O. M. G.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...ture=player_embedded

Here's my Hello World:
https://app.roll20.net/join/45970/fFyOsA

consider my mind blown

Same here!  Just figured out how to promote y'all to GM.  Have fun playing around!  :)

Bed time.  z.z

Callie, Dido, and Rolen are up and can act in any order relative each other.  Please remember to use the roll20 board from now on.  Everyone should have GM access and be able to edit HP etc.  For now let's keep track of HP on RPOL like we've been doing, but here is also an HP tracker in the journal tab if you want to use it.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:05, Tue 16 Oct 2012.

Roll20 now has token name plates!
http://community.roll20.net/di...2862/new-update-1017

After asking about gear last night I got home and immediately looked up what gear I had, and how much it was worth. And I did the most fantastic thing: I spent it all on ONE ITEM. The boots. Boots of Striding (+1 speed when wearing light or no armor). They cost me 4200 gp, which left me with only 200 gp to put towards other gear. And I figure he wouldn't have been carrying anything on him when he got captured by the slavers. So Rolen's only valuable item is on his feet. Otherwise he is dirt poor at this juncture.
So if there is additional gear that the group has acquired thus far, would anyone mind if I browsed through them to see if there is anything I need? Or is all gear considered liquidated upon acquisition unless otherwise claimed by a player? Since only my feet slot has been used, I can pretty much use whatever.

One of the snags of our method of "X level gets Y amount of loot", is that, well... From a mechanical standpoint we never get paid or find any gear.  Though for characters higher than level 1, mundane items (within reason, there are rules to allow free mundane items from the Adventurer Gear table for characters created past level 1.) are free.  Not like "Hey give that 1,000 gold boat, that 200 gold supplement item is in a gear table give me that, I want 19 trillion ritual components to sell", but things in the literally named "Adventurers Gear" table you picked out your rations and sunrods from.  Or reasonably priced supplement gear.  Also, we kind of just assume ritual components are had past level 1 (aside from the Gold cost and certain ones with special needs).

We do however, allow complete sheet overhauls so long as it's not in the middle of combat.  So while nobody really has any spare gear to loan you, (I'm keeping my only staff, thank you very much.), you can adjust to something more balanced than "I spent all my money on a pair of boots that are over twice my level".

Of course, with our tweaked Inherent Bonus rules you could still probably get by.


Gear wise, bonuses get higher at level 5, level 10, level "one level below when Inherent gives it for free".  Our tweak, is that by default the rules don't give you the Armor and Neck item (which give the non AC defenses) defense bonuses... Until one level before the NEXT plus.  For example, with the default rules, inherent bonus wouldn't raise your defense to +6, until level 29 out of a max of 30.

So, if you REALLY want to keep your Level 9 On a level 4 character shoes, you can while still getting the +'s required for competent adventuring.  You just won't have as many extras as other people.  Plus you don't get Critical damage bonus for just inherent weapons/focus.

IC wise, while Terdisas did mention everyone chipping in to help you out, that would be IC wise while in the OOC background you just overhauled your sheer.  Or if you stay as is, just us getting you something better to wear than the rags we found you in and Stock non enchanted weapons/focus and armor.

EDIT: Rituals and consumables have always been a snag.  You have the budget to buy rituals, specialty gear, and trick yourself out much better than the average GM/straight creation at that level would grant (as in, more than barely being able to afford one weapon, armor, and neck item of your level so you have the required + bonus to not suck... Unless you are a two offense item class like a Cleric).  But it leaves no budget for consumables/casting rituals because those can get EXPENSIVE, and when our payday is on level up... That's bad, when on average we're at level four for... oh, four years or so.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:17, Tue 23 Oct 2012.

Okay, so Rolen has some new duds, neat.

I'm gonna stick with the boots, because that's what I'm going for: a speedy melee controller. Get into combat quickly, or to flank, and then do some crowd control.

So after shopping at Montgomery Wards, Rolen is stylin' and profilin'!

