured to turn them into amoral killing machines get to safety.  We'd do that ourselves, but we're preparing to fight some sort of rose bush looking demon (or similar nasty) who is responsible for all of this, and is also holding another character's (the gunslinger) father who for some reason seems to have a form of immortality.

This is a bit of a strange group, considering how many characters are twisted versions of Disney characters.  We have an evil Tiana, a somewhat noble Gaston, Mulan, and I guess that my character is what would happen if Rapunzel became a witch herself (it's all about the magic hair).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 10 Aug 2018, 15:02
I'm just started playing a 5e game with what was meant to be my backup character; a sentient clockwork clown bard with a calliope built into his torso. We based his stats on a composite mode envoy Warforged. I had intended to start with my mongrelfolk rogue (dragonborn, aaracokra, tiefling, tabaxi), but I guess the DM got mixed up when we were talking up about both of them? Since the rest of the party started out ghoulified (special ghouls) outside of some desert town, I didn't say anything.

Cecil (bard) is from the bard college valor. Tupi Loq (rogue) is a swashbuckler. Both have fairly decent stats, and Cecil's 18 charisma is currently an indicator of how terrifying he looks after  8 years of his paint job being neglected. Cecil has the tragic backstory, Tupi is a privateer (pirate).

Currently, the party has 3 goals; get unghoulfied, stop the local crime syndicate from kidnapping and ghoulifying people (hence the party's predicament), and get our hands on some of the sweet magic items currently being excavated.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 12 Aug 2018, 15:08
That does sound like a pretty cool campaign.

So last night, we got the demon and its minions, and although a couple of people got damned close to being corpsefied, and rescued the prisoners.  I suspect that since the last couple of sessions were combat-focused, the next few will be heavy on the RP and not really have much smashy smashy.  We're also likely to be adding another player, someone who I know from Ingress who came over to watch (and thankfully provided me a partial ride over).  Don't know what she's going to play yet, but an easy in for her character would to have her be one of the prisoners that we saved.  Hopefully, she'll follow her initial inclination and roll a caster with some healing ability.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 12 Aug 2018, 19:25
Bards can be pretty good for that.

Granted, Cecil is now dead. But, we still have a druid and a cleric.

Our eldritch knight was looking around for more secret passageways, found a pressure plate, and failed investigation to determine if it was a trap or not despite his 18 int. He then proceeded to trigger it. As soon as the DM asked if he still wanted to trigger it, I was rapidly repeating "trap". He triggered it anyways and Cecil crit failed his dex save. 57 from the blast, another 50 damage from the crypt collapsing on top of him.

His final words were "Oh dear."

The rest of the party fled the town as the townsfolk stated that the syndicate would be pissed at the for destroying their stuff. The syndicate had been experimenting with enhancing ghouls in the crypts, BTW. As they were crossing the desert to hide out at the oasis, they met Loq, another ghoulified survivor.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: ZoeB on 12 Aug 2018, 21:39
The original 3 books, plus Greyhawk and the various Strategic Reviews ( for Ropers etc)

PDFs at https://rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons/Original%20D%26D/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons%20-%20White%20Box.pdf
https://rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons/Original%20D%26D/Supplement%201%20-%20Greyhawk.pdf

I'm told there have been new "improved" versions since, basic, advanced, expert etc.

Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 13 Aug 2018, 00:07
Bards can be pretty good for that.

Granted, Cecil is now dead. But, we still have a druid and a cleric.

RIP Cecil (great last words, BTW).  I'm not sure what she's inclined to,  In terms of meta-game, Bard, Arcanist or Sorcerer would be best, assuming our cleric rejoins us soon. 
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 13 Aug 2018, 09:07
Bards can be pretty good for that.

Granted, Cecil is now dead. But, we still have a druid and a cleric.

RIP Cecil (great last words, BTW).  I'm not sure what she's inclined to,  In terms of meta-game, Bard, Arcanist or Sorcerer would be best, assuming our cleric rejoins us soon.
I'm not familiar with Pathfinder's feats, but 5E has one called 'Tough' that boosts max HP by twice your level and lets you add an additional 2 HP to your roll when leveling. It's good for any player that has a tendency to get up close and personal with enemies. I took it for my rogue and nearly doubled his hitpoints when leveling. (27 -> 51). If Pathfinder has that and she goes bard or sorcerer,  I'd recommend it.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Theta9 on 13 Aug 2018, 10:33
The original 3 books, plus Greyhawk and the various Strategic Reviews ( for Ropers etc)

PDFs at https://rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons/Original%20D%26D/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons%20-%20White%20Box.pdf
https://rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons/Original%20D%26D/Supplement%201%20-%20Greyhawk.pdf
I used to have those. But where are Blackmoor and Eldritch Wizardry?
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 15 Aug 2018, 02:01
So, anyone have advice for multi-classing? I'm basically trying to build Link from Legend of Zelda.

I already know it'd be some combination of fighter and ranger, starting at level 6. (Yes, charisma is my dump stat.)
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 15 Aug 2018, 22:23
Multiclassing for 5e? Well the first is, do you need to do it for your concept? Or is it something you can do with a single class and some feats? Are you willing to pass up the capstone powers for the classes you picked? Multiclassing in 5e tends to front load a bit more power or options in the earlier levels, but you really tend to lose out as you reach the high levels. Especially if you are a multiclassing magic caster.

If you do decide to multiclass consider the typically 4 level break points where you get feats. Since they happen when a class hits certain levels, not when your total of all classes hits a certain level. So if you went 3 levels in ranger and three in wizard for instance, no feats until you take that 4th level in one of the classes.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: ZoeB on 18 Aug 2018, 18:26
The original 3 books, plus Greyhawk and the various Strategic Reviews ( for Ropers etc)

PDFs at https://rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons/Original%20D%26D/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons%20-%20White%20Box.pdf
https://rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons/Original%20D%26D/Supplement%201%20-%20Greyhawk.pdf
I used to have those. But where are Blackmoor and Eldritch Wizardry?

You'll find those and more at https://rpg.rem.uz/Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons/Original%20D%26D/
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Pilchard123 on 19 Aug 2018, 02:16
Yarr, matey.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 19 Aug 2018, 10:15
Sometimes it's just a matter of convenience.  I was looking at all the ones they had for AD&D first ed, and had to grab them even though the books are sitting on one of my shelves.  Doing an automatic OCR and making them searchable is far easier than looking bits up the hard way[1].

[1]Especially with the first ed DMG.  There's a ton of stuff in there, but it isn't always organised well.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 20 Aug 2018, 21:03
Multiclassing for 5e? Well the first is, do you need to do it for your concept? Or is it something you can do with a single class and some feats? Are you willing to pass up the capstone powers for the classes you picked? Multiclassing in 5e tends to front load a bit more power or options in the earlier levels, but you really tend to lose out as you reach the high levels. Especially if you are a multiclassing magic caster.

If you do decide to multiclass consider the typically 4 level break points where you get feats. Since they happen when a class hits certain levels, not when your total of all classes hits a certain level. So if you went 3 levels in ranger and three in wizard for instance, no feats until you take that 4th level in one of the classes.

 I assume by "feats" you mean the class specific feats like the rogue's Uncanny Dodge and the bard's Song of Rests, right? I couldn't find anything restricting the standard feats list. And e erything I've seen agrees that taking standard feats at those level benchmarks is level cumulative. I'm not sure how early you can start multiclassing, though. But going by the examples given and the prerequisite scores for each class, I think the earliest you can multiclass is level 4. You'd still get the ability score increase or take a feat from the feat list along with the first level in whatever class.

So, going by that, would it make more sense for Link to start as a Fighter or a Ranger? And, would he focus on one, level up both equally, or keep some fractional split?

I've already planned out a rough outline. Half-Elf Fighter/Ranger multi-class, Outlander background, Sharpshooter feat, Mage-slayer feat, and Charisma as his dump stat.

EDIT: fixing typos and better organizing thoughts.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 20 Aug 2018, 23:55
Currently building a bardic spy for a high level flashback in my Saturday game (it's twice our current level). He's level 13 Ghostwise Lightfoot Halfling College of Whispers bard. His name is Jonah High-Hill and he's a scout for an as-to-yet-unknown kingdom's army. For the two additional spells from any spell list I got to pick for the Magical Secrets class feature at lvl 10, I took Fireball and Spiderclimb.

The 7th lvl spell was a hard choice between Etherealness, Arcane Projection, and Symbol. So, I rolled and got Symbol.

BTW, the Words of Terror class feat will work via his telepathic speaking according to the DM's ruling. So that'll be fun for messing with guards. Ditto for his 20 Dex and 18 Char.

EDIT:
Got some "strong suggestions" from the DM hinting at what might be happening. So I switched him from Ghostwise to Lightfoot. I'm going to need that natural stealthiness. Also, fixing typos and gave him a name.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Pilchard123 on 21 Aug 2018, 00:54
I assume by "feats" you mean the class specific feats like the rogue's Uncanny Dodge and the bard's Song of Rests, right? I couldn't find anything restricting the standard feats list. And e erything I've seen agrees that taking standard feats at those level benchmarks is level cumulative. I'm not sure how early you can start multiclassing, though. But going by the examples given and the prerequisite scores for each class, I think the earliest you can multiclass is level 4.

You can multiclass as early as you want, provided you meet the ability minimums and your DM allows it. There's a build that allows you to multiclass as early as level 2 (you have the stats at level one, but only a single class).

ASIs require reaching (for example) Fighter4. If you multiclass to become Fighter3/Ranger1, you have not reached Fighter4 and cannot take an ASI. Given that you can only take a feat to replace an ASI, you also cannot take a feat.

The ASIs are a class feature, albeit one that is very common. The PHB says: "When your character gains a level, his or her class often grants additional features, as detailed in the class description. Some of these features allow you to increase your Ability Scores, either increasing two scores by 1 each or increasing one score by 2"

Jeremy Crawford, official Tweeter of Rules (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/97294/why-do-crawfords-tweets-seem-to-be-treated-on-par-with-the-actual-rules) says: "Ability score improvements are based on your level in a particular class, not your total level if you multiclass. (https://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/09/03/ability-score-improvements-in-multiclass)"
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 21 Aug 2018, 06:10
Good to know. D&D Beyond, Roll20, and the dnd5e wikia need to update their entries to specify that.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Pilchard123 on 21 Aug 2018, 10:28
It already does say that. The text I quoted earlier is at Character Advancment > Beyond 1st Level (https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Character%20Advancement#content) for Roll20, Step-by-step Characters > Beyond 1st Level (https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/basic-rules/step-by-step-characters#Beyond1stLevel) for D&D Beyond. I don't know which wikia site you mean, but I don't think there's any official one.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: brilligtove on 21 Aug 2018, 10:34
I have a Rogue 4 (Arcane Trickster) / Sorcerer 1 in 5e. The last system I played in was 2e, so the changes are pretty dramatic. Valenti is a fun character to play. He's a half-elven street kid who survived by selling his body, a little petty theft, and grifts. He ran into some hardened criminals while in the middle of a con at the Wizard's School, and ended up in all kinds of crazy situations. He learned to cast some wizard spells almost by accident (in the storyline, anyway) and has built on that when a trickster god called Ha'a'a (homebrew (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Ha%27a%27a_(5e_Deity))) decided to grant him sorcerous magic.


My favourite game mechanic as a player is the enhanced mage hand Val gets as an Arcane Trickster, combined with Minor Illusion. He also got access to Find Familiar (which works quite differently from 2e). The combination is quite powerful. For example, he was planning to rob a jeweler by having his rat familiar pop into the shop (materialize within 30') while Val was in a pub nearby. Seeing through Rattata's eyes, he would use the enhanced Mage Hand to collect gems into a pouch. Rattata would then proceed out of the shop via a chimney or hole in the wall, bringing the gems with him.


I didn't get to play that one out, unfortunately, having been caught up in the aforementioned chaos brought on by falling in with some nasty fellows.


I'm curious about other fun-to-play concepts and combinations you folks have played or thought about. I looked at Gnomish Urban Ranger built on an Rogue Assassin foundation. A tiny little guy who sees the city as his natural ecosystem to cultivate and protect by killing off - I mean pruning elements of the garden that get out of balance. Now that I say it, I really want to play that combo. I think I'd aim to progress with Rogue 1, Ranger 1, Rogue 2-4, Ranger 2-5, Rogue 5.


Shoot. Now I have to go write up that character. :)
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 21 Aug 2018, 11:28
By feats I meant the optional rule in the 5e PHB. Class abilities are just that, abilities. Feats are available for everyone so long as the game is using that optional rule, and it's pretty common to do so. They replace the ability score increases you normally get every 4 levels in a class. Some of them give weaker versions of existing class abilities, such as the ability to cast two cantrips and a single first level spell from a magic list, or a weak version of the Fighter Battlemaster combat tricks. Depending on what you want, like say if you just wanted a familiar from the Find Familiar spell, you don't need to take a level of Wizard, just the Wizard Magic Initiate feat. Or if you wanted more skill, weapon or armor proficiency, there are feats for those. Feats don't entirely replace multiclassing and not all stabilizes can be picked up by feats. But depending on what you want, it may be an alternative.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: brilligtove on 21 Aug 2018, 15:38
I'll keep that in mind. My D&D plans for the afternoon were overtaken by construction work in my garage so I haven't had a chance to work on my ideas for a narrative arc for the new character.

When we started the game I was quite new to 5e rules. I didn't even know what feats were, TBH. I understand them now, but they were not at all a part of my thinking when I rolled Valenti up.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 21 Aug 2018, 20:42
It already does say that. The text I quoted earlier is at Character Advancment > Beyond 1st Level (https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Character%20Advancement#content) for Roll20, Step-by-step Characters > Beyond 1st Level (https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/basic-rules/step-by-step-characters#Beyond1stLevel) for D&D Beyond. I don't know which wikia site you mean, but I don't think there's any official one.
I meant that they need to state it specifically in the multiclassing section to avoid potential confusion and arguing.

No, the FANDOM wikia (http://"http://dnd5e.wikia.com/") isn't official.

EDIT: Additionally, my apologies for any confusion caused by my own lack of specificity.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Pilchard123 on 22 Aug 2018, 01:10
As much as I hate to be the stop-having-fun guy (rule of cool, &c), but on thinking about it, I think that remote robbing would only work if everything you wanted to steal was within 30' of you as well. Familiars can only deliver touch spells, and Mage Hand is not a touch spell. Rattata would still be useful to see where the hand is, but not to extend the range of the spell.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 23 Aug 2018, 03:49
You can multiclass as early as you want, provided you meet the ability minimums and your DM allows it. There's a build that allows you to multiclass as early as level 2 (you have the stats at level one, but only a single class).

I finally got a chance to get a proper look through the fighter and ranger classes (and actual sleep to boot).

Looks like the mix would support just about any LoZ play style. And based on that would then inform whether one wanted to start as a Ranger or a Fighter and which archetypes you wanted from each. Honestly, look at the spells and class features, then compare them to favorite LoZ items.

For me, personally, I think I'd either ⁱgo 4 levels in one before picking up the other and splitting them 3/4 R & 1/4 F, or one level of Ranger and the rest Fighter. It really just depends on what sort of campaign it is. For Fighter, I think I'd go Champion or Cavalier. For Ranger, probably Hunter.

Does anybody know if the Slayer class from Pathfinder has a homebrew for 5E? I hear it's perfect for playing as Link.

ⁱ Either way, I'm starting another class at 5th level.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Pilchard123 on 23 Aug 2018, 13:47
Do you mean this Slayer (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/slayer/)?

It sounds a bit like you might want some Rogue in there as well, given that Slayer seems to be a Ranger/Rogue hybrid in Pathfinder, although it looks like a lot of the talents could be roughly replaced by a Battlemaster Fighter's maneuvers.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 23 Aug 2018, 20:25
Do you mean this Slayer (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/slayer/)?

It sounds a bit like you might want some Rogue in there as well, given that Slayer seems to be a Ranger/Rogue hybrid in Pathfinder, although it looks like a lot of the talents could be roughly replaced by a Battlemaster Fighter's maneuvers.
Yep.

Good to know. Especially if I opt for 1 level of Ranger and go the rest Fighter. At lvl 10, Champions get to pick another style.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: brilligtove on 24 Aug 2018, 09:30
As much as I hate to be the stop-having-fun guy (rule of cool, &c), but on thinking about it, I think that remote robbing would only work if everything you wanted to steal was within 30' of you as well. Familiars can only deliver touch spells, and Mage Hand is not a touch spell. Rattata would still be useful to see where the hand is, but not to extend the range of the spell.


Agreed. The original plan was to be in the cafe next door to the jeweler, back to the shared wall, with a friend keeping an eye on Val while he's zoned out inhabiting Rattata. I picked a rat for the job in case there were small items it could pick up and drag within range. For eyes only I use a spider. No one notices them on the ceiling of the council chamber (for instance).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 27 Aug 2018, 10:38
My Sunday party leveled up twice in yesterday's session. We were ~400 xp from lvl 6 when we started the fight, and we killed enough of those damned psychic mice to reach lvl 7  by the end of it.

Since our artificer found his legendary item for the campaign (a flying forge) I suggested that we build a ship around it, by a bunch of bombs, go back to the canyon, and decimate what remains of those horrible little bastards. They were the mice that are resistant to all magical attacks and have the ability to make creatures laugh to death.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 27 Aug 2018, 11:55
Our session Saturday night was mostly finishing up after the last adventure, and doing things such as identifying items, taking rescued prisoners to safety, and then preparing for the next part of the plot.  Unfortunately, that means dealing with some high-level orcs, and of the two characters who speak that language, one used Charisma as a dump stat, and my character who is a) an elf, and b) shares in her people's racism.  I don't expect that our interactions with them will go well.

Oh, also, we successfully introduced our new character, a priestess of Shelyn who will apparently be splitting between tanking and healing.  I think that the new player works well with our group (that's a bit of an understatement), and I'll be glad that there will be someone else in full plate between me and the scary things.  I'm still kicking myself for burning the components for a Limited Wish when there were clerics right there who could cure the suicidal ex-assassin.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 27 Aug 2018, 21:25
Our session Saturday night was mostly finishing up after the last adventure, and doing things such as identifying items, taking rescued prisoners to safety, and then preparing for the next part of the plot.  Unfortunately, that means dealing with some high-level orcs, and of the two characters who speak that language, one used Charisma as a dump stat, and my character who is a) an elf, and b) shares in her people's racism.  I don't expect that our interactions with them will go well.

Oh, also, we successfully introduced our new character, a priestess of Shelyn who will apparently be splitting between tanking and healing.  I think that the new player works well with our group (that's a bit of an understatement), and I'll be glad that there will be someone else in full plate between me and the scary things.  I'm still kicking myself for burning the components for a Limited Wish when there were clerics right there who could cure the suicidal ex-assassin.

Best of luck to you! Maybe your new party member just so happens to speak orcish? Either that or perhaps the charisma dump stat character will speak orcish like an orc and  e respected for it. Break leg.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 27 Aug 2018, 21:28
How many CR levels would a monster need to be above an adult red dragon to successfully prey upon them?

It's basically a draconic whale (including stubby legs) that lives in the desert swimming through the sand. I call it a drake eater. Ancient drake eaters have a bead the size of a roc's wing.

EDIT: I'm low-balling the ancient drake eaters at CR 28 (5E) and CR 27 (Pathfinder).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 27 Aug 2018, 22:01
Best of luck to you! Maybe your new party member just so happens to speak orcish? Either that or perhaps the charisma dump stat character will speak orcish like an orc and  e respected for it. Break leg.

The new cleric might be a good choice, and I was reminded some time after posting that the necromancer has the Tongues spell, and she has a high charisma, and is probably our best chance.  I'd probably save the rogue as the last choice, since I doubt that even speaking like an orc, rather than "Oxford Orcish" would cover the 12-14 point difference in social rolls.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: brilligtove on 30 Aug 2018, 20:29
Last weekend I went to a little Toronto event called OSRCon - Old School RPG Con. There were six games total - three in the morning, three in the afternoon.


In the morning I was in a very fun party using The Fantasy Trip (TFT) system. My character was basically Hawkeye. When his bow string snapped in the first combat it became very clear just how useless he was for anything else. In the second combat - where we had time to plan - I took out as many enemies as the rest of the party combined. I would totally play that ancient system again.


The afternoon session was in a system called Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC). The adventure was Escape From The Purple Planet. Shades of Paranoia in that game system! It was a rollicking adventure. You start off with 4 zero level characters each - and see who survives long enough to make L1. At the end of the adventure I had one character dead, one maimed (lost leg), one transported to Barsoom and living his Best Life, and one still not dead. :) It was a blast. Also would totally play again.


What ancient systems have you folk enjoyed?

Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 31 Aug 2018, 06:11
Rough creature concept; draconic whale species that's the appex  predator in a sea of sand setting.

Ancient Drake Eater
Length: 320ft
AC: 18
HP: 1022
Speed: 156 (walking)
Str: 51 Dex: 8 Con: 42
Int: 23 Wis: 21 Char: 43

CR 40

One of it's attacks is basically a Kirby inhale. They can also shoot two simultaneous 150ft long gusts of wind (one from each nostrill).

EDIT: I got the CR set.
Other attacks include stepping on someone/something. Dex save for every creature in a 50ft radius. Everything in the central 25ft radius has to pass a DC 20 to not be crushed underfoot. Everything else gets knocked prone and takes thunder damage if they fail.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: ZoeB on 31 Aug 2018, 20:40

In the morning I was in a very fun party using The Fantasy Trip (TFT) system. My character was basically Hawkeye. When his bow string snapped in the first combat it became very clear just how useless he was for anything else. In the second combat - where we had time to plan - I took out as many enemies as the rest of the party combined. I would totally play that ancient system again

What ancient systems have you folk enjoyed?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/the-fantasy-trip-old-school-roleplaying?ref=user_menu

Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: brilligtove on 31 Aug 2018, 20:48
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/the-fantasy-trip-old-school-roleplaying?ref=user_menu (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/the-fantasy-trip-old-school-roleplaying?ref=user_menu)


There was a bit of discussion at the table. I missed the funding round in part because I'd never heard of the system. I wound happily run a game using the core concepts now that I know what it's about.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 01 Sep 2018, 21:38
Holy crap!

We fought and won against a purple worm and only our monk got eaten and died! We even managed to get him out in time for the cleric (who also went down) to cast revivify on him! To be fair, the monk did do 32 damage to it in his first turn before getting eaten. He's currently bandaged up due the fact that he's missing his scales and some chunks of flesh.

A party of 6 level 7 characters took it down in 4 rounds. Thankfully my sorcerer has Quicken spell, so I burned 3 sorcery points on that between magic missile (at level 2 & 3) and shatter.

Our power gamer paladin-sorcerer managed to harvest the purple worm's stinger, the arcanist got 3 water skins of its poison, and my 10 Str sorcerer nat20'd on yanking off 6 purple worm scales. Me and the warforged used said stack of scales as a gurney so the monk wouldn't risk opening any of his scabs on the trek back to the surface.

I've also got a bag stuffed with 800gp worth of Roper bits, and we encountered a Drow who asked for us to return The Eye of Bessinger back. Which the half the group didn't know about and the other half wouldn't give up. So, we've got a Drow fight coming up soon.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 02 Sep 2018, 11:35
Good kill, and luckily light on the casualties.  (looks at pathfinder purple worms)…  Damn, I'm impressed.  That is a pretty serious nasty to be able to down that fast, especially at that level.   Even better, you got expensive/useful stuff from the carcass. 


Avoiding the dreaded double post:
I'm having a slight frustration w/ the game I'm in right now, and much of that stems from the fact that the campaign is run from "The Curse of the Crimson Throne", and that is that we have faced off against precisely ONE arcane caster since I joined.  This basically means that I'm highly lacking in caster gear (as well as spells I can learn) that I haven't purchased myself.  The GM has mitigated this somewhat with adding his own encounters and quests, but much of that is just because we as a group were lacking in lewtz due to our "creative" approaches to problems (on the ride home, he has told me of all the stuff we missed out on due to our approach, which means creating a new quest just to keep us somewhere near par for our level). 
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 04 Sep 2018, 00:03
Oh boy. Well, just as long as the approach isn't come into town and have the druid, warlock, and cleric/archanist (usually one or the other) cause chaos. And I do mean chaos.

To be fair, the oasis town yesterday had already been infested with mimics  that could disguise themselves as people (at least one could talk). So that catastrophe wasn't our fault. But, the next city we went today... Sheesh. (Bonus round since we were all off.)

We split the party. The arcanist and my swashbuckler rogue stayed outside of town and worked on improving the hover ship we had converted his flying forge into.
The cleric and the eldritch knight went looking for a church to see if they could find answets for how to unghoulify the party, the warlock first went gambling, then went sewer spulunking after losing a few rounds of Blackjack. And the druid went chasing rats through the sewer to try to get another pet. A 3-way split.

The cleric and eldritch knight ended up in at a temple for an alien worshipping cult (yes, there was kool-aide). Of course, the druid and the warlock just so happen to meet the hydra who was serving as the city's septic system. And, yes, they start fighting it once the druid fails to charm it.

The archanist and I fail our perception checks to hear the sewer fight, so we keep working. The cleric and eldritch knight hear the commotion and head on down to join the fray. Half-way through the fight, we successfully made a better skiff/dinghy(?) and failed our perception checks on the sounds of battle. So, the archanist wanders off to the city to find some way to make some extra cash while I stay behind to double check stuff on our vehicle.

This already going to be a long post, so I'll just link the next part from my tumblr here (http://"gyrrakavian.tumblr.com/post/177708039260/split-party").

The archanist took multiple crossbow volleys from 15 city guardsmen and tanked a critical hit from the level 20 rogue with the rogue's legendary artifact while pulling the other four party members out of the sewer and getting them on our hoverboat (I was hiding between the crates). BTW, the other rogue works for the syndicate and I'll have to face him if I want those rocket boots.

After we got out of the city and managed to shove the lvl20 rogue out of our hovership --speeding along at 600mph-- we busted open the third crate and found two kids inside. Yep, we accidentally foiled some human trafficking. Thankfully, we all passed our Con saves and the kids are still uneaten. After finding out where the kids were from, we opted to head for the port city they were taken from and try to find their families.

Along the way, we encountered two purple worms, successfully killed them, half the party successfully crawled out of them, and the kids are still alive!


I'm going to have to record one of our sessions because it gets pretty absurd sometimes.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Pilchard123 on 04 Sep 2018, 00:58
I'm going to have to record one of our sessions because it gets pretty absurd sometimes.

Please do!
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 04 Sep 2018, 02:29
After the session, our DM told us that "there'll probably start being One Piece style wanted posters of everybody," then pointing at me, "except you since you were hidden the entire time you were in the city."

Our party currently consists of:
Aleridon -- Avarial Elf fighter (eldritch knight)
Beryl -- Dward storm cleric
Lo-Kag -- Goliath warsmith artificer (complete with power armor)(currently has his class's legendary artifact)
Saravore -- Half-Elf hexblade warlock
Two-Tongues Tupi-Loq -- my mongrelfolk swashbuckler rogue
Yuri -- Variant Human circle of the shepherd druid

We were also informed that the wanted posters will either refer to us as the "Sewer Bandits" or "the Shit Squad". Both because of the four who blew up the sewer (everyone got to make Dex saves for falling rats and excrement) and because Lo-Kag stole those three crates.



BTW, I should also mention that Sunday we found out that the lvl 20 rogue had been tailing us for some time now, on assignment. Aleridon rolled high enough to notice him. And Monday we found out the name of the crime syndicate's leader, Craven. Because of this, Two-Tongues scrawled out a short note on a strip of leather he had (no paper or ink); "Craven, sorry about the mess in the city. These guys are blinking idiots. I had no part in this. -- Two-Tongues" and successfully threw the leather strip out of the ship into the desert EDIT without being noticed EDIT.

The DM told us that a small portal appeared and a hand reached out and retrieved the note.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 04 Sep 2018, 09:22
I'm going to have to record one of our sessions because it gets pretty absurd sometimes.

Please do!

I'm attacking the darkness!
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 04 Sep 2018, 14:12
I'm going to have to record one of our sessions because it gets pretty absurd sometimes.

Please do!

I'm attacking the darkness!

Concealed in the darkness is a gazebo.

(I 100% plan to have my party attacked by a gazebo at some point.)
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 04 Sep 2018, 16:13
Doable in a Ravenloft game (I don't know what was made for that setting beyond 3e though) without much work. One of the monsters is an "animator" which takes control of an object of a size determined by its strength.  If there's nothing official for 5e, I can always shoot you the stats (I have the book) and just let you do the conversion.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 04 Sep 2018, 16:21
There is already a Ravenloft adventure in 5e, but I don't plan on using it. Nor send people to Ravenloft. It's my own setting, so I stay away from published adventures and just pick and choose what I like from published material.

I actually have a bone gazebo model from an after Halloween sale that's perfect size for 28mm miniatures. And since the land my party is in is full of all kinds of grim fairy tale style enemies, I just have to have them deal with a Vampire Count or something to have an excuse to use it.

Or maybe it'll be a Mimic-zebo... You never know.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 04 Sep 2018, 16:30
I was just thinking monster stats rather than doing the adventures.  All one would really have to do to adapt it outside would be to ignore any fear/madness checks that the creature may cause.  edit: Or a really big mimic would work.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 04 Sep 2018, 17:37
There is already a Ravenloft adventure in 5e, but I don't plan on using it. Nor send people to Ravenloft. It's my own setting, so I stay away from published adventures and just pick and choose what I like from published material.

I actually have a bone gazebo model from an after Halloween sale that's perfect size for 28mm miniatures. And since the land my party is in is full of all kinds of grim fairy tale style enemies, I just have to have them deal with a Vampire Count or something to have an excuse to use it.

Or maybe it'll be a Mimic-zebo... You never know.

There's a monster called a 'house hunter'. It's a larger relative of the mimic. Perhaps this one chose the form of a gazebo.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 05 Sep 2018, 07:48
I've gotten further in the setting that I'm developing, and have made some revisions as I've read more.  I know that it's fantasy and I'm not beholden to real world physics, but still want things to have some small basis in reality.  The main thing is that the world is tidally-locked, and all known civilisations[1] exist in the band of eternal twilight from a red dwarf star[2].  There would be a hot wind going from west to east in part of the northern hemisphere, and a cold wind going the other direction in the south.  Together, they keep temperatures from becoming as extreme as they could be, which helps since IIRC, on such a planet, winters would be longer. 

There would also be three moons.  One moon would basically serve as our moon does for creating a lunar calendar since a solar one would be out of the question.  A second slower moon would basically give a 48 hour night during an eclipse.  The third moon is larger and brighter, but probably too damned slow for real world physics[3] has been brightening up the dark side just enough for fantasy plants to grow and beings to survive.  Since I'll be using first-ed ageing stats, it's been not as bad as it could be on the dark side for it to be out of the living memory of a few generations of elves.  Problem is, this moon is setting on the dark side… 

Since I wouldn't have to actually develop the day/night sides, at least initially (and it'd take a long enough in game to actually to flesh something original out), I could always populate the light side with various Dark Sun critters that may occasionally foray and attack the known empires/kingdoms/republics.  Tribes made from a mixture of folks from the light side, and those (either by choice or imposed) are exiled from the twilight band will be a constant threat (gotta have barbarians at the gates).  The living things on the dark side would probably have elements from the Frostburn setting, and everything that goes bump in the night.  No GoT night king or anything like that, but life is going to get much harsher soon, and between two sides who have very little, the known world is going to get pinched.  I actually don't plan on making this an initial plot point, but something that would slowly develop over several campaigns.  If I'm going to have a point in this squeezed in from both sides thing, it's going to be a slow-dropping anvil that those in the middle are extremely privileged, and will have to learn to share resources with at least one of the outside groups if they don't want to be ground under by those who are actively hostile.

[1] Well, known to anyone but the deep dwarfs, like the ones in Discworld who basically wear leather and chainmail burqas and dark glasses if they ever deign to go above ground at all and are an NPC-only race.  Underground, the day/night stuff doesn't matter anyhow, and the dwarfs have had ćons to tunnel the world.

