I play!, Really, I do!

And I also forgot to mention skill challenges, as we tried them out the last few times. The GM doesn't like them and I don't expect to see much more of them, and here's why: they're too easy to pass.

We tried a negotiation for an answer to the problem of some enemies. Nothing fancy so far, just a predictable succession of checks made to pacify some malevolent organisms. But no ordinary enemies, these, no. No, they were Large worms, or something of the sort. Lacking motives, feelings and reason to appeal to, the GM set the difficulty of the challenge to maximum given in the DMG (? Not sure, though I recall hearing something like that), 33. Also we needed 8 successes before 3 or 4 failures to pass, and we did.

It was supposed to be impossible, and within the DC guidelines given in the DMG, it sure was meant to be for characters of this level.

We had had similar experiences earlier, but this demonstrated the issue the best. It was also houseruled that from now on, no more than four party members may attempt to assist in a skill check.

There's errata on skill challenges. (Link here and elsewhere.)

How much narration was happening? ("I roll nature" versus "I use nature to figure out if they'd like some food we have" versus a lengthy and elaborate description followed by a roll.)

I can't comment on the accuracy of the numbers or quality of the subsystem, not having play experience with it.

I'm not seeing the difference there to what was before. But the summary there seems to think that "challenges were hard before, and now they're easy". Well, we might've been hit with the errata'd version, I can't say.

It was "Everyone establishes exactly what they're doing, and then rollrollroll." No different explanation for each occasion.

Continuing the ongoing saga of Korvakopla, a Different Sort of Adventuring Party...

We got Korvamobiili out of the dungeon with a permanent teleportation circle (doesn't cost as much as you'd think, but it does cost a Surge for a good while) and so drove it to Greyhawk. There was an exchange with the first guards that we got to repeat every time we ran into guards thereafter. The delivery was priceless, though unfortunately I can't transcribe both the smoothness and the accuracy at the same sitting.
Guard, on guard upon seeing the contraption: ”Who are you?”
Joaquim: ”We are (the famed?) Korvakopla. Haven't you heard of us?”
Guard: ”No.”
And so on.

Once we had established Korvamobiili's home at the Green Dragon Inn where we were staying, the wizards started planning customization over a glass of wine later that day. In the morning, work began. What follows is a list of the different features they put in place. Veini will draw a picture of it, and I'll provide a link once it's done.

• White in color.
• Quality springs for the six proper seats - which are shaped like common, round ears – so that we may bounce along our ride, rolling o'er the green hills. It was suggested that the ear-seats be made into fully functional toilet seats so that the Mobiili will be using biological energy, but we decided to let the smoke elemental imbued in it to take care of the power issue.
• The levers with which the machine is operated are cotton stick-like in appearance.
• A bolt of (blue?) lightning, running horizontally across the side of our vehicle to capitalize on the speed at which we shall blaze along. The word ”Korvakopla” will cut across the lightning bolt diagonally.
• The exhaust pipes are big and formidably elf ear-shaped. They shall vent the fumes when we punch the Charge button, thus dealing with the resultant burst of speed.
• The roller of the Mobiili (3E picture from MM2, not much like our precious piece or art at all) will have a Smiley-face relief, so that wherever we roll, the trail of smileys will mark our passage.
• Large Snoopy ears. Front left and right.

The wizards are devising specs for a Daylight spell or equivalent, which we will then cast and make permanent so we'll have proper lights.

We also crawled some more in the dungeon, but really, plotwise, who cares after that?


Then, there was a houseruling. Most significant I've ever run across in all D&D I've played. The crit range of attacks was increased by 1. All attacks, all weapons, for everyone, enemies included. My daggermaster now crits with 17-20, which is awesome. Then again, his advantage of having triple the crit range of others was reduced to double, which gnawed at his relative effectiveness somewhat. Still, I'm the only character with equipment, feats and powers synched for proper crits, so it's not like I was made obsolete.

The purpose was to speed combat along. This is, after some thought, a workable solution; one feature of 4E much maligned on the forums and by some players of our party as well is that NPCs and players use quite different mechanics, which leads to the infamous Brute hit point amounts of [party total]*1,5, among other things. Because of the difference of mechanics that's always there in every fight with every enemy, you can't easily speed things up without affecting doable encounters per day or survivability.
You can't cut monster hit points because then folk will be swimming through some encounters too easily, and you can't cut player damage because that's just wrong.

