Okay, now that I'm conscious and (mostly) coherent again, I need to make a plea to all of you.

One of the reasons it takes me so long to post a reply where combat is concerned is that most of you seem to be presenting me with information in a jumbled incomplete manner. If I have to wade through every character sheet to resolve a round of combat, it'll take me a week per round!

If you are presenting me with information, it needs to be in this order:

Initiative
Attacks
Damage
Conditions

Also, it'd really be helpful if at the end of your post you list what your AC is and how many HP you have left. This request is because your AC can alter based on spells and conditions you invoke.

When you're posting dice rolls, it'd really help if you break out where the modifiers are coming from, because, frankly, they aren't going to apply every time. The bad guys have abilities and powers, too.

For example, the hydragon has 9 heads. Do you really think it can be flanked? That happens to be one of its abilities.

Someone had initiative posted last. Does that really make sense?

Power Attack requires you to state what negative you are going to apply to your attack. For these characters, the max is going to be -3 for a +6 bonus to damage. (Did I get that right this time, Tilaleria?)

Arithal, you started out your post with something about a conditional attack, but hadn't even posted that attack yet. That confused me. Then you were doing a dice re-roll-- but it was disconnected from where the actual roll was made. That just makes it all the harder for me to process all these attacks.

I'm not trying to be nitpicky about this, but as Tilaleria pointed out, she's never run a character as complicated as this. Well, neither have I.

Just a little consideration is all I ask.

Not exactly sure when I should come in. It would take me 8 combat rounds to make that distance at least.

Thanks for reminding me.

Another little problem came up. As everyone is supposed to be either a Keeper of Olvar (plants) or a Keeper of Kelvar (animals)--that was the initial game premise anyway--it seems reasonable that the Keepers of Olvar would have Woodland Stride, possibly even Mystic Stride. The only thing I can think of for the Keepers of Kelvar is Speak With Animals, or possibly the ability to ride any natural animal as a mount.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Give them the more powerful one. =D

Saxon is an outlier at best, but I feel that their dedication should be rewarded if it means that you can hand wave some things like travel over long distances or hard terrain.

We will have to talk as I am not exactly sure how Saxon would fit into that but to be honest it doesn't matter to me. What ever tells the best story. =3

While I'm not part of the combat that seems to be causing a fair bit of chaos, a few thoughts spring to mind from the stuff being mentioned in the OOC that seem work mentioning, even if most of you have probably already thought of them yourselves.

There are other ways to close long distances quickly besides moving. Surely some of the high level casters will have Dimension Door, which has a range of 400ft.

There's no reason the fight can't be moving towards you too. It sounds like someone's already engaged. Rather than standing your ground, wouldn't it be smart to withdraw back towards your allies, and fight it together, rather than trying to fight on your own? Doing that might halve the time it takes for your allies to engage, which is probably a good deal more effective than standing there full attacking.

Sidenote:(Don't really think this needs to be pointed out really... but I will anyway): A long distance to cover, like in this instance, is not penalizing slow moving characters, but rather, rewarding fast moving ones. If someone takes the effort to invest in the ability to move quickly, they should get some gain from it.

I think for the keeper of plants one it should be woodland stride unless the class already gets it instead they gain Mystic Stride.

Speak with animals seems very powerful but fits well why not just use Wild Empathy. I know they are both Druid class features but that's kinda what you are looking at. Maybe with the same idea if the character already gets the ability they get speak with animals.

It does make the druids more powerful but keeps the druids from feeling overshadowed in there own specially as well.

@combat
It's our first combat. Next combat won't be nearly so chaotic I suspect. This was made worse by distance and stuff. As the gm pointed out, I was really learning the basics of my character in a fight this first round. Next one will be tons easier.