[2] Me being me, there would certainly be NPCs in the world based off of Lister, Rimmer, Kryten, Cat, and Holly… just because.

[3] MST3K mantra time here.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 09 Sep 2018, 03:40
Wow!
Seriously.

Way further than what I've got. Right now I just have two loose setting ideas:
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 09 Sep 2018, 03:50
Random thought at ten-til-six in the morning; pick 3 racial abilities you'd like to have from any player race. They don't all have to be from the same race.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 09 Sep 2018, 09:27
I'll have to get back to you on the racial abilities one.

I'm starting to feel sorry for the GM after what happened last night.  Negotiations with the orcs went well enough, since the cleric used tongues to deal with the language barrier, and the dwarf and I limited ourselves to knowing glances and what ever small gestures and whispers we could get away with, so the orc leader allows us to go into the castle of undead unmolested to find his girlfriend who went in on some foolish barbarian test of strength, and sends a human summoner who was trying to get their permission for weeks if not months to keep an eye on us.[1]  Of course, trying to go in the front entrance triggers a bunch of undead soldiers coming at us… which quickly becomes pets of the necromancer.  Apparently none of the undead in this place have any knowledge of this place beyond their little area, leading me to conclude that the necromantic aura around this place is what's activating them and possibly what's sustaining them.

We soon have to abandon our new friends after seeing that the main entrance has a bunch of nasties we can't really get to, and after the comical deaths of several summoned woodland critters, that maybe we should try going in the long way, which happens to be on the other side of a lake of boiling water.  Between our casters with water walking, and those who could fly, we were making our progress across the lake when a maker (but not great maker) sized worm bursts out of the water to attack those on the surface and is promptly charmed by our new cleric.  Unfortunately, it is too dumb to be usefully controlled, so the GM joking about her being Mua'dib was not as cool as it could have been.  A bigger worm was (of course) waiting near the far end, and fell victim of the narcolepsy epidemic that seems to follow my witch around.  We find the secret door just as the water walking is about to fail, and after leaving the pet direwolf and horse temporarily transformed into a kirin outside since they couldn't fit, ventured in.

Once inside, we're in a lovely ballroom, which was described in copious detail and as we start looking around and a bunch of dancing ghosts start descending from the ceiling.  Almost half the party (including my pet) failed their saves[2], and got swept up in the dance which acts like "Irresistible Dance", but drains Con as well.  The undead thing at the centre of it all makes a grand debut, knocking the monk down 9 Con in the first round.  Of course, when the cleric tries to control it, it manages to fail its save[3] and is now making small talk with the necromancer and asking who in the party it is allowed to make into an eternal dance partner.  Still, a rather anticlimactic end to the encounter after all the build-up.

[1] A summoner who is currently the reason I have a feeblemind prepped, knowing full-well that it's useless against the undead.

[2] We got *very* lucky, since it was a difficult save.  Two people got natural 20s, and one was saved only via previous contact with an artefact that had granted a few of us a permanent +4 bonus to anything mind-affecting, as well as the bonus from the "Heroes' Feast" I cast every morning

[3] Which it had about a 70% chance of succeeding on
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 09 Sep 2018, 09:59
Wow!
Seriously.

Way further than what I've got.

Once I came up with the idea of making a tidally-locked world, a bit of research and a map generator allowed me to get a better handle of what I was working with.  I'm stealing enough ideas for the light and dark side (Dark Sun and Frostburn respectively) from other sources that I largely get to focus on the middle.  And for that, it helps that I was able to dig up a bunch of notes from ages ago including a 5000 year timeline, from the last time I was working on a setting.  Much of the material is stuff that I can adapt fairly easily.

Quote
Right now I just have two loose setting ideas:
  • One is a world dominated by the reptilian races with the only mammals being small rat-like creatures.
<snip>
That seems like a pretty cool idea, and I presume that either the lizardfolk or Yuan-ti would be considered the human analogue.

Quote
  • G'do, a massive desert that's a sea of sand. Plenty of Underdark monsters have adapted to living in the sand sea along with some new monsters.
    For a possible explanation as to why the G'do desert is like this, I was thinking that the Underdark could slowly be collapsing or filling in somehow. The air would be escaping from tons of tiny cracks throughout the desert floor. Thus causing the sand to act as a liquid. It's more interesting than the nebulous explanation of "it's magic" or "a wizard did it".

Hmm.  The Dark Sun setting had a giant sea of silt, and the desertification literally *was* that a wizard did it, or rather that all the wizards did it since arcane magic is the fossil fuels of the setting.  Some of the old 2nd-ed books on that setting may have some useful info in terms of helping with the world-building.  Then again, since I don't plan on publishing any settings, I figure I'll take anything that's not nailed down from anywhere.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 09 Sep 2018, 16:29
So far, things are going suprisingly sane. We got the two kids an apprenticeship on the ship my swashbuckler came came on and I dropped off a ruby beetle.
We're currently fighting cloakers trying to try to get into a gnomish city.

EDIT: And the dwarfish cleric just Thunderwaved to get 3 cloakers off of him. He also cast it at 4th level with Channel Divinity. Which killed two of them.

And the warlock just cast Toll the Dead.

EDIT: we killed them! This was a CR40 encounter with 6 lvl 8s. We've unlocked the Gnome City!
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 09 Sep 2018, 18:24
Hmm.  The Dark Sun setting had a giant sea of silt, and the desertification literally *was* that a wizard did it, or rather that all the wizards did it since arcane magic is the fossil fuels of the setting.  Some of the old 2nd-ed books on that setting may have some useful info in terms of helping with the world-building.  Then again, since I don't plan on publishing any settings, I figure I'll take anything that's not nailed down from anywhere.

I steal heavily from all sorts of sources as well. Not only are the countries in my home brew world of Myrion drawn heavily from real-world European and Asian countries, I borrow heavily from other D&D settings and outside as well. For D&D I use a lot from the Eberron, Spelljammer and a little from the Dark Sun setting. One big influence outside D&D is the Warhammer Fantasy universe. I have a somewhat Egypt inspired country called Sekhaat which is an evil empire that uses undead (mostly skeletons) as their army. It's a little bit Egypt, a lot Dark Sun though it occupies the rough land mass of India and the Mediterranean. Once they were demon worshipers and a pact with Asmodeus brought about the tiefling race. One of the mages there got ambitious though... You might have heard of him. His name is Vecna.

A major component of my game is that gods are ascended mortals and extraplanar beings. When he was mortal, Vecna aspired to greatness. An arch necromancer, he became a lich and started drawing life from the land of Sekhaat, ala Dark Sun. He has a fair bit of Nagash from Warhammer mixed in... Eventually he mostly drained the life from Sekhaat, turning it into a massive desert. Not that he cared, since the undead could worship him just as well. The remaining mortals mostly live in city states, ruled with iron fists by their Sorcerer Priests. Worship of Vecna supplanted the worship of Asmodeus when he ascended, causing a great hatred between the two.

So yeah.. borrow heavily. Nobody's going to judge and when you use things people are already aware of you don't have to spend hours explaining every detail.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 09 Sep 2018, 19:39
I've actually found that creating gods is the difficult part.  Creating religious sects is easy enough, but a balanced pantheon, it's still very much a work in progress.  I ended up firing up Krita so I could start drawing and not have to worry about having to scan something later (and crap, I'm rusty at drawing with a wacom tablet).  So far, I've come up with a goddess of life and death who is the primary nature deity, and a deity of magic and artifice as the creator gods, and that the others were either created, or raised from being mortal as the need arose.  It was actually easier for me to create religious cults (which may or may not follow an actual divine being) than it was the "lesser" gods.[1]

[1] Both the head gods are true neutral, the secondaries are some strain of neutral, then the more "extreme" alignments come from them.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 09 Sep 2018, 20:51
I'm mostly using the Dawn War deities from the DMG and a few traditional standards like Asmodeus and Lloth. I had originally thought to create an original pantheon for each nation but decided against it. Instead focusing on more immediate cultural, technological and magical concepts for the nations, as well as designing maps and adventures. Things that the players would interact with regularly. The god-building can wait until it becomes relevant.

I have created a few unique gods at this point, as they are relevant to characters or stories I want to tell. A lot of the existing countries have a specific patron deity that played a crucial role founding or shaping the coutry. Gods like the Everqueen, who founded Erawyn, my steampunk Victorian England style countries. Or the Green Lady, who guides the country Yvaine. Which is a Warhammer Bretonnia/Arthurian legend land of noble knights and Chivalry. And I already talked about what I did with Vecna...

Another thing I have done is use gods to memorialize certain characters. The god of good natured mischief in my world is a purple tiefling names Mollymauk.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 10 Sep 2018, 08:40
That seems like a pretty cool idea, and I presume that either the lizardfolk or Yuan-ti would be considered the human analogue.
I was thinking the lizardfolk would be the human analogue, while the Yuan-ti would be akin to elves. Kobolds would loosely equate to a mix of gnomes and dwarves, and dragonborn a loose mix of dwarves and goliaths in terms of equivalence.


As for the desert's explanation, it's based on an actual thing IRL (fluidized airbeds) to bring a bit more realism to it. It'd probably have to be the whole of the Underdark that's filling in though for it to have been a fluidized airbed roughly the size of Alaska for the past few thousand years. Maybe magic would just be a better explanation.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 10 Sep 2018, 08:47
I think it's good that you're giving a nod to science and real world phenomena.  It's like the lake of boiling water I mentioned from last game, when one of the clerics casts water walking on everyone, I had to pointedly ask about the whole convection issue.  I think that you have a good instinct for where you want to take this, and both Neko_Ali and I were thinking of something that you might be able to poach extra ideas from.

Edit:  I like using lizardfolk for humans and the yuan-ti as elves.  I hadn't even thought about the latter.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: sitnspin on 10 Sep 2018, 09:40
My role play group is going to be playtesting the new edition of Pathfinder. I am completely new to the system. I will be playing a goblin alchemist, which is totally different from any type of character I've played before. The Girl is going to be playing my character's half-orc barbarian girlfriend. I am already referring to us as adorable mayhem.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 10 Sep 2018, 11:54
I'd like to try the playtest out... But my group is already doing three nights a week for five different campaigns. And my room mate is absolute dead set against anything Pathfinder because there are 'too many options'. She doesn't like all the splat books and optional rules...
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 10 Sep 2018, 17:21
I think it's good that you're giving a nod to science and real world phenomena.  It's like the lake of boiling water I mentioned from last game, when one of the clerics casts water walking on everyone, I had to pointedly ask about the whole convection issue.  I think that you have a good instinct for where you want to take this, and both Neko_Ali and I were thinking of something that you might be able to poach extra ideas from.

Edit:  I like using lizardfolk for humans and the yuan-ti as elves.  I hadn't even thought about the latter.

Had another idea for the fluidized airbed. Ties in with the Treasure Island plot aspect. Perhaps some incredibly successful and infamous drow pirate had a bunch of wizards and druids cast a permanent Gust spell on the floor, specifically for making his treasure cache horribly difficult to find. If wizards did it, then there should be some reason for them doing so.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: sitnspin on 10 Sep 2018, 20:54
I'd like to try the playtest out... But my group is already doing three nights a week for five different campaigns. And my room mate is absolute dead set against anything Pathfinder because there are 'too many options'. She doesn't like all the splat books and optional rules...
I've never played the system, so I'm no expert, but isn't the point of optional rules that they are optional? If you don't like them you don't have to use them, right?

In the play test rules there's only like 10 classes. It's no more complex than d&d. I'm not saying she has to play anything she's not interested in playing, but if her complaints are about rule, option, and book bloat, now would be a good time to give the game a shot since they are starting over with a new edition.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 10 Sep 2018, 21:11
I'd like to try the playtest out... But my group is already doing three nights a week for five different campaigns. And my room mate is absolute dead set against anything Pathfinder because there are 'too many options'. She doesn't like all the splat books and optional rules...
I've never played the system, so I'm no expert, but isn't the point of optional rules that they are optional? If you don't like them you don't have to use them, right?

In the play test rules there's only like 10 classes. It's no more complex than d&d. I'm not saying she has to play anything she's not interested in playing, but if her complaints are about rule, option, and book bloat, now would be a good time to give the game a shot since they are starting over with a new edition.

I mean, that's what I said and it makes sense to me but she's apparently had bad experiences and just isn't interested in trying again. Her big complaint was all the additional classes and such that came out... but like you said, if you're running the game you always have final say in what's allowed. She's not even interested in giving Starfinder a try and I really want a go at magic space adventures. I tried to pitch it as an option for our Sunday game but people mostly wanted to play Shadowrun. Which I don't mind since I love the setting and system.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: sitnspin on 11 Sep 2018, 01:23
Interesting. Shadowrun is wicked clunky and rules heavy. I was a fan of the world building and aesthetics of SR, but when it came to mechanics and game design, it was woefully disappointing. But that's just mho.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: oddtail on 11 Sep 2018, 01:33
Interesting. Shadowrun is wicked clunky and rules heavy. I was a fan of the world building and aesthetics of SR, but when it came to mechanics and game design, it was woefully disappointing. But that's just mho.

It all boils down to personal opinion eventually, but elaborate rules of SR work if you run it as a fiddly game where everything needs to be planned, down to the tiniest detail. Which works if the game is played as a series of assignments, each of which has to be meticulously planned. Then, I think the fiddly bits reinforce the feeling. Simple, streamlined rules just wouldn't allow for every single detail to be pored over, not as far as game rules go.

In other words - to me, SR is not meant to be a thrilling action game, not exclusively. It's a game about planning a heist or an attack, and for that, game mechanics that have as many moving parts as possible are expected or at least acceptable.

I'll agree the game is more than a little unwieldy. It's certainly a pain. But I've played unwieldy games that I thought were great, in the past. I moved on from Pathfinder to D&D 5E because as a GM, I felt Pathfinder was an absolute nightmare to prepare for. Still ran a campaign of three-and-a-half years in PF before moving on  :-D
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: sitnspin on 11 Sep 2018, 02:20
Fair, although I think there are games that do the whole heist thong far better than SR does. But, as you said, ultimately it comes down to a matter of personal taste.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 11 Sep 2018, 05:35
I can't really argue with how fiddly the Shadowrun system is, especially compared to something like D&D 5e. For some background I played Shadowrun 1-3 when they were current and in an era when fiddly games were the norm. D&D 2-3.5, Palladium games, Hero System games, that sort of thing. So I didn't feel that it was any more or less complicated than other games I played. Fast forward a significant gap of years when I wasn't playing RPGs and I wind up playing D&D 5e again. Which is a lot more rules streamlined than I remember. And some members of my group expressed an interest in playing Shadowrun, so I agree to run for them. I took a look at 5th edition and found the character creation rules to be a bit of a nightmare. And the book I got was coming apart after only a few days of gentle use, so I wound up sending it back. So I decided to run 4e instead, since I already had books for it.

For those that don't remember or don't know, 4e was the point where the game was handed off to a different developer because FASA went under, and the way the game worked went under some major changes. It still felt Shadowrun, but there was more rules added to it, how dice checks were made was different and all sorts of things. 5e doubled down on some of that, and better explained some things. Matrix rules in 4e are.... Not good. They are still somewhat over complex I feel in 5e, but they are at least better defined.

Now me... I run games with a narrative basis. Telling an interesting co-operative story is my priority and as such I'm happy to bend or ignore the rules for that sake. I like games best when they provide more options for the players, rather than tightly codify what they can or can't do. I remember being able to do that fairly easily in early editions of Shadowrun. A few sessions in and still learning 4e, I'm not sure how true that is anymore. And I kind of wish I had pushed a little harder for Starfinder.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 11 Sep 2018, 08:42
I mean, that's what I said and it makes sense to me but she's apparently had bad experiences and just isn't interested in trying again. Her big complaint was all the additional classes and such that came out... but like you said, if you're running the game you always have final say in what's allowed. She's not even interested in giving Starfinder a try and I really want a go at magic space adventures. I tried to pitch it as an option for our Sunday game but people mostly wanted to play Shadowrun. Which I don't mind since I love the setting and system.

I've found that for me, at least, learning the pathfinder system was pretty easy, especially that my prior gaming background was 1st/2nd ed AD&D (the systems were compatible so could be blended), the players' and GM's entire library of splatbooks, AND the labyrinthine mix of house rules and GM rulings that resembled something approaching Common Law.[1]  In comparison, the entire Pathfinder ruleset is a breath of fresh air.  That said, once I finish with the world building, I will end up paring and altering the class list to adapt it to what I want.

IMO, the full list of options for players isn't that bad if there is a GM, and there are other players willing to walk one through the process.[2]  Our newest player, who hadn't played since High School a dozen or so years ago wasn't actually intimidated by the classes, since she knew what role she wanted to serve, but jumped into the deep end of the pool by not only rolling a cleric, but doing so in a game where she'd be starting at 14th level.  Once various options were explained to her and with assistance with the details, she's been able to build something that she seems happy with, and has been *very* effective in just the first session where she's been statted up.

[1] Our resident rules lawyer actually had a binder full of precedents with their dates for easy reference, and despite that, we still talked shit about Shadowrun being so clunky that one combat round was the entire gaming session.

[2] Rather than punish min-maxing, my group's GM helps the players do so effectively.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 11 Sep 2018, 10:08
Ehhhh.. I don't see how one entire combat, much less one round could take an entire session in Shadowrun, unless everyone was reading the entire combat rules for the first time while trying to do it. Even then.... I assume it's hyperbole. Or people repeating second or third hand shit-talking they've heard about the system. Combat will take longer than D&D or Pathfinder... Those mostly boil down to two rolls. Either attack or saving throw, and damage. And you usually can throw both at the same time to make it faster. Shadowrun each attack is going to involve 2-4 rolls. Attack vs Defense, the Body and Armor to resist the damage. Plus Drain if the attack was with a spell. Once you know the rules even roughly you should know how many dice to throw at each step and it moves along pretty swiftly. The only time I've felt the game bogs down is dealing with Matrix combat.

With long experience in D&D 3/3.5 Pathfinder is simple for me as well. Naturally since it grew out of that game system when Wizards put out 4e. A lot of people complained that there were too many options... which in part is where my room mate's hate comes from. But I like player options. Because I understand that they are just that... optional. And when my players come to me with something that I don't think will fit with the game, or I think is too overpowered or something I have no problem saying no. Nine times out of ten though I have no problem with saying yes so it doesn't come up all that much. I would imagine my room mate would go along with playing, if the majority of the group wanted to. And probably have fun doing so. Especially for Starfinder since the 'too many options' isn't really an issue in a game with only one player rulebook so far....
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 13 Sep 2018, 05:21
Jab this is all way over my head.

As for the question I posed for racial abilities, I think I finally have my answer.
Ghostwise halfling's silent speach: yell at braindead co-workers with zero evidence of it.
Air Genasi's endless breath : sit at the bottom of the pool
Firbolg's Speech of Beast and Leaf: have all of the insects understand when I tell them to piss off or die? I'm in!
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 23 Sep 2018, 10:55
We got further into the Castle of (un)Death last night, and things are not looking the greatest for our heroes.  The shadows were basically mooks, but the surprise attack meant a bunch of people got some con-drain.  We proceeded by some empty rooms (no baddies, but no loot, either), into a room where a couple of people started hallucinating baddies (if there was a gazebo indoors, it'd have been shot up bad), and as we're about to exit it, a side door that we barred got busted through by some female-orc looking thing[1].  Our rogue tries to talk to it in orcish, but as I've mentioned before, she has no diplomacy, and rolled shittily.  the orc looked fairly aggressive, but hadn't attacked yet.  Our archer prepped to let loose if she did anything violent, but I (foolishly) tried the diplomatic approach, and stepped forwards with my hands out to show that I wasn't holding a weapon and saying in orcish that we were sent to remind her that she was needed at the camp.  I promptly get charged, smacked with an axe and dinged for four temporary negative levels on top of the damage we took.  Thankfully, our more tanky people surrounded her and I was able to withdraw.  I didn't want to burn my better spells to take her down since we had far more to travel, aoe spells would hit too many friendlies, so I was limited to attempting to hit her with my retribution[2] hex and licking my wounds.  She dropped quickly enough once we were in position, and rolled poorly enough that only the archer and rogue got dinged by level loss after that first charge.

So we decapitate her and have the necromancer's skeleton pet put this energy draining axe into a bag of holding, and I burn a Limited Wish to restore myself to full strength[3] We start proceeding, and the archer notices a sound coming from behind us.  Apparently this orc was undead, had healed, and was starting to put her armour back on.  One of the clerics recognises it as a type of undead that only stays down if it is killed by glass or obsidian (neither of which we have).  We knock her down again, and I signal the group to back the fuck up, and drop "black tentacles" where the body was, and sent my imp out to break some of the mirrors we saw earlier.  I figured that if she did get back up again, being grabbed and crushed by a giant unkillable tentacle would at least delay her.  Thankfully, the imp got back before the tentacles ended, and our gunslinger cut her head off with a shard when she started to twitch.  Unfortunately, I didn't put the bottles of whisky that the female characters pass around when the boys are doing something stupid on my character sheet, or I wouldn't have bothered with the tentacles and just glassed her. 

Meanwhile, our rogue was missing.  Apparently, despite criticising the dwarf for running off down unexplored passages and checking things out on his own, she decided to do precisely that to look for glass, DESPITE the fact that I had told my pet to go to a known source and take care of it.  Thankfully, there was only one place she could have gone from here, and our necromancer sent her skeleton to get her, though by this time, she was a drooling vegetable in an airtight gimp suit.  We manage to get the mask off, and she's breathing, but with all the IQ and personality of a turnip (int, wis, and cha all drained to 0).  At this point, we're out of time, and we'll see more in two weeks.

[1] We had been allowed in on condition that we find the orc tribal leader's girlfriend.

[2] If it had succeeded, she'd take ˝ of the damage that she dealt physically, bypassing her damage reduction.  Since she was whirlwinding, it had worked, it'd have fucked her up bad

[3] Since all three of the group's casters are potential healers, I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that we're the highest priority when it comes to healing that sort of stuff.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 23 Sep 2018, 11:50
*scribbles down DMing notes furiously* And people accuse me of being evil when I run games.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 23 Sep 2018, 12:27
It was a pair of ghosts in similar gimp suits that did that to her, both of deformed humans, one a little person, another a "giant" that were doing the ability damage with a performance designed to look like they were trying to communicate something by pantomime.   it wasn't until most of the group was dinged by their ability that the good cleric was able to figure it out with a perform check.  I'm sure our necromancer would have gotten it eventually, but who knows much damage they would have done before that happened.  I think that for me, two consecutive natural 20s used up my luck, so I'm glad that we were able to turn away from them and shut the door, as it seems as though the creatures here are bound by whatever magic is on this place to a specific area.  This is helpful since we've mostly been having our necromancer briefly take control of whatever undead was around then the group running to the next area (this isn't a hypothesis, one of the controlled undead confirmed it).

Worst place is that my pet had to shut off constant detect evil and detect magic sight because both were going off like a Geiger counter at Chernobyl.  Same happened to the necromancer when she cast detect undead.  This place is seriously nasty.  Don't want to rest here, but unfortunately, our egress vanished when the necro lost control over the nasty in that room, so it means busting through a tower and some minotaur skeleton warriors to have somewhere to land, since it's dimentionally locked as well, I can't just use my teleports.

 I'll strongly push for this next session, although I *know* the necro is against it, since I was chatting with the player this morning.  She thinks that it should be a lesson for people to not just blow spells or 1x/day use abilities, but I think that given that one of our players is newish, and now we have a better idea of what's actually here, regrouping and better preparing would be better than slowly being ground down due to a lack of restoration spells.

Edit:  And it turns out that the reason the axe reappeared in the orc thing's hand is that it was a cursed item, so at least the second time around, she was without armour.

Edit again:  Neko, for the most part, he isn't truly evil, but does give us enough rope to hang ourselves and is good at exploiting a character's (or player's) personality.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 23 Sep 2018, 13:08
Wow.......

 :evil: Was the safe word  "ow"?
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 23 Sep 2018, 19:32
Edit again:  Neko, for the most part, he isn't truly evil, but does give us enough rope to hang ourselves and is good at exploiting a character's (or player's) personality.

That's what all good evil GMs do and why my players hate me sometimes. Because they know in the end... They really did it to themselves. I was just helping things along.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 23 Sep 2018, 19:44
Edit again:  Neko, for the most part, he isn't truly evil, but does give us enough rope to hang ourselves and is good at exploiting a character's (or player's) personality.

That's what all good evil GMs do and why my players hate me sometimes. Because they know in the end... They really did it to themselves. I was just helping things along.
You didn't push them in front of the bus, but you didn't say anything as they walked in front of the proverbial bus.

EDIT, typo fix.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 27 Sep 2018, 19:58
I posted some ideas about a game world upthread somewhere, and now I'm actually trying to make it.  I forgot how much work was involved in the whole process.  Right now, I'm working on the main pantheon, and even with only 15 gods, it's a lot of work.  I'm on page six right now, and only putting in a paragraph or two for each one.  I expect by the time I have everything fully fleshed-out, each one might take up a page to itself.  I guess when I get bored, I can always switch to cities or countries (I already have that mapped out), but part of me wants to at least get to a point where I can finish for now.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 29 Sep 2018, 15:28
I posted some ideas about a game world upthread somewhere, and now I'm actually trying to make it.  I forgot how much work was involved in the whole process.  Right now, I'm working on the main pantheon, and even with only 15 gods, it's a lot of work.  I'm on page six right now, and only putting in a paragraph or two for each one.  I expect by the time I have everything fully fleshed-out, each one might take up a page to itself.  I guess when I get bored, I can always switch to cities or countries (I already have that mapped out), but part of me wants to at least get to a point where I can finish for now.
Pantheons are a lot of work.

I looked into it for the lizard world one I mentioned above, and I'm honestly tempted to just reskin one of the existing pantheons with a bit of mixing and matching.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 30 Sep 2018, 16:51
We're at the final boss. Right now it's unconscious, but after this round, it's probably going to wake up.


EDIT: It's awake and it's called Galdier Vallik, Destroyer of Worlds. He's a White Wyrm's head attached to plants and insectoid parts.

EDIT:ugggghhhhhhh! It was created by a Dr. Gero! And it's got 2 siblings.

EDIT: We TALKED our way out of the fight!

EDIT: ...........a tarasque just joined our party. A TARASQUE JUST JOINED OUR PARTY!!! The tarasque is over 400 years old so it's mellowed out a little.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 30 Sep 2018, 21:19
Pantheons are a lot of work.

I looked into it for the lizard world one I mentioned above, and I'm honestly tempted to just reskin one of the existing pantheons with a bit of mixing and matching.

That they are.  I've fifteen down, and think I need to add some more so that there are more than one deities for the neutral alignments (excepting true neutral, which has 3).  Going to get to that later since I'm working on the map right now.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: ZoeB on 01 Oct 2018, 05:03
40 years ago there were no websites. There was no web in 1978. There were the functional equivalents though, APA (amateur press association) magazines. Contributors would handwrite or type (on a manual typewriter - word processors didn't exist) their contributions, post them by snail mail (sometimes internationally) where they'd be mimeographed, and copies sent to all subscribers.

A page from Alarums & Excursions Magazine, November 2018 so written in early October.

(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/imagepage/img/3W5BQ95AX4yWM3GEE5HbruRzscc=/fit-in/900x600/filters:no_upscale()/pic3018947.jpg)

Here's the index for that issue. Some might recognise a few of the authors.

(https://cf.geekdo-images.com/imagepagezoom/img/o5cA2kDPJUji2-KRXdVHo5AYAak=/fit-in/1200x900/filters:no_upscale()/pic3018948.jpg)
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 01 Oct 2018, 05:37
2018, So it only recently folded?

Wow.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: pwhodges on 01 Oct 2018, 12:52
word processors didn't exist

True, but only just.  Norsk Data (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ND-NOTIS) had a fully-functioning word processor within five years of that, and HTML-formatted email by 1985.  By 1978, you could already type in a computer editor with "run-off" commands which would format your output when printing - I wrote some manuals that way.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 01 Oct 2018, 15:34
Not quite word processors, but hasn't TeX been around for about 40 years?

Edit: Of course, access to computers at the time, especially networked ones was quite limited.  I suspect that a lot of folks didn't have access to BBSes or newsgroups in the early 80s.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: ZoeB on 01 Oct 2018, 18:06
2018, So it only recently folded?

Wow.

Nope, it's still going. Wow Indeed.

PDFs of past issues are available too, at $2 an issue. See http://www.conchord.org/xeno/aande.html

Some contents, describing events that happened in 1977. "Phil" is Phil McGregor, who later went on to author a number of RPGs and supplements. I introduced him to D&D, he introduced me to Traveller.

https://www.amazon.com/Phil-McGregor/e/B00J6VGPJE

Quote
Well, it happened this way....Hippolyta (Phil's experienced character)  was leading or attempting to lead a gaggle of Turkeys down the first level of High Dudgeon's Dungeon. After KOing a group of Orcs, some by Sleep, some by Clerical sleep (a mace just behind the left ear), the party came to...a Door! Out stepped an old Gent who ummed a bit, aahred a bit and Proclaimed himself *the* 10th ' level monk. (HINT! HINT!) On the first level.

Did the party ask for ID? No. For some reason--probably because my Dungeons have an (unwarranted?) reputation for deadliness, Hippolyta was not suspicious. The old man told the thief if he would just step inside, he would be told something to his advantage. (HINT! Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly..)

AT THIS POINT Hippolyta became suspicious due to Phil's knowing my motto is TANSTAAFL. Hippolyta was dissauded from taking action at sword point by Democratic Vote. The thief went in, the Doppleganger . neatly swiped off his head and spent several minutes getting his features good enough to stand a close inspection.' (HINT! HINT!)

Finally the Doppleganger came out and the party proceeded. Hippolyta frantically pleaded that in the streets of Denmark there was an odor of Decay. The Doppelganger, being an intelligent, hardworking, SURVIVING monster insisted on taking a position in the rear. Hippolyta was Of Course the Target For Tonight. The Thief stabbed her in the back, pleaded a pre-emptive strike since Hippolyta wanted him tied up, and because of popularity was forgiven.

After staging a few diversions (stab Run, run,a monster!" "Whewl Where's Fred?" "The Minataur lizard/ Balrog/ Orcs / Hydra got him.") (Massive hints all the time) Finally the Doppelganger hoisted the Jolly Roger and massacred the pitiful remnants of the depleted party.

Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: ZoeB on 01 Oct 2018, 18:26
Not quite word processors, but hasn't TeX been around for about 40 years?

Yes, it was being developed at the time A&E #39 was being written.

Quote
Edit: Of course, access to computers at the time, especially networked ones was quite limited.  I suspect that a lot of folks didn't have access to BBSes or newsgroups in the early 80s.

Usenet was invented in 1979. The first BBS went online in Chicago in 1978. So BBSs and newsgroups post-date A&E 39. Fast transmission speed outside a LAN was 75 bd.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 02 Oct 2018, 23:41
Impressive that it's still going!


BTW, our DM corrected me. Our party has formed a "temporary alliance" with The Grand Dutchess Super Baroness Vulcanism Ultra Magus (Beryl named her).  Assuming we somehow win and don't have to press the cosmic reset button The Stranger° offered us next week, TGDSBVUM will try to eat us. Thankfully, Two-Tongues managed to get the diamond unicorn back to the ship at harbor and now he's headed home. So I'll be introducing my halfling bard Jonah High-Hill  and playing him for one session.

°Said cosmic reset button rewinds time to the beginning of the campaign. It costs all of our party's money (individual & group funds), everyones possessions, and there's a 50/50 chance for each character in tbe group being erased from existence.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 08 Oct 2018, 05:50
Well, we had to reset the world. Barely did it just in time, too.