I don't know what to make of that yet, it was pulled on me when we were already around the table and going into the game and everything. It didn't break combat yet, but I got dropped like three or four times in two encounters. Really, the only defender worth his role now would be a striker-type fighter. Party full of strikers for the win, even. Throw in one leader (or have everyone take a particular feat so we can all tell each other to be fine) and optionally a wizard or two and there you go.

Second session with the new crit ranges. The GM would do well to start showing up less than an hour late, cough. Long post, ranty at places.

Combat doesn't break with the new crit range. Criticals aren't the decisive killers they used to be, and some impressive streaks of die rolls aside, things average out well enough. People's powers bear far more relevance to their effectiveness and even raw utility than do crits. I feel all the more vulnerable these days, though. I've decided that if I die, Faler doesn't want to resurrect. Drastic, eh?

This newest session was somewhat different from the rest. First, we only had one encounter during five hours of playing - and the quality of that setup was quite low, I'll say. The short of it: battling a dragon in a fairly interesting scene, but with more monsters well within range of hearing in the room right next to us. Do they come out and join either side? No. Duh.

Not, that is, until I run into the room due to the dragon's compulsion. Then they want to join. There have been similar issues before (for a critical-minded player, they would have easily counted as "glaring issues" even before), but now was when it really stood out to me. I got out of the room in time before I was attacked, yelling "Sorry to disturb, please don't pursue!" while I headed for safety. So what do they do? What I asked is what they do.

I know why, though. It was the GM changing things on the fly to cater to our advantage -or survival, if you will. I don't like it, but this latest place where we've gone I don't like at all anyway. "Traps" that deal massive damage that can't be avoided. In 3E, which this was converted from, there would've been easy solutions and that was the way it was meant to be, but now we would've been half dead just trying to get through the front door, with its unavoidable column of eternal flames. Stuff like that.

Getting in the dungeon was hard enough and we only got there because of some dumbass ruling (of which I couldn't ascertain whether it was made up on the spot) that magic items don't take damage. That's right. So we set up this... I'll call it "elevator", using a Rope of Climbing, Bags of Holding and Mage Hand.
It was fun to come up with and one of the two best laughs we got that day was when we realized that setting up a wizard inside a Bag with his head protruding out for line of sight would, completely legally by the rules, be allowed to cast his spells with no real penalties. Joaquim's player went on to suggest he use our warlord as a Mount and buying this item that gives the character's mount Resist 30 to all damage. But for one detail, we'd certainly do just that, forever after walking with two wizard heads tucked under our arms.

Most of the party had been reluctant about this whole thing, players and characters both. Along with Faler, I was the most vocal opponent of the whole arrangement. Our arguments blended together, so I'll just say that I made it clear I considered it stupid, suicide, unnecessary, out-of-character and a fair number of other things to even consider going there. One character had already come within one hp of dying simply scouting the first floor down the fire-shaft, and he had the most hp in the party and more fire resistance than anyone. (No fudged die rolls or GM grace there either, it really got within that inch. Now, he *did* drop, but was saved by some item he had that restored his hp upon dropping below 1 hp, which no other character had. Shiny prospects or what?
Note, this was all before we learned that magic items are duh-mune to damage.

Joaquim, being neutral and honestly not giving two shits about risking his ass for a noble cause or what-have-you, was along the same lines but not so vocal about it, and the others were lesser shades of that. Only one was clearly supportive of going down there. Throughout the session the GM outright said two times, effectively, "No way you're turning back, now I've converted all this," and "You're gonna get negative xp for metagaming if you're just going to comb through previous monsters to get into fights", which was about going to kill the illithid who killed our cleric. Not enough reason to get payback, I gathered. Well, whatever, we went to see and it had taken off so whoopty-doo.

Back to getting into the dungeon. It was the players who wanted in, and no one else made much effort in getting his character's views through, mostly because we all did on some level realize just how stupid the whole scenario was. Very poor planning, considering this is what the whole game was about. By all sense, we could've gone through that fire shaft alive but badly hurt, even healed, and even used Arcane Gate to get out if it came to that, but there was no guarantee whatsoever that we'd be able to rest, or knowledge of what we'd find down there. Really, I claim it would've taken six idiots to take those chances. But then we found that Bag of Holding-elevator idea was doable, so the players put their characters inside to avoid pissing on the GM.