Pathfinder is fantastically complicated, and once of the primary 'balancing' mechanisms is the action economy. In didn't help that of course with the haste spell! I personally find it very help to write things like

I do (as the GM suggested) like to put in my attack modifiers. Partly because I make mistakes and this makes them easier to spot, and partly so the GM can remove them if that is relevant. For example I assumed a flanking condition. By making that obvious, The GM could discount it. In this case I actually made an error in the die roller of 1 point which I spotted when doing the write out of the conditions

Personally I also like to make some attack of opportunity  rolls anyway, in case I get one, so the gm can resolve it then rather than come back to me. If that's wrong just let me know

@keepers
In doubt very much if a first level spell permaneced in a level 10 gestalt game will have any impact at all on game balance. Speak with animals is a very weak spell anyway. I can number on the fingers of one hand the number of times in the last decade it would of made a significant difference to the game, or indeed has even been useful. You could make it a magical item: a badge of office or something

I'm not going to be a keeper of course (I have a legitimate reason for being here and not being a keeper) so I'm suggesting you give it to everyone but me :)

Wild empathy is a class feature though, so I'd leave that with just the classes that have it

I have no strong feeling on this subject though

@power attack
AFAIK unlike d20 there is no choice to be made on how much you subtract from your to hit. It's fixed based on your BAB. Like combat expertise it's all or nothing nowadays. Use it or don't: that's the only choice.

In reply to Tilaleria (msg # 512):

I personally would prefer it if we put all our combat stuff in a pm to the GM so only the fluff remains, else the statistical and dice rolling clutter changes the game from a roleplaying game into a rollplaying game.

As one of the druids; STAY OFF MY LAWN! I'm the animal talking guy. It's mine! My lovely... my precious..... Go steal something from the ranger or something. Like Track. I'd like track. yesss...
This message was last edited by the player at 10:35, Sat 30 May 2015.

I share your views on posting Tavaro.

Personally I put them in a "private line"  rather than a PM. In my last combat post, my 'explanation' was about 40 lines.  It would utterly swamp the post.

How many rounds have passed by since I slipped away to the clearing?

Also, based on what Jak can observe, is he likely to be able to outrun the spider(and any of it's minions)?

You mean since the spider dropped on you and you moved away to get some space?

The save was a reaction, so everything you did after that has only been 2 rounds.

Hasted, you probably can outrun the spiders. Certainly all the smaller ones. The big one in the trees... probably. Jak can run. The huge spider can't run across/through the tree branches.

Ok. One other question, what's the lighting like? What would I see without my light? How far can I see into the gloom?

Typical lowlight vision is 30 feet. That's about what the gloom will let you see.

In reply to Azurak the Blue (msg # 518):

Look at the bright side, when you kill the big one its boots and bugs from then on.

Updated with rolls now. Lots of ones too. -_-

See where is everyone?

Mmmm?

I'm here :)

This week seems to have been one of those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. Everyone was probably waiting on everyone else to post.

Don't be afraid to post just because others haven't. Generally allow 2 days between posts. If someone doesn't respond to your first post, feel free to write a second post as if they did. That way, it lets everyone else know you are still interested and active, plus it makes them feel bad for not posting. :-P

Sooner or later, everyone will catch up to you.

Or you can just be patient and wait for someone else to surface.

Borjnen and I seem to be in combat. But we are waiting for our actions and the actions of the spiders to resolve. :-)

Whoa, Tila! That triangulation idea is genius. Wish I'd thought of that.

Thank you :)

Okay, as the Quest begins in earnest, I was just wondering what your thoughts are on the number of players.

Do you all want to stick together in a single large group? Or should I split you off into smaller groups?

All groups would be traveling together; they'd just be split up into, say, left flank, right flank and center groups. Or perhaps core group, scouts and outriders?

The only real reason for splitting up into several smaller groups is to avoid confusion when people are trying to have a conversation.

If you all think you can handle a single large group, that's fine by me.

A few players have disappeared, but that still leaves us with 14 characters.

Way too many players for one group, in my opinion. Splitting into 3 would be great, but we only have one compass. I could imagine that we split up, and Radagast does stuff to keep the 3 on track (long range communication through moths and birds? :) ).

Splitting up does make sense. We don't know where exactly we need to go (unlike the fellowship). We're not being actively hunted either (like the Fellowship). We can cover a lot more ground by splitting up.

But I never envisioned Tavaro to be a classical 'party member' really. He doesn't slog along as you can see, it's even contrary to his nature. He could be one of the scouts/outrider, his speed is amazing and he can fly around all day long without problem.

I just did some housekeeping on the characters. I went ahead and deleted all the NPCs. I kept them around in case any of the original players decided to return.

A bunch of other characters have been tagged as Outriders. If any of these players show up, they can jump in easily this way.