Heads-up: Tim invited John to the Thunderspire roll20.  He's an old buddy from tim's MUCK RP days and a fellow artist as you may notice from the chat log.  Unlikely he'll be joining in any RP, though.  Seems to have lost interest.  Likely will only log on from time to time for chatting.

And a look at Mit's journal:
link to a message in another game
link to a message in another game

Never mind the warforged that shows up near the end of the Thunderspire thread.  That never happened in this continuity.

A link to a suggestion I made for Roll20

http://community.roll20.net/di.../2-5d-3d-view-of-map

Been considering switching the Thunderspire group back to tracked XP because I've lost track of how long it's been IC that the group leveled up.  Also Tim mentioned it might be more fun and rewards for completing certain tasks would feel more... rewarding.  Only thing is finding time to actually make up a chart of the XP earned in the first module and a half.  So typing this up to make sure there isn't strong objection so I'm not wasting my time on a project that would... waste my time.

I'm down with that -- as you know in Kingmaker is helped tracking XP

Well, while normally I'd be willing to give standard loot and experience a try...  "Scales Of War".

Not even counting that with the levels handed out whenever method, we're always leaving Level X-Y sections below the curve.  But our inflated gear and slightly bigger than usual parties (6 instead of 5 at times, though Shadowfell was 5) have have balanced that out some in end results... Well, aside from Kalarel.  But even if we were level 3 he'd be ridiculous and that's pure module responsible there.

I keep hearing good things about your prep work outside of here at least, so I dunno maybe it could work out this time?
This message was last edited by the player at 05:56, Sat 27 Oct 2012.

https://docs.google.com/spread...QeEpUNmNNaWdBYmFXckE

So according to what I can figure, including the optional Kobold Hall adventure included in the DMG wasn't quite enough to make up for all the encounters we skipped in Shadowfell keep in order to ding lvl 4 before boss fight.  However, the module allows for making it to lvl 4 before boss fight if you're group manages to find and fight absolutely everything in the dungeon up to that point even if you didn't do the Kobold Hall bit.  Part of the reason for wanting to add up the xp to our current point is the question: "just how close are we to lvl 5 are we anyway?"  There was one point in Shadowfell that says, "by now the group should have earned enough xp to reach level 2.  It's up to you whether you'll require an extended rest or a montage or whatever before you allow them to update their charsheets, but we recommend that you at least have them do so after the end of the game session so it doesn't interrupt the action."  or words to that effect.  didn't look up the actual quote.

Thunderspire group is coming up on an extended rest, so maybe now might be a good time to find out just how far away lvl 5 is....  *gets back to work*
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:41, Sat 27 Oct 2012.

OK so according to the spreadsheet, we're each about 700 xp away from lvl 5 if you don't take into account 6 party members for 1 fight... not that that would make a big difference.  But!  If we had skipped Kobold Hall and had been completionists in Thunderspire and killed absolutely everything, we would have hit lvl 5 just before meeting Rolen.  If we hadn't skipped anything at all, we'd have been lvl 5 just before entering Thunderspire.

One of the things about Mass Effect I found interesting was that there was no monster xp.  Quest XP only.  Of course, you still wind up missing out on XP if you fail to pick up all the quests, but at least it makes sure the game doesn't end up a monster kill grind.  What I like about the concept is the idea of rewarding smart play.  Avoiding that huge dungeon full of monsters and rescuing the princess by a clever use of a back door or diplomacy or bluff or whatever.  On the other hand, being a battle hardened veteran of a zillion fights would make you tough as well.

I guess 4e has a happy medium where completing a quest grants a big chunk of xp, and so does fighting piles of monsters.  Doing both means being as uber as you can be.  So thoroughness is rewarded.  So I'm not sure what to do with these numbers now.  Thoughts?