What we found inside was a set of traps that didn't give xp, an NPC who answered questions and took off lamely, and an armoury full of tremendously powerful cursed items that no character who could use, will, and no one who would, can, and artifacts, including a Deck of Many Things that our cleric went and pulled ten cards out of. Well, two, really. First? Destruction, so as we not get any loot, possibly. Second, death, or Vanish, whatever. The cards were drawn in full sight and it really was just bad luck, but also ignorance on the player's part; didn't know much about the Deck. Then again, none of our characters should know either... So Argo and Tynnyri both went without even a grave to mark them by. Unlucky player. Gonna make a ranger next, I hear. We're going to sell that pile of magic items, and it even looks as though we might be able to actually buy usable items with what we receive. I barely dare hope.

So, did we turn back? Hell no, not after such trifles. Barely even commented on it, though that wouldn't have been in the spirit of the scene anyway.

We eventually got down to the chamber with the fight that was inside, and the room with the next fight waiting there. The fight was a solo dragon that, once we figured what the deal was, was simple enough to kill. The milieu was a large, high chamber with a tight spiral stairway leading down in the middle. We were coming down that. There was enough space to fire and even punch through in the walls of the stairway, so we could see far enough.

Now, if that other encounter had joined up with the dragon as it should've been, though, we would have been totally splattered. No cleric, and just the warlord's heals and some tertiary-rate heals from others to cope with. If the warlord's player is away on the next session, we are Utterly Fucked, I can promise you that.

In the fight, the other of the best two laughs was when I pulled a maneuver that shouldn't have worked. I even said that (translated) "by common sense this should not work, but by the rules it will". Then I said, not translated, "Bet'chu didn't see this coming!" and pulled the dragon into the stairway, through the grille-walls. YOINK!
Into a space the dragon would have to squeeze into and probably shouldn't even fit in, through an opening it shouldn't in any intended scenario possibly have fit through. The GM said something like "I'll allow that to avoid the bitching if it's denied", which was somewhat odd since I'd pretty much asked if it could be done before I did any of what I did, above.

We didn't even need more pity points by that time anymore, so I was left with only the humor value, but that was considerable for everyone.


As an overview, the laughs were some of the best in the campaign, but progress was slow and felt unnatural and irritating.
I can't yet guess what the whole purpose of that Reliquary was, but I don't think it'll turn out to have been a good idea in any event, considering that the loot we find (as regards loot we find: I'm not sure but I believe that it's official WotC word that the necessary good items should come from loot and the other, less important non-mandatory items are bought with the gold you find) is nowadays directly keyed to our Magical Item Level Total, which totally hoses some charcaters, namely me; I've used my money to buy the almost-useless-to-semi-useful-to-actually-useful trinkets that I can afford then rather than save for the really good items that I never will. My item level total is way above the others for that reason, and never mind that I've always given my old items to others or the party pool for free.
This won't become a serious gripe, but it sure is a damn dumb way to manage things.

I've now also joined Pathfinder Society. The first game is next Wednesday. It's basically D&D 3.5, with some alleged improvements. I have some expectations, but the promise of short session length doesn't tickle. If my character gets killed at level 1 by a crit, I'm not making a new one.

You can view it here: Dairhe Faulilj. In case you can't, it's because I know nothing about how wikis work and can't tell how private the pages are as regards public viewing, and so don't know if my editing rights are what give me viewing rights as well.

Re 4e: Railroading is always a pleasure, right? Negative experience. Game masters like that still exist? How about just saying "I don't have anything else prepared, take this scenario or we'll play Munchkin." That's a threat dire enough to stop most grumbling.

Rules, I think, prohibit pulling/whatever creatures through things they can't walk through. PHB page 286: "Forced movement can't move a target it couldn't enter by walking. The target can't be forced into an obstacle or made to squeeze into a space."

If the gaming does not improve, expect people being late or not arriving, GM being more unprepared each time, players silently dropping out, and so on. Remember Cryptic and late dragongame? Like that.

On Pathfinder: I am aware of its existence but have not read it yet. Beta version or such is available for free at Paizo's store: http://paizo.com/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG (registration required, IIRC).

Mekanismi is the Finnish rpg wiki. I have no idea wrt how easy or difficult it is to close the thing from outsiders. Your character is very visible. Elven druid. Name is different from the usual.