Lo-Kag and Saravore were erased from existence, but everyone else survived. However, since we were all starting as slaves this time, we had to make new characters. I went with that dumb character idea of a surfer-dude/stoner barbarian Tortle. Mainly so I didn't have a bard die in the first 10 minutes of the second session again. Tato Po is from the Wyrmtail clan (great great great great grandpa is a red dragon), so he's got nubby horns that resemble bear ears, a more pronounced beak, and a long tail. I decided to go Path of the Totem Warrior on account of this being a super deadly campaign, but it was really hard choosing between that and Storm Herald. Despite the red dragon ancestry, Po's family are mostly hippy-dippy druids hence him learning Primordial for his bonus language (and also him being a stoner). He's a former sailor, and now former dock worker (tavern brawl got him arrested). And he's also the first party member to get rid of the cursed brand (slave lo-jacking!) all the party members started with.
After the Purple Worm strafe, we managed to break our chains and get some healing. Then, the 3 more magically inclined party members Disguised themselves and got into the city while the other 4 (including Po) waited outside of town. They managed to convince some rich guy to give us 300 gold (Friends) and they buy some group supplies and tracked down the job board which included a bounty for a "Demon Child". Meanwhile, Po and Marius (lycan bloodhunter) noticed a "floating cloak with mechanical arms" going from building to building through the alleyways carrying a sack that seemed to be getting bigger with each exit. Upon the party reuinting, Evard Blackheart (Tiefling gunslinger) showed everyone the bounty poster he'd found. Po and Marius had in fact seen the "Demon Child". So, Po asks Prof. Cerulean (variant human alchemist) if she could make one of the tracking brands sticky if it were cut off so they could throw it at the "Demon Child" and try to catch them at a later date (read level 10). She says yes, and Po takes the dagger he was given and cuts off his brand. Thankfully just passing his wisdom save to not rage. And the getting the wound healed by Prof Cerulean.

Also, for flavor, Po's great club is a surfboard with a handle.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 08 Oct 2018, 15:04
Our last session wasn't as exciting as the one before.  We realised that we were pretty fucked-up after what happened last game, having one comatose PC, and others with level drain (and our clerics didn't pack enough Restorations), and managed to make our way to a courtyard.  The dwarf was back, and really should be put on a lead/leash because he wanted to explore the well and possibly bash down a door where there was *something* on the other side.  Thankfully, saner minds successfully convinced him that it was time to fly out (stupid dimension-lock), and we landed back in the orc encampment.

Now, the PC in charge of negotiations was deafened, and I had to use my pet to telepathically relay everything the chieftain said to her so that they wouldn't see that anything is wrong.  We spun a story about how his gf died honourably enough that the castle took her, and that the undead thing she became was amazingly fearsome and presented her head (why we took the head instead of the whole body when we have two bags of holding and a dwarf capable of carrying several tonnes is beyond me).  This was done diplomatically enough that we were invited to the funeral feast.  Turns out, though, that she ended up as part of the stew, so that the tribe could take her strength into it, and we rolled poorly enough that only two of us knew what the secret ingredient was (and they did *not* share the information).  If my character finds out what she sampled, she'll certainly be washing her mouth out with the "decanter of endless whisky", purging her stomach contents, and then drinking about as much whisky as she can while still retaining the ability to cast spells.

The next day, the orcs said that we couldn't come back without bringing the skull of the dragon that was seen flying about overnight, so we wasted half a day finding a halfway decent cave, though our stay there was interrupted by a crazed necromancer who decided to join up with us (we took the extra time because it was late enough in the day that we assumed that storming the castle would be worse at nighttime, so we rested another night (also allowing the clerics to be back at full spells after burning through their restorations).  This also gave me an opportunity to identify items.  The orc/undead-thing's spirit is now living in her ax, and now it is both intelligent and allows the wielder to access her barbarian rage if she approves.  We also found that the longsword is a cold-iron, holy weapon, and would be extremely powerful against what we're fighting in the right hands.  Unfortunately, it fell into mine since I was the only one who can both use longswords and is of good alignment.  Yay to finally having a magic weapon, but boo to it going to the witch.  In the morning, we fly back into the courtyard to discover that the defenders were waiting for us with undead minotaurs armed with huge crossbows.  Thankfully, they were more intimidating than dangerous, so we made short work of them without more than superficial injuries. 

Attempting to get to the dragon, we went into the ground floor of the tower that the damned dwarf had told us hosted the dragon.  As is typical in such situations, we saw a series of doors, and decided to go through them one by one, starting at the furthest left, which opened into the kitchen quite close to some scary ovens.  As expected, the ovens shot a massive fireball[1] and then spawned four "cinder ghouls" which promptly entered the lungs of one of our clerics.  Our evil cleric promptly took control over them, and we started up the stairs to encounter 5 spectres, which managed to level drain a few people.  Thankfully, we were powerful enough to make short work of them, and made it to the top of the stairs with little difficulty.  In the next room, we encounter (surprise) another undead, who is pacing around the room with milky white eyes.  Our necromancer blurts out "are you blind or just scary?", and he muttered something about needing to defend the castle before attacking… at which point, it was the witching hour, and we broke game.  Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention that the last undead was bound by four chains.  We had found previously due to the dwarf's vision (long story) that there were four chains leading to anchors that were drawing energy from a fifth anchor of über-importance to sustain the castle and the undead.  The undead we are starting to fight is at the centre of the chains, and bound by them.  The GM let it slip that this is the big-bad.  To make things worse, two players will be absent next session, including our top DPS (the gunslinger), so it'll be difficult, even with the NPCs taking a more active role.

I'd say that all went well aside from having to eat the other green meat, and the IRL problem of one of our clerics taking the better part of an hour to get her spell list done.  It always introduces a long lag, taking about 1/2 an hour of prep time, then maybe another 15 minutes of people still talking about other stuff since conversations start when things aren't moving along.

[2] An illusion, but neither saved to disbelieve
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 08 Oct 2018, 20:42
Illusory fireball damage-- the mind is indeed a powerful thing.

Here's hoping you can nab a feat that let's you cast without dropping your weapon. Maybe the castle has a library with certain special books?

Best of luck in your next encounter. Successful History checks may help.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 09 Oct 2018, 12:17
I don't *think* there's a rule saying I can't cast with a weapon in my hand, but I'm still pretty ineffectual with it due to being a squishy caster and having a strength penalty.  The GM did say that I could take a feat to use weapons with my prehensile hair, and I may do that somewhere down the line, since my hair has a strength bonus equal to my int bonus.  Given what we're dealing with, this place is fairly low on both the quantity and quality of the lewtz, so even a +1 holy sword is a big thing.  I just hope we can turn the gunslinger good, since he's pretty good at melee as well.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 09 Oct 2018, 12:46
It depends on what system you are running... I'm not sure about Pathfinder offhand and don't want to dig up the rules, but I know in 5e you are supposed to have a hand free to cast spells with somatic components, with some exceptions. If you are using a focus you can cast the spell with the hand holding it. The Warcaster feat specifically allows  you to cast while holding a weapon, among other things. That said, it's one of those rules that's generally glossed over or ignored. I personally don't bother with it unless it's especially relevant. Since I reduced drawing/changing weapons to a bonus action anyway, I assume if you have both hands full you can just set aside to trace the magic symbols with the weapon in hand. And Warcaster means you can use your weapon as an focus, besides it's other effects.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 09 Oct 2018, 12:52
Thankfully, a longsword is one-handed, so I'd still have the hand free, and since I'm rolled an arcane caster, I can ignore most focus requirements (witches get some of their spells off the druid and cleric lists).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 09 Oct 2018, 20:44
I don't *think* there's a rule saying I can't cast with a weapon in my hand, but I'm still pretty ineffectual with it due to being a squishy caster and having a strength penalty.  The GM did say that I could take a feat to use weapons with my prehensile hair, and I may do that somewhere down the line, since my hair has a strength bonus equal to my int bonus.  Given what we're dealing with, this place is fairly low on both the quantity and quality of the lewtz, so even a +1 holy sword is a big thing.  I just hope we can turn the gunslinger good, since he's pretty good at melee as well.
Prehensile hair???
Oh! Any luck tracking down a flying broom? Imagine flying in wielding the sword with your hair !

Best of luck with the gunslinger. If need be, a chaotic good party member could find something to blackmail them with (i.e. sleeps with teddybear/security blanket, something whispered while sleeping, embarrassing stories,etc).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 10 Oct 2018, 13:09
It's a hex that can be used by witches for 1min/level per day, and I took it so I could deliver touch spells with a 10' reach.  Technically, it's supposed to be a secondary natural attack, but I've been allowed to use it as a primary since I haven't been using other weapons or physical attacks.  Here, I've been using it to deliver healing spells to both friendlies and the undead (to harm them) without having to actually touch the latter.  I'm pretty sure that I'll take flight as my lvl 16 hex, which will free up a couple of spell slots (no broom needed).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 10 Oct 2018, 14:06
Are you playing Pathfinder, Hedgie? I forget. I'd kind of like to find a Witch class for 5e. I've considered adapting one from Monte Cook's old Arcana Unearthed book.

Also, I have prepared a nice little ghost story for my players for Halloween. Depending on how long it takes them to wrap up their current adventure stopping a demon worshipping cult tonight, we might be starting into that. It's a grand adventure about love, betrayal, ghosts, zombies and an animated gazebo that I hope to be entertaining....
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 10 Oct 2018, 14:40
Yes, it's Pathfinder, and a pretty useful class.  At even levels, witches get hexes, which allow a fair bit of customisation, and give some non-spell abilities that can be used.  The spell list itself is a strange grab-bag, but does include the various cure spells, and then "Patron spells" which function in many ways like having a domain.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 10 Oct 2018, 20:49
Class features woot!

On the note of terrifying combat encounter imagery, I recently came across a few tables for Aasimar anatomical variations. I decided to make a College of Whispers Aasimar bard named T'hom T'zindar. He's got skin that looks like black marble, eyes that glow bright purple, heatless flames for hair (also purple), long arms and legs, extra long digits, and a slender frame.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 10 Oct 2018, 22:40
So my players wrapped up the hunt for the Cult of Asmodeus they had been after for a while, and it was a pretty fun fight of PCs vs anti-PCs... Surprising that my players didn't understand the lead bad guy, a warlock, casting Armor of Agathys on himself right before the barbarian laid into him. Double surprising since the barbarian usually plays a warlock/monk/rouge hybrid class.... Those who don't play 5e, Armor of Agathys is a pretty standard Warlock spell that gives them temporary hit points and anybody who attacks them in melee is hurt for the same amount... So all the barbarian succeeded in doing was hurting himself.

Still, fun fight, they saved the kids that were kidnapped and in general it was a success all around. So they head off to the next city, the capital of the region to talk to the Baron about the brewing war and other issues. I had planned that while travelling they were going to be interrupted by my special Halloween scenario on the road. However I made the mistake of including airship travel in the game. When the players complained that it would take a week to get to Edelsburg, I reminded them they could just fly there... so they did, effectively skipping the entire adventure.  :roll:

But that's okay, I've got a plan in place to get them involved in it anyway. I'm not going to let such a little thing get me down.  :-D
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 11 Oct 2018, 20:53
"ALL ABOARD!"
*CHOO-CHOO*

jk jk
Absolutely nnothing wrong with a bit of railroading now and again. Lord knows my group needs it from time to time.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 12 Oct 2018, 03:45
I present my players with opportunity. If they choose not to take them, that's fine.... I just move those opportunities around or reuse them for later. :) In this case though I want to use this adventure right now since it's a ghost story I wrote specifically for Halloween. So I really only have one more session I can do it in. And honestly it's my own fault for opening my mouth and bringing up airship travel when they were already planning on walking/riding there.

I try to avoid railroading my players when possible and especially making it so obvious. Instead I set up several potential plot threads and see which one the players are following, to develop that further. Then I decide what happened in the thread they didn't follow. Case in point: The campaign started off with the players chasing down a bounty on goblins who had been raiding a nearby farming village. They discovered that the goblins were a lot more organized than usual, and that it was a distraction from a larger planned attack to the north. So they could have chosen to go north to try and head that off.

But there was also issues to the south, towards the capital. A cult of Asmodeus that tied into a couple players backstories, and another player who was hunting a thief who had made off with her clan's (dragonborn) eggs. As well as there was some suspicion that the Baron might be behind the goblin attacks some how. After a lot of argument and threatening to split the party up, they decided to go south and send a messenger north. Having finally dealt with the cult this week, they continued on to the capitol chasing after the wizard the egg-stealing rogue claims to have been working for. Once there they found a large force of soldiers flying north and were informed that a small army of goblinoids attacked a village to the north. Thanks to warnings they got, they were barely able to withstand the initial attack. The troops were going to reinforce the north. But there is also an army of undead coming over the mountains to the south. Sending the troops north leaves the capitol of Edelsburg undermanned.....
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 14 Oct 2018, 19:55
I'm writing that down. Railroading can be pretty unfun (especially with certain types of players).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 14 Oct 2018, 20:01
Guess who's got two thumbs and totally forgot to have his character buy rations before the party headed off into the desert? This guy *kicks self*

The DM was even nice enough to let me roll a straight Wisdom check to see if Po would think of it. I got a 2. I can get nat20s for Po to determine that his ditchweed is cut with hay, but he forgets to bring friggin rations into the desert! Thankfully we just hit level 4, so I'm taking the Survivalist feat. I guess if the caravan gets attacked by giant scorpions or whatever, he'll be making jerky with it.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 21 Oct 2018, 09:42
So the previous session had ended with the start of combat with super-sp00ky chained undead thing (the GM loves to end things on a cliffhanger like that), and hilariously, the "oh shit, we're fucked" was over quickly.  There was all this build up to this fast as fuck undead thing attacking with (5?) chains, trying to possess the necromancer,[1] and after that failed, he started lashing out at anything that looked like a threat.  Thankfully, it was over before I cast anything, so I was being ignored.  But as soon as the necromancer acts she attempts to control it (she has had amazing luck so far with these big nasties).  I'm pretty sure the GM only needed to roll above a "1" in order to successfully save…

So yeah, next thing we know, we're interrogating the "final boss" of the castle.  Obviously, he's furious about being controlled and being as evasive as fuck, so even with the unholy compulsion controlling him, he was being as evasive as fuck, hoping to lead us to our doom by omission or ambiguity.  Doesn't help that he repeatedly pointed out that he'd probably break free the next day, and make our lives miserable and quite a bit shorter if we were still in the castle.  This whole process takes about two hours, both in real life and in-game time, but we're able to get quite a bit of information.  I had surmised that he was bound specifically to the fireplace he was hanging on chains over, but had knowledge of other goings on in the castle, and could BRIEFLY (like maybe for a round or so) move from his fixture to fuck things up.

He was the lieutenant of a historical villain whose stuff we were there to pinch (as well as the weapon that killed his master)[2], as well as the nature and location of the beings (rather than items) that we'd have to destroy within 24 hours of each other[3] to have a chance of killing him.  He seemed to not mind us planning on killing the devil, since it was looting the place of his master's stuff.  Only problem is due to bad knowledge roles, even my hell-spawned (before being redeemed) imp could only surmise that it must be from one of the really deep pits, since it had never heard of that type before.  The devil was almost certain to have knowledge of the weapon's location, although the latter is probably in the dragon's hoard.  Reason why we decided to go after the devil is that it'd be easier to get to the dragon without having to deal (much) with chain-boy if we had to leave the castle to rest and then return.

Since only the necromancer can ask the questions, the rest of us are either shouting to her what to ask (and she often rolls her eyes at this), or engaging in a bit of side-RP.  At which point, the /other/ cleric decides to spill the beans as to what exactly was in the stew that the orcs gave us, namely zug-zug (or whatever the orc leader's gf's name was.  My character would be racist enough to not care about her name).  Thank the gods for the decanter of endless whisky and drinking to forget.

So onward and upward in the tower, we encounter a nightmare while checking out some of the rooms (it wasn't in them, but it was running through the corridor).  With this group, even down two players, it was nothing but an inconvenience that quickly dropped dead to the ground.[4]  Proceeding, we get lavish descriptions of rooms picked clean of anything, save some old wine that is probably vinegar by now, and an infernal glaive, both of which went into bags of holding.  We step out onto the balcony and 4-armed gargoyles are swooping down screeching.  The damned dwarf decides to throw the door open to engage them.  Thankfully, he and the other tank are able to form a wall pretty quickly, and between my black tentacles and sleep ability, they're effectively crowd-controlled.  3/8 are killed, and the other 5 fly off to avoid the tentacles.  Wrong door in any event.  We finally make it to the proper one, and there's a causeway to the tower.  We're pretty damned sure that the remaining gargoyles would try to knock down anyone walking across off so that they'd take a nasty fall and have to try to climb back up.  So we come up with a cunning plan (or so we think).  Even worse, on the other side were quite a imps lurking invisibly.

Plan:  I summon as many vulpinals[5] as I could in one casting (3), so they can run across invisibly and start indiscriminately start smiting, while the good cleric has illusions of vulpinals go right ahead of them.  at the same time, everyone with a ranged attack would have readied actions to deal with the gargoyles.  So far, so good.  The vulpinals run across, and the gargoyles dive at the decoys, only for one to fall asleep on the job and the another to end up with some new ventilation in its body.  The fox-men do their smiting together, and all the imps fall to the ground dead.  At which point, one of the vulpinals points out that the imps fell dead instead of disappearing as they returned to their home plane.

Shit.  This is a bit of a spanner in the works.  Summoned creatures are trapped in this roach motel by the same magic that keeps me from simply teleporting out.  Shoulda thought of that.  Also, with a bit of planar knowledge, we realise that their souls would probably be devoured by the place once the spell's duration runs out (in its words, "things would go a bit wonky").  As this is happening, we kill/put to sleep all remaining gargoyles save one, but one of the clerics and two of the vulpinals get knocked off the causeway.  The cleric is able to control one long enough to get her back up as the vulpinals climb back up, but it's free right as I'm making a dash across, and knocks off most of my bonus health.

I burn both of my fly spells on vulpinals and instruct them to carry their friend out of the castle's influence so they can go home safely.  Only problem now is that I've burnt all my "get me the hell out of here" spells, save for the rather costly limited wish.  Still, sending them off to safety was a good RP moment for me.[6]  We magic a hole into the tower's wall (the door was locked), and devils attack, end of session.

Despite being down two of our top dps, we came through this pretty well, without wasting many resources like spells or limited-use abilities, and the missing people will be back next session, so we'll be at full strength.  Only downside is that now I have 2 prepared summon spells that I dare not use, so my spell list is a bit more limited than I'd prefer.  The good thing is that I still have all of my seventh-level spells, and all of my counterspelling ability.  In all probability, once things start, I'll buff my AC, then start trying to put things to sleep, since the latter doesn't use any resources.

[1] We'd have been hurt pretty bad if he had, between her spellcasting/cleric abilities and her crit-monster of a pet

[2] The weapon bit might pose a bit of a problem.  I believe that Marley's ghost said quite specifically that the pally's holy weapon was a longsword.  If you may recall, my squishy caster with combat penalties due to low strength is the only one in the group who can wield the far lesser holy longsword we have now.  Either the gunslinger will have to get hit with an atonement and do some penance or something, or the rogue will have to burn a feat to take the proficiency.  unless I cast certain buffs on myself, I'm unlikely to hit anything more aggressive than a sleeping cow.

[3] A lich, a dragon, a devil, and some skeleton warrior

[4] And neither of us casters got *that* hint.

[5] Extraplanar little fox people who have a nice AoE smite evil ability, and are happy to charge into combat against things like devils

[6] I wish that they wouldn't have been eaten had the spell run out and just be stuck and uncontrolled.  it'd really give me a reason to take the "leadership" feat at next level and keep one as a companion.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 24 Oct 2018, 07:26
I'm sure I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Hedgie, you should definitely wwrite a book based on this campaign. Maybe in the style of your character's journal entries or telling the story at a tavern? Just be sure to credit the DM as co-author.


I'm kind of jealous, actually. The things I have a few things to report/recount mostly aren't as exciting.

While riding the cart, Po noticed some vultures flying overhead. Suddenly realizing he hadn't gotten rations before leaving town, he opted to cuck a javelin at one. Turns out they were giant vultures. The party managed to take down all 5 with only poor Dobby[1] getting hurt. Our arcanist, Prof Cerulean, decided to extract as much water as possible from 4 of them, and we roasted the 5th one and split it with the mercs giving us a ride. Dobby made himself a shade/cape by hacking off one of the giant vulture wings.

A ways on down, the blood hunter spotted some poor bastard stumbling along the dunes. He looked pretty far gone and when Prof Cerulean got a good look at him, she actually recognized the bit of nastiness going on [2]. Apparently this guy had been afflicted by some sort of necromantic condition that makes all of one's blood flow along a single path close to the surface of the skin in a fashion that resembles a snake. Upon mercy killing him and everyone deftly avoiding necrotic damage from the AoE blood splatter explosion, Prof Cerulean noticed that the guy's spinal column was still writhing around. She picked it up with a dagger and very narrowly avoided its needle-like stinger being stabbed into her arm. We all ganged up on this thing to kill it safely and to note to kill anyone else  with the 'blood snake' contagion from afar. Preferably with fire.

After that, we got dropped off at the weretiger village by the mercs as we'd arranged. Po (of all characters) got a fair amount of info while sharing some "magically suspicious"[3] "herbs" with a were-tiger herbalist named Shaggy. He found out that those weird homebrew humanguised mimics are called "man-walker mimics" and they were indeed created by the proverbial wizard. This one made them to serve as his raiding party to retrieve supplies and components for him. He's also rumored to be operating out of a 'City of Ruins'. Also, that the glowy blue cube trinket he has may or may not be full of stars (he was pretty high). Interestingly, he rolled a high enough intelligence check to actually remember the view of the planets and the galaxy he got.

And then Po almost died thanks to a nat1 on his next Con save. He started having a bad trip that the cube was eating him. A failed Dex save and two failed strength saves to try to break the grapple, one while raging, followed by 2 failed death saves. Three rounds of damage, 36 24 38, all of it psychic because it was all in his head. Thankfully, the totally baked weretiger got a nat20 on realizing that Po was in a bad way and got him so smelling salts.

After talking to the tribe's alchemist, we trekked over to our first 'oh no' spot and found where most of the missing children were. Dobby decided to hitch a ride on the 'demon child' when it walked over him in the cave we found. Dobby then decided to find out just what the demon child was and peeked under it's robes and rags. After finding out that the metal legs were fused to her spine, Dobby found out that the demon child only had one leg left and was a girl. And then Dobby was flung across the cave and told that if he wanted to continue living he wouldn't ever do that again. Dobby apologized and asked what was at the end of the cave. "Death."

So , Esa[4] and Prof Cerulean decided to disguise themselves aas kids and try to find out what was at the end of the cave. After finding a door, they safely opened it and found most of the missing children.  Also, it turns out that the 'demon child's name is Zero. They then found out that  (of course) the kid we were hired to find wasn't there. They had run him off "because he was weird".  Other than that, Esa and the professor found that the kids were getting survivalist and military training from Zero, along with learning basically how to run their own little society.

[1] Po's other little green friend and our goblin rogue.
[2]Turns out she's way older than she looks. She's met primordial humans.
[3] Our alchemist's own words. BTW, it's called "pot of gold" and the weretiger alchemist helped Shaggy make it.
[4] Our cleric, a fallen Aasimar.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 24 Oct 2018, 16:08
Thing is that the campaign is based off of one of the Pathfinder adventure paths (Curse of the Crimson Throne), so there's quite a bit of Paizo's IP in there.  Granted, we've faced quite a bit of custom content (due to our penchant for running things off the rails and to help level/gear us for what we're facing (and we're still under-geared for lvl 14, IMO), but there's still a *lot* of copyrighted stuff.  I'm content just sharing the stories here and IRL with other tabletop gamers for their enjoyment.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 24 Oct 2018, 17:31
Thing is that the campaign is based off of one of the Pathfinder adventure paths (Curse of the Crimson Throne), so there's quite a bit of Paizo's IP in there.  Granted, we've faced quite a bit of custom content (due to our penchant for running things off the rails and to help level/gear us for what we're facing (and we're still under-geared for lvl 14, IMO), but there's still a *lot* of copyrighted stuff.  I'm content just sharing the stories here and IRL with other tabletop gamers for their enjoyment.

Oh. Ja, that'd probably cause some problems and complications.

If you really wanted to, you could approach Wizards of the Coast and Paizo about doing a licensed book.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 24 Oct 2018, 17:40
BTW, I was looking through pics of IRL turtles to try to figure out what  Tato Po would look like, when it dawned on me that Po's draconic ancestry would basically make him look like Tokka from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

More specifically, Phill Gonzo's rendition with boardshorts, a dragon tail, nubby horns, and half-lidded eyes.
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 24 Oct 2018, 21:08
Well, I ran my Halloween Special tonight and it was glorious and well loved by the party. A hunter reported being attacked by a ghost in the woods nearby and the local baron asked them to investigate and put a stop to this. Loading up on ghost hunting gear (cold iron weapons, bags of salt, vials of holy water) they set off. Finding the abandoned campsite, the bedded down for the night. One the first watch, the dragonborn ranger drifted off as the Alarm spell set up rings out. The ranger started to walk off towards the south, acting strangely. They restrain her and ghostly smoke starts to pour out of her, forming up into a translucent blue woman with no legs and no mouth. She points southward and looks at the group pleadingly before fading away.

Travelling south, the group comes across a small, run down but still occupied house, deep in the woods, dozens of miles from the nearest town. Half the party scouts forward quietly... until the barbarian who can't see in the dark stumbles on a pile of clay tiles in the yard that was being used to patch the roof. From inside the house an old man appears. Spotting the Barbarian and Bard while the elf Ranger hides they get invited inside. This old hermit, Alec Tanner, kindly offers them tea and tells them a tale of how the ghost woman would lure people to their doom, drawing them to a graveyard further south of his house. But his house is protected thanks to warding stones he's set out.

Thanking him and  taking their leave, the two return to the group. After  a little discussion they decide to head south at near midnight. They pass through the ruins of an old and long abandoned town, nothing but foundations and overgrowth left. Coming on a large cemetery that held the remains of generations of townsfolk. In the center of the cemetery is a small structure, and within it they see a flicker of blue light. Coming closer they find it not to be a mausoleum as they suspected at first, but a gazebo. A gazebo made of the bones of dozens of people and creatures. Inside, the flicker of blue. Approaching closer, they attack the gazebo but miss! It responds by shooting razor sharp bone shards in all directions as it's arms start to unfold, claws outstretched.....

The fight begins in earnest! Spells fly and blades sing as they strike against the unholy abomination. It screams out and dozens of zombies start to rise from nearby graves, shambling towards the group. The warforged fighter gets grabbed and stuffed inside the gazebo, bars of bone slamming shut as it pierces him again and again with sharp spurs of bone. The party hacks from without and within as most try to back away from the animated bonezebo to escape the ring of zombies. As it looks like they are going to be overwhelmed, several party members in the single digit hit points and moments from being swarmed and torn apart by the zombies the bard strikes a final blow, causing the monstrosity to shake apart and the zombies drop in place, like puppets with their strings cut.

Gathering their breath the party examines the remains of the bonezebo, finding the capstone skull still pulsing with necromantic energy. Inside they find and destroy the animating crystal, the work of a necromancer. With the destruction of the crystal, the ghostly woman re-appears, along with two others that are just faces, similarly without mouths. The woman points towards the north, back to the hermit's house. Suspecting he may be the necromancer they return in the early, pre dawn hours. They kick over one of the warding stones protecting the house from spirits and a dozen ghosts rush in. The party follows, but too late. When they find the hermit her is held by the ghosts, burning alive with their cold fire until nothing is left by a charred body.

Searching his house, they find a secret door leading to a hidden basement. Inside, they find a shrine to the god of undeath, Vecna. Mounted above the shrine and the shrunken heads of twelve women, their mouths sewn shut. The party takes the heads outside to cremate them as the heads burn, the women are released. Their long silence undone, they thank the party as they disappear, until finally the full ghostly form is the last to go. As she ascends into the dawning sky with the smoke, a single raven feather floats down, as the Raven Queen whisks them away to their proper home in the afterlife.

Searching the home the party discover the necromancer's spellbook and journal. He was far older than he seemed, over a thousand years old. Every century or so he would use his magic to charm some poor girl in a village or city, whisking her away and marrying her, only to later kill her in a ritual so that he could absorb her life, extending his own. He spoke of being annoyed by their screams, so he would sew the women's mouths shut before the ritual. A dozen times he has done this, and he wrote of needing to find a new wife soon. He also wrote that though he lived far away from other people, sometimes the ghosts would draw the curious here, but he would send them to the old graveyard where his creation would kill them, giving him more material to work with.

And so it went, the heroes heading off, after allowing the Brides of the Necromancer their revenge, knowing evil has been destroyed, and their spirits freed. I found it an interesting and fun twist of the idea of a ghost of a jilted lover, and my party had fun. My custom made monster worked out really well and I was pleased that it was able to provide a serious and credible threat to the party. Though I think I should have increased the damage it does when it grabs someone and stuffs them inside. That just came off as weaker than it's normal bashing attacks. And besides that, I've wanted for literally decades to throw a gazebo monster at a party. And it so happens that I had a Halloween decoration that was a gazebo made of skulls and bones...
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 25 Oct 2018, 04:37
I don't suppose you've shared the Bonzebo's statblock anywhere?
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 25 Oct 2018, 09:11
Here it is: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rriFoY4GDW3zZoyp1u3ARX5Zor55b5Xt/view?usp=sharing (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rriFoY4GDW3zZoyp1u3ARX5Zor55b5Xt/view?usp=sharing)

I made the page using this resource: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/ (http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/) and roughly based it around mimics, the House Hunter monster and skeletons.

To go over it again I'd probably reduce the slam damage to 2d6 and increase the piercing damage of a creature trapped inside to 2d6. While playing it I realize it actually made little sense for the monster to use it's Grab and Stuff attack when it could just do way more damage with four slams. Ironically two of the players were trying to get inside the creature before willingly before it got one with a grab and stuff. Also, not reflected in the stat block but I decided spur of the moment last night that the creature was immune to being flanked. My group loves to use and abuse the flanking rules, but that made no sense in this case because it had arms coming out of all sides and could 'see' all around it with it's blindsight (soul vision).

My party that night was 5 level 3 characters. Fighter, Barbarian, Melee Ranger, Archer Ranger and Bard. I also threw them up against about 20 Shambling Zombies... Like regular zombies but with a move of 15' and 12 HP instead of 22. They were summoned up from the graveyard as a bonus action by the Bonezebo and once it was destroyed they collapsed, like puppets with cut strings.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 25 Oct 2018, 21:07
A list of suggested restrictions to pick and choose from to help keep the insanity cap in place while allowing spells like Enlarge Reduce to stack on the same creature:
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 04 Nov 2018, 21:33
Ninety percent of last night's game ended up being the fight that we were starting at the end of the previous session, but this time with the gunslinger and rogue flying down from the top, and our archer stranded outside[1], as we get attacked by four barbed devils.  As per usual, my initiative as the second-strongest healer is middling at best, and our strongest healer is dead last.  Immediately after entering the room we're all[2] assaulted by magic, forcing a pair of will saves which my pet imp and I easily make, but the rogue predictably fails leaving her useless for the first round.  I felt quite sanguine about our prospects, since even without the NPCs or pets, we had a 2:1 numerical advantage[3].  That first round, the gunslinger knocked one of the flying devils out of the air with some sort of trick shot to the wing, and the skeleton pet, the summoner NPC's eidolon and the dwarf all engaged the foes on the ground in a rather painful fashion, as they impaled anything engaging them in melee.  It is also discovered by a couple of party members that a fifth devil, the one we're supposed to try and get information from was sneaking up behind the gunslinger in his perch under an invisibility spell.  Once she's pointed out, I shout for him to come to me as I prepare a bullet with her name on it[5] and the tank/healy cleric steps up beside me so I can safely hide behind her tower shield as the devil being attacked by the eidelon advances on us. 

Now, due to the vast amounts of booze, some of the details are a little bit fuzzy as to in what order the ensuing events occured, but I shall endeavour to do my best.  Overall, things are going reasonably well in terms of control over the fight, as two of the devils are getting punished, and the one approaching me suddenly "decided" that it was time for a nap.  The only snags were that the evil cleric NPC is getting hit by invisidevil's scythe, our gunslinger gets held on his way to me, and has failed to break out of it for a few consecutive rounds, and both other people with pets are burning some serious magic/abilities to keep said pets from taking a dirt nap.[6] 

Of course, all good things must come to an end.  As the NPC cleric flies away, depriving invisidevil of an immediate target, flying enough to try to "talk" to the held gunslinger and demand his head if he dies, it all starts going sideways.