I believe a question must be answered first:
"Do we need to be lvl 5 before moving forward onto the next quest?"
If the answer is YES, then grant us the XP bonus for completing the Thunderspire quest. As now would be a great time to "level up" since we are in a period of "down time".
If the answer is NO, then we just move forward with the game. And since there are now 6 team members, the lack of level should not hurt us as we continue on. BUT, if we should tragically meet our doom in the next "dungeon", then obviously we should have gone to 5th level.
Which can be easily be ret-conned by saying something like: "You crawl your way out of the dark tunnel. Your prides are hurt, but not broken. You know what must be done, and that invigorates you to press forward. (i.e. you achieve level 5) A few days pass and you return to the dark tunnel, self assured that nothing will stand in your way to avenge those who came before you and save the town."

To answer your question though:
"Is tracking XP important?"
Only if we're completionists. If we want to do dungeon crawls, then by all means we should track the XP we earn. We're fighting for every point, we should know what we earned. And see our progress. Nothing is more exciting then knowing you're 100 pts away from 5th, 6th, etc. level. It's like, "Hey! One more encounter and we'll hit the next level!" To me that's exciting. It gives us something to strive for each game.
But if we're only looking to complete the quest (i.e. we'll assume bad guys surrender or flee unpon beating the main boss) then we should still gain their XP superficially. Though not tracked, if the book says "the heroes should be level 10 by this point" then there's your cue as the DM to let us know. This method doesn't bog us down with numbers, and we just keep moving along. It's also more RP friendly, as we can move about more freely and not unknowingly trip a combat encounter.

I'll except either solution. But it seems to me, in a PbP setting, unless we can do each fight in Roll20, then skipping fights is better. We can RP more, and get to the goals quicker. But this also means that you'll need to look ahead and see if there are notable "level-up" blurbs.

My thought on the topic is to assume we get full XP as though we did all the fights. Track XP by progress. So Chris notices "Hmm... all the fights here equal this much XP. So when you're done here, you will get the XP for all of them, even if you skipped a fight" with the only exception being if we would have leveled before a boss fight, we check for that, since boss fights can be either easy or deadly, depending.

On one hand, we've been doing fine / having fun with the way we've been doing it AND it's easier for the GM. On the other hand, I'm worried it'll take us 26 more years to hit level 30. Which, to be honest, I'm unsure if XP would make a difference there.

Roll20 is what will make the difference in how fast we go on this board. Rollen will make our party more powerful in general (a point Rolen made in his OOC post).

So my thought? Let's track XP for now, see how that goes, ESPECIALLY given the roll20 encounters we've been doing where an encounter takes 1-2 days instead of 1-2 weeks. Then see if it's worth keeping track?

So after much deliberation, calculation, and consideration, I've decided to set all of us at exactly 5,500 xp each.  For now.  So for now everyone is only just lvl 5.  If later on we need a nudge to be lvl 6 before we tackle a lvl 11 encounter, I'll nudge us up.  I have no intention of nudging us back any.  But plan to track xp from now on if only for curiosity's sake.  But assume if we're about 100xp away from lvl 6, we'll probably hit lvl 6 after the next encounter, not before.  I don't expect to be just shy of 6 before a nigh impossible boss fight.  But as mentioned, if we need the nudge, I'll nudge.

Also, I'm going to have Kitau disappear off panel.  How fitting for a gnome.  She doesn't interact much anyway, and having 6 party members, (especially one who I have to run) is 1 too many.

Got Terdisas and Mittens sheet updates done.  since it was level 5, Terdisas was a lazy easy change, just adding HP diffrence and new spell (Since I don't want to shuffle my gear around a lot when/if we hit level 6, not adding new items to Terdisas).

Chris, pick out two level 5 or lower rituals when you can get around to it. (I can understand your not wanting to pick out your spare lv 2 utility and spare lv 5 daily, but I left in spare Flaming Sphere as an effort artifact).
Also Oh silly me you did have a neck item all this time.  My brain was mixing up your cloak of distortion (Neck) with Shimmering Robe (Armor), even though you just had normal generic magic armor.

