OOC: The Quest of the Missing Quill

[Just_Ice]

Oh, that's neat. Of course there is NO WAY we would ever run into a manticore that would just be silly.

My last two posts have been from my phone, so I might have made some glaring typos or missed some things. Benjamin, I think, will prove to be quite different from the rest of the party without being too much of a pain to deal with.

[Haahque]

I'll have trouble posting a long post until I get my computer back (probably monday), so I'll hold off on posting the next post until then. Thanks everyone for posting so quickly so far. (1/day is great!)

[Haahque]

So at this point it appears that people are planning on grouping up as one big happy party and setting out on their adventure. For the sake of expediance, so we don't have to have everyone go talk to everyone and decide that they indeed do want to leave, except for Steve, who needs to go the the bathroom first, and when he's back Steve2 has got bored and struck up a conversation with the inkeeper, who sent him to the cellar to kill some rats, etc etc and no one actually manages to get anywhere. Oh right, red herring.

For the sake of expedience I'm hoping that people can write here (or PM me) the following:

• If they plan on traveling forth with the party.
• Anything they wish to do before leaving.
• Where they want to go (a direction or a location is acceptable).

[JadedDM]

If they plan on traveling forth with the party.

Sure. I mean, I'm not opposed to it, but aside from Jasmine, my character doesn't know any of the party.

Anything they wish to do before leaving.

Not sure if there is anything to do, but a chance to get to know his new teammates would likely be beneficial.

Where they want to go (a direction or a location is acceptable).

No idea, really. Although I was only paying attention to scenes my character was in, so I'm probably missing a few important details at this point.

[HorizonsDream]

Jasmine is all for traveling in a group. Aside from, perhaps eating breakfast, I don't think there is anything else she wants to do.

[Just_Ice]

My vote is for skeleton murder, and undoubtedly chord of shards would be a good opener.

[JadedDM]

How difficult would it be for Gaheris to scale the barn and get up on the roof? Also, does he get any kind of attack bonus if he attacks from higher ground like that?

[Haahque]

I'd say climbing the barn would be a DC 15 athletics check. Unfortunately there is no written advantage for ranged attacks from higher ground (for melee there's a flat +1 bonus), but it could invalidate or reduce the effects of most forms of enemy cover, for example if they were hiding in the wheat field they would have light cover instead of medium from you, and I have a rule for most systems in that ranged attacks from higher ground having an effective range advantage.

That goes like this:
If someone on the ground is shooting someone 20 feet up and 40 feet away, they attack them as if they are 60 feet away.
If someone on a building is shooting someone 20 feet down and 40 feet away, they attack them as if they are 40 feet away.

[keymeister16]

sorry rob meant to say im using arcane pool, that gives me +1/+1, arcane strike just gives +1 dmg and DR bypass

link for pool

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-cl ... e-Pool-Su-

[Haahque]

Oh sorry, I misinterpreted that. Wouldn't have made much of a difference though, you still hit (and destroyed).

It does make things easier for me if people list their actions at the bottom of their post in no unclear format such as:

Swift: Arcane pool power, grant weapon +1.
Standard: Attack s1.
Move: 5 foot step to X12.

[Haahque]

So the first combat is wrapping up pretty quickly, from the 8 enemies that started the combat, not including possible rezes as skeletons/zombies, we’re down to 3 enemies and it’s unlikely that any other rez is possible. Here’s some of my thoughts on it:

Starting the characters 500 ft away from the enemy leads to a lot of turns doing effectively nothing, hopefully this won’t happen again, but if it does I’ll look into getting both parties close enough to have actual combat a lot faster than this time.

This was the first combat of the campaign, which means it was designed to be rather easy. This doesn’t mean I didn’t give the enemies some nasty tricks, some enemies (read necromancers) have some pretty nasty tricks up their sleeves which are fairly hard to stop, but in general there weren’t enough enemies, with high enough stats and nasty enough tricks to pose a serious threat to the party.

While I didn’t really have any preplanned terrain for this combat, I think I included just enough for the players to make one or two decisions with terrain in mind, and it allowed Zurgo to jump over the fence in an awesome manor.