The devil hits us all with "horrid wilting", described in loving detail by the GM, and if the devil had "detect invisibility" or "true seeing", I would have had to contend with having a dying familiar who needed healing, and being both squishy and seriously hurt, myself.  The whole party has just taken some serious damage, moderated only by a relatively poor roll on the GM's part.  *Almost* everyone who can heal themselves does, and the rogue (who is rather squishy herself) starts floating over to myself and the cleric, who decides to buff herself so that she could actually hit the enemy.[7]  Due to their damage reduction, the barbed devils are taking a while to kill, especially since one ranged character is missing and the other is frozen in place in the air.  Compounding our woes, the next round, a "chain lightening" hits the group, which thankfully, the rogue and my pet manage to avoid entirely.  The necromancer of course, continues to spam a channel to heal herself (she's dhampir) and her pet, I have to drop what I'm doing to cast "heal" on the seriously wounded cleric (who really needs some better dice), and prepare heal the rogue the next round (triage and all), complicating my plans to bring this combat together.  Tired of her one-sided conversation with the gunslinger, the NPC cleric decides to hit the floating gunslinger with a dispel that knocked away the hold, but *also* the magic keeping him aloft, but thanks to the failsafe with that spell, he started drifting slowly to the ground. 

I patch up the rogue the next round, and both the dwarf and skeleton have finally dispatched their respective targets, while the eidelon finally succumbs to the fatal embrace of the barbed devil.  But, now, things are starting to come together as the gunslinger manages to take the special bullet out of my waiting hand.  He chambers a round, focused all his attacks into one nasty shot, which, due to the "named bullet" resulted in an x4 crit and doing what I believe is properly called "a metric fuckton of damage".  I put the other barbed devil to sleep, the summoner casts "haste" on the group, and we begin to focus on the primary target, who our necromancer weakens with a successful enervation.  The flying rogue starts to make her ascent, while those of us who are land-bound begin running up the "stairs" to the top of this tower to engage, while the skeleton starts dispatching the sleeping devils. 

At this point, we're officially in the mop-up stage.  Not only is our primary target weakened, and I ensure that she is blinded too.  Unfortunately, she gets off one final "fuck you" to the one  directly responsible for her sucking chest wound by imprisoning the gunslinger inside a force cage.  Although our goal was to get information from her regarding the McGuffin, she goes down furiously trying to fight.

Well, I suppose with *that* goal thwarted, we start looting, netting a scarab of protection, an icy burst mace, a rod of splendour, and a circlet with the soul of someone trapped inside.  The dwarf (of course), also discovers that the mattress to the bed large enough for Golarion's biggest orgy on record[8] is full of mixed coinage, estimated to value some 30k gp in total value.  He immediately starts making money angels in the pile, and we all discuss the logistics of hauling it out, ending with the conclusion that it is impossible to do so with our current means.  Sorting through the coins to only take the gold and platinum would also take a prohibitively long time.  The rogue starts stuffing her pockets, and the dwarf calls for me to put her to sleep.  I indulge him, primarily because my character has a strong dislike for thieves, but she's quickly nudged awake by the necromancer, who wants none of dealing with gold fever and goes back down to the still controlled big bad to have another conversation.  One other person follows her as the rest of us desperately attempt to quickly sort the coins.  The futility of this exercise is shown by how in an hour, we get a relative pittance.  Even with my pet's help, I'm only able to net about 300gp worth of money, which is more than the others were able to get.  We then retreat to the cave we were hiding in to identify items and plan our next step.


[1] A necessary contrivance to cater to their respective players' abilities to make it.  Since we have such a large group, we don't have to postpone sessions due to absences.

[2] well, aside from our token evil teammate, her pet, and the evil NPCs

[3] I think that the quantity of beer and soju[4] that we had been consuming as we ate dinner probably helped in regards to confidence

[4] Of which, we unfortunately either had too much, or not enough.  Still not sure which.

[5] Well, strictly speaking, and quite thankfully, an actual name isn't needed, one just has to remove all ambiguity as to who it is for.

[6] Although, I suppose that the skeleton is dirt sleep-walking already.

[7] Using a two-handed weapon with one hand is not generally recommended, even when one has the feats to do so, if one wants to hit their target.

[8] Or more likely, one big fucking dragon, considering that some scales were also found on the bed
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 05 Dec 2018, 14:31
Well, I feel bad for not having posted updates for the last two sessions, but the one before last was rather anticlimactic.  We go in to break the second spirit anchor, which turns out to be a big scary dragon… or was rather, prior to it dying rather unceremoniously midway through the first round.  Now, we *were* well-prepared, and spent about half an hour in real time making sure that we had the optimal buffs, it was a little over the top.  That night after I got home, the GM and I agreed to start strictly enforcing the material components of the spell I used, even though they didn't have a GP cost associated with them.  Otherwise, every boss fight will involve me handing a magic bullet to the gunslinger, causing him to deal 7d10+lots damage.

Last week, as the gunslinger and dwarf start cutting up the dragon carcass,[1] the new cleric decided to explore a little before her multitude of buffs wore off.  So she flies up to the next level of the very structurally unsound building, and triggers a fight with a bunch of (mostly) skeletal archers that are able to rip tatters of their rotting flesh from their backs to turn them into paralytic arrows, which quickly incapacitate the rogue.  I catch her with my magic hair, which I then decide to use to lift myself up to the next level so that I can go heal people and deal with this shit that said cleric, and the archer are dealing with.  The boys, of course, keep on cutting up the dragon, which is pining for the fjords.

The cleric is doing admirably as a tank, holding the undead away from the squishy people and smiting while the archer peppers the bastards with arrows.  As I don't want to get myself shot and facing a fort save, my character ducks away and proceeds to vomit up a swarm of army ants, which she directs through an arrow slit to come up after the dead from behind.  The ants do little enough damage themselves (only about 6d6 to each) before achieving the effect of crowd-controlling the undead to fly out of the swarm (chasing my imp back down inside), and spend the next round picking themselves clean of ravenous bugs.

And the dwarf's spell ended up to do fuck all.  The dragon's hoard was in the next room.  The actual ladies in the group were slapping hands with me 'cos I play a girl character who thinks that boys are stupid.  Well, they are.  Thankfully, the gunslinger was smart enough to realise that the whole building was about to crash down on everybody and used the immoviable rods that the dwarf had to shore the things up.

So we go for finding the lich.  The strange thing is that he is behind two spells that keep others out.  We need our necromancer to get in, and get my character, who is one of two people who is actually of a good alignment to get out.  Thing is that to escape this shit, one of us has to remain behind.  My character has to exit to allow others out, so she's safe, but the others... I just hope that it's one of the boys who has to get left out, 'cos boys are stupid.


[1] The former to take all the pieces that are worth money, the latter to use its hide to create a magical treasure map to its hoard
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 09 Dec 2018, 17:10
So....my barbarian suggested that the party go to the Oasis to try to get some relaxation sonce he's been downed multiple times in the last two in game weeks. He's just been killed by the travelocity travel gnome wielding Bad News (621 damage). Our sorcerer revivfied him and now it's our rogoue vs him in the in.

Po has his shield on one side of the sorcerer and himself on the other to keep her safe.

EDIT: BTW, when Po came back up, he shouted "This was supposed to be a relaxing vacation!"
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 09 Dec 2018, 19:26
It was very relaxing.  He was taking a dirt nap after all.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 10 Dec 2018, 17:30
So I was talking to my DM about my backup character, an arcana domain cleric, and I mentioned that the only official D&D deity/god I could find that said anything specifically about arcana or arcane knowledge was Boccob. When I asked if I should pick one of the other gods of magic, he was about to say 'yes' when he got that DM sparkle in his eye. Apparently, Boccob got the title of The Uncaring from those few that would be his clerics because of the crap Boccob has put them through.

Arkin Icewind, an Aasimar of Illuskan descent. He's got silver skin, crystal blue eyes, perfect white teeth, speckled marking all over his body, and his presence calms animals. I decided he'd have a thick Russian/Finnish accent, and a putupon attitude.

EDIT: whoops. Looks like I named him Icewind instead of Frostwind.

It was very relaxing.  He was taking a dirt nap after all.

He was taking a regular nap and got sniped. And now he doesn't have a tail again. Stupid critical injury table.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 10 Dec 2018, 18:53
At least it wasn't a result of the Deck of Many More Things…  That thing raised the terror level of one gaming group I was in more than anything else.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 11 Dec 2018, 21:52
Since most of the loot locations have been visited and I'm coming in at lvl 7, the DM offered me 8 points to spend on magic items. Common 1pt, uncommon 2pts, rare 3 pts, legendary 4 pts.

If it weren't for the fact that Arkin hops around timelines and planes at Boccob's discretion, it'd probably be a Bad Idea to blow it all on a Sphere of Annihilation and a Talisman of the Sphere. He offered to remove my DIC (diabolically invented concept, effectively unremovable curse) if I sacrificed 3pts on a Rod of Security to put toward part of his specific mission for Boccob (protecting and assisting an NPC). Which would leave me with 5 points. I need to find the rarity of the Necrotic Resistance armors before deciding. I want a Mace of Disruption after all.

At least it wasn't a result of the Deck of Many More Things…  That thing raised the terror level of one gaming group I was in more than anything else.
Very true.

Also, I had a horrifying thought. Boccob is basically The Doctor and Arkin is simultaneously a companion and the sonic screwdriver.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 11 Dec 2018, 20:02
He was taking a regular nap and got sniped. And now he doesn't have a tail again. Stupid critical injury table.

Is he blue and think that the tail is "delightful"?
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 11 Dec 2018, 20:51
He was taking a regular nap and got sniped. And now he doesn't have a tail again. Stupid critical injury table.

Is he blue and think that the tail is "delightful"?
Sadly, not blue. Greenish brown with orange striping (like an ornate box turtle).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 16 Dec 2018, 12:53
Oh fuck.  I had typed about six paragraphs and the page crashed.  I really wish that there was a "save" feature here.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 17 Dec 2018, 17:26
Oh fuck.  I had typed about six paragraphs and the page crashed.  I really wish that there was a "save" feature here.
Ditto.

I managed to actually think to record last night's session as it was getting crazy again. Only 4min 35 sec, though. The game shop was closing so we had to wrap it up midfight against 3 lvl 20s. Turns out we started in a different timeline this time. We're fighting an evil version of our Eldritch knight from before the reset, along with two of our DMs PCs from other games max leveled and evil.

I'll try to remember to convert the sound file and get it posted to soundcloud when I get off work this morning.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 17 Dec 2018, 17:43
I'm re-writing in a proper text editor, so I should have something up tonight (it's on my other computer, otherwise I'd be working on it now).  The teaser is that two brilliant plans went horribly wrong, and someone booped the wrong thing on the nose (or where its nose *should* be).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 18 Dec 2018, 07:11
So.... I'm getting ready to start a Starfinder campaign with my group next month, once our Shadowrun campaign comes to a close. Which is just as well, since the three who had never played Shadowrun before found the setting pretty dark and depressing. Which in all honesty, it is. And I've been running the light, 'pink mowhawk' version where they haven't had to deal with betrayal and revenge at every corner... The new game I have planned to be more light hearted. Basically borrowing in tone from shows like Firefly and Cowboy Bebop. The players are going to be owners/crew of a beat up starship with no particular faction affiliation and a desire to keep it that way. Taking jobs where and from whom they can in the interests of staying flying and ahead from those that might be chasing them.

For those that don't know, Starfinder is Pathfinder, in space. Kind of obvious when you think about it. :) It is set in the same multiverse as the Pathfinder one, complete with magic, monsters gods and planes. But time and technology have advanced into the space travel era. So besides elves and goblins you have aliens and ray guns. The classes are all different, and there are new alien races, but the classic races are there as well. It's very much a fantasy game, set in space. System wise, it's something of a bridge between Pathfinder 1 and 2. For those who have seen the playtest stuff for Pathfinder 2, the fingerprints are definitely there showing where some ideas presented in Starfinder have been refined. I imagine a little while after Pathfinder 2 is released, we'll see a Starfinder 1.5 or 2 update.

I'm using the standard Starfinder setting with a few twists, and incorporating things from other games and shows into this. I am going to avoid the 'big two' of Star Trek and Star Wars. But other things like Mass Effect is fair game for mining or straight up lifting.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 18 Dec 2018, 23:29
Maybe a touch of Outlaw Star comes from the magic users?

Sounds fun!
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 19 Dec 2018, 03:35
The dreaded DOUBLE POST!  :-D

Anyways.... As promised, that snippet (http://"https://soundcloud.com/user-974883694/dd-group-snippet-arguing-with-the-dm") from out last session.

BTW, turns out I wasted 45min before work waiting on Convertfiles's lagging because my current phone's voice recordings can be loaded straight to SoundCloud.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 02 Jan 2019, 17:26
Oh boy, triple post. Sorry. Just excited.

I'm actually making progress on the G'do campaign. My brother expressed interest in playing, but is hesitant to join either of the campaigns I'm already in since 1) he's a beginner, and 2) we're pretty far in on both.

Right now I'm working on the mountains that encircle the desert since that's where his PC is starting. It's funny, I figured he'd go full orc or half-orc, but the first thing he did was ask me for the updated player race crossbreeding chart (http://"http://gyrrakavian.tumblr.com/post/180393159139/yeah-this-took-awhile-to-do-ultimately-it") I did for 5E. He went with a half-orc half-ogre. That was weird to do, but necessary practice since some of the resident half-elves are half drow.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 02 Jan 2019, 18:40
Jumping in for newbies is a mixed bag.  Our new player (who I brought in) decided to roll cleric, and it was her first time playing Pathfinder, and her first tabletop game since high school.  She basically decided to jump into the deep end, when our other newb players avoided the spellcasting classes.  She's actually doing great (thankfully, the GM helped her min-max her character properly) and is quickly learning how to choose spells.  Then again, she's a science nerd by profession, so she's taking to it rather quickly.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 03 Jan 2019, 21:33
My brother is a complete newbie. But, he knows I enjoy so he wants to give it a try.

Being that his character is basically a fantasy trucker (caravan specialist) and he's a fan of the Transporter movies, I'm going to mess with him a bit with the introduction of a potential "goldfish poop gang" (I think that's the term). I still need to decided whether the Al Cassava gang[1] are kobolds or goblins. Either way, they'll have smuggled themselves in by hiding in one of the crates.

EDIT [1] Oka, Ta'pi, Pu'u, and Ding. 100% intentional pun.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Pilchard123 on 04 Jan 2019, 07:14
goldfish poop gang

Rather useless recurring adversaries (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoldfishPoopGang)?

Quote
EDIT [1] Oka, Ta'pi, Pu'u, and Ding. 100% intentional pun.

You're a terrible person.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Akima on 05 Jan 2019, 01:08
Oh fuck.  I had typed about six paragraphs and the page crashed.  I really wish that there was a "save" feature here.
Yeah... Ever since losing a minor essay in the Discuss sub-forum when I clicked Preview, I draft anything more than a one or two line posting in a text-editor with a BBCode plug-in and copy-paste it in. Even for short posts I hit Cmd-A Cmd-C to copy it to my Clipboard before hitting Preview.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Blue Kitty on 05 Jan 2019, 15:32
I got a sweet, sweet taste of D&D last year after listening to a lot of Actual Play podcasts....and then it went no where. We did the D&D 5th Edition starter kit and beat it, then created our own characters, but then we hung out more infrequently. Last time we got together we just played other board games, even with all the people there to play D&D.

I'm thinking about suggesting we do D&D or something like it for our own game night and I can DM
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 06 Jan 2019, 14:47
So, we're missing an update.  After losing everything last time, I didn't feel
like typing everything all over again.  So we'll cut to the current fight,
which is a continuation of the previous session.  We're engaged with a
demilich (who the archer awoke by poking it), and due to its high damage
reduction are barely making a scratch on it.  The dwarf is keeping its
attention by knocking over the temple statues (and nearly got soul-sucked for
his troubles), and the cleric of Shelyn buffs her with something that'll make
her cut through the thing like a hot knife through butter.  Excellent.

Of course, a few of us have other problems.  An undead giant came stomping
down the corridor, which I accidentially disturbed earlier when my flesh all
sloughed off to become spiders (because I figured they'd make expendable
scouts).  Knowing that it had no weapons, I became incorporeal to be able to
magically attack it without getting squooshed and rush to engage as our evil
cleric's skeleton warrior goes after the floating skull thingy.  With the
other cleric smacking it with holy attacks, and the rogue sneak-attacking, it
was only a matter of time before the thing dropped.

Meanwhile, the giant charges through me, but I didn't take into account the
*other* thing I pulled, namely, an invisible mummy lord.  It smacked me with a
"slay living", but thankfully the amulet of protection I was wearing kept me
alive and kicking.  I tried to glitterbomb it to make it visible, but failed
the concentration check and the spell fizzled.  The giant enters into the
room, and the gunslinger hides to "reload", and we're finally making progress
on the lich.  In fact, the rogue manages to lay the final blow.  As it
shatters, it emits a chilling scream (wail of the banshee), killing four of us
outright (5 if you include my familiar), including both our clerics who apparently were rolling for shit when
it really mattered.

I wish one cleric back to life, depleting my savings almost entirely, and she
immediately brings back the other cleric, who then brings back the rogue so
we're nearly at full compliment to deal with the two remaining foes.  The
giant proves easy enough now that attention is focused on it, and the archer
makes the mummy visible so that it can be targeted.  I take the opportunity to
throw my big heal on the bastard, killing it instantly.

After combat, I use scrolls to bring back the gunslinger and my familiar, we
collect the belongings of our fallen enemies and start looking for the
MacGuffin, but find nothing save for some rotting and fragile books that'd
take at least a day to go through for anything interesting, and we don't have
the time since the undead in this cursed place get reset every 24 hours.
After several false starts and dead ends, we end up in a chamber with a blue
glowing mist and walls that look as if they were partially organic.  This
whole tower is one of the magical pins holding the Ravening Beast imprisoned
beneath the world, and a voice calls out to us that the tower needs a new
caretaker.

Well, specifically, it wants a Zon-Kuthon (god of envy, pain, darkness and
loss) follower, and tries to convert the clerics to its cause, but both refuse
and walk off.  I follow them and signal the NPC cleric of Zon-Kuthon, and give
her directions to our current location.  She seems interested, first
confirming that the voice isn't secretly the beast, and tempted by a chance
for godlike power and to become closer to her god.  But then, the dwarf
decides to shove her into the magic pillar, basically sacrificing her because
she annoys him (I'm sure that his journey to the dark side is nearly complete
is not already.  what kind of people am I associating with?).

Trouble is that she'll be back soon in her new role, and probably looking for
revenge.  She wasn't the most stable individual to begin with, and being
basically turned into a Hellraiser cenobite is unlikely to help.  Thankfully,
we have a little time before she's able to manifest, so we go down falling for
what we perceive as hours before landing in a cavern.  And apparently there
are scary clawed things down here.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Neko_Ali on 06 Jan 2019, 20:49
So... I ran my first Starfinder game tonight and it went quite good. Even my room mate who wasn't into the idea had some fun and was talking about it on the way home. Session setup: A group of five strangers are hired by a starship captain to be his crew on a run to far space and investigate a strange energy reading. A scouting vessel for the Starfinder Society, a large group of intergalatic explorers and adventurers, was scanning plannets in the Vast, looking for interesting finds. They discovered a strange energy reading that had no discernable intelligent life. They logged it and dropped a Drift beacon so it could be found and explored later. Some months later, the Society hired Captain Jim Sparrowhawk to check out this energy reading. Having just had his ship repaired after a close encounter with some pirates, he had to hire a new crew, and there we have it.

The trip out to the Vast takes a fairly long time, so the crew mostly occupied themselves with repair work, or playing games. There was a close encounter with a pirate ship who wanted to board and loot them, but their ship, the Lakota, was faster. And when the pirates scanned them and discovered they had no cargo, they had little interest in persuing. Some days after that, the ship ran into a Drift Storm, a dangerous surge of electromagic energy that seemed drawn to the ship, trying to envelop them. Worse yet though where what was riding along... Space vermin that could burrow though hull plating and intended to make a snack of the ship. Queue up a tense fight as both engine pods, the cockpit and the cargo bay are invaded by this giant space lice. Some injuries are sustained as the captain and pilot try to fight them off and get the ship out of the storm. The rest of the crew is running around trying to kill the beasties, but not before one chews through some power conduits to the starboard engine. Eventually though, the vermin are killed and the ship is patched up so it's operating at full capacity again.

A little later they arrive at the alien planet designating LV-426 by the scout ship. Doing some planetary scans they find no signs of living intelligences, but numerous structures made by something intelligent. However those structures are buried under layers of silt and dust. The atmosphere is not breathable, with little oxygen and high concentrations of methane. It's also slightly corrosive. So packing into space suits, they fashion silt shoes and go walking the five kilometers from the nearest safe landing spot. Spotting some manta ray like creatures burrowing through the silt, then leaping into the air to catch flying creatures for food, the team operative decides to shoot at one, declaring he wants to eat it. Queue a bit of an arguement as most everyone tries to stop him, then runs away after he shoots one and several turn towards him to attack. After killing two of the sand rays, the rest flee. The ysoki (rat person) operative declares the meat gamey and chewy.... consistancy like jerky but raw. The shirren (bug person) takes a bite and finds the meat dry and unpalatable. The others decline.

Continuing the journey they find an area between two rock outcroppings where the silt is somewhat compacted and pocked with dozens of very large holes, 4 meters in diameter each. The captain approaches a hole and turns to the others, calling for caution as the ground beneath them rumbles. A giant purple sand worm lunges out of the hole, biting the captain in half and disappearing back into it's hole. Grabbing the computer with directions to the energy signature from what's left of the captain, the crew runs at full speed through the field of holes, with the sand worm trying to snap at them, but failing. On the other side of the valley of holes, they find they are near the signal. After doing some searching, they find part of the silt here has compacted and collapsed, creating a tunnel leading downwards. At first a bit wary after the recent encounter with a hole in the sand, they realize it's far to small for the worm, so they risk it.

Crawling and digging a bit downwards they come across an underground corridor make of a glowing blue material. The tunnel is built on a large scale though, reaching more than twice the size of a similar structure made for human-sized races. They do a bit of exploring, and discover a few things. First, there is writing on the walls that can only be seen by those who can see into the ultraviolet spectrum. They discover the remains of some very long dead people here. Twelve feet tall with four arms and conical heads with four eyes. Their dried and mummified bodies all showing sings of having died by violence, most of it by surprise. They find living quarters and similar areas for eight people, a laboratory and a reactor room, where they are attacked by radiation eating animals that look like three foot tall hairless kangaroos with large sharp teeth. They had been munching on the decayed remains of a radioactive crystal in the room, the former power supply of this building. They discover a storage room with a number of large and small crystals that they eventually discover act as storage devices. The larger ones being essentially hard drives that can store data, and the smaller ones recording devices. They also find a number of tablet comptuer like devices and batteries to power them, though only one party can read the ultraviolet characters, and nobody understands the language.

Searching the rest of the complex they find one room that still has full power, and determine that the larger crystals can be accessed telepathically, thanks to the shirren. In this room they find the one crystal that remained powered, and the energy source that was read by the scout vessel. They also find the final remains of the what they assume to be scientists that were working here... Which begs the question, why were all these people killed, who were they, what race were they and what were they studying here? But that is a matter of more indepth studies to understand the language. For now, the crew took all they could carry back to the ship, so they could return it to the Starfinder Society and get paid. Perhaps the mysteries would reveal themselves another time... But until then, mission accomplished, and the crew find themselves in command of the Lakota.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 07 Jan 2019, 06:58
goldfish poop gang

Rather useless recurring adversaries (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoldfishPoopGang)?

Quote
EDIT [1] Oka, Ta'pi, Pu'u, and Ding. 100% intentional pun.

You're a terrible person.
Did I mention that they're called the Al Cassava Gang?

Speaking of which, Pu'u and Ding are Mud Kobolds (http://"https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/229843-mud-kobold"), Oka and Ta'pi are Swamp Goblins (http://"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfQx-BhG1q0&t=4s"). Each pair snuck into a barrel of salted fish thinking it'd be left in the marketplace overnight. They ended up being shipped from the mangroves at the eastern edge of the savanna south of the desert, to the mountain range that surrounds the desert.

The players won't be expected to fight them outright[2]. If a diplomatic approach is taken and is successful, they'll actually join the caravan as NPCs instead of becoming a reoccurring gag villain.


On the note of my brother— he opted to 1) switch his character's background to pirate, and 2) actually jump into the deep end by joining my Sunday gaming group. He's learning but he kind of liked it. Right now we're going through a dungeon that's basically Aliens but with Bone Devils and Cloakers, as well as a few automated defense turrets. If he decides to play the campaign he asked me to run, I'll request that he switch to the Orc-ogre caravan specialist since he's now a pure orc (the Sunday DM decided to make his own life easier and disallow hybrid PCs that don't already have a ruleset). Also, a good chunk of what I churned out for the Spike Rim Mountains was focused around his original character background and things that'd pique his interest.

EDIT [2] I fully acknowledge that many parties either contain or are entirely comprised of murder hobos, so there is that.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 20 Jan 2019, 20:02
Only half of our party showed up to the fight with a Death Tyrant. Arkin died after getting hit with multiple death and disintegration rays. But, at least he managed to mess up the DT with Dawn and a few level 4 Guiding bolts (I'm going to miss that spell). Our Paladin and bloodhunter managed to finishe him and most of the cloakers off, as well as getting some sweet loot before having to panick flee as the tower was pulled down by one of the children of Sovarez (sp?). We got a minigun, 5 more delayed fireball gernades, a BFG (needs power source), some weird armor, and 10 of the automated defense turrets. Fortunately, our bloodhunter recovered Arkin's bag of holding, cap of disguise self, and breastplate of necrotic resistance.

Unfortunately, an unforeseen major consequence of using Windwalk to fast travel the party everywhere is that the group has only known Arkin for one in-game week and wouldn't be attached enough to him to drop the gold required for True Ressurection or Reincarnate. It was mutually decided that that would be super metagame-y despite how fun he was. So, sadly, Arkin is dead. I am 100% keeping his character sheet in the event I need a backup for the other game (still on hiatus) because he is incredibly fun for me to play.

My new character is a Pact of the Blade warlock tiefling named Excellence Caswell (she changed it from 'Beatrice') with the 'Haunted One' background. She's a former member of the death cult who was only part of it because she was born into it. Her parents were fanatical lunatics who threw themselves into one of the necrotic biomasses to get into paradise and help Excellence get promoted w/i the cult ranks. Between that, her boyfriend getting killed, teenage rebellion and receiving the memories of my previous two characters; she basically said 'eff this, I'm out'. She managed to nab a Cloak of Arachnida and Winged Boots from the cult before sneaking out.

We're looking into whether or not she has to be hexblade into order to bind with ranged weapons or not. If not, her pact is with a celstial. If so, it's with her crossbow or hand axe.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 24 Jan 2019, 23:02
It seems as though we'll be done with this castle.  Just one more spirit anchor ("just a dumb skeleton" who is probably a murder machine and the Big Bad.  Also, due to the dwarf being a murder-hobo, a couple of us are conspiring to slap a geas on him preventing him from doing violence to any being that is not actively trying to hurt him or an ally until X condition is fulfilled.[1]  We all just hit level 15 as well, and have a bit of downtime to rest, recover the serious ability damage (that everyone but me took), and some of the negative levels that most of the group has.   Having to kill a dragon, the demilich and all his friends as well as a creature to be described later, we took a pretty serious beating, and I had to burn scrolls of resurrection as well as limited wish, so we're out of our heavy consumables.

So starting off in the cave, it wasn't long until we found what it was that we were looking for, a sort of beacon in the middle of an underground lake.  Problem is that in the way are four sleeping gugs, which are basically 16' tall bipeds with vertical mouths taking up most of their head, and their two arms splitting at the elbow into four forearms each ending in a set of claws.  To investigate, we sent our rather stealthy monk, as well as my invisible imp, both of whom had no problem getting to the lake and its small dock (no boat, though) without difficulty.  Somewhere in the middle of the lake is a point of light, about as bright as a star in the night sky.  Using the imp's telepathy, the monk asked him to fly over the lake.  He did, but didn't get any further than about 30 feet before a tentacle lashes up at him, but not before we see that distant point of light glows brighter, and begins looking like a sword.  Happily enough for both me and the imp, he not only made his perception check, but beat the thing on initiave, and was out of there like a bat-winged devil out of hell.[3]  The thing is faster than the monk, though, who gets a shower of acid from the maw of what looks like a purple worm, albeit with tentacles.  She fails her save and takes some serious damage.  And the commotion seems to have awakened our semi-four-armed fiends.  Thankfully, she is clever enough to use her limited teleportation ability to get back to the group, 

The passage is narrow enough that only two of us will be in range of the gugs at any given time.  Downside is the bend in the passage doesn't allow us ranged folks to shine, and the narrowness prevents the rogue from getting into a flanking position without exposing her to several tumble checks to avoid AOOs. She wisely decides to stay put for the time being.   I find myself mostly popping heals as our two tanks move up to engage (the acid spray went far enough to damage those out in front).  After that initial blast, the gugs are celebrating, despite being acidified, and the worm-thing slips back beneath the surface of the water.

I finally get myself into a position where I can hex them without getting hit, the rogue finally gets to flank, but gets clawed a little bit in the process.   Unfortunately, my sleep hexes fail to work, which would have made killing them a simple prospect.  Eventually, though, we're able to get the right positioning to deal with these things in a rather terminal manner.  The worm, however, awaited us.  It bit, it spewed acid, it hit things with tentacles, and half the group ended so sickened due to getting hit by its vomit that we could do nothing but seek shelter.  Just as the worm was about to die, it knocked the sword into the drink, which was actually beneficial to us as a whole.  I rather doubt that we'd have spent time exploring under the surface, but we were forced to.   (well, the skeleton and a cleric who cast some form of water breathing).  Turns out that there was quite a bit of treasure down there, as well as the MacGuffin, and we were now the proud owners of.
This was about end time, so we teleported out[4] to our hideout in the cave, to rest and patch up.  but you knew that part already.



[1] The two of us differ on what X is.  The good cleric wants it to be when he has given the campaign Big Bad a chance to be redeemed, me, until he's welcome back in his homeland.  Either way, he'd be neutered for a good while.[2]

[2] Part of me is tempted to give him the Ludvico treatment, but I'm not that cruel.

[3] Okay, that's exactly what he is, but I digress

[4] Apparently, the dimensional lock doesn't apply down here.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 26 Jan 2019, 08:37
Okay, looks like we've got Ms. Caswell mostly sorted out.

She's one of a handful of children born into the Dancing Flesh cult[1], along with Tomelise (deceased boyfriend) and one other I don't know the name or whereabouts of yet. Her duties within the cult were to throw corpses into the necrotic biomass and shoot[2] anyone who got too close to the compound[3]. Her parents were fanatical loonies to the point where they sacrificed themselves to the biomass in an effort to help boost Excellence's standing/rank in the cult. Either shortly after or shortly before, Tomelise is caught trying to sabotage the biomass. So he gets made an example of[4]. About 3 days after all of that, she overhears some of the higher-ups discussing just throwing her in the biomass instead of promoting her.

Naturally this broke Excellence a bit. With all of the messed up stuff she's seen and the recent loss, Excellence has an epiphany that she should leave the cult and seek redemption. She changed her name[5] and alignment from chaotic evil to chaotic neutral. She made a pact with a newly formed celestial[6], stole a Cloak of Arachnida and a pair of Winged Boots, and snuck off into the desert in the middle of the night with the only piece of Tomelise she had left. An orb made from one of his heel bones that she made as a spell focus.

Did I mention that she broke a bit? She has full on stress induced hallucinations of being able to see and hear Tom's spirit. Each day she pricks her left ring finger with a hairpin and drips 3 drops of blood on her bone spell focus and polishes it. She believes that if she doesn't do this every day, Tom's spirit will leave her all alone. Not sure how that'll all play out with Arkin being her patron. He was a very good man. Even for an Aasimar (hence the full angel promotion). If he finds out, I'm sure he'll try to help her work through the trauma. Maybe even become a sort of second father figure, making the pact more than just a job.