This post has been edited by Thanuir on 18 Feb 2009, 15:56

Sometimes. Not always.

It's not such a problem if the rails lead where I'm going. I can take a good thing even if there's nothing else on the table, and this isn't what I would describe as a plot-driven party. The next campaign of our future is to be hand-made by the GM and probably customized for our players (or even characters, who knows?).

Forced movement: bound to be a clause like that somewhere. Still, xD.


There was a bit of something in an issue of Roolipelaaja on Pathfinder some time back. From that and a couple of things our GM (you'll probably recognize the name Särkijärvi) said I found it funny that of the five factions (a staple of the setting; things revolve around those factions rather than race or all that other stuff) the nation of diabolical Asmodeus-worshiping tyrants is the most popular one in Finland as a PC homeland. Something about most everyone being pissed with American wussy attitudes and wanting to do things in a, cough, non-mainstream way... You know how much I dislike PvP, but even I wouldn't have hardcoded its ban into the frigging rules. Also, no evil characters allowed. You can imagine all the different ways that that'll work.

The setting was a light read, but its worth is at its highest when you read other people's opinions on it. As to the session itself, it was good overall but I'm reminded why I prefer 4E to 3E these days.


Also: a quote that made it into a compilation on Mekanismi:

In case you are unaware of it, Särkijärvi's blog: http://nitessine.wordpress.com/


Also, if you interested in posting your AP to a wider audience, how about starting a blog? (I can make you a co-author of my blog, too, if you want to try it out or something.) Your writings are entertaining enough that you'd get an audience. I have one, too. They might be capable of providing more intelligent commentary on 4e then I am.


How different is Pathfinder from standard 3,5th edition?

I can see exactly how well a diabolical faction and no evil characters will work out. Well, two ways, to be exact. The second one is characters whose alignment label says neutral, but actions may speak to other directions.


Further, also, I invited you as a contact on LinkedIn. Did that message come through?

What's AP? Actual play (reports)?

I've actually been rolling the idea of a blog around, and might as well try that. I'm sort of 50-50 on whether to make my own or accept that co-author offer. I have no idea how to make a site layout, for one. How easy is it, on Wordpress?

AFAICT, only the material (as opposed to rules), and maybe a couple of power-level related tweaks.

The reason why I can't be more specific is I'm not sure what's what as regards the material referred to online; there's talk of "Pathfinder beta ruleset" or something like that, which some places claim to have as a free DL, but the links haven't seemed to lead anywhere.
Also, there's several different projects that are named almost arbitrarily, and there's no way to guess at the contents of any of them from name alone. Samples form the Paizo product list: Pathfinder adventure path, Pathfinder RPG, Pathfinder society organized play, so on. I believe the one I played was that last one, but there's no way to know. What few facts I've gleaned from online form the outline of this Maze of Loud Sighs that defies any attempt to differentiate between the projects. So yeah.

I'll take a look. It's not something I expect to be using a whole lot.

AP is actual play.

Wordpress.com is very easy to use. You select from a number of lay-outs and then add widgets or something to the sidebar. (Speaking of which, I should fix mine some day.)

If you strike out on your own: I'll mention it, which will give you a number of readers. You can join the rpg blogger network http://www.rpgbloggers.com/, which will give a far larger number of readers to you. (Joining is as easy as sending an email and adding a link to the network on your blog.)

I'd recommend first writing a guest post on my blog and then, if you fancy the experience, starting your own blog. You'll also get a taste of Wordpress, and if you don't like the way it feels, you can try some other platform. Just stay clear of Livejournal and Blogspot; LJ does not have comment feeds, which makes following discussions difficult, and Blogspot has utterly retarded commenting interface, which makes discussions painful.

Here's a direct link to Pathfinder beta download page: http://paizo.com/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG/v5748btpy84o0

Wordpress seems to be less on a registration to a blog site and more of a program to download. I did, and now it's all about looking at code and messing around with files and file types. How is it supposed to work?

Edit: "famous five minute install" my ass. Shouldn't have to take that long, never mind what it's actually taking. Crash course, pl0x?

You want wordpress.com, not wordpress.org. I'll send you an invitation or something is such exist.

Thank god.

You can probably guess my user name there. I'll get started with transferring some posts from here to there once I figure how to make separate pages and all that.