I don’t know what it is about Zurgo’s player, but he seems to roll ridiculously well in every campaign, even this one where I’m rolling for him. His damage rolls on a d12 were on average 10, and he rolled quite a few 17s on skill checks or attack rolls. Maybe his luck will turn someday.

I noted that every character directly or indirectly killed at least one enemy so far in this combat. I thought this was pretty cool. (The last two finished their kills this turn, Benjamin’s song giving Jasmine barely enough damage to kill the skeleton and giving Zurgo barely enough damage to kill the zombie. Kannock also managed to catch up the combat and get his first attack off this turn, which overkilled the second necromancer by a fair margin.)

As a side note: you might have noticed by now that I usually do initiative by order of people posting, however this time I decided to move Benjamin to first since that way everyone could benefit from his song of +1 to hit/damage. Players can announce that they'd rather do something before/after someone else acts and I'll resolve it as such. They can also message me and ask how the battlefield looks after the people before them have acted, I'll usually have the previous player's turns played out.

I'd like to hear your feedback on it!

[keymeister16]

bashed heads, it was satisfying enough, only thing is you seemed a bit confused on what swift actions i was taking, sorry for making another confusing character!

my main two swifts (rage is free don't forget >:)

-arcane strike (next attack is +1 dmg and gains DR/magic)
-arcane pool (for 1m +1/+1, more as i level)

[JadedDM]

Mostly I'm just struggling to get used to the rules differences from 2E to Pathfinder, like zombies being resistant to pierce damage (I actually knew that one, but I forgot), magical darkness not being all that dark, archers only being able to shoot once per round but necromancers can apparently cast two spells per round (darkness and animated dead), etc.

As a side note: you might have noticed by now that I usually do initiative by order of people posting...

Does that mean enemies and NPC allies always go last then?

[Haahque]

Well part of that is rules difference, part of that is me creating custom monsters. I have a lot of custom monsters, including every single monster in this fight. Zombies and skeletons are based off of skeletons and zombies in the monster manual, but there are differences. Zombies in the monster manual are resistant to piercing and bludgeoning, that hasn't changed, but I have adjusted a lot of their numbers, including the resistance numbers. I also gave them one or two extra resistance types. Similarly skeletons resist piercing and slashing in the monster manual, but I've changed the numbers and may have added a couple extra.

As for necromancers, basically there are 2 types of turns you can take in pathfinder. You can take 3 different types of actions (one Standard, one move, one swift) or you can take a full action, a swift action and a 5ft step*. Necromancers, as a custom monster, have a few spells which utilize their move or swift action, allowing them to cast multiple spells a turn with different actions.

*but you can only take a 5ft step if your full action doesn't involve movement

Firing one arrow is all that's allowed in a "Standard action", however with a full action at higher levels you can fire multiple arrows per turn, based off of your Base Attack Bonus. Furthermore, if you have the "Rapid Shot" feat (which Ishan has), then you can fire one additional arrow with a full attack, at a to-hit penalty. This is how Ishan was able to fire 2 arrows on some rounds. Generally this is the same for melee combat, with dual wielding granting additional attacks during full actions instead of the rapid shot feat.

Yes, I've been doing NPC allies as always going last (before the enemies) unless players specifically request that they do something before last. Enemies go after all allies due to how I'm doing initiative, basically I organize the round so that players go, then enemies go, but only some of the players get to act on the first turn. For example, in the combat we're doing right now, init was as follows:

Initiative: Jasmine 23, Benjamin 19, Gaheris 16, Undead 15, Kanock 14, Ishan 9, Zurgo 2

So I had Jasmine, Benjamin and Gaheris act, followed by the undead in the first round of posts.
After this happens, all the players get to act before the undead get their second turn, so therefore it's as if the enemies act last in every turn after this one.
Initiative is not re-rolled every round in pathfinder as it is in 2e, and there are very few (if any) effects that change a player/monster's initiative.

[JadedDM]

Gaheris figures that his bow and his club aren't very effective against the zombie, while other people are doing well with axes against them, so he switches over to his short sword and gets some more satisfying results in cutting it down.

So...short swords are slashing weapons in this game? Or are they piercing weapons?