BTW, I should probably mention that since she's seeking redemption and has a pact of the blade with a celestial, there's a bunch of sells my DM and I figured were off limits for her to pick up. They're mostly necromancy and evocation spells. But, since she was a worshipper of the eldritch horror that is Sovarez, she does get access to Eldritch Blast. I've got agonizing blast and eldritch spear as invocations already, but I'm still depating on repelling blast. I also need to decide between Flesh to Stone and Investiture of Ice for my first arcanum since we're about to ding to lvl 11.

[1] Despite being 1000 strong, they've got a staggeringly low birth rate for having existed 2 decades. Granted, birth is kind of the exact opposite of their goals.
[2]Weapon Master feat; shotgun, LMG, halberd, and battleaxe
[3] the aforementioned City of Ruins
[4] Flayed and acid poured in the wounds. "Traitors are unworthy of the dancing flesh and we dare not sully it with their blood or bones."
[5] Formerly 'Theophania'. She never liked it anyway.
[6] Arkin Icewind became a full-fledged angel upon being disintegrated and wound up working in the pacts department due to his background in arcana.
EDIT: fixing typos
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 12 Feb 2019, 16:50
Oh boy.....
A few things from a few sessions.

1) Upon learning of the cultists' plan, our paladin got all gung ho about storming the City of Ruin[1]. After some persuation checks and reminding him that the cult hada A LOT of warlock members, a compromise was made to pick off patrols some ways outside the City of Ruins. I forget who, but someone suggested an uneasy alliance with HQ. So, we used the magic chest we had to send a message to them[2]. They agreed that the Cult of the Dancing Flesh was especially dangerous and needed to be stopped[3]. They sent out their elite sniping squad to pick off patrols from the other side of the city.

We were going to build a small, innocuous base about 10 miles from the cultist head quarters by combining her Mold Earth with EC's Flaming Sphere  But Dr. Cerulean got a nat20 when asked to do a performance check. So she "went all Anna and Elsa" and ended up making a castle of glass and sand. Which, of course, attracted the cultist patrols. So our archanist spent the rest of the session turning it into a layer while the bloodhunter, paladin and barbarian went off to kill said patrols.
My brother learned then learned the hard way that barbarians should always start combat by raging. His barbarian didn't die to either patrol[4]. He died to a few giant vultures when he failed a persuasion check while testing out his ritual only Speak With Animals primal path feature.

2) The next session we got a message from the HQ elite unit requesting immediate backup, as 4 of their members had "disappeared into the sand with only a greenish flash" being seen. By the time we get over there, it's just three of them left; two nameless soldiers and the level 20 paladin. We watched as another one disappeared under the sand just before a friggin' ancient white dragon came out of the ground! The dragon easily took out Soldier B with its breath weapon and knocked Haravor[5] down to 25% health. Then, the DM tells me to make an insight check on the AWD, which EC passes. "It's looking at you funny." Then, each time it surfaces near EC or attacks the rest of the party, the DM tells us that it took care to avoid hitting EC.

At that point I figure it must be Granny Gumgum[6] controlling her familiar (which I failed the roll to remember). We all held our actions waiting for the dragon to surface again and Granny Gumgum failed her Con check for holding True Polymorph. Que Granny's theme (http://"https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2PaUxRORjEc") and an hour long fight. We nearly got her beat but me, the arcanist, and the sorcerer were out of spells so we couldn't counterspell her 3rd attempt at Dimension door.

After the fight, EC got a message from Granny requesting they "have a talk". The paladin player decides to started acting like a stereotypical paladin and demands to know if EC is with them or against them. I already knew that this was likely how EC was getting the Tome of Leadership as I had guessed exactly why our backup characters were getting our previous character's memories through an off-handed coment[7]. So after a bit of an in character argument (and shooting the tower with EB in frustration) we decided to split the party. Excellence would talk to Granny as a distraction while the work their way through the underground tunnels.

Everyone started from the underground entrance and cloudwalked to their respective destinations. As Granny Mother-Gothel'd it up voicing concernfor EC's decisions and her running off and 'getting involved with a bad group', the rest of the party fought a Rabbit of Caerbannog that was guarding the underground's entrance at the City of Ruin. It lasted 3 rounds [8]. After guilt tripping the hell out of EC and giving a sizable chunk of lore dump, the rest of the party interrupts a big reveal by pretending to be messengers.

Another fight ensued. EC (i.e. I) was uncertain what to do[9], so EC nat20s on pretending to have had Hold Person cast on her on the second or 3rd round. Two more rounds in, she starts firing Eldritch Blast at Granny and shouts "I'm sorry" each time. Zero (the lvl20 monk) shows up and Bastion manages to convince her to help us out. Her minigun jams almost immediately and she just follows for the rest of the fight. Thankfully the paladin and bloodhunter can keep up with her (barely). Me and the sorcerer use Counterspell to stop some nasty attacks while we're still in range, while the archanist gives the paladin and bloodhunter Haste. I hit Granny once and accidentally hit the bloodhunter once (nat1). And the bloodhunter manages to use some bloodright that prevents a specific spell from going off to block Granny's attempts at Dimension Door. We almost have her down[10], when she uses her last arcanum to polymorph into an Ancient White Dragon again and fly off down the underground tunnels. Then, a set of charges went off and the tunnels collapsed behind her.

We leveled up twice for surviving her twice.

Bastion is down, Marius has 5 hit points, the 3 of us who can heal are out of means to do so; so Granny got away. Zero comes up to Excellence and says "I recognize you. You're part of the cult, aren't you?" Bastion's player character accusingly says 'yes', I roll my eyes and have EC say "Formerly." Zero announces that she's going to make sure and the session ends there. The DM and I have a private chat  RP chat and EC gets more lore dump. Including that Zero is in fact "The Shadow" Granny mentioned and that she's second in command of the cult. Threats are made, questions are askedb and Zero reveals that she has a crush on Marius. The chat ends with EC having to explain what "girltalk" is to a 300 year old monk and being told "Well enjoy more moments like that as much as you can. Around here those will be rare."

3) Bastion's player didn't show up, so we had an combat free session. Zero tells the rest of the that she is infact the 2nd in command of the cult and mentions their plans for the Drake  Eater bones. While being truthful, Marius and the Professor figure out that she's not saying everything. We manage to diplomatically come to a solution. "If Sovarez really just wants to either be free or go back to sleep, then let's just use that transport you mentioned to get to the moon, have the 'gods' put her  back to sleep, and then you can kill them."[11][12][13]

After all of that, we search the now abandoned city trying to loot it. I space out on checking for traps and immediately get blasted out of Granny Gumgum's house by the explosion. Thankfully, I'm tanky as hell for a spell caster [14]. I added additional 15 psychic damage since she's hurt by the fact that 'Granny didn't trust her', bring me down to 130HP. The rest of the ccity had pretty much been cleared out. But the Cloak of Arachnida I have came in useful for bypassing a few traps. We got a warhammer, 12 knives, 9 glass vials, 6 vials of strong poison[15], a cart and donkey, and we found out that Prof Cerulean stopped counting birthdays a long time ago and now tracks her age by climate change[16].

After that, we head back to base via cart. We got about halfway before we remembed the minigun  with perfectly good battery Zero dropped, and we decided to go back for it.  It's a four hour ride to the castle, so EC  starts reading the tome. Bastion is dragged inside and left unconscious on the floor of the foyer, and we everyone goes about some personal stuff. EC use Bastion as a chair and finishing reading the Tome of Leadership two days straight using Bastion [17] and her hallucination of Tomelise to practice. I got a 19 on the performance check for practicing, so even when Marius checked in on her and discovered that she's a bit crazy, he thought she was doing pretty well [18].

After zonking out and recovering from 1 of 2 exhaustion points, we headed back to the harbor to report to the info broker. We got paid the offered price, a bonus for helping him save a lot of money with the previous info, and an additional bonus for helping him save further with the new info. He offered us 10K gold if we could stop the ccult grom stage-4ing the Drake Eater bones and stated that it's pretty much a suicide mission since most of the cult was headed that way. Which served as a cut scene to introduce my brother's new monk.
"Offer of 10K GP to those who can succeed. No guarantee of survival."

Once he joined the party, we all hopped back on rthe cart and headed out. The DM had us roll a flat d20 and asked for our results. Then he informed us that it was an encounter roll. My nat1 and the bloodhunter's 4 guaranteed that we encountered the purple worms stirred up by the tunnel's collapse during Granny's escape. And that's where we ended that session.

 [1] cultists base
[2] pair of magic chest that just pass objects/creatures between the two unless a command phrase is spoken; "keep it".
[3] see "Ancient Drake Eater" post from page 1 of this thread. They're trying to get to HQ to steal one's bones.
[4] both a combination of warlocks and gunslingers.
[5] HQ paladin
[6] Leader of the Cult of the Dancing Flesh, lvl 20 pact of the chain hexblade warlock and holder of the warlock specific  legendary item.
[7] the DM had thanked me via text for making characters that meshed into the story so well. I said something among the lines of 'I like to think of myself as a nanite swarm taking over another NPC when my character dies."
[8] "SMITE SMITE SMITE AS YOU FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!"
[9] Granny Gumgum is the closest thing to family she has left.
[10] kicking myself for not  joining in sooner, but I RP while fighting too
[11] One of the things Zero told EC about was that the gods live on the moon and there's a transportation method being built underground
[12] in this campaign, the gods are actually just people with super advanced and powerful nanites.
[13] said gods killed Zero's mom  and tormented Zero for 20 years. She wants to kill them all, hence her joining the cult and working with  us.
[14] EC's Con is 20, so her base HP iis 196. Con + Tough feat + Abyssal Fortitude. Also, I get temp HP equal to my warlock lvl + my Char mod thanks to my celestial patron.
[15] set up around a trap that would have triggered a Shatter if the sorcerer hadn't counterspelled it
[16] variant human, Primordial older than many dragons
[17] the player is annoying and be kind of a dick. Upon learning I got the tome, he announced his plans to steal it.
[18] my Char mod was +6, now it's +7

EDIT: delineating paragraphs for an easier read
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 17 Feb 2019, 12:25
Well, I missed updating for the session two weeks ago due to kinda blacking-out drunk.  This time, we start after having downed the big frightening skeleton, and discovered a room with an awesome looking magic shortbow, and an iron golem standing, frozen between us and the bow.  We assume that it'll activate if we make a move to grab the thing, so for the time being, we start trying to explore more. 

This leads us into some haunted rooms, filled with ghostly servants, and our door-opening, trap-finding rogue predictably failed her will save and started going Marie Kondo all over the place.  While this would generally be amusing, in looking for things to clean, she started heedlessly moving into other rooms, and had to be stopped before she opened the door to something nasty, especially since we were trying to move quickly to the Big Bad.  I ended up sleeping her[1] and she fell softly into the gunslinger's arms.  He then smacked her with the flat side of an intelligent axe he has that suppresses compulsions for a 10 minutes until we got out of the haunt and made our way to the big bad.

Of course, before we get to the big bad, we encounter some spectres, which were absolutely destroyed by the necromancer's skeleton warrior pet (I got to tag one with a nasty hex using my magic hair, but that was *nothing* compared to what the murder machine can do.  I'm sure that the rogue and archer felt rather inadequate as well by comparison.

So now it's just about time for the big fight.  We buff, and Charlie (the skeleton) opens the door.  The big bad is weaker due to us destroying the spirit anchors that he fed off of, but he still had some nasty prepared for the first thing he saw.  Which means that Chas got hit by some significant charisma drain, thereby fucking his hitpoint total and taking him out of the fight.  The rest of us charge in, attacking with smites, arrows, blades, and a spell that fizzles.[3]  With Chuck out of the way, he starts attacking the gunslinger who ran into melee range to strike with his rapier.  More charisma drain.  I rush him and smack him with hair charged with a "heal" spell,[4]  and even with him saving, he gets hit for 75 damage.  The rest of the group is wearing him down (albeit slowly due to him only taking ˝ damage from physical attacks).  Then the good cleric steps in, fully buffed, and wielding the weapon that the paladin who killed these bastards in the first place used.  Smacks the shit out of the fuck with her smite abomination spell running, but he's still up and tags the gunslinger with more drain, making him about as charismatic as the surliest dwarf in the mountain… wait, I lied.  It was actually a little bit lower.

So when it gets to me, it's decision time.  I could smack the undead thing with a cure critical, but I don't know how much health he has, and one more hit would probably kill the gunslinger.  I decide to burn a "limited wish" and the last of my gold to restore him; the rogue promptly knocks off his last 5 hp.  Well, there's a waste of a wish.

Now the curse is cleansed, the breeze starts moving again, and I'm almost surprised that there aren't birds landing on us like a Disney film or Bernie Sanders rally.  Things do shift to a cutscene though, as the spirit of the one murdered by these arseholes, a young prince or noble, first as we watch him die, and then him giving his speech, answering a few questions, and then become touch the blade used by the good cleric to fully empower it to its proper (minor) artefact status.

Now all that remains is to loot the castle of everything that we had skipped, especially 'cos the undead can be properly destroyed, but there is a slight complication.  The nearby orc encampment seems to have gotten the message that the curse is gone, and starts storming the castle to lay claim to everything.

Thus endeth Part One.  I'll get to writing the second part later.

[1] My backup plan if that failed, was to try to force a new saving throw against the compulsion by taunting her about finally learning her place in society[2] and congratulating her upon finally finding an honest and suitable profession.  That may have been enough to trigger the whole "acting against one's nature" to allow a new save.  Thankfully things didn't come to that.

[2] Not as a woman, but as one of the poors

[3] Oops.  Forgot that it was mind-effecting, so the undead was immune.

[4] Pathfinder follows the "revive kills zombie" rules
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 22 Feb 2019, 14:18
Double post because it appears that I'll be joining a 5th ed game on Thursday evenings.  I'm playing a tiefling bard (path of the blade) who specialises in thrown knives in combat, and impressive displays with blades and/or fire as a performance thing.  So basically filling the ranged combat and support caster roles.

I'll hopefully get to part 2 of the Pathfinder recap this weekend.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Pilchard123 on 23 Feb 2019, 03:59
Do you mean College of Swords or a homebrewed one? Because the closest thing I know of to Path of the Blade is a Warlock's Pact of the Blade, but that's a Warlock thing rather than a bard.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 23 Feb 2019, 06:26
Swords.  I am unfamiliar with 5e.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 18 Mar 2019, 04:56
So, our regular game is on hiatus as our DM deals with closing on his house, thus we're prematurely starting on the next campaign a little.

We made our characters and did introductions, and I created a Svirfneblin (deep gnome) ranger named Umpen Welber. Yes, I rolled for his name from the book. He's got a New Zealander accent because my Australian one is terrible/nigh incomprehensible (especially when I throw in Australian slang). Umpen is a fugitive from the Underdark as he killed the local Duergar queen's favorite giant centipede. In his defense, it was trying to eat him.

Now to my dilemma; I'm trying to decide on a trinket. I rolled from 12 official trinket tables and narrowed it down to the following:

Personally, I'm pretty partial to the first and last ones, but they all have the potential for interesting chaos.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: sitnspin on 18 Mar 2019, 10:57
Skulls are always a good choice. Daggers are always a good choice. Go with the option that has both
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 21 Mar 2019, 05:46
Okay, I'm posting Umpen's/Lumpen's[1] backstory here so I can copy it to my phone from the mobile site. I'd rather not type this out on my phone.

Umpen grew up in the subjugated Svirfneblin city of Ontwijken[2]. The current queen is/was slightly kinder than her predecessors in that the non-Duergar citizens of the city were allowed some freedom as serfs instead of being outright slaves. While hunting game for his family one day, Umpen was attacked by a monstrous centipede (huge). He killed it in self defense before realizing it was someone's pet. Quite unfortunately for Umpen, it happened to be the queen's favorite pet, Dollop[3]. A contingent of low-level soldiers happened to finally find the centipede as Umpen realized just how screwed he was. Fearing the queen's wrath[4], Umpen evaded the guards and got the hell out of Ontwijken.

Afraid to stay in the Underdark, Umpen sought a way to the surface. Staying low and only fighting when he had to, Umpen eventually learned the various monstrosities of the Underdark and how to track, attack, and evade them. Whilst fleeing from some umber hulks, Umpen stumbled into a largely destroyed nest with several broken eggs. Once the umber hulks had past, he decided to investigate. Amongst the broken shells and blood stained nest fibers, Umpen found a mysterious egg roughly the size of an American football. Taking pity on the poor unhatched creature, he fashion a makeshift harness from his rope, threw his cloak over top of it, and brought it with him. He eventually happened upon a kobold being attacked by Carrion crawler and doing poorly. Umpen managed to sneak up and Blind it, giving the kobold a lucky shot. Together, they easily killed it. The kobold thanked Umpen and asked him to help carry the carrion crawler back to his warren as the kobold's hunting companion had been killed by the beast.

Having saved whom he later found out was the chieftain's nephew, Umpen was allowed to stay amongst the kobolds for a time. While he taught them what he knew about the monstrosities and helped them hunt them, their druid taught him some spells. But, Umpen knew his time with the kobolds wouldn't last. One day while out with a hunting party, Umpen spotted his brother poorly stealthing around[5] with some hunting beetles[6] in plain view. Umpen returned to the warren, gathered his things and said his farewells, then headed for the tunnels the kobolds had told him lead topside.

[1] My new current dilemma. Either way, the 'u' is pronounced as though it had an umlaut. 'Umpen' just looks weird.
[2] Replace the 'v' with a 'w' and find the poorly stealthed pun.
[3] Suggest twist, Dollop is actually the queen's favored heir cursed into the form of a huge centipede
[4] She was still quite fond of torturing those who displeased her.
[5] deliberately
[6] just giant beetles

EDIT: Apparently the 'w' in Danish isn't said like a 'v'. Oops.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 14 Apr 2019, 19:13
Bugh!

Thank God for the invocation Tomb of Levistus!! It saved my warlock twice tonight.

Me and a couple others missed the last session, so our characters were still in the Gnome City when the rest of the party crashed the ship into a "brood mother flesh morph" (it makes tons of stage 3s). Upon killing it (and destroying the ship), it released a massive tidal wave of necrotic blood into the tunnels. The 3 of us in the Gnome City had an in-game hour to prepare for the wave. We used a combination of Mold Earth and Firewall to produce the necessary 100ft by 60ft tall wall to protect the entrance. Our arcanist reinforced it with stoneshape just before the wave hit, and our sorcerer had cast Gate on the side facing the wave [1]. The wall was thankfully succeful [2].

While evacuating, an undead tarasque managed to bust through the wall about 4 hours into the evacuation of the city[3]. Some of the blood flooded into the area, but only the party got hit by it. Which triggered EC's Tomb of Levistus. Everyone else took 66 damage. Our gunslinger has an absurd gun called The Penetrator that made short work of the tarasque in four rounds. But not before it pooped out 6 stage 3 fleshmorphs. Two of which flanked each of us[4]. The two flanking EC took out the rest of her ice with 4 crits.  Our sorcerer managed to planeshift and banish 3 of them, the gunslinger got 2 more before being downed a second time. Since the last one was about to kill our gunslinger outright[5], so EC had to bust out her Rod of Security and whisk his unconscious ass and herself to a pocket dimension[6]. Esa (sorcerer) was unwilling, so she stayed behind while EC Greater Restorationed Evard (gunslinger) so he could healup.

We made it back on my next turn and the three of us took out the last one. Over the next couple of days the party was doing a few separate things. EC was specifically making a ditch (with Eldritch blast) to get some of the necrotic blood to flow into once we removed the now dead undead tarasque. Which happened to revive itself somehow while she was doing that. It got a surprise round on her that went through pretyy much all of her Tomb of Levistus temp HP[7] and the rest of her temp HP being taken out when the damned thing stepped on her!!! She spent 3 rounds unable to do anything but take damage and have Thunderstep prepared for as soon as she got line of sight on another space. Which she did when the undead tarasque stepped on Esa (knocking out 2/3 of her health). The damned thing proceeded to poop out 9 stage 3s. Eight of which were taken care of thanks to Evard getting more ammo for his crazy gun and action surging.

Once we had killed everything, EC took out her frustration on the deaddead tarasque by Flaming sphering its face and brain to make sure it couldn't do anything even if it somehow revived itself again. Upon using the artificer's legendary to consume it's corpse (once the ditch was sorted), we discovered that it had some sort of revive core inside of it that had a percentile chance of bringing it back to unlife once per day. We destroyed that core. Now we just have to rebuild the ship so we can go kill the god of asshat creeps, Nettle.

[1] To the elemental plane of fire, where the necrotic disease is apparently spreading now. Stupid percentile chances.
[2] The DM rolled a 92, we needed at least a 65.
[3] the elevator to the surface only holds 30 medium creatures at a time
[4] we're down 3 party members and the professor was downloading the ship's schematics in another room so we could rebuild it.
[5] it hadn't been touched yet and Evard is our highest DPS
[6]EC is primarily about healing and field control
[7]200 temp HP thanks to be level 20 + the 30 temp HP from her Celestial pact feature
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 08 May 2019, 12:46
I've been terribly bad at providing updates for the game I'm playing in, so I don't even know why I'm being masochistic enough to be putting things together for starting my own game, with character creation beginning next week.  This forced deadline requires me to do a *lot* of writing between now and then, to at least have a bare outline of various nations/peoples, as well as the main pantheon.  It's fun work, but also a bit tiring at times.

So far, I have four people, with what's looking like a fairly balanced group comp, with an Inquisitor, Bard, Wizard, and some sort of purely martial class.  Ideally, I can find a "real" healer, but just in case, I rolled up an NPC druid with crippling social anxiety (giving me a good excuse for him to remain mostly quiet and have the players lead).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 12 May 2019, 19:09
Best of luck to you, Hedgie. Here's hoping your campaign doesn't break like ours did.

The game I'd been playing got super broken, so we opted to drop it even though we were in the last boss fight. Suffice it to say our DM was requiring a time rewind as part of defeating the final boss, and the only two PCs that could hit him were the power-gaming munchkineers. My warlock couldn't cast high enough for the boss to fail a save when my Spell Save DC was +16! (We were level 24.)

So, we did the planned DM rotation, and now we're playing the next campaign picking up from those previous two sessions.

Umpen has gone through a few changes as well. He's now a Gloom Stalker so I can avoid any munchkinning to get sneak attack (also it makes more sense). 'Umpen Welber' is now a pseudonym since he's on the run crom that pissed off duergar queen. And, he may be a quarter water genasi to explain the fact that he has dark blue hair and green freckles.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 13 May 2019, 18:01
Thanks.  Over the weekend, I was able to extend the amount of Lore I've written (excluding the gods) from seven pages to 13, including a "new" race[1].  I still need to add aspects and non-human gods to the pantheon, but I can just write that later this week, and just use what I have as a reference for players.


[1] I never liked drow, so I eliminated them and made the "bad" elves live on the surface and be more Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil, so they are actually a frighteningly efficient and cohesive empire.  They're still theocratic, but not without good reason.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 13 May 2019, 21:48
Neat! I still need to make myself sit down and get to the 3rd page.
I think I already posted my tweaks for Kalashtar here. Nope, I haven't.[1]

Also, I've narrowed down real names a fair bit. Velsignar for his first name (nickname is 'Velgar' which sounds a bit like 'Welber'). For surname; I've narrowed it down to Jadetwister, Lapispinner, and Spinalspindel. All three seem to fit someone very loosely based on Ned Kelly. I'm leaning towards the 1st two.

EDIT: I think I'll hang on to Spinalspindel for a dwarven artificer; Soothtooth Spinalspindel. Now I need a given name for a dwarven fighter whose surname is Nickelknuckle.

[1] ‘Half remembered dreams given form and voice.’
'Half remembered dreams given form and reason.’
'Half remembered dreams given form and thought.’

Each would correspond to a subtype of dream; nightmare, premonition, and normal. And, each subtype gets a spell-like racial ability that can be used once per long rest (fear, augery, major image).

Furthermore, the Kalashtar would have some vestigial physical trait(s) that resembled the race of the creature whose dream they came from. A Kalashtar formed from a Tabaxi’s dream might have cat ears or a cat tail the same color as that Tabaxi’s. A Kalashtar formed from an elf’s dream might have ears the exact shape of the elf’s. It might even just be something as simple as sharing the same hair color or having an identical birthmark. Maybe even having vitiligo progressing in the same spots at the same rate.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 15 May 2019, 08:38
Nice.  I've hit some speedbumps along the way.  We started character generation last night (a bard and an inquisitor), but lost two players (leaning wizard and a martial class or rogue, respectively).  One 'cos he got sacked from the venue I'll be running from, the other because he decided last minute that he didn't want another game at the moment (and he was leaning rogue or some martial class).  Thankfully, I got someone who wants to fill in the latter role as a physical character, but she's entirely new, so I don't know what else about concept or class yet.  I'll talk to her about different ideas some time, today most likely.

Edit: She just texted me to say magical, so there's a whole fuckton of classes on that spectrum in PF.

Still going to need to put up some new flyers and edit my lore docs for clarity and to clear up some mistakes I made.  Thankfully, the resident lore-junkie is very helpful pointing that stuff out.  When she remarked how well I take constructive criticism, I had to point out that I went to art school for two years.
two  that are leaning barbarian.  also got a half-orc magus (fighter/wizard).  The only drawback is right now, there's no one who is a full caster, save one who is leaning that way.  Even if she doesn't main doing healing, at higher levels, she'll most certainly have to contribute in that regard.

Edit again:  Looks like our last person is going Shaman, so we not only have a full caster, but one likely attached to the life spirit, so a so probably a dedicated healer
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 16 May 2019, 17:49
I'd offer to join if I were out that way*, but I'm in KCK.

Speaking of character creation, there's a long form questionnaire I came across the other day for helping someone figure out their character's personality and disposition.
100 Warm-up DnD Character Questions (http://"https://tobirama.co.vu/post/183249227621/100-warm-up-dnd-character-questions").

EDIT: *Granted, I have no idea which way that would be.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 20 May 2019, 21:53
Thanks for the link, I'll check it out (both as a player, and a GM)

So, in terms of the game I'm running, what I have officially are human bard, half-elf paladin, wood elf shaman, and shadow elf inquisitor.  One player leaning ranger or monk, and another (who will be able to join later), zen archer.  The shaman's IRL kid will be joining, as well as someone who knows the paladin's player.  No full-arcane casters as of yet, and I hope that one of the two ladies who will be joining will fill that gap.  It looks like there will be a good balance between melee and ranged classes, and nearly everyone will have some casting ability, so I suspect when all gets figured out with buffing and such, I might have to scale up some encounters.

In other news, the game I'm a player in has the rogue as the official butt-monkey.  About two weeks ago, she gets killed immediately by a hostile wish.  This week, it gets weirder.  We have to neutralise a bloat mage (basically Baron Harkonnen with lots of magic), in a popular eating establishment, hopefully without causing casualties.  My witch does *not* like the plan, which involves creating, then making sure that he is dosed by the rogue with an alchemical roofie, then try and lead him "somewhere private", before we either kill him or knock him out.  Not only is she grossed out at the idea of having to flirt with something so loathesome, but because of his power, without wearing any magic gear that'd trip detection.  To her, she'd rather strip nude but with all of the magical protections in place.

 Well, things started out pretty well, as the rogue disguised herself as a waitress, but *she* was the one taken to a semi-private dining area to be leched on by his floating fatness.  It turns out, though, that once the sleeping poison had taken effect, a devil possessing the mage left, and he was more or less normal but heavily drugged.  We managed to get him out back, where the actual mage recognised my character, and begged for salvation.  We're able to teleport him to relative safety, but when doing a head count amongst the group, notice that the rogue is missing, as the mage tells his story.  I send my imp to get the priests, while he plane shifts us to fight the devil, presumably in hell.  We end up on the ethereal in the big bad's bedroom instead.

We at least took time to buff, and found the rogue in the buff, getting the slave Leia treatment from the devil that had firmly mind-controlled her.  Her razor whip was nearby, and she and the devil attack the party immediately.  The devil wants to mind-control us all, but most of us have strong will saves, and even the remaining one who doesn't has a high resistance to mind-controlling effects between his intelligent ax and a past encounter with an artifact.  We resist the mind-control attempts by the big nasty.  The rogue is smart enough to not attack the necromancer or her minion, who would have no qualms killing her outright to get her out of the way, but not smart enough to sneak attack me instead of the monk after my attempt to sleep her and the devil failed.  I didn't pull any punches thrge next round, where I just blinded her for 5 min, and took her out of the fight entirely (can't sneak attack when you can't see).  Some barbed devils popped in, but we mostly ignored them (except for healing through the damage they caused and me crowd-controlling).  The main baddie changed tactics and grappled a couple of people to drain the life after them, especially after the gunslinger hit it with my holy sword and pissed it off.  so, the good cleric banishes one devil, I knock another out, and the other two are hit with a retribution hex which bypasses all damage resistance and does half the damage they do right back to them.  I'm almost disappointed that despite crowd-controlling and hexing, that I wasn't directly targeted by anything.  I'd *think* that  this dude would have considered the elf chick who isn't holding a weapon or wearing any armour as a threat, but I guess not.  The monk got pretty hard, and needed to get a "heal" spell from the cleric to avoid dying, but basically by the point where the bastard went back into the mage Harkonnen, the fight was entirely under control.

Now we just need to find a way to get to the mage again, and hopefully not kill him in getting the devil out.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 21 May 2019, 15:56
Crap.  I forgot that the one player's daughter is a minor, and technically isn't allowed into the venue where I'll be running, at least at night.  She's really enthusiastic and wants to play a witch (which is a really fun class).  Thankfully, there are a couple of options to include her.

Edit: The larva is allowed in the bar if we need to play there, but we're most likely going to game at the mum's house, where it'll be more quiet and not disrupt other people by taking over the entire upstairs, as well as allowing me to set mood music if needed/wanted.  And those nights, I'll be able to get 2 for 1 pizzas from a place that has good stuff, so that ought to keep the group well-fed.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 21 May 2019, 20:58
Criminy! That's quite the situation to find one's character in. I'm guessing you all managed to break the mind control. Good luck fighting that devil!

BTW, I had settled on 'Jadetwister, but my DM had assigned Lapispinner (just as cool) "for regional purposes", whatever that means. And, he sent me this YouTube link and told me that's roughly what Velsignar hear's when he uses Speak with Animals to talk to whatever is inside the egg. Whatever it is, it's from the Underdark and not an Aboleth. I'm wondering if it's Mothra with the serial number filed off or something else.


EDIT: fair warning, the music does contain segments with high-pitched theramin parts.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 21 May 2019, 21:10
that sounds, well, rather strange.  We didn't really break the mind-control so much as make the devil run off and cancel it.  The blinding was what took her out of the fight entirely.  I'm pretty sure that we'll be better equipped to fight the devil when we have better spells prepared for that ordeal.  Both other casters and I had prepared our spell lists for fighting a human mage, not a fiend from hell, so we were somewhat at a disadvantage.  The only reason that I was personally so successful was because I had the blinding spell prepped to keep him from targeting, and my witch hexes (which are always ready).

Edit:
Then again, healing and crowd-control are what my character does most often in fights. 

WRT the game I'm starting, I didn't count, and let too many people in.  I kinda hope that 1-2 people will be stuck adulting on any given session (I plan on giving collective XP, even to those who aren't there).  Still, it seems as though we have a good mix, but interestingly enough, all but 1 are likely to roll some sort of person with spells.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 24 May 2019, 12:49
So, the first session will be on Tuesday, and I'm mostly prepped and ready to go.  I figure that I'll have the ship that the players on will be attacked by pirates, to give the 6 newbies (out of 8 in the group) a taste of mass-combat where there are npcs who would be able to help out, as well as dealing with saving throws from grapeshot, and maybe sleep poisons.  Once the PCs make landfall, I plan on running a short mystery, to get them acquainted with their non-combat skills and abilities.

