Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Saturdays!

17 (77.3%)

Sundays!

5 (22.7%)

Total Members Voted: 22

[RAM]

8 C.R.1 creatures might work but looking at C.R.2 and C.R.3 monsters worries me. I could see a little bad luck turning it into a total loss for the party with multiple deaths and lots of running away. Remember that you have multiple encounters sand multiple opponents to play with. You can alternate hordes and bosses, which worked well with that last outing, I pretty much wasted a summon monster on the first fight. You can also mix them with a boss and mooks, or a multi-boss battle(instead of one lich you can have an alienist, a transmuter, and a thaumaturgist all fighting together), throw in a trap or some advantageous terrain for kicks, or reverse it and give the P.C.s a stronghold and time to prepare against 20 Lizardfolk and a giant crocodile.

As a rule of thumb I would probably say challenge rating = level is appropriate for 4 characters, and adjust it by one every time there is a 50% change in numbers, so 3 characters might warrant level - 1, 6 might be + 1, and 9 or so might be +2. And of course you can dial the C.R. down a little to test the parties skills at attrition or dial it up a bit to make a fight more Fun(but there is no need to dial it up to 11...).

P.S.
 It occurs to me that this is probably patronising and that I have no experience, but meh, talk is cheap...

P.P.S.
 Please do not note that the Dread Wraith has effective blindsight, incorporeality, and spring attack...

[The Fool]

Van's Tale

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After a night of resting after that dreadful dog attack we arrived in the town of Cliffmoor. The town was filled with magnificent towering contraptions called sandsailers, many of them with numerous weapons. Some of my traveling companions had believed that this was not a peaceful quiet town but was in fact a raider camp. Tension between Tallu and Finni reached a pinnacle when a confrontational conversation erupted into a standoff, Finni with her dagger and her spells, and Tallu with her words of aggravation. Acid flew at Finni's feet as Corina began slinging spells to deter a deranged Finni, and only Mysteller and I stood in the way as peaceful negotiators. All the while Nael was rather enjoying the spectacle. Slowly tensions faded as we approached the mining office, where we had heard of someone needing assistance in finding missing gemstones. As payment for delving deep into a mine to find the said gemstones we would receive a ship. A nimble steel ship with a mighty forge for an aspiring blacksmith, all for the substantially lower cost of 2,000 gold pieces. This would be a fine deal however I know little of the coin in our coffers. Regardless we accepted the commissioning of the ship and retired for the night, with the exception of Mysteller who aptly convinced the mining representative to pay us to clear the mines.

While we were at the mining office Maelrigar headed to the mayor's office to see his fabled map of The Desert. When he returned he told us of the great map, and of the massive scale of it. He asked for my assistance in capturing the sheer majesty of the map, to which I obliged the next morning. The mayor was all to happy to have a visitor in his office where the map was housed. It took time but I captured the essence of the fantastic map, in return for this honor the mayor received a glance at our own map of the Western Lands. With just a glance he perfectly reconstructed the map on a blank piece of paper, and if I am not mistaken he did this all while maintaining eye contact with us.

Maelrigar and I headed down to the mining elevator where we met up with the group. Down the elevator shaft we all flew, landing safely at the bottom where we were met by the same representative that Mysteller had met previously. He pointed us north, past the far reaches of arbitrarily locked door, to the steel portal of entry. Upon passing through the entry we were daftly met by monstrously insidious centipedes with their incredibly poisonous bile practically dripping from their humongous fangs, who were quickly dispatched with ease. We divided into groups and headed our own separate ways, Maelrigar and Nael to the north, Tallu and Mysteller to the west, and Finni and I to the far eastern reaches of the mine. While searching for a gemstone, a large shadow descended upon me like a librarian upon a misplaced library book. My memory after that seems a bit spotty.

That epic enough for everyone?

P.S. RAM, the CR2 and CR3 monsters you showed have additional damage dealing features, such as heat which deals 2d6 when you TOUCH them. Or melt weapons, that was a good one. Either way this brings up a good point, additional features to creatures like that can kill you quick or maybe the CR just needs to be raised. If we are killing things too fast to the DM's liking then I would suggest giving things more HP. It takes more time to kill and it has a fair chance at hurting someone badly before it dies (assuming the melee/range bonuses are sufficient). And in my opinion it is better than adding last minute monsters because another person or 2 showed up (for last minute DMing).