Calculations are based off your ancient request of "I don't want any of the house rule bonuses".  I'll tweak them (adding all of +1 to your to-hit needs, SO HARD), or you can if you change your mind.  Not that you need it little miss +2 Accurate Staff.

With the items you had at level 4, you have 3,040 Gold left.  So for now I took some liberties and threw in "Terdisas uses these but I constantly forget about them" Gauntlets of blood, since I know you love damage too, just remember they only add to attacks with damage ROLLS, so no extra pain for your old Magic missile or new Beguiling strands.

Which left 2,200 Gold.  Which I spent all on Swedish Fish.  I have a problem.

Whee!  TY!  (I think I understand what all that means.  The Swedish Fish especially!)  XD

I'll update Rolen soon ... will there be a new thread for the next part of this adventure?

EDIT: can I have Rolen's picture for Roll20 as my picture for Rolen here?
This message was last edited by the player at 10:10, Mon 29 Oct 2012.

I don't think so. We only start new threads when it gets to the next module. So it could be a couple boss-fights before we start a new thread.



Yes. Though to do so, you'll have to contact the admins with an email, with the pic attached. And then wait and hope they decide to put it in:



One time, it took them 3 months to put my pic up, so be patient. And remember, they do NOT like being nagged. So if you send it once, don't send it again or say "did you get it?" or anything. If they put it up, they put it up. If they don't, they don't.

Also, I don't think they tell you if it goes up. (I ran across the Tread pic in MALE Cyborgs or something and pointed it out for Tim to use at least).

I don't even really bother with the avatar images much, if at all.  I'm also somewhat biased against that being people's primary concern because I've seen several active games die just because "Hey we want custom avatars so let's go to some place not RPOL!" soon after I joined them.

"Oh hey, a Transformers live action based game that doesn't suck.  Maybe I'll tell Tim abou-oh wait no, it's the We-Want-Custom-Avatars Curse again.  Of COURSE they don't listen when I tell them what will happen."

Ramp, we hardly knew yah.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:44, Tue 30 Oct 2012.

ever get so bored that you feel the need to do something? anything? like you need to talk to someone or just spout off about some random thing? or just desire to have some form of communication to those you know?

well that's what this post is about. I have thirty minutes of work left and am bored out of my mind. i don't know what to do with myself. there's nothing on the interweb that interests me, so i decided to come here in hopes that someone had posted something within the last ten minutes, since i last checked.

sadly there were no new posts and so i find myself doing this instead. talking to the void in hopes that it'll kill enough time so that i can finally go home.

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I sent Byron my two ranger concepts for DT. Both are rangers, one of each combat style. I am impressed with both, and could easily enjoy either one. the archer style is a straight up non-magic ranger. he's a halfling with a riding dog as a companion. Halfling Outrider might be a good prestige class to eventually take, but with everyone else in the group maintaining a pure class, I felt it best to do the same.

the other is a human, with the beastmaster prestige class. this build is sweet, as it gives the ranger an animal companion of almost equal strength as the druid's. if you didn't know, the ranger's animal companion is four level's lower than the druid's. but with beastmaster, your animal's effective level is your beastmaster level plus three, which stacks with your ranger level. So at 8th level this ranger's animal companion has an effective level of 2 (ranger) + 2 (beastmaster) + 3 (bonus level) = 7 -- I think, LOL. Still, either way, whether it's an extra level or not, the animal companion of the ranger becomes awesome.

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i also cant wait til sunday to play kingmaker. its been a long two weeks since the last game, and i'll be ready to spare some more lives in order to gain loyalty in the future. LOL

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anime con is next weekend. that should be fun. although i must admit that i haven't been working as much lately on the system i'll be running. last year, at this time, i was still buried in my work. but this year i'm a bit more relaxed. i have things done -- though i could make some changes, but i'm feeling too lazy to make those changes. i don't know if i just lost interest in the whole thing, or if i can chalk it up to self-confidence in the games i'll be running. either way, i think this will be a great year for traditional games!

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and look at that, i've killed enough time with this unnecessary post, that i can end it and go home!