After that, I'm probably going to take a vote as to what direction things will go, whether to have a single over-arching plot, or various plotlines as things advance.  Regardless, I'm not going to introduce any long plots until the characters are 4th or 5th level, so that they can just explore the world and develop their characters a bit.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 25 May 2019, 18:31
I think I'll have to borrow that sort of start for a campaign. Though. i think the max group size I could manage would be 4 or 5.

We ended up in the next town I asked a druid/naturalist what the egg was, no idea. So I asked a pissy blue bird[1] at a druid's shop and it identified the egg as being a caterpillar egg. So it very well could be Mothra with the serial number filed off. We also met a surly artificer with a sketchy hobgoblin guard[2]. I managed to trade my sacrificial dagger Book of Training Wolves and Eagles for a green dragon scale ring, though.

At the tavern, we met a kenku and half-elf totally-not-smugglers who informed us of a band of 200 orcs mounting in the east. I successfully yanked an arrow out of the kenku. He wasn't happy about it, but he's better now.

Then we spent far too long farting around with a weird gazebo. Turns out it's linked to the Elemental Plane of Fire, and we got  some interesting magic items. Including a Rock of Procrastination. It literally makes people procrastinate. Our noble has it now.

[1]It didn't like that I was a bluish gray in color with green freckles
[2] I saw him carve some theives cant into the side of the wall and it disappeared. Don't know what it meant, just that it's bad.

EDIT:removing redundacy
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Pilchard123 on 26 May 2019, 04:53
But was it a Dread Gazebo?
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 26 May 2019, 15:17
But was it a Dread Gazebo?
Sadly, it wasn't a mimic (that we know of). Though, it did seem to have some setience to it. The gazebo was built by a crazy architect named Ferrick(sp?) the Mad. We also suspect it might link to the Abyss, but nobody in the party speaks Abyssal. Oddly enough, it's our Drow cleric of Lathandar[1] who speaks Ignian.

[1]He was created before The Mighty Nein met the queen of Xhorhas(sp?). He's actually based on Solair from Dark Souls.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 26 May 2019, 19:42
At least it wasn't designed by Bloody Stupid Johnson.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 27 May 2019, 07:50
So, in working on the pirate battle, I found a potential future plot-hook that the PCs may want to pick up, especially since we do have a halfling PC.  In the background info-drop, I mentioned that pirate/slaver kingdoms have been encroaching upon the mainland, and have taken to raiding and encroaching upon halfling lands, taking many as slaves and creating a bit of a refugee crisis.  The human empire nearby isn't yet acting because thus far it doesn't affect them, and that pirates/slavers aren't the targets of their Inquisition.  Some go to one country that is primarily agrarian, but as that place has a long coastline on the seas where the pirates play, others are making the long journey to elven lands, where they're basically invited.[1]  So, the pirate ship is full of halfling slaves doing grunt work, and will use goblin slaves as an expendable boarding party.  Obviously, the goblins will have terrible morale, and will probably switch sides if it looks like the PCs' group has a chance of winning.  The best ending to this scenario is that the "good guys" take the pirate ship, and free the enslaved halflings (the not so good ending is just driving the pirates off).

I'm not too worried about the PCs doing something horrible here,[2] especially with higher level NPCs around running the ship.  The primary moral dilemma that they can influence (and it'll take some persuasion) is what to do with the goblins, such as kill them immediately, take them in for trial, or put them on a boat with some provisions and send them on their merry way.  Unlike the humans running the pirate ship, the gobbos were forced into it, and will likely enough help the party, and that may earn them their lives.  The freed halflings will want them dead, since the goblins, when kicked, would then do it to them, and were responsible for much of the abuse.  The captain is amenable to the idea of letting them go[4] at a higher DC, or imprisoning them (with the PCs keeping watch) at a lower DC, if the party argues it.  This is mostly for me to figure out how each PC will react to the situation, and even if the goblins are summarily executed, it'll be by kosher even by the paladin's rules.

If the pirates get away, they will most certainly be back as baddies, and I'm also going to keep the captain and first mate of the ship the PCs are on if they don't get killed.  The captain is a CG swashbuckler, who goes for every Flynn moment he can get.  The first mate is love-struck, not with the captain or any person, but with the idea of being one herself, and will be grateful if she gets to take the pirate ship as her own.

[1] Well, the high elves anyway, since the grasslands are in their border region, and they don't see the small folks as a threat.  The shadow elves are just a little too spooky and militant for their empire to be the first choice.
[2] Even the token evil teammate, a shadow-elf[3] inquisitor isn't likely to cause a problem here
[3] I never liked drow since they're a race of OP murder-hobos.  My "bad elves" are organised, and only evil due to their methods.  Their aims are actually fairly lofty, but they will avoid, gut you or disable you (whatever is easiest) if you get in their way.
[4]
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 28 May 2019, 22:54
That went about as well as it could have given that I'm about 20 years out of practice running a game, and I had a cat-herd full of new players.  The scripted combat went really well, and the PCs, while killing a few goblins in combat unwittingly got them on their side as they primarily targeted the overseers, and apparently, half the party could speak goblin which left the gobbos in a debate amongst themselves about what to do (especially when the pirate captain was charmed, which added confusion to their whole ship).  With the PCs' rolls, and some failed saves by the NPCs, the goblins ended up switching sides (one player's larva who is also a player gave a good speech and rolled high on diplomacy), figuring that they could get away from their captors.

Unfortunately, the halflings enslaved on the pirate vessel had other ideas, but the party (even the halfling) ended up deciding that it'd be fair to let them go, although WITHOUT the human slavers that they requested as provisions.  Those will be turned over for trial.  Even though the session focused on combat, the real thing was what would happen after, with the morality play.  The pally was given two acceptable choices, one more lawful, one more good, and chose good.[1]  The halfling ended up being okay with letting the goblins who abused her people go,  and taking the actual slavers in for trial.  Everyone did amazing, especially since only one person had played Pathfinder before, and everyone was confused about the dice and their abilities, but when it came to their characters and their interactions, everything went perfectly.  Which was brilliant, since it has been too long since I've herded cats, and this clowder could figure out how to make decisions as a group that were at least tolerable to all.


[1] Well, *more* good.  He would have been justified helping the captain summarily execute the pirates, and even the goblins.  He chose to take them to port to face trial.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 04 Jun 2019, 21:02
Well, guess who'se party had to go to the Faye Wild andeal with riddles and randomly changing seasons BS.

We also fought some weird faye "dog" things that looked sort of like they had a man's face. We had to go looking for the only other blood hunter in the area's nephew. The little idiot [1] wanted to make himself a blood hunter and ran off to get the rest of the materials he needed. We tracked him down to some Weaver ruins and found a portal to the Faye Wilds. Despite having 150ft darkvision (super from deep gnome +30ft from Umbral Sight), 'Welber'[2] mistook the four of them for raccoons at first and only sort of managed to pacify them. Our drow cleric of Lathandar was agitating them. After killing the lot of them with surprising ease, we determined that the kid had gone through the portal.

Once there, we found ourselves in a rimg of trees, each numbered and having a door. Naturally, the rope we had tied to a rock came through the portal along with said rock. Attempts to chuck the rock out of the portal resulted in the rock fwashing back into the clearing from the opposite side. In the middle of the clearing was a stone plinth with a riddle along with an old well. When we looked in the well, a hidden voice said "Now now. No entry without saying the magic word." Saying 'please' result in a Bigby's hand being summoned and attacking the three characters that said it.  One of figured out that the answer to the riddle was 'hand' (I'll add them later), and one of the doors opened. I don't recall any of us going down the well, but one of our new party members[3] fired his bow to test the wrap around. It fwashed around 3 tomes before we heard it strike a little purple guy who proceeded to gasp "Why.....?" before falling out of the tree he was hiding in.[4] Anyways we solved the next three or so riddles easily enough [5] before getting the hard one.

There were signs of struggle and strands of spider silk with blood on them going up to the canopy. While everyone debated on an answer, 'Welber' decided screw it and wrote his on the plinth with blood so he could do two at once. 'Pain' and 'blood' were both wrong, so he got attacked by a floor-cloaker-thing [derp]. He evaded the first two attacks but got swallowed in the third round. Thankfully we managed to kill it and correctly answer the riddle, but not before two more wrong answers. Still not sure what bearing those wrong answers will have. But, we found the kid in the next room wrapped up in spider silk. "What do mean the answer was 'floor'!? How's anyone supposed to get that right???"[6] we also looted some other corpses in spider silk to close out the session, but I forgot what loot we got.

[1 high Int, low Wis
[2]] his real name is Velsignar
[3] kobold arcane archer
[4] We forgot to see if he was dead or not. Crap.
[5] and I got a 'leather vest that feels warm' when getting a frosted branch for one
[6] our current DM acknowledging that it was a hard riddle
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 07 Jun 2019, 23:12
For my backup character, I  made a storm sorcerer Tortle named Jiao-long.  The the totally-not-Optimus-Primal warforged druid probably wouldn't fit into this campaign as well as I'd hoped.

Originally I wanted to go with the urchin background, but now I'm not so sure. I've been recently been looking at Hermit, Inheritor, and Archaeologist. IDK, playing high Wis - low Int is a bit weird for me. I usually go for high in both or at least middling high for one and high for the other. I've got 3 possible voices worked out, each has it's own personality quirks thanks to enclothed cognition (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQAKOdZw7F8).

If I went with the urchin background, it'd pretty much have to be the heavy Brooklyn accent[1] — which likely says something about my own presuppositions.

Anyways, if it helps any, he's got some mild draconic features thanks to a bronze dragon grandparent/great grandparent. His tail is longer, he's got six horns[2], nubby chin spikes, and a pair of foot-ish long or so vestigial wings that stick out of his shell like two long spindly fingers. I'm not sure is any of that helps with imagining what sort of background he might have or how he might sound.


[1] The other two are a Ringo Star impression, and a pretty good imitation of the Cantonese accent several of my cafeteria coworkers in college had.
[2] the zygomatic and mandibular horns fuse into a single pair.


EDIT: I've been poking around, and it turns out that Tortle sorcerer is one of thos rarer race-class combos. The high number of monks and druids didn't surprise me, though.

EDIT2: I've got a rough sketch done of Jiao-Long. Ignoring all previous statements about accents, what would you guess this guy would sound like?
(https://66.media.tumblr.com/243646d6238a19b56d6994dd101ebefa/tumblr_psv02eB5pH1qkc6bso1_1280.jpg)
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 11 Jun 2019, 22:46
So, session 2 went well as could be with only half the player base able to make it.[1]  I had to toss the party a red herring that a few halflings were being re-enslaved by an 8' tall half-ogre who runs a local inn and tavern[2], but it was enough to get the plot going.  I had written so many NPCs that when the party split, I let them play some of them to keep everyone involved, and just due to some amazeballs rolls, they managed to find who is responsible for the arson of the half-ogre's stables and a plethora of other crimes.  At first, when the stable manager (a secret druid) wouldn't talk to the elves in the party, and blamed them for the fire, they started gunning for the fanservice girl[3] playing at the bar, and was ramping up paranoia all night until they managed to crack the who, but with no way to prove it yet.  I threw in one combat, just so that I could toss them some XP at the end of an incomplete session, and the simple farmer they saved gave them an interesting item.  Everything is primed for next session, and people had a blast despite most of the players being exhausted from work || finals.

[1] Seriously, if people know of some rituals to make things right, one player is incommunicado, and living in a major fire zone.  The lure of game and awesome food was not enough.
[2]  nah, they're just the newest employees of someone scary enough to protect them and pay them above the prevailing wage
[3] her costume is literally held on by alchemical/magical adhesive

Edit: Player is safe and sound, and I'm glad that even the exhausted players that made it had a great time.  We ate until we were all bloat mages, and even after giving away food to their housemates and others, I'll be fed for the next week.  It was also perfect timing that we broke when we did, since the PCs were getting close to other combat encounters, and after the paladin nearly died against the boar, even the nerfed NPC baddies seemed a bit much.  Thankfully, this group is pretty good at working efficiently and knowing which plot threads they want to take.  Well, all bits of the same plot really, but it's not railroading if they jump on the train and enjoy the ride.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 12 Jun 2019, 14:22
Dang! Sounds like a heck of an RP session.


I've been asking around about possible accents for Jiao-Long based on his appearance, and I've gotten a couple of answers for Slavic, a couple for Spanish, one for "gravelly Cockney", a western Baltic, and one for Russian. I'd like to throw in Nuatl just for the hell of it.

Any thoughts on what he might sound like?

Part of his backstory is that he got carried off by a nasty wind storm when he was little and deposited in the city where he grew up an urchin taised by another urchin a few years older than him.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 12 Jun 2019, 14:57
Cockney is overdone, I'd probably do Scouse (although it'd take a serious Red Dwarf binge for me to get there).  And the RP was great, and I'm glad that I don't have to do prep work for at least the next session.  Outside of a TPK, nothing could go too wrong.  I'm also glad that I have a group large enough that missing four players didn't force me to cancel (especially after spending my last $50 on ingredients for food and a day cooking).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 12 Jun 2019, 17:40
Jiao-Long is the guy in the sketch 4 posts up.
Scouse, correct me if I'm wrong, would be something Beatles-y, right?

EDIT: regardless of accent/dialect, he's definitely on the lower register being that he's 5'10" (170 cm). Like mid-low barritone to basso profundo (which I sadly can't do)[1].

[1] I'm a barritone, but I can do low alto to middle bass.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 12 Jun 2019, 18:55
Beatles, or Lister from Red Dwarf
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: TheEvilDog on 12 Jun 2019, 19:50
Scouse accent can be difficult to do properly and without driving people cracked.

Just to give you an idea of what it can sound like (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_C4PDSfQJA). Also it tends to be a half octave higher than what you would normally expect.

Honestly, I would suggest the accent that's easiest on your throat and the one you can stay in character with.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 25 Jun 2019, 05:19
Okay, so it turns out that the region he grew up in is based on eastern western Russia, Ukraine, and that general area. The area we're headed to is based on the US east coast. Glad to finally have that clarified this past weekend. In order to better maintain his Ukraian/Lithuanian accent (still need to decide), I've changed his name to 'Kruat'[1]. Not sure about having him refer to himself in the third person or not. More experimentation needed.

Anyways. Welsignar is still alive for the time being, and barely just. The one individual in our party with heavy armor[2] alerted a patrol of 11 kobold to our approach through the area. Thankfully, we had the rest of the caravan[3] hide while we scouted ahead. They got a surprise round on us, but Welsignar was the only one to get hit[4]. I decided to have him go the diplomatic approach and actually got 2 nat20s back to back!

Knowing that the area was under the control of an ancient copper dragon and an "erstaz" dragon[5], he told a terrible joke in draconic. "What do you call a three-eyed sled dog?" Performance check, nat20. Persuation check, nat20. I have 10 charisma. To which the kobold charging towards me in the green barrel[6] responded, "I don't know how, but they're with the dragon. Let them pass." Then we clarified that it was just our small group as the "erstaz" dragon wouldn't want 70-odd people coming to bother them at once.

Being that we thought the erstaz dragon was a young red dragon with some health problems, we decided to kill it. Unfortunately, I was 5 minutes late so I missed that group decision. Anyways, we found the erstaz dragon in a smaller cave and heard muffled cursing as it paced back and forth. New guy opted to shoot the dragon, triggering initiative. Confused at what was happening, I had Welsignar shout "This wasn't part of the plan!" In draconic before repeating it in Common, of course[7]. Once our bloodhunter explained what was going on OoC, Welsignar joined the frey. Bad jokes didn't work this time and he got scorched.

We beat it in three or 4 rounds (was super tired) and our spore druid's Moonbeam outright killed at least half of the kobolds inside of the dragon construct. 6 were named and reduced to 0. We tied the 6 that were bleeding out up, stabilized them, and I gave a goodberry to each whilst we did some looting. The DM forgot to have them wake up, so we got to loot uninterrupted. I found a two-faced coin with a grinning kobold face on each side[8] and 3 50gp diamonds which I turned over to our cleric. The kobold-powered ersatz dragon had two permanent Tensor's floating disks in it (made from metal) and a flying broom that's seen better days. I forget what all else we stole "found" apart from some metal and wood working tools.
For God-only knows what reason, we decided to take the dragon construct with us to the rest of the caravan. But in order to do so, we needed to do some minor repairs. Luckily/unluckily, we found the prototype covering to replace the one we burned a huge hole in. It was procured from Mildly Cursed Eddie's Mildly Cursed Emporium. We ignored the "ABSOLUTELY DO NOT USE! CURSED!!!" sign that was on the chest, deciphered the instructions that were in Orcish[9], and successfully attached the outer covering. The one that was "mildly cursed" and the wrong friggin color; a muddy black.
Our druid then proceeds to climb in to try to pilot the thing and promptly fails his save to avoid being cursed. He know thinks he was a grand dragon in a past life and that he needs to "become the half dragon he was always meant to be." After a round of facepalms and reconoitoring with the caravan, the PC party brome into 2 groups (i know, I know); trap disabling and DISTRACTION FORCE! Being that we opted to go the route furthest from the compoumd (laden with traps) and convinced a chunk of the kobolds we were with the dragon, Icm not entirely certain the distraction force was necessary, but that's where we left off.

[1]Yay for fantasy race name generators. "Crew-ought"
[2] one of the new guys. I forget what he's playing.
[3] 75-ish people looking to resettle some far-flung run-down town. They're all "level zero" characters.
[4] 3 arrows. Easy enough to remove. The DM rolled crap on their attacks against the 5 of us.
[5] turns out our DM has trouble saying "ersatz".
[6] Their tank. He had a flap to stick out his small crossbow, too.
[7] He did spend two years living with kobolds and exclusively speaking Draconic before going topside after all.
[8] Still need to get that identified
[9] apparently things from this store always come with instructions in a language that nobody in the party can read (barring eyes of the rune keeper).


EDIT: herp-derp. Wrong side of Russia and typos.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 26 Jun 2019, 13:16
The only witnesses to the arson are horses and barn cats, so the party gets it into their heads to grab one of the feral moggies and use it to sniff out the elf, or elves responsible.  They knew that the mute half-ogre was good with animals, but were able to get it out of him that he could actually talk to them (he's a druid).  First, they go to Ms. Fanservice who is performing a magically-enhanced musical act at the inn in which they are staying.  She was clean, and I gave enough of her backstory that she'll probably show up again in the future.  So they trekked over to the inn/tavern where they knew the owner was involved, and had the cat sniff the elves that worked there.  The cat hissed and struggled, and the half-ogre said that these were the elves.  It wasn't enough for court, but they did feel justified in executing the warrant that they had to search any business in town, found the secret room, and incriminating map.  So the next step, of course, is going to the watch, who'll lend them a couple of men to search the tunnels.  Of course, if they go in the tavern way, they'll soon discover that it's heavily booby-trapped, and they have no rogue.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 28 Jun 2019, 09:28
The only witnesses to the arson are horses and barn cats, so the party gets it into their heads to grab one of the feral moggies and use it to sniff out the elf, or elves responsible.  They knew that the mute half-ogre was good with animals, but were able to get it out of him that he could actually talk to them (he's a druid).  First, they go to Ms. Fanservice who is performing a magically-enhanced musical act at the inn in which they are staying.  She was clean, and I gave enough of her backstory that she'll probably show up again in the future.  So they trekked over to the inn/tavern where they knew the owner was involved, and had the cat sniff the elves that worked there.  The cat hissed and struggled, and the half-ogre said that these were the elves.  It wasn't enough for court, but they did feel justified in executing the warrant that they had to search any business in town, found the secret room, and incriminating map.  So the next step, of course, is going to the watch, who'll lend them a couple of men to search the tunnels.  Of course, if they go in the tavern way, they'll soon discover that it's heavily booby-trapped, and they have no rogue.
"Triggering the trap still counts as finding it."
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 28 Jun 2019, 11:49
Exactly.  They've already learnt that while combat isn't really the focus of my game, at least *someone* should have any valuable skill, since I do have a few skill-monkeys in the group.  I think that most have pretty high perception, which'll help, and the group has been rocking their diplomacy rolls (with good RP as well, so I've been giving situational bonuses). 

This last part is going to be their first actual dungeon-crawl, though.  For the human and the halfling's sake, I hope they remember to bring a light source.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 16 Jul 2019, 20:46
I've got updates. Oh, do I ever have updates. This'll have to be two posts.

First things first, I made a new dice. My original goal was to just make something collapsible. But...it wound up being a transformer of sorts. I also made a collapsible dice tray (dice pen?) thing.
Storage/star fighter mode:
(https://66.media.tumblr.com/52a4053fb1da4424479a5d9290d47853/tumblr_pumxdqYWck1qkc6bso1_1280.jpg)
Dice tower mode with dice tray/pen:
(https://66.media.tumblr.com/fc5cc142ec09880cc1506bfb97981924/f987a43c215e4d1f-fc/s1280x1920/eee6b6c0d36e86daa353e09be4fd6a281f386d74.jpg)

I call it the DTV-3 'The Ricochet'. Tower mode has a few kinks to work out, but that should be easy enough assuming I can find a 2x4 flat plate to put at the bottom of the tower. The bushing wasn't enough to prevent cocking.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 16 Jul 2019, 21:19
That's pretty cool.  My players are just wrapping up their first adventure, and I bumped everyone to level two.  I am afraid, though, of unravelling the universe.  Three of the players have intense manic energy, and thus far, only two have been in the game at the same time.[1]  But some time soon, all three will be in one room.

[1] Just two were enough to cause the party to go and fight the epic Battle of the Feral Cat.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 29 Jul 2019, 08:51
Speaking of destroying things, you know that one 'we screwed up bad' story nearly every party/gaming group has? We had that two weeks ago when my Saturday group finally managed to temporarily break the hiatus.

After recapping that we had ended up beneath the castle of a local lord that had been acting quite suspiciously, and that we had blown up the prison area along with a sizeable chunk of the castle and some illithids we found working down there[1]. We managed to sneak into a secret sub-basement and tunnel network. While sneak around invisible, our rogue-bard (Aphellus) found what was basically an illithid war room. She came back and gave us the run down, and we came u with a plan. Aphellus managed to rig the warroom door to funnel them through one at a time.

One of them got a lucky shot on our goblin assassin NPC, Droop[2]. Droop hadn't been healed since the last bit of combat, so when his goblin hit points ran out, he reverted to his draconic form. His 30ft wide, platinum scaled draconic form. Found one of the missing gods.
The rest of the illithids were crushed to death and we barely survived because their corpses were cushioning us. Bahamut asked us to accept the Modify Memory spell because it was going to happen willing or not. We all figured this was probably something important[3]

After that, we found one of the holding areas for humans. All the ones we saw were in a stupor and had suspicious piles of bones in the corner much akin to the ones we found after killing the ooblex. With one exception. The townie was someone our fighter's sister recognized and begged for us to let him out. But, being naturally suspicious of the whole thing, our cleric cast Zone of Truth. And that's when the intellct devourer hopped off of his former body. We got what information we could from him, but he didn't want to be very helpful, so we left him in his glass cage. In the same room, we also found one of their computer subsystems.

Bergell (artificer) was the omly one with any idea how to work it[4], and he found the rest of the holding cells we watched as blue dots became purple dots and purple dots became red dots. A good chunk of the town was down here, and a good chunk of them were humanm/humanoid anymore. Since we couldn't do much from this console, Bergell located the main control console.  Which just so happened to have a weird symbol that only Bergell and Grim[5] recognized next to it. Neither of us rolled nat 20s, so we just knew 'this is very very bad and dangerous' and that it was in the wrong place[6]. Bergell also found a pre-calamity ship, which he determined could cause an explosion big enough to clear out this tunnel system.

Our plan was to remotely set the ship to overload, use Sending to warn the head priest at the temple of Bahamut to clear out, and book it from the tunnels. We managed to make our way there with little trouble, but Bergell and our bardificer were going to have to sneak across the room to the main control console. They just had to sneak past the Elder Brain in the center of the room. Three checks for each, Bergell blew his last check plugging his tablet into the console and had to quickly take control of it to keep the Elder Brain in contained by a blast door. He fought it from coming back up three times as he hacked the ship and disabled one of its cannons. We were going to have to blow it from the ship manually.

We made our way to the ship. Most of us made it past the two functional arcane cannons, but we lost our fighter along the way [7]. Once on the ship, Bergell accessed the computer and barely missed locking the blast doors on an older more powerful ithillid. Low on spells, health, and healing potions, we barely managed to kill it. And then we ran.

We had to make several checks (7?) to escape from the underground. We lost our bardificer along the way, but the rest of us remaining made it out of the tunnel exiting next to the train station. We watched as the city collapsed and burned. Out of spells, and half of us conscious. The ithillid spawning base destroyed and the city with it.

And that was where the session ended. I'm admittedly a tad fuzzy on some of the details since that session was just over 3 weeks ago, and I've been pecking away at this recounting for a week now. So, sorry if any of this doesn't make any sense.

[1]We had used all of the TNT barrels our artificer had made along with liberal use of Fireball and Shatter.
[2] It might have been mindblast? Either way, the player controlling "Droop" rolled a total of bad for his con save and so did the DM reluctant to reveal this twist early on.
[3] we had 3 high imsight checks, but no nat 20s so no idea as to exactly why, just that it was important.
[4] pre-calamity tech
[5] my PC
[6] According to what Bergell knew, what that symbol meant, it was usually on a Pre-Calamity ship.
[7] Storr sacrificed himself to save his sister, who is now that players PC.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 29 Jul 2019, 09:19
I was frightfully unprepared for running last week, and basically, we did food and levelling.  Two players were gone, and I really wanted the full group for the next planned adventure[1], since due to the location outside of the city and the dimensional stuff going on, it'd be hard to bring them in.  So I came in with some rough guidelines for a city adventure, involving "Piss Harry" from the Discworld series, and his people being on a garbage strike due to a wererat problem. I think that I'll actually run with this next session, since it helps flesh out the world a bit more, and can introduce not only Harry as a power-player and potential ally, but get the PCs used to creatures with damage reduction[2] and introduce two new antagonistic forces.  One will be the wererats, the other will be a rat king composed of cranium rats who resents that these wererats won't obey them, and is flat-out beyond the PCs' power to deal with.  They can be a future Big Bad, but in the short term, may be negotiated with, since Harry and the rat king have a mutual enemy.

[1] The first one really to introduce the main plot
[2] They have the money for silver weapons, especially after they collect the bounty on the pirates, have a magic weapon, will have to learn to retreat sometimes, etc.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 02 Aug 2019, 20:48
Made some spells for the Hell of it. I'll post the Sunday campaign updates in one big post next week.

Vapor Wave - lvl 1 Illusion
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self (15-foot cone)
Components: V, S
Duration: 1 minute, concentration

A burst of light and distorted music bursts from your hands. Each creature in a 15-foot cone must make a Wisdom saving throw. A creature takes 1d6 psychic damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. While in the cone a creature must make an additional Wisdom saving throw, taking an additional 1d6 damage.

Creatures who fail their saving throw will have disadvantage on all attacks and Perception checks. Targets will see the world in bright pastel colors, perceive all other creatures as white marble statues, all floors and ceilings as polished white marble tiles, all non-decorated vertical surfaces as having a grid-like pattern. Targets will also hear distorted versions of popular songs from a bygone era.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d6 for each slot level above 1st.

Spell Lists. Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard

An explanation of the above spell >
Shadow-Bolt

Evocation cantrip

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 60 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous

You hurl a blister of shadow at a creature or object within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 necrotic damage, and the target is Blinded until the start of your next turn.

At Higher Levels. This spell’s damage increases by 1d8 when you reach 5th level (2d10), 11th level (3d10), and 17th level (4d10).

Spell Lists. Artificer, Sorcerer, Wizard


EDIT: I'm also still tweaking a spell based after the Desolate Dive ability from  Hollow Knight. It's kind of like a reverse Thunderwave?
EDIT 2: Whoops! Forgot to drop Shadow-bolt to a d8.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 17 Aug 2019, 00:44
The party made it to the Big City, and are meeting with folks from the Watch (all poorly-disguised Discworld expies) to hand over the captured pirates for trial.  Of course, the first district that they can reach in the city is the slums, which is undergoing a sanitation strike, due to having had workers killed or go missing, and not wanting to risk any more lives.  Refuse and shit are piling up, and conditions there are worse than usual.  Thankfully, the work stoppage is confined to that one part of the city, as the wererats responsible figure that it's easier to muscle in to a territory where no one important will care enough to deal with the disruption caused by the process,  and they can establish a proper foothold.  To this end, the wererats were killing workers in the sewers, and hiring thugs to beat , scare off, or kill workers in the streets.  In a few days, when conditions in the slums get close to a riot, that's when they'll now have these same thugs working as scabs. 

So there's the background.  Now, half the party wants to investigate this, knowing that there's money to be made in solving the problem.  The other half decided to go shopping, and they did not make plans to join back up.  Now, if the PCs can't come up with a reasonable way (and they have the means) of finding the other group, there is a "werewolf ex machina" in the form of the Angua expy, and she will want them to be able to collect their reward in a couple of days. 

Normally, the cranium rats would have no problem handling the wererats themselves, and could easily crush them with their mental powers.  However, they would lose enough of their number in the ensuing fight that they would be diminished, and other "kingdoms" of cranium rats would sense weakness and move in and assimilate what remains of *that* hive-mind.  So for now, they're biding their time, and will drop clues to the PCs that encountered a swarm when trying to find lodging.  I figure, half of next session will just involve getting the group back together and getting them to coordinate and share info.  Now, if the group stays split, they can each make individual progress, it's just going to be a PITA for me.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 21 Aug 2019, 04:35
Poorly disguised or not, Discworld is a great series to nab expys from.

Well, I lost the post I'd been trying to work at[1], so I'll just condense things from 3 sessions.

 Made it out of the Laughing Hills with 7 NPC casualties[2]. Picked up two kobolds, an artificer and a chef. Found a hidden undercroft containing a reasonable wraith. He and his now skeletal platoon were stowed here as a backup that never triggered during some old war. They're still loyal to Luxheim and agreed to meet us there. The fight with the skeletal wyvern messed up Welsignar [3]. Worstening weather lead the carvan to shelter from another storm. My eldritch knight Bug [4] was introduced and we fought a fossilized catoblepas and a dust beholder[5] and successfully harvested 5 flail snails' shells. We passed some important underwater ruins guarded by turbine golems. We made it to the town where the cultists jumped Bug. He was still wearing the ceremonial helmet[6] the cultists had put on him because he hadn't thought to take it off. Upon recovering a few memories, he deliberate kept it on to unsettle the non-cult townsfolk for not doing anything about the cult. Saved a soldier from being nabbed by the cult as a sacrifice by being "enticed" away. Killed 6 cultists in two fights, and cut off the wereboar's head. Some of our NPCs managed to make it to level 1[7]. Bug and a random twnie ate the kobold chef's golden curry. Bug made his wis save, townie did not [8]. Managed to make it to Luxheim w/o any further complications.

Once we got to Luxheim we found that the people living their were some of the monstrous races along with some humans, half-elves, and gnomes or halflings (need to check notes) in an encampment outside of the city's main wall because the place has plenty of dangers within them. Characters had 3 weeks of down time with the 2nd and 3rd being interrupted. Bug mapped out as much of the city as he safely could, making note of buildings and monster sightings. A beholder shouting about justice whilst vaporizing some poor kobold in the temple of Tyr, and strange laughter from The Billowing Dress (burlesque house) were the only two I can remember off-hand.  He heard "something that sounded green" when he trained to map the sewers, so he vamoosed. At some point during this, Moss[9] was accompanying him in a subterranean section and they found the city's mine shift. Moss found a weird green 18inch long crystal that faintly glowed and had air bubbles trapped w/i. Both of them failed to identify it.  Welsignar went out and identified the other monsters, mostly monstrosities at several important buildings. The Abbey of Scrolls, however, has Yuggaloths.The lvl 1s found out what "sounded green" in the sewers. The PCs successfully saved the brigand and the bloodhunter from the slimes, and we all booked it before the froghemoth and toad men could get past the wall of fire. We also found the cities mine entrance.