[Shoruke]

Hell yes that was epic enough. You have thoroughly earned your experience points.

Also, it's been nagging me that I said it so off-handedly and I'm becoming slightly paranoid that people will have missed it, so to reiterate: next session is on Saturday at 11:00 PM GMT. Note that this is two hours later than usual (or, for those of you who didn't update your definition of "usual" when DST hit, 'one' hour later)

[Happerry]

I really must protest Van's Tale. "Acid flew at Finni's feet" <- You did read the bit where Tallulah was trying to ignore someone she thought was being stupid and the bit where Finni was the one casting spells, right? As a druid, I don't think it is even possible for Tallulah to cast acid as the puny level one PC she was in that encounter. Not to mention the bit where Finni was the only one to draw a weapon and then waved it at Tallulah's back, right?

[Heron TSG]

I can't be there on Saturday, I'll be too busy tooting my horn for fun and profit.

[RAM]

As the party level, hopefully, increases, will there be a system for low-level characters, be they new or having missed sessions, to be raised to a point that they might hope to survive more than 5 seconds? While the xp system does assist lower-levels with more xp, perhaps raising anyone who falls more than 2 or three character levels behind the highest levelled character would be advisable...

[The Fool]

I fix'd the story. And the level system works until most of the group hits level 5, then I would suggest giving a free level or two to newcomers and less frequent players. You know, so they aren't one-shotted by a CR5-6 monster.

[Shoruke]

As the party level, hopefully, increases, will there be a system for low-level characters, be they new or having missed sessions, to be raised to a point that they might hope to survive more than 5 seconds? While the xp system does assist lower-levels with more xp, perhaps raising anyone who falls more than 2 or three character levels behind the highest levelled character would be advisable...

And the level system works until most of the group hits level 5, then I would suggest giving a free level or two to newcomers and less frequent players. You know, so they aren't one-shotted by a CR5-6 monster.

As mentioned previously, I'm still working on my whole "how to balance encounters" thing. But yeah, once people start hitting level four, new characters will start at level 2, with more money, and those who are still at level 1 for any reason will get similarly boosted.

I can't be there on Saturday, I'll be too busy tooting my horn for fun and profit.

You can get profit from that?!? Man, I should ditch the session and go play mah flewt with you! (I'm kidding, everyone)

[Lord Shonus]

I really must protest Van's Tale. "Acid flew at Finni's feet" <- You did read the bit where Tallulah was trying to ignore someone she thought was being stupid and the bit where Finni was the one casting spells, right? As a druid, I don't think it is even possible for Tallulah to cast acid as the puny level one PC she was in that encounter. Not to mention the bit where Finni was the only one to draw a weapon and then waved it at Tallulah's back, right?

Corina cast Acid Splash at Finni's feet, in an attempt to dissuade her from continuing the conflict.

[Heron TSG]

Sort of. My school is paying for the trip, so relative to normal it's like I'm being paid.

Maelrigar is pretty close to level 4 right now; he's probably one or two sessions away.

[The Fool]

Once again the story was fix'd, and from now on I will be writing down what happens as it happens so that these errors will be few and far between. Also I have no work on Saturday, so I can make it on time guaranteed.

[RAM]

I believe that I am on 5673xp and thought that Mael was ahead of me, it may be worth double-checking that xp total...

[Heron TSG]

With journal XP added, Maelrigar is as 5818. I wish I could make this session, I could totally level up. I may be able to swing some minor participation once we get to our hotel, but it's not likely I could stay long. Is there anything I could do out-of-game that could push me over the edge? Some crazy tale of Maelrigar's forgotten past, perhaps?

[RAM]

Just reword someone else's journal...

[RedWarrior0]

With journal XP added, Maelrigar is as 5818. I wish I could make this session, I could totally level up. I may be able to swing some minor participation once we get to our hotel, but it's not likely I could stay long. Is there anything I could do out-of-game that could push me over the edge? Some crazy tale of Maelrigar's forgotten past, perhaps?

Like this?

Also, how the hell did you get so much XP?