Met the coastal wizard[10] the lvl 1s found as they were scouting the area around the city. Got some stuff identified and made Con saves. Roland failed his and ended up with a contact high. Turns out Bug's "weird hat" is a drunkards hat and was in fact not telling him where important things/people were, but instead indicated the nearest source of booze. He's also got Bracers of Mutual Destruction[11] and the common sense to not use enchanted weapons or armor w/o knowing what it is first[12]. The wizard agreed to work with the town if we paid him in gold or gems along with silverleaf[13]. Once the wizard and Roland started stoner talking, Bug left to have a sign conversation with wizard's crab.

The dwarf fighter managed to contact some dwarves from the Hematite Hills. They'd had been speculating on gold in the area anyways, so we ended up doubling the cities population. Thankfully our craftsmen had managed to get the makeshift walls repaired by the time they showed up so the place didn't look too shabby. Garry (kobold chef) managed to get in touch with the local kobolds who managed to get him enough supplies to start a tavern before the dwarves showed up. The dwarves arrived at the city in their [fantasy ironside steamboats]  on the wrong side of the city in the mysteriously frozen harbor. Realizing this, Moss got up on the highest point of the wall and held the mysterious crystal aloft to try to signal them with its refractive light. After rolling percentile die, the DM asked Moss's PC if Moss had any music stuck in his head. "I dunno, the Flash Gordan theme I guess? He is a dwarf." "Congratulations, you get their attention when that song starts blaring from the crystal like it's a boom box. You've found a wild magic crystal, by the way." And that's where the most recent session ended.

[1] Yay depression spike
[2]Very badly injured dwarf druid assumed to be an 8th. Player is playing the kobold chef
[3] He had Silksong (sonic moth caterpillar) with him and lost 2/3 of his health, so opted to take it easy for a bit and focus on Silksong.
[4] Amnesiac goblin archaeologist, was nearly killed by a cult of therianthropes and left 90% mute. Chalkboard dialogue is kind of fun.
[5]ancient undeads
[6] made of leather, boar tusks (top and bottom), and a pair of two-point buck deer antlers. It resembles the helmet of The Knight/"Ghost" from Hollow Knight.
[7] Bard: Rosie the awakened rose (single potted rose, not the maliscious bush), Cleric: forgot her name (drow's apprentice), Bloodhunter: Roland's apprentice who's name I also forgot, and a Ranger: that brigand we scared into joining us. I don't remember his name despite Welsignar being the one training him.
[8]The DM informed us we may have an awakened warlock on our hands in the future.
[9] dwarf fighter who joined the caravan. Real name is Bohala, but I'll remember his nickname.
[10] I'm quite aware of the pun.
[11] add lvl to the damage you roll once per day. Take double the damage you rolled.
[12] Requires Wis of 11 or higher. Bug has exactly 11 for wisdom.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 21 Aug 2019, 17:45
Unholy crap! That took forever to type. I'll proofzread it later, I'm sure I'll need to make corrections.

If the other game coms off hiatus, I'll have to remember to use a different text color. We may be starting it back up on a once per month. We've also got a discrod that nobody's RP'd in yet (despite prompting).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 21 Aug 2019, 17:54
That last bit sounds familiar.  BTW, what text editor do you use? 

For writing game stuff, I've found that doing everything in LaTeX with either TexMaker on Mac, or Kile in vi-mode on Linux is the easiest way to keep the document properly broken down, and easy to read when printing.  It was just a little of a learning curve to pick the language back up.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 21 Aug 2019, 21:23
That last bit sounds familiar.  BTW, what text editor do you use? 

For writing game stuff, I've found that doing everything in LaTeX with either TexMaker on Mac, or Kile in vi-mode on Linux is the easiest way to keep the document properly broken down, and easy to read when printing.  It was just a little of a learning curve to pick the language back up.
.....I don't know what those things are. I've just either been punching these into an open browser on my phone (why I lost the first 2 of these 3 sessions' summaries) or I type it up in Wordpad or Libre Office Text.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 21 Aug 2019, 22:03
Oh, I'm an idiot!  I thought that you were talking about what you used to write stuff that you used for game.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 22 Aug 2019, 04:59
Oh, I'm an idiot!  I thought that you were talking about what you used to write stuff that you used for game.
No you're not. Don't worry about it. It's been a miserable couple of days weatherwise and my brain was half melted with these damned bump caps. Nearly had a heat stroke Tuesday.

Anyways, I don't suppose you have any recommendations as to the style of scale mail ("maille"?) a goblin archaeologist with a 17 strength would use? There's so many more styles and configurations than I thought. Jackets, mantles, whatever the style that's basically a breastplate is called. Pauldrons, no pauldrons, even one that's a gambeson(?) with only part of the torso covered in scale.

EDIT: I imagine the scales themselves would likely be black or dark grey leather. Partially because the Hollow Knight basis, and leather because goblin. I think. Need to go to sleep.
EDIT 3: changed color of lime green text

EDIT2: I'm guessing the programs you mentioned are recommended things for organizing DM stuff?
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 22 Aug 2019, 09:40
Far from it.  More like what people in the sciences use to typeset their thesis.  I've just found that having to use a markup language in an editor that makes switching between sections and subsections a breeze makes my life a bit easier.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 06 Oct 2019, 12:56
The players have made it into the sewers, and encountered both the Rat King (and mongrelmen in their "faction"), as well as fought the CHUDs  used as shock troops by the wererats.  Meanwhile, above ground, the elderly orc who is Harry King's second in command is going through employees with military experience and who don't have loving families to form a militia, and just storm the sewers themselves, killing anything that gets in their way.  They became aware of this latest NPC action after having lunch with Mr. King at the poshest place in "The Tops"[1] I have determined that without PC intervention, this will succeed, albeit with a high casualty rate, and a lot of collateral damage.  Suffice it to say, the mongrelmen are pretty much innocents who have an unfortunate symbiotic relationship with the Rat King,[2] and even the CHUDs are being abused and exploited by the wererats who dominate them with a mixture of fear and awe, and on their own, too fractured to be a real threat.  The party as a whole plans on helping Harry's men after largely determining that the Rat King and mongrelmen aren't really bothering anyone, and will at least be able to direct the small army towards the wererats' forces, while they sneak into the keep and go for the head of the beast.  Of course, the Token Evil Teammate has other plans, may drag the paladin into it, and make even more of a mess of things than a rampaging orc-lead militia would do on its own.  Thing is, that she's an shadow elf Inquisitor.  Her entire raison d' etre is to rid the world of anything associated with the Rift,[4] as well as their influence.  Good and noble aims, but her evil isn't out of greed or malice, but in the sort of methods that the Inquisition is willing to use.  After the paladin used his slaydar on the Rat King, and got knocked on his arse by the power of the thing's aura, and her own detection methods had similar results, she knew that the party couldn't face the Rat King on its own, especially with most PCs having a fairly relaxed attitude towards a creepy extraplanar hive-mind that is fairly content to "Watch and Wait" for an indeterminate time, and unknown reason. 

The mongrelmen are caught up with it, because occasionally, it needs hands, and in return, provides safety and directs them towards vital resources.  Now, the Inquisition is officially over in this human-dominated country, ever since the shadow elf occupation ended a decade ago.  However, her people, like their more good, or at least neutrally-aligned human counterparts to the west, show little regard for things like "jurisdiction" and "national borders" when it comes to pursuit of their mission.  They're empires, dammit, so very few people that matter will say anything about it.  Now, she wants to call down the wrath of the Inquisition to cleanse the sewers of this evil influence.  Given that they're religious fanatics, and still *do* have frequent strike teams encountered in this country, they'll have no compunction to invading the underground where no one on the surface will raise a stink.  Given the resources at their disposal, it'll only take 2-3 days for a team to travel the couple hundred of miles and make quick work of things.  Problem is, that their idea of a holy cleansing will mean not only killing the rat king and as much of the swarm as they can, but also start killing mongrelmen in order to purge the evil influence entirely.  The wererats and CHUDs aren't even on the Inquisition's radar.  Now, if the paladin gets dragged along with this (and he's the most likely to support going after a Big Evil, he'll need an atonement when he finds out how many innocents will get killed along the way.  Unlike the orc-lead militia, the Inquisition will not negotiate with any group, nor show qualities such as "restraint" or "mercy.".  They'll be satisfied with getting rid of the wererats and scattering the CHUDs back into just being an annoyance, rather than a threat, which cannot be said for the elves.  Malhul (the orc) is also perfectly willing to negotiate a treaty between Harry King and the Rat King for mutual benefit, which is probably the most peaceful solution.  The wererats are power-hungry and impatient, and the sister is rapidly infecting as many drunken men who are looking for a date as possible.[5]  If the party really screws things up, pretty much all of the sewer dwellers will be wiped out, and business in the over city will return to normal, with very few people being any wiser as to what happened.  If the party succeeds, Harry will be grateful, and provide a powerful patron in the City, Malhul will be grateful (and generous) at the prospect of losing far fewer men, as well as the chance to make work underground far safer. 

Sad thing is that if the Inquisition does go down there, even with the party helping Harry, it's still not a "best ending", since the surviving mongrelmen will be forced to become refugees topside, and even more miserable, since now, they won't have their own homes, and instead be paying rent and working whatever jobs are available to those who look like they're cobbled together out of spare parts.

[1] The nickname for Elfrest, which is an enclave within the ultra-wealthy Lakes District.[3]
[2] A literal rat king made up of dire cranium rats who is at the heart of the swarm.
[3] also home to the University
[4] An big tear in the fabric of  reality in her homeland, which has smaller satellites popping up elsewhere, and from which spew evil extra planar things, sapient undead, and the dark fae
[5] Her brother is running the startup in the streets, and she is trying to take over the sewers and establish a fiefdom there.  The leverage they use against those she infects is the promise of a "cure" for any who serve them.  Any others are disposable, and likely to become CHUD chow.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 20 Oct 2019, 09:26
CHUDS! CHUDS! CHUDS!    :-D

Seems like the current game is going on hiatus again. Half our party are focusing on their classes (2 in high school, one teacher).

But hey, Bug got to fight a 50ft long celestial shark fused to a water elemental and ridden by a kua-toa priest. We were supposed to fight it in the city, but that's the monster the DM rolled to be attracted by the dwarven ironside's cannon fire. I also found out that it was Umberlee who spared Bug from bleeding out. Thankfully the bloodhunter's player opted to do a religion check because I got a nat1 and Palor saving a goblin sounded off to his character.

It took me a bit to figure out why Umberlee --a goddess of the ocean and chaos not known for mercy-- would save bug, then I tried doing one of those non-standard alignment charts (https://jewishdragon.tumblr.com/post/188456471416/jewishdragon-dumb-thing-but-i-made-an-alignment) and it dawned on me. His list of recent antics is kind of long, so I'm just going to be lazy link the chaos list post I made to tumblr. link (https://gyrrakavian.tumblr.com/post/188042541975/umberlee-saved-my-goblin-eldritch-knight)
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 30 Oct 2019, 04:24
Well, upside of the hiatus is that I got to play Kruat finally. It was a horror oneshot ran in the open game at a local game store.

The DM was running a homebrew she had tweaked for messing with murder hobos and was quite surprised when she wound up with three players who not only weren't but actually tried to solve the mystery and help the locals being plagued by undead. I wish I had gotten more sleep prior so I could remember more of it. But, the undead seemed to be coming from the sea along with the thick fog, and all of the water sources on the island were tainted or turned to toxic sludge.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 26 Apr 2020, 23:21
Handful of character updates.

My tortle storm sorcerer died on Everything is Awful Island (a Lovecraftian end of days scenario).[1]
My seemingly cursed tiefling storm sorcerer[2] died in the Abyss (survival campaign based on Made in Abyss) to a spell-casting poison-needle-shooting sentient cactus.[3] He crit failed a Con save against its worst poison type and had a severe histamine reaction resulting in swelling up
(click to show/hide)
It was jokingly suggested that his horns could be used to craft a Wand of Bestow Curse.

I'm bringing in an old character to replace the tiefling. Arkin Icewind[4] was fun to play and it'll be nice to get another go around with him and to have a healer on the team since our druid quit after two or three sessions.

[1] He fell in the water, failed his Con saves and died via poison and being shish-kabobbed by "the bad kind of tentacles".
[2] His name was Inazuma, literally meaning 'lightning' in Japanese since the setting was based on an anime and he got his powers when the small hut he and his mom lived in got struck by lightning.
[3] Some sadist DM's homebrew called a Corpse Cactus or something like that.
[4] From that utterly broken campaign that we basically called off because the DM was pulling some serious BS. I hear he's learned to dial back the brokenness and is doing a better job at DMing now. Apparently he's still a bit railroady at times.

Speaking of Arkin, I figured I'd post his re-tailored backstory here, so I can copy-paste it from my phone into Discord and get a character bonus or two.
Arkin grew up in the abyss-edged city of Dorrbeach at the inn his family owned. The End-Over Inn was converted from the back half of a failed larger airship that crashed on the site of his family's original property, the Clear Skies Café. At the time of the crash, Arkin's father was doing early morning prep in the café while he and his mother were at the market collecting supplies. Arkin was raised by his mother and her sister from the age of 5.

The mage's guild investigation revealed that one of the wizards working on the airship overengineered attachment points between the flight apparatus and the hull, resulting in it detaching from the ship completely. The mage's guild paid for his father's burial and the conversion of the ship's mostly intact remains into a stable structure. This and the tragedy of his father's death spurned Arkin into the study of magic and healing, as he vowed to make sure no thoughtless wizard ruined anyone else's family again with their lack of foresight. Thus he was set down the path of the arcane cleric instead of that of the wizard or the arcanist.

Arkin got a job at the mage's guild as what would effectively be a safety inspector at the age of 17 (one of the oversight positions created after the airship accident). As a cleric of Boccob, it was his job to look over apparatus plans and ask questions about things in the designs to help ensure fewer things were overlooked. Usually being one of the ones to bring up the question of 'should we' when the researchers were too focused on 'can we'. Sometimes arguments were had, occasionally enemies were made, but the guild-head usually helped iron things out.

Other aspects of Arkin's job were to assist with projects and to be on stand-by in the event immediate medical attention was needed when things did go wrong. Despite his readiness with his own shield and Shield of Faith, nothing could have prepared him for the mishap that sent him to Zendikar. Thankfully, the locals were kind enough to help him planeshift back home. His next unexpected extra-planar excursion took him into the Fey Wilds while assisting on a search-and-rescue mission. Thankfully he and the rest of the team only lost two months during the three days they spent there. The now insane and elderly sorcerer who they went in to rescue wasn't so fortunate, but the rescue was still counted as a success. Another extra-planar excursion took him to Sigil, though for once it was part of a gateway project meant to explore other planes.

Arkin eventually met the love of his life, Aurora, while visiting his mother at the inn one day. They dated and eventually got engaged. However, fate took a cruel turn. Arkin's next unplanned extra-planar excursion took him to Arborea. It took him 7 years to get back home. Aurora had married and been widowed in that time, but she still loved him. They got back together and even eventually got re-engaged. Arkin was finally getting back into the swing of his old life after a year and some months since returning. Until two days before the wedding when he stepped onto a miscalibrated teleportation circle.

The abyss tiered teleport system project had just started and this was the first casting for this circle. Arkin had been distracted by his upcoming big day and made the same miscalculations as the wizard who set up and cast the circle. The wizard ended up stuck 50ft away through solid rock. He died from the force damage as he was shunted through the canyon wall. Arkin ended up inside a cave, but he may not have been so lucky after all.

EDIT: Yes, this is pretty much what my notes look like but with more shorthand.
EDIT2: Whoops, looks I did that spoiler warning wrong. fixed.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Torlek on 04 Jun 2020, 12:26
So my friends are running two campaigns right now, Pathfinder and 5e (no, we never get the rules mixed up :roll:).

The 5e campaign is a pre-made that the DM has modified with a more crunchy survival mechanic (he plays a lot of Don't Starve and he's borrowing liberally from that) that we're too early in to see any main plot aside from "don't be recaptured by the drow". I'm a tiefling sorcerer raised among thieves to be their magical enforcer (I'm basically aiming for Locke Lamora). The rest of the party is a firbolg druid that spontaneously wild shapes into an otter anytime he enters water, a dumb but Russian dwarf wrestler fighter and another dwarf fighter who basically thinks himself a dwarven Karl Marx (he has a manifesto that reads like the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition). We are also surrounded by a random grab-bag of NPCs and the most notable encounter so far had the dwarves try to drag an insane (caused by magic crystals in the cavern) duregar to safety and hopefully sanity in the name of dwarven unity. When he didn't immediately become sane the Karl Marx dwarf deemed that "no dwarf should live this way" and caved his skull in. At this point, my tiefling thinks that all dwarves are insane. Between that and the fact we bum rushed the elite drow prison guards while we had nothing to our names but ratty loincloths, the DM is convinced we're going full murder-hobo. He may not be wrong.

The Pathfinder game is in a unique world the GM built from scratch with it's own countries, geography and history. The main conceit is that there's a network of Stargate-like portals that connect the various corners of the supercontinent (which used to be multiple continents until a massive cataclysm about 120 years ago, why yes, there are elves and maybe some dwarves that remember it). Our mercenary company is the only non-government entity that can access the gates so we get to roam the world and do secret missions with deeper ties to the cataclysm and perhaps in pursuit of preventing another one. I don't think we've found any link to the big bad yet (if there even is one) and currently we're on a sidequest in the Rome/Greece analogue country where we're trying to win fame and fortune in their local Olympics. After this we'll head back to the Persia analogue to pick back up with the local Sultana who's been busy torturing some highwaymen (the cleric is NOT happy about that fact) that ambushed us on the way back from securing a mine she holds very dear (it's a source of magic crystals that are basically lyrium from Dragon Age but less insanity-inducing) and knew too much about said mine. Oh, there's also a section of the continent where all the countries mash together that is all but impassible, loaded with all kinds of monsters and just generally wrong. I'm sure we'll head there eventually. I'm a fairly bog-standard human fighter from the Germany/Scotland analogue (or am I...wouldn't the party like to know, wouldn't I like to know). The rest of the party is the aforementioned cleric (a halfling also from the Germany/Scotland analogue but his parents came from the East Asia analogue), a half-elf rogue in the charlatan archetype (he doesn't get trap sense, the GM forgot that in one dungeon and I would have died from said lack if not for GM fiat) from the Rome/Greece analogue that lies about everything, a dwarf alchemist from the Persia analogue with a raging tea obsession and a newly introduced human ranger from the clockpunk Venice-by-way-of-Prussia analogue who is the sole survivor of his prior team in the company. His animal companion is a Peregrine falcon that he has been using to amp up the crowds and seems to regard the cleric as a prey animal.

The truly funny thing in all this is that the DM from the 5e game is the cleric in the Pathfinder game, while the Pathfinder GM is the dumb dwarf fighter in 5e. The cleric is illiterate in-game and the player tends to mispronounce names a lot (also his in-character accent can wander WILDLY) and the party joke is to tell the cleric, "we'll tell you when you grow up," when the character doesn't understand something. So in his game, the dwarf is intentionally mispronouncing every Underdark place-name and that's fast becoming the party joke. I'm not sure which one is going to make rocks fall first.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 14 Jul 2020, 06:51
Sounds like a lot of fun. With luck, the only rocks that will fall are from one of your casters using Meteor Swarm :-D

My arcana cleric for the MiA game is surprisingly still alive. And the party finally got to see him angry[1] two sessions ago when we found out that the tag-along NPC had been killed by a master mimic[2]. The group of 6 Master-mimics proceeded to mock my cleric for trying to handle Ms. Traumatic-Life-Experience's mental state with kit-gloves.[3] He was so blinded with rage that he "asked a genie for a cheeseburger"[4,5] wasting what was effectively a non-magical Wish in the form of a boon granted by their creator for Arkin's situation being so amusing to them. I basically got the components for 10 uses of Teleportation.

And last session Something Very Bad happened but some of our party aren't privy to exactly what due to not being Naruhate, which I'm betting most of our party are now.[6]

In terms of my Sunday game, our forge cleric broke the campaign last session by basically upcasting a Wish scroll with a typo. Now the city and it's nonmonster inhabitants have basically been flung far-far into the future and are now in something of a spelljammer scenario. So much for having to deal with the 7 titans approaching the city. The session (naturally) had to end early.

My Sunday group has also decide to do alternating campaigns since the main Sunday DM's schedule doesn't always allow him to run on top of the fact that all the other games he's in he's DMing for. This way he gets a break from DMing and a chance to play. We'll be starting a module called Call From the Deep. I'll be playing a white dragonborn sea sorcerer with the fisher background from GoS. His name is Shaemash, 'Fish' or 'Cod' for those who can't say his name.[7] For some reason, my brain's gone and given him an Amish accent. They're starting in Neverwinter, but he's a local, so IDK why.

[1]he's usually somewhat sullen and a bit put-upon (like Kiff) with a bit of anxiety or exasperation when dealing with said NPC ignoring that he's engaged. She's a bit obsessive boarding on yandere because he was he first person to genuinely be kind to her.
[2] Humanoid mimics that consume people body and soul granting them access to their victims' memories and skills. We found the latter part out when we used a one-time use True Resurrection item to bring back the NPC. Doing so killed the master-mimic and freed the souls of its victims.
[3] He uses Sending to contact his fiance at least once per day to talk to her. He ended up in the abyss he's in now thanks to a teleportation mishap in his home abyss.
[4] as my DM put it
[5] Of course it was stipulated that they wouldn't kill their master (duh), and couldn't destroy the Sphere of All Power which is one of our group's major long term goals.
[6] with the exception of my cleric and the barbarian. I'm pretty sure our druid and Ms. Tagalong are now Naruhate. The druid was one of Yutivaza's chosen which is likely what caused The Very Bad Thing.
[7] for the halibut  :-D
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: TheEvilDog on 16 Jul 2020, 21:28
Tangentially related, Humble Bundle currently has a bundle for Pathfinder Second Edition (https://www.humblebundle.com/books/pathfinder-second-edition-paizo-inc-books?hmb_source=navbar&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=tile_index_1), including core rulebook, bestiary, maps and novellas from the setting. All told, around $360 worth of stock for about $20, with the charities involved being the National Urban League, the Carl Brandon society and the NAACP legal defense fund.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Blue Kitty on 19 Jul 2020, 04:19
How is Pathfinder compared to D&D? I've heard it's more precise.

Ran my first campaign last night and it went pretty good, if a little awkward. I can't wait to keep going with the story, even if it's a lot of work
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 19 Jul 2020, 10:13
Essentially, it's a cleaned-up 3.5ed system.  It's more complicated than 5e, but it does have so many options available for players that I think it's worth it.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Torlek on 19 Jul 2020, 13:23
I always say Pathfinder v1 is basically D&D 3.75 (from what I've heard, Pathfinder v2 is basically 5e). The hit dice for the squishier classes are bumped up a tier, some of the mechanics are cleaned up but it also feels like there's more options available and there's feats for EVERYTHING.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 19 Jul 2020, 13:42
Absolutely, and you get feats more rapidly than in 3.5e, and monsters are scaled up as well, so it tends to be a pretty high-power game.  A GM can use 3.x modules just fine, but they should adjust the difficulty of encounters to compensate for the higher power-level of PCs.  Overall, it's internally well-balanced, but there are some combinations that are just too obscenely powerful, and may require a GM errata/house rule.  (For example, the spell "Named Bullet" is vague enough that my witch using that in conjunction with the party gunslinger helped lead to an older dragon being dead before half the party could react.  It got nerfed right after).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 26 Jul 2020, 09:31
I stil haven't played Pathfinder myself, but I really ought to at some point.

Arkin, my arcana cleric, finally took the arcanist's advice to try to teleport home and rally some assistance in fighting off the end of the world. The 5th layer is quite cold and he was quite ill-prepared for it. We nearly lost one of the party members to some heat sapping starfish things. Arkin successfully teleported back to his hometown and got hit by level 5 exhaustion[1], but passed his con save to not start hallucinating wildly. Unfortunately, it wasn't high enough to not start bleeding internally[2]. The damage was enough to knock him below zero but not kill him outright. Thankfully, I rolled probably the most timely nat20 ever on my first deathsave. After being brought to a healer by an NPC name Susej Shumboddi[3], Arkin was reunited with his fiancee and decided 'screw it, I'm staying here'. He still relayed his story to the city's leaders and appropriate forces were mustered[4].
My replacement character being amongst them. I honestly forgot the whole 'you have to pick a different class' houserule when I started making Rasputin Bluefire. So, he's an oath of glory paladin wthat I originally designed as a death cleric. I still like the idea of a grey-skinned blue flamed fire genasi, so I stuck with it. Arkin handed off all of his artifacts to Rasputin since he opted to retire to teaching and finally got married.[5]

[1] Curse of the Abyss inflicts increasing levels of exhaustion when a creature not born of it ascends 20ft or more while in it.
[2] Apparently, that includes teleporting out of an abyss and jumping up that many layers so quickly prompted the internal bleeding save and damage roll. After the level 5 exhaustion hits and halves his HP, of course. TL;DR custom bullshit homebrew.
[3] A joke because the DM had some random, nameless NPC shout "Jesus! Somebody get him to a healer quick!" I couldn't help myself and asked if their was a townie named 'Jesus'. The DM said his name was 'Susej', and a player chimed in with 'Susej Shumboddi'.
[4] Probably his first truly selfish action, but also pretty understandable all said and told regarding what he's been through. The guy is just tired at this point and needs to take care of himself for a change. Plus it took just over two weeks to fully recover from his ordeal.
[5] A cloak of teleportation, a gravity cannon, and the plot crucial conversation cube.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 06 Oct 2020, 09:40
Been awhile. Two updates;

Thank God the Made in Abyss knockoff/homebrew/homage is done and the group voted for Monster Hunter homebrew campaign for that DM's next turn instead of his almost all RP continuation that dives mback into his clusterfuck campaign plot.

Two, The City on the Borderlands game wrapped recently despite flying off the rails. I multiclassed 4 levels into abjuration wizard since Bug needed more spellslots to spelljam pilot. Turns out he's damn good at it, too. I didn't roll anything below an 18 for checks on it over the course of 4 sessions. We successfully evacuted the nearby towns into our city, defeated the dracolitch by effectively bankrupting the bank and becoming the new owners thanks to time travel shenanigans (think Fry becoming rich in Futurama) and buying the bank. Bug also lucked out and successfully obtained a universal translator microfish. And we successfully got 4 spell jamming thrones for the city (on a payment plan), plus recoverying and repairing a small helm from an ithilid ship for a shuttlecraft.

Luxheim (Luxheimez?) Is now a city flying through the asteal sea.

We were also told to keep our character sheets in case we ever return to this setting and play high level. The DM agreed that Bug would likely become the cityship's intelligence when he died, so here's hoping that doesn't happen in-session.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: de_la_Nae on 14 Oct 2020, 17:33
okay, i didn't read this whole thread but just looking at the poll i see someone has to come in here and help you dorks

ahem

*cracks knuckles*

4TH EDITION WAS PRETTY MUCH THE BEST BECAUSE FOR MOST PARTIES COMBAT IS THE MAIN MECHANICAL INTERACTION AND COMBAT IN PRIOR EDITIONS WAS MISERABLE AND THE SPELL SYSTEMS WERE A NIGHTMARE AND HONESTLY MAKING EVERYONE WIZARDS WAS THE RIGHT MOVE

3rd edition was my first, i've played 3, 3.5, 4, 5, and pathfinder 1, and it's not that you can't enjoy all of those, but 4 was the least miserable of the set in a lot of very important ways
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: de_la_Nae on 14 Oct 2020, 17:37
i will allow that if you had an unimaginative GM i can see how 4th might *maybe* make non-combat a little more irritating, but you're already screwed if you have an unimaginative GM anyway
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: oddtail on 15 Oct 2020, 01:56
i will allow that if you had an unimaginative GM i can see how 4th might *maybe* make non-combat a little more irritating, but you're already screwed if you have an unimaginative GM anyway

I strongly disagree with that logic. That's like saying absolute monarchy is good, because if you have a cruel king, you're screwed anyway.

Don't pick apart this analogy too hard. It's imperfect. The point is - RPG are a game. Games have rules, and certain rules incentivise a certain kind of play. Saying that an imaginative GM fixes that is admitting that the rules by themselves do not do the job.

Or to put it another way - why have any rules, including combat rules? An imaginative GM can run a combat scenario without a single rule, surely.

What's that? Players take enjoyment from combat encounters *because* they're a meaningful interaction with the game's rules that the players and their characters' statistics have a measurable impact on, not just a made-up scenario that's meant to be entertaining?

Yes, I agree. Some players look at every game interaction in this way. D&D may be extraordinarily focused on combat, but it's been a game about exploration and discovery literally since its inception. Why apply a different logic to combat rules and non-combat rules? Why not say "eh, if the combat rules are bad, you just have an unimaginative GM"?

I don't even think 4E is *that* bad. But the argument that it's only combat that matters in D&D mechanics is a fallacious one in my book.

I'll admit to being biased. When tabletop RPG became popular in Poland around mid-1980s, a trend slowly emerged over the years of taking GM's impact on the game as all-powerful. Younger generations of players (including myself) snarkily call this "the Polish school of playing RPG", which includes GMs throwing the intended play (as set by the rules, but also by how the game is written) out of the window in the name of their "vision" whenever they deem it better for the "story". This style of play gives players very little impact on anything that happens at the table. I consider rules to be a tool for a player, not the GM, and the approach "why have rules, when the GM is good" to ultimately lead to, at best, an illusion of agency for players. So I fundamentally disagree that saying "rules are poor, but who cares, the GM will patch things up" is *ever* a good defense.

I like 5E *much* better than, say, 3E in part because the game doesn't feel to me as if it was written to have excuse plots from one dungeon to another, or from one combat encounter to another. It's not just the rules, it's also how the game is written, how proposed adventures are structured, and so on. And I feel I'm plenty imaginative as a GM, and I've ran tabletop RPG for more than 20 years. Again - I don't think it's about GM skill whether a game incentivises a certain kind of play or not. If a certain interaction *is* part of the game and there *are* rules for that part, it should work well. The level of skill of a GM is irrelevant, especially since most new people getting into RPG *will* be starting with D&D, so the game should be ESPECIALLY well-equipped to handle novice GMs.

As to combat... as I said, I don't hate 4E, but the D&D players I've known who do not enjoy the edition are often of the opinion that the interaction with rules during combat in 4E is not as interesting as it might be, especially with regard to player character progression. One person put it this way:

Quote
In D&D 4E, every roll in the game, no matter where you are in the campaign, the level of your character and what is happening, is a "you have 55% chance to succeed" roll. It doesn't matter what you do, because the progression of player characters and opposition is linked so tightly together, levelling up your characters becomes meaningless

I think the person was exaggerating for effect, but I do think it's what criticism of 4E often boils down to. I haven't ran any games in this edition, so I don't know how accurate it is. But it seems to be a common complaint. Whether it's accurate I don't know, but saying the game is just about combat anyway is not a convincing defense of the rules anyway, in my opinion.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: de_la_Nae on 15 Oct 2020, 03:06
that is maybe the first time i've ever heard that criticism of 4e in your quote, so that's cool

i'm not very smart, and it's been a while since i've actually toyed with 4e so i probably shouldn't have started talking shit anyway (but where's the fun in that?), so i don't remember how the rules truly handle non-combat. what i *do* remember is a truly unfortunate stream of GMs who should have been flying on their own wings by that point and using their heads but instead slavishly holding to what seemed like the most banal interpretation of explicit rules as possible, not only sabotaging 4e games with their lack of gumption but also cutting the legs out of their non-combat encounters in 3.5e/pathfinder1, on top of using clunky and irritating-to-track systems that seemed designed as much to encourage aforementioned banality as much as anything.

i might have had a bad stretch of luck that soured me on them.

but when 4e sang, it sang clear and lovely. you knew more or less what you could do at a glance, more or less what was in front of you, and sometimes, *sometimes* it even if everything still tended to boil down to "attack the thing", at least it was quick and interesting since most of the attacks had easy-to-implement frills, like teleports and marks and all that jazz. and the simple joy of the minion system / templating, stepping up the game from 3e to something much cleaner and smoother. combat wasn't taking an hour+ anymore, while also not taking 15 minutes but only one person's turn cuz they had a bunch of weird bullshit in their build that had to be endlessly divined from a chicken's entrails while the rest of the party tunes out on their phones or tv or something.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: oddtail on 15 Oct 2020, 03:10
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind 4E. It's not for me, but its reputation is *much* worse than it deserves.

I was specifically addressing the "argument from GM", which I think is fallacious.

I personally think 4E is a good enough game, it's just a poor D&D game. If it was published under a different name, people would not mind it as much. I think the backlash to it was a case of the game being too different and not meeting pre-existing expectations.

And I mean, 5E steered HARD back into the franchise's tropes, for good and for ill.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Torlek on 15 Oct 2020, 09:38
I've never played it, but everything I saw about 4e made it seem like a game sequel that took a deep, turn based, isometric CRPG with all kinds of mechanics that could be leveraged in different ways (so Baldur's Gate and its ilk) and turned it into a much more streamlined, real time, third-person action RPG. There's nothing wrong with that and it can be an amazing game, it's just not what the fans playing the previous game were there for.

It sounds like your problems all stem from the eternal question of RPG players, "what do you do with a shitty GM?" I've had some that slavishly adhered to the rules, demanded that every interaction be tied to a skill roll and never had enough story out of combat to make the trips from dungeon to dungeon interesting (though they did still have some extremely interesting combat scenarios, so it wasn't all bad). Thankfully, my current ones have enough backstory going on that there's always something interesting to do out of combat and (most of) the skill rolls feel natural. We've even had a couple of sessions that wouldn't have had any combat if the GM hadn't sprang their surprise encounter (and said encounter actually felt like an imposition). I very much like finding the weird little intricacies in a deep system with complex rules for almost everything, but I can totally see where a bad GM would completely sour you on the labyrinthine mechanics in 3.5/Pathfinder.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 15 Oct 2020, 23:15
Hmm.  Given that I don't feel comfortable running in person sessions for, probably a year if we're lucky, and I hate shit like Zoom for something like gaming, I think that instead of sulking, it's time for me to start fleshing out the lore more completely.  When I started, I had rough outlines of various groups in power in various areas, as well as roles in larger plotlines.  While most of the PCs were from fairly close to the city they landed in, or, in case of the Nazi elf,[1] had a professional reason to be in the area.  There's also enough that I can steal from pre-existing fantasy settings to make that job easier.

The harder two areas to work people in from, that have at least some present representation in the current, and likely future parties if I have to do any sort of plot reset with a new group, are the "barbarians" from the known West,[2] and their rather symbiotic relationship with the well, very theocratic human empire that is their only real outside contact aside from what are basically Reavers to their north, and the western desert which is one of those places on a map marked "here be things that eat dragons".

Edit:
Really, I had written about 50 pages of actual lore for the "starting zone", and maybe a few pages each for other regions, and only filling them in more if a PC came from there.  The (obvious) setup is that there are two theocratic empires, one "good", the other "evil" who are both on a serious inquisition of anything diabolic/demonic, and even warned players that if they rolled a summoner or tiefling, at least in the beginning, they'd probably have a short and shitty life.

The barbarians got more interesting when one of the players rolled basically a zen archer from that region, and had to figure out the relationships between orcs and humans, as well as the empire on the other side of the wall.

[1] Okay, maybe that's a little unfair.  The Shadow Elves *are* at least strongly fascistic theocrats, though.

[2] Human, orc, and intermixed.  For basic survival, intermarriage to seal personal and family alliances is common enough, even if not the norm
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 08 Nov 2020, 04:32
i will allow that if you had an unimaginative GM i can see how 4th might *maybe* make non-combat a little more irritating, but you're already screwed if you have an unimaginative GM anyway
I'm watching High Rollers: Aerois and the DM brought back the skill challenges from 4E into his 5E game. Very interesting to see and something I might do.
Like I said in the 1st post (I think), I've never played 4 ed. One of my former coworkerw is a 3.5 snob pretty much made thecWoW comparison and tutted 'When everyone's special no one is.'

Hmm.  Given that I don't feel comfortable running in person sessions for, probably a year if we're lucky, and I hate shit like Zoom for something like gaming, I think that instead of sulking, it's time for me to start fleshing out the lore more completely.  When I started, I had rough outlines of various groups in power in various areas, as well as roles in larger plotlines.  While most of the PCs were from fairly close to the city they landed in, or, in case of the Nazi elf,[1] had a professional reason to be in the area.  There's also enough that I can steal from pre-existing fantasy settings to make that job easier.
[Snip]

Roll20 with Discord hasn't been too bad. Occasionally there's crap reception/connectivity, but that's standard with online play from the streams I watch (vodsquad for life it seems).

This is actually the second time I've encountered the phrase 'Nazi elf' in less than 24 hours. Is that just a thing? My Saturday group  is possibly going to have to do the alternating DMs thing, so we were setting up characters and some world lore for his homebrew dungeon crawl last night, and that's pretty much what he said the elves were like because one of the players picked a half-elf PC. "Dirty elves get kicked out  along with any fullbloods who don't agree with doing so." It's also his reasoning for making the standard elvenkind gear rarer and more expensive.

It was suggested that that could be his world's origin for dark elves. They're less evil and more "evil" from the viewpoint of other elves for not being xenophobic racist dickheads. Knocker said he'd think about it.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gnabberwocky on 08 Nov 2020, 14:30
In our 5E game, our DM made the mistake of having us encounter a horde of sea hags trying to summon a flesh golem. He was expecting a huge, difficult boss fight, or for us to back off and leave them in peace. Instead, our wizard stepped into the room and immediately cast thunder wave. Only two made their save; he killed the other fifteen. Our rogue picked off the stragglers with throwing knives. The whole fight lasted only a couple seconds.

A few moments later, our chaotic evil gnome paladin (long story) smashed their source of power with a battle axe, got trapped in the shadow realm, and was possessed by a demon before I rescued him. If you're keeping track, that's a chaotic evil Oni gnome paladin with CON 19. Who wouldn't flee?
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 14 Nov 2020, 09:43
In our 5E game, our DM made the mistake of having us encounter a horde of sea hags trying to summon a flesh golem. He was expecting a huge, difficult boss fight, or for us to back off and leave them in peace. Instead, our wizard stepped into the room and immediately cast thunder wave. Only two made their save; he killed the other fifteen. Our rogue picked off the stragglers with throwing knives. The whole fight lasted only a couple seconds.

A few moments later, our chaotic evil gnome paladin (long story) smashed their source of power with a battle axe, got trapped in the shadow realm, and was possessed by a demon before I rescued him. If you're keeping track, that's a chaotic evil Oni gnome paladin with CON 19. Who wouldn't flee?

Criminy!
One piece of GMing advice I picked up is set boss encounters a level or three higher than the group is rated for. A 'deadly encounter' at minimum. Granted, that also depends on the group and their class composition.

EDIT: derp double posted that backstory. I'll leave the expanded version in the post below.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 14 Nov 2020, 10:25

This is actually the second time I've encountered the phrase 'Nazi elf' in less than 24 hours. Is that just a thing?

They're a rigidly militaristic society, routinely occupy other countries that they think are influenced by certain sorts of extra-planar beings, and have an inquisition that is committing genocide against groups that they consider "tainted" by the Shadow Rift (where they got their nickname).  I never liked the drow in D&D, since they're basically just a bunch of dark-skinned sadistic murder-hobos.[1]  The Shadow Elves are more dangerous because they actually have their shit together and a common purpose.  Of course, there are as yet unrevealed lore reasons why their society became that way, and there actually is a method to their madness.

[1]The main distinction between their appearance and that of other elves, is that *their* connection to the Rift is that they are just somewhat desaturated.  Powerful members of their society, especially magic-using classes are flat-out monochromatic
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 14 Nov 2020, 12:37

This is actually the second time I've encountered the phrase 'Nazi elf' in less than 24 hours. Is that just a thing?

They're a rigidly militaristic society, routinely occupy other countries that they think are influenced by certain sorts of extra-planar beings, and have an inquisition that is committing genocide against groups that they consider "tainted" by the Shadow Rift (where they got their nickname).  I never liked the drow in D&D, since they're basically just a bunch of dark-skinned sadistic murder-hobos.[1]  The Shadow Elves are more dangerous because they actually have their shit together and a common purpose.  Of course, there are as yet unrevealed lore reasons why their society became that way, and there actually is a method to their madness.

[1]The main distinction between their appearance and that of other elves, is that *their* connection to the Rift is that they are just somewhat desaturated.  Powerful members of their society, especially magic-using classes are flat-out monochromatic

*stares blankly and blinks once*

I think the ones in this upcoming campaign are just strictly isolationist, xenophobic, and racist. The Elvenkind gear got bumped up a level in rarity and is thusly more costly.

At a guess, these might be more akin to Sword aworld elves (Record of the Lodoss War, Rune Soldier, etc).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 14 Nov 2020, 14:10
The short version: a couple of thousands of years ago, they were a rather remote and mostly alpine group of regular elves.  Then the rift happened, and their leaders made a deal with an evil goddess for the power to resist (most) of the rift's corruption, so that they could draw on it and use it to destroy the *things* that came out due to it being a tear in reality.  Those in power at the time basically decided to have their people be living sacrifices to fight a great evil.  Now, they are still on the same mission, but the best amongst them are much like the Operative in Serenity.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 17 Nov 2020, 05:43
Ah. Ok.

Apparently the ones in this game world are like English nobility minus the megalomania. Which has bumped up the rarity and price of the Elvenkind gear. They also take issue with and banish Half-elves[1].

Here's my characters backstory [2]: The Blackbriar are a disgraced noble family that were exiled to the Green Gloam[3] for accusations by Lord Octivian Briarbrush and his sister Sexta Bushbramble that the Lord Septimus Blackbriar sacrificed and consumed Lady Bushbramble's late husband, Nonus Bushbramble.[4]

Lord Septimus and his family maintained his innocence in the death of Lord Bushbramble, and the only thing that kept him from being executed despite the damning evidence (most notably Sexta's shriek of terror and fainting when Septimus entered the courtroom) was the well known and long-standing feud  Blackbriars and the Briarbrushes. Hence his family's exile and tasking with keeping the 'demon beasts' of the Green Gloam within its boarders.

Lord and Lady Blackbriar were moved to the Green Gloam with their then 5 children, and despite the remoteness, had 5 more. I'll be playing the 7th child of the Blackbriars and the 2nd born in the Green Gloam; Cadimus Erick Blackbriar. The family's only means of incoming was selling the meats and pelts of the various beasts with the nearby town and villages. Many of whom believed the rumors about his family being cannibals, hence him presenting himself as one of the family's servants doomed to the forest with the rest of them on his few trips to town.[5]

Erick is super bitter about the whole being disgraced thing along with the grisly deaths of his two favorite siblings while the trio was hunting a giraffe-sized elk. His contract with the mysterious stranger states that his family will be reinstated to their land and title with his father's name cleared, along with his dead brother and sister being resurrected if he successfully completely clears the dungeon to the letter stipulated.

[1]Along with any elves that go against said banishment. May or may not be explaination for this world's origin of dark elves.
[2] Yes, this was built entirely around making that punny joke in an obfuscated manner. It took that game's DM a bit to clock. He sent me a pic of his middle finger along with 'lol'.
[3] A massive primeval forest with large and huge versions of beasts. 'Grand-dire' as it were, bigger than the regular dire versions but not necessarily the next size-class up. Think the really big versions of each of the animals from Princess Mononoke.
[4] The three families were minor nobles all living at different parts around a massive briar formed from briar beries, raspberries, stinging nettles, roses, and a few other thorny plants all growing together for some reason.
[5] While he loves his family dearly, he absolutely loathes his first name. So it suits him just fine to present himself as 'Erick Black', as he will be to the rest of the party.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Thrillho on 30 Nov 2020, 10:33
My D&D playing friends,

My household has recently got into D&D.

For Christmas, I would like to purchase each of us a number of customised dice (preferably a D6, D8 and D20). Ideally I would be able to choose the colour and material but the main thing is I would like to be able to put up to six letters onto the natural 20 side.

I've found with a brief Googling a surprisingly huge number of choices but am mostly coming up empty with anything that lets me have that many letters on the side.

Am I on the hunt for something that simply doesn't exist from any reputable retailers? If I need to just think smaller about how many letters I put on there that's a whole other thing which I am willing to settle with, but I am seeing a huge variation in price, quality of website, and location (I'd rather they be UK-based just for time and... Brexit). If I have to settle with no more than three letters, I'm pretty sure I can find someone just by sticking to Etsy.

Can anybody give me any recommendations?
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: TheEvilDog on 01 Dec 2020, 11:47
You might be able to find something on Etsy.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Torlek on 01 Dec 2020, 12:09
So six letters per face of a d20? Yeah, that's going to be a special order thing.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Thrillho on 01 Dec 2020, 14:34
Not six letters per side.

Six letters, only on the 20th side. The natural 20? Is my lingo wrong here? That's a natural 20?

And I have looked on Etsy and found up to three letters.

I shall ask elsewhere.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Pilchard123 on 02 Dec 2020, 02:45
Close enough that you'd be understood. It's not the natural 20 side (or at least I've not heard it called that), but if you roll and the side with 20 comes up then you've rolled a natural 20. I'd probably say "the 20 side" or "the side with 20 on it".

Generally, to say one has "rolled [a/an] X" means that you add the number on the die to any modifiers you have and the result is X. If you "roll 15", then you might have got a 10 on the die and have +5 from other sources (maybe your character or equipment stats, maybe assistance from other characters, or a useful environmental) or you might have rolled 17 and have to subtract 2 (again from character or equipment stats or hindrance from other characters to the environment). Your modified result might end up above or below 20, but that doesn't really matter. I've heard this called "modified X", but I don't think that's a common name.

To say you "rolled a natural X" or "nat-X" means that you rolled a die and X was the number that the die showed, ignoring any positive or negative modifiers.

Some games treat nat-1 or nat-20 different to any other rolls. For example, D&D 5e only bothers with natural 1 or 20 if you're attacking (where you always hit and double your damage on a natural 20 and always miss on a natural 1) or rolling to see if you die at 0HP (you have to roll above modified 10 in a best-of-five to survive; nat-20 gets you back on your feet straight away, but rolling nat-1 counts as two losses). If you're trying to do anything else - searching for the entrance to the dragon's cave, sneaking past the dragon, seducing the dragon - a natural 20 just means your modified result is one more than if you'd rolled a natural 19 and represents the best result you could achieve in that moment, even if you don't succeed.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 12 Dec 2020, 03:09
So......our PCs in the Saturday game just learned that the gods are actually A.I.s and that something's corrupting some of them.
[Also, apparently what's now known as Infernal was once a language called "English". :laugh:]
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gnabberwocky on 12 Dec 2020, 22:53
In our 5E game, our DM made the mistake of having us encounter a horde of sea hags trying to summon a flesh golem. He was expecting a huge, difficult boss fight, or for us to back off and leave them in peace. Instead, our wizard stepped into the room and immediately cast thunder wave. Only two made their save; he killed the other fifteen. Our rogue picked off the stragglers with throwing knives. The whole fight lasted only a couple seconds.

A few moments later, our chaotic evil gnome paladin (long story) smashed their source of power with a battle axe, got trapped in the shadow realm, and was possessed by a demon before I rescued him. If you're keeping track, that's a chaotic evil Oni gnome paladin with CON 19. Who wouldn't flee?

It happened again. We started a new campaign, and two sessions in, our druid killed nine grimlocks with one thunder wave (no chaotic evil Oni gnome paladin this time, unfortunately).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 13 Dec 2020, 22:44
In our 5E game, our DM made the mistake of having us encounter a horde of sea hags trying to summon a flesh golem. He was expecting a huge, difficult boss fight, or for us to back off and leave them in peace. Instead, our wizard stepped into the room and immediately cast thunder wave. Only two made their save; he killed the other fifteen. Our rogue picked off the stragglers with throwing knives. The whole fight lasted only a couple seconds.

A few moments later, our chaotic evil gnome paladin (long story) smashed their source of power with a battle axe, got trapped in the shadow realm, and was possessed by a demon before I rescued him. If you're keeping track, that's a chaotic evil Oni gnome paladin with CON 19. Who wouldn't flee?

It happened again. We started a new campaign, and two sessions in, our druid killed nine grimlocks with one thunder wave (no chaotic evil Oni gnome paladin this time, unfortunately).

Sounds like my Sunday Call of the Deep campaign.
Two party members: "We really need a ship. "
PM1: "Maybe we could take over this one?" (The one ehose crew has been helping us.)
PM2: "Mutiny could be fun, but we're outnumbered. We should buy one."
DM: "I gave you guys two opportunities to commandeer pirate ships and you sank BOTH of them!"
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Zebediah on 15 Dec 2020, 12:13
Don't you just hate it when they won't follow the script?  :-D Take the party in my current Pathfinder campaign. I was running them through a murder-mystery scenario, and they decided that rather waste time investigating the crime, they are simply going to break the falsely-accused NPC bard out of jail. Never mind that the bard may not really like the idea of spending her life on the run - she's going to be more interested in proving her innocence in court. Also this is a very lawful society they're in and this action will make them outlaws for the rest of their days, potentially derailing all my future plans for this campaign.

Hopefully I've figured out how to head this off at the pass - last session ended just before they were going to execute their jailbreak plan.

This is what happens when there's not a single lawful PC in the game - two NG, two CG, two CN.  :roll:
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 15 Dec 2020, 13:25
CN is usually just “chaotic stupid”. 

A short mystery that my players got involved in early on came to a quick end shortly after the Battle of the Feral Cat.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Thrillho on 15 Dec 2020, 13:40
We're playing our rookie campaign with a very patient DM, and he had created a scenario where we were meant to fight a giant crab, but two of our party are pacifists in reality and in the game, and could speak to sea creatures, so we just made friends with a crab. Then we were possibly meant to steal a ship, but I instead blew the first mate in exchange for... passage.

He eventually threw us a grumpy crab that wouldn't take no for an answer, and we rolled so badly that our crab friend had to come save us from it.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 15 Dec 2020, 14:45
My first session as GM (in a long time) had a lot of first-time players, like 5 out of 7, and one of the two with any experience had only been doing it for a few months, and was a ship thing as well.  Somehow, putting them on a boat with a limited number of people to talk to for several weeks (they were making coastal port stops) seemed less contrived than the whole “you all meet in a tavern” sort of start.  Of course, they get attacked by pirates, with some human overseers and goblins (who were enslaved themselves), basically forcing hobbits to do all the grunt work.  Obviously, the party wanted to rescue the halflings, but I was surprised that they decided to free the goblins as well, and only turn the humans in to the authorities.  The party even declined the goblins’ idea of taking the humans with them, so that they wouldn’t need any other provisions. 

The point of this exercise wasn’t really a “test” in terms of pass/fail, but rather, trying to figure out where the party would sit morally.  Their arguments (especially those of the hobbit PC) were pretty impressive.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Torlek on 15 Dec 2020, 21:28
CN is usually just “chaotic stupid”. 

Common mistake by players that think chaotic only means "compelled to do the exact opposite of the law". I tend to find that such players also think all chaotic good characters have to be the Punisher and all their chaotic evil characters become the Joker (which is a valid interpretation at least).
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 17 Dec 2020, 01:56
CN is usually just “chaotic stupid”. 

A short mystery that my players got involved in early on came to a quick end shortly after the Battle of the Feral Cat.
'Congratulations, you've pissed off the shopkeep. He's a level 20 abjuration wizard.'
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Pilchard123 on 17 Dec 2020, 10:27
(click to show/hide)

Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 17 Dec 2020, 13:47
'Congratulations, you've pissed off the shopkeep. He's a level 20 abjuration wizard.'

In this case, I rewarded them, even though they did solve the mystery by cutting the knot instead of untying it.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: oddtail on 18 Dec 2020, 08:10
A friend of mine wants to stretch his GM-ing muscles, so he's been running online one-shot adventures for LVL 5 characters.

I forgot how *fun* it is when your character dies, especially when what happened was just. Enough. To. Kill. Them.

I lost my Bard/Ranger multiclass due to carelessness, when one of the enemy scorpions burrowed into sand after we gave it a beating. Instead of, y'know, casting a Cure Wounds on my 7-HP character or something, I went to dig the beast up to finish it off.

One natural 1 on an Investigation roll later (which the GM ruled gave the scorpion a chance for a full round of attack, a ruling I was 100% fine with, especially since we were still technically in combat) and three-successful-attacks-and-poison-damage later, my character was instakilled.

Bit of a bummer, but also a bit funny, because the character had 7 HP and the first attack dealt exactly 7 damage. If one of the attacks missed, or if the first attack did just one point of damage less, my character would lay there dying, and there'd be enough time for him to be healed back to above 0 HP. But, no such luck.

I'm unironically enjoying how I lost my character. Flukes and weird series of rolls or very bad rolls are the kind of emergent mechanics-as-story that I play tabletop games for.

Sadly, my replacement character rolled like the worst attributes EVER and also terrible HP (19 HP for a 5-level Monk with unspectacular AC? Ouch). So there's a good chance I'll lose two characters in a row in two consecutive gaming sessions. I don't foresee such a weakling lasting very long. Plus, the only healing capability in the party is a Paladin with Lay on Hands, not exactly a medical powerhouse.

Granted, from the pure mechanics perspective I will *not* be missing the new character if they die. Other than DEX 20 and WIS 12 (and that's after bonuses from race and level), *all* the character's attributes are average or worse. It made building a competent character of ANY class basically impossible. And I didn't want to play a straight-up fighting type (plus, the two other characters in the party are already straightforwardly melee combat oriented), so I didn't go for a safe Barbarian with a large cushion of HP.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 19 Dec 2020, 05:49
You could go Divine Soul sorcerer or a warlock with a Celestial patron to get half a healer
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: oddtail on 19 Dec 2020, 06:21
You could go Divine Soul sorcerer or a warlock with a Celestial patron to get half a healer

There's already a Fighter/Warlock, and I don't want to steal his spotlight.

But there's a good chance my next character (if this one dies) will be a Sorcerer of some kind, and it's not impossible they'll be a Divine Soul.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Wombat on 19 Dec 2020, 10:08
I've only ever been in one campaign (well, and half a one-shot), which is the one I'm in currently, so I don't have a ton of experience with things like "strategy," but anyway, last night we were fighting enemies that seemed a lot tougher than any we had faced so far (I think the DM at one point started dialing it back a bit to avoid a TPK), and at one point I rolled two nat 20s in consecutive turns to take one of them out. Which was exciting and quite possibly is what kept my character in the battle.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 19 Dec 2020, 12:43
You could go Divine Soul sorcerer or a warlock with a Celestial patron to get half a healer

There's already a Fighter/Warlock, and I don't want to steal his spotlight.

But there's a good chance my next character (if this one dies) will be a Sorcerer of some kind, and it's not impossible they'll be a Divine Soul.
Apparently there's a variety of sorcerer 'builds' based around the metamagic options you take[1]. I've never really tried any of them on purpose[2], but the two I know the names of are 'sniper' and 'nuker'.  I'm just going to assume that one's called 'utility caster' since that's a term I've heard tossed around in discussions about well balanced big parties.

[1]I vaguely remember some requiring/suggesting feats]
[2] I've accidentally built the sniper before
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 19 Dec 2020, 13:20
Not sure how one changes their vote, but I actually selected the option to allow it for the new poll.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 19 Dec 2020, 21:24
Heh.  As the last game I was in as a player progressed, my witch went from being a fair all-around caster with a few off-heals and a bit of CC, to almost entirely CC/healing, with the occasional big nuke thrown in.  It happened soon enough (within the first 5 levels played at), that I was freely able to reroll some feats and spells known to accomodate that.  Sadly, it looks like that campaign is a covid casualty.  And of course, that’s right after hitting lvl 18 and getting my free combat-res.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 19 Dec 2020, 23:58
Heh.  As the last game I was in as a player progressed, my witch went from being a fair all-around caster with a few off-heals and a bit of CC, to almost entirely CC/healing, with the occasional big nuke thrown in.  It happened soon enough (within the first 5 levels played at), that I was freely able to reroll some feats and spells known to accomodate that.  Sadly, it looks like that campaign is a covid casualty.  And of course, that’s right after hitting lvl 18 and getting my free combat-res.
As long you had fun, right?

At least Roll20 and D&D Beyond are things and can be combined with Discord.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Zebediah on 21 Dec 2020, 13:44
Update on my earlier post: I was able to convince the players to avoid busting the bard out of jail, and with a bit more investigation they managed to stumble on to the right culprit, thus solving the crime and avoiding becoming outlaws themselves.

In fact, in the next town they went to they quickly became heroes by driving off the air elementals that had been attacking people at random. However, they have drawn the wrong conclusion about who was summoning the air elementals, so they are heading off to fight some evil dwarves, leaving the air cultists to continue to terrorize the town. Yeah, it’s messy. :D
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 24 Dec 2020, 01:11
.......Okay, so I've stumbled across some pretty amazing Minecraft remixes over the last couple of hours and soem of them are definitely going to be used for BGM for games I DM.

Might use this 'Shuniji' remix (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX2HhFpSiCA) for a character death or something.
(click to show/hide)

BTW, there's also some pretty dang good synthwave remixes of MineCraft music.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: oddtail on 22 May 2021, 12:34
This is embarrassing... but I've only NOW realised that flanking is an optional rule in 5E. There's nothing in base rules that grants automatic advantage of positioning.

Don't get me wrong, I always *ran* 5E like that, because automatic advantage is a bit much (and as I've seen pointed out when looking this up, in 5E moving around the zone an enemy threatens doesn't provoke AoO, so it's trivial compared to previous editions).

But I didn't know I was actually running RAW, not house ruling.

I think it's a combination of being used to previous editions and Pathfinder 1E, and conflating the two ALTERNATE requirements for Rogue's Sneak Attack in 5E (one being "a friend is also near your target" and the other being "you have Advantage").

But seriously, it's embarrassing that I never noticed something like this. I've been running various TTRPG for like two decades now, and I still apparently sometimes assume I know the rules without actually reading them to make sure?

I seriously was so surprised by this that I kept both looking it up and Googling it. The old way it used to work was so strongly embedded in my brain.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 27 Jun 2021, 19:49
Our current Saturday campaign DM only allows flanking for rogues and creatures with pack tactics.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: oddtail on 28 Jun 2021, 06:56
Our current Saturday campaign DM only allows flanking for rogues and creatures with pack tactics.

Technically, rogues don't need flanking for Sneak Attack (but the requirement is similar to flanking in 3E), and pack tactics is not technically flanking. So I'm assuming y'all are playing RAW?
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Pilchard123 on 30 Jun 2021, 11:56
At a guess, rogues get their usual bag of tricks, but they - and only they - also get advantage for flanking. Fighters, druids, wizards, the rest, they can't get advantage for flanking.

That said, I have heard of far to many DMs who say "look, it's called Sneak Attack! Ya gotta be sneaky!" when really it should be called something like Cheap Shot or Stick-em-where-it-hurts or something. It would stop a lot of so-called balance arguments.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: oddtail on 02 Jul 2021, 07:20
Yeah, by now it's pretty much a legacy name. It's a "kick'em in the nuts" or "stab'em in the pancreas" kind of attack, it's not explicitly about attacking from the dark like in 1E or AD&D.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 08 Jul 2021, 20:46
Our current Saturday campaign DM only allows flanking for rogues and creatures with pack tactics.

Technically, rogues don't need flanking for Sneak Attack (but the requirement is similar to flanking in 3E), and pack tactics is not technically flanking. So I'm assuming y'all are playing RAW?

I honestly don't know.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 01 Aug 2021, 17:11
I'm fuckin' cackling!

Our Sunday DM found a way to royally fuck with the two power gamers who are trying to get OP AC (+23). The Night Market in the Call of the Deep module trades in emotions, memories, feelings, and years (past or present). Both of them sold their feeling of family, so now neither of them remember they left their adopted kids in their hotel rooms. One of them sold their altruism. One of them almost ended up having to change classes (would have sold his sense of acceptance by a deity). The first almost became an unplayable character. He had an alignment change to true neutral.

It would have been hilarious if both of them had fallen for the whole trap and had to roll up new characters.

EDIT: Had a correction on where the kids were.

EDIT 2: Dammit! Both of them just figured out that the guy in the alleyway was a vampire and that he wasn't in the selling area!
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 01 Jan 2022, 21:38
I'm DMing my first game and just wrapped up my second session of Curse of Strahd the players managed to kill the vampire spawn Doru with only one PC getting permakilled!

Ismark would have helped if a certain druid in the party hadn't KO'd Father Donavich.

What's sad, we kicked off the session with a flashback fight to the second night Strahd bit Ireena so the PC who died could be introduced. There were supposed to be two more players joining and introduced with said fight, with the three PCs who made it the first session controlling Kolyan, Ismark, and Ireena (one of whom also didn't make it).

But hey, the party leveled and player whose character died rolled some stellar stats for their new PC; 17, 18, 17, 16, 13, 11!
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: hedgie on 02 Jan 2022, 03:54
Nice when your dump stat doesn’t come with penalties.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 03 Jan 2022, 03:23
Nice when your dump stat doesn’t come with penalties.

Very true.

I'll have either Father Donavich or Strahd himself request they go clear out Dead house after the Burgomaster's funeral this Saturday. Hopefully we can get more than 4 players for over half the session. BTW, I can't take credit for the idea of having the party meet Strahd at the funeral. Once I learned just how janky the order of the CoS book was[1], I looked up some milestone suggestions and ideas on how often and ehere they should meet Strahd.

I'm going to have him merely tell them that he is the lord of the village and that the Burgomaster ran things on his behalf. Hopefully Donavich can pass his Wis and Con saves to not soil himself.


[1]It's the last location listed in the village of Barovia with a single sentence telling you where to look in appendix B for the location details. Zeto mention of anything like 'start your level 1 players here' in the chapter itself. And I ended up overlooking it for the much more enticing section header of "Special Events" right below it.

EDIT: Though, I am tempted to say 'screw it' and throw in a bonus level as both reward and apology, and send them on their way to Madam Eva.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 19 Feb 2022, 22:53
......... The druid-cleric bumped into Izek Strazni while wandering Vallaki by himself, and had an impromptu therapy session with him. Izek started crying and the dice decided he was going to help the party overthrow Baron Vargas and become a party member. Which will get really awkward once he finally meets Ireena.
Title: Re: D&D Pathfinder
Post by: Gyrre on 01 May 2022, 05:43
My players beat Strahd!

I got to finally reveal that the party's half-elf bard was of distant relation to Strahd being the descendant of one of Strahd and Sergei's cousins. Got the druid-cleric to agree to come to the dinner by appealing to his putupon desire to fix everything in the broken land. The oath of the eternal flame paladin got lured in with the temptation to perfect the 'imbalanced fire cycle' Barovia had by making it a 'closed system of recycled souls' if he could take over. The fighter just wanted to beat the smug off of Strahd's face. And the barblock wanted Castle Ravenloft to be his new home.

Anyways, since the bard and Ireena had gotten together, I got to play MAT's A Blues for Mergo (https://soundcloud.com/user-317444130/a-blues-for-mergo-lullaby-for-mergo-bluesy-remix-by-mat) as the part of the epilogue where Ireen/Tatyana and Sergei are reunited and walk off to the afterlife happened.

We might do an rpilogue session proper this weekend where the party goes and clears out the rest of the castle and has to deal with the monsters that remain (the cluid will probably try to cure all of the werewolves and Mongrelfolk). I've also got one last boss to throw at the party; Baba Prizraka, Baba Lysaga's sister. Basically an excuse for a do-over of that fight with an amped up baddy they can't just brute force.

EDIT: Oh yeah, Izek actually survived as a party member to the Strahd fight and managed to survive dedpite becoming Strahd's personal juice box and puppet with the barblock for a few rounds. Izek and Vasilka (the abbot's lady fleshgolem) ended up together too.

EDIT 2: forgot to include a link for the song. BTW, as Ireena left, the baby she was pregnant with from the bard was left behind fully formed. Just for funsies, I told the bard's player that the baby's name was Mergo. The paladin's immediate response was "KILL IT! KILL IT RIGHT NOW!!!" I guess he played Bloodborne.