Hey everyone. I just wanted to let you know that I made a few last minute changes to the Orien map. Be sure to check out the new map on the campaign page. The thing is, I wanted a way to show things like forests and grasslands on top of plateaus but couldn't find a color I liked. Now I found a way to show it by not using solid colors and I basically put the grassy areas that were always supposed to be in Orien but weren't. Don't panic if the map looks glitchy, that's not a problem with the image or the site, that's just because of me using 50% colors.
You guys got really unlucky with this encounter. I usually roll for both weather effects (such as the cool breeze that gives you free d4s to add to rolls and the heat wave that Gendan is all too familiar with) and random encounters. When I get an encounter, I roll again to see what kind of encounter it is: Combat, Environment, Social or no encounter. According to my notes, to get a storm or other natural phenomenon as bad as the one you got, the time for a random encounter to take place and that of a weather effect to start needs to be within a few days of each other (which is a not something that happens too often). Then the roll for random encounters must say that there will be one and that the type of encounter will be an Environment type encounter. When all of these conditions are met, you get a storm (or something else) as bad as the one you currently have. You can bet I was surprised when this thing still managed to come up from dice rolls.
The dice giveth, the dice taketh away. Unfortunately the luck of the roll can be devastating to one side or another. Poor Hunin, Elsara will attempt to preserve him long enough that he can get a proper burial when they get back.
Is it just a D4 for Combat/Social/Environment/None? (As opposed to weighting these options and using a percentage die-- I'd expect combat to be since it tends to have the biggest XP payout.) If so, I think that may explain some of why the progression (XP) has been so slow. Hopefully this storm grants us enough XP to level to 3 at least.
@Gendan. Not exactly. First it's a d12 to see if you get an encounter or not and if it comes up with an encounter, then it's a d4. As for XP payout, combat encounters can give out the biggest consistent payout. However, other encounters can vary from having not enough payout to a lot of it. Social and environment encounters (but mostly social ones) have a higher chance to drop hints to the locations of places where you won't be able to go following just quests.
Okay... so remember how I said my PCs been acting weird lately?
Well... I got it fixed last Sunday (it is Tuesday where I am) and all my Campaign notes got wiped.
Luckily I have a general idea of what is in the current dungeon the party is in and what the this current set of missions is all about (The orc one and Necromancer one)
I thought I'd be able to fix the problem myself but the campaign has gone on for too long to do that.
So, I'm asking for a little help.
Can you guys tell me about any recurring or named NPCs you remember off the top of your heads (No need to search the thread). Also are there any plans or investigations or anything else that is going on in the background that involves your characters?
So I just wrote down some more lore regarding how the homebrew universe this campaign takes place in was created and how magic works. I also reworked the death and resurrection rules and I think I'm finally happy with how they are right now.
The lore bit is a bit long so give it a read only if you're interested.
Both the redesigned death rules and the new lore is in the Public notes section.
Also, I'm slowly redrawing Rurik Main (I had tests so the reconstruction project was on hold for a long time) and I think I will have the quest list completed soon as well as the map of Rurik.
As Frandal says, thanks to you for running this really cool and fun campaign. Really enjoying it so far, and I'll definitely have to skim through the updates when I have a spare minute.
Alright! I finally got the whole map drawn. It looks a bit different (and uglier) than my original map but it's nothing too big of a change; some spaces got stretched while others got compressed, stuff like that.
Also, the decision to handle every fight using ASCII maps also helped to reduce the work load.
Hey! I was thinking after our last encounter and wanted to bring some things to all of you.
First.. I think we should congratulate ourselves.. we had one of the most older threads in the forum, we are playing for almost a year now, and with 187 pages of adventures! And we are still going! With the rating of drops and stops of the pbps I think this is impressive! Special congrats to our DM who is always at weaving adventures to us.
On the other hand, I was thinking about the pace the character advancement is going,compared to the level of the dangers we face. I really love the low levels, but I think that perhaps we are having a little imbalance between the character and personality developments of them and the level they are achieving. I mean, even in a world with low-epics focus ( and this one doesn't seems to be the case with pegasus pulling chariots and circus owning fantastical beasts) the characters tend to develop a little bit faster. I can't even remember the last time we got XP, not to mention leveling up. And I must be honest, part of the fun of the game is gaining levels and be able to do much more cool stuff.
Also, perhaps is only my feeling, but it seems that the encounters are unbalanced... to make an analogy I feel that we are just lvl1 in a MMORPG and walked directly to the High level Raid... alone and unequipped. To be honest Val is thinking that Briggs should bring 50 knights to be able to locate their bones, and that they should be get the hell out of there asap. He rather prefer to face another lighting storm that continue exploring that caverns. Now, I am used to put my players against the strings, so to speak, with most of the encounters, but I don't use to throw at them more than they can chew.. of course there are battles you can win, but not all the battles. I have the feeling that the DM had saved our skins in almost every encounter we faced. The fight against the goblins with adamtine armors and weapons... I got us for dead in that one, we got lucky with Val reasoning... but I do not know how much of "ups I am going to kill them, better talk with the akward elf... " or this last one encounter with the miriad of resistant and pack-tactic gifted ratmans... if not for the apparation of Briggs and the hole in the celining we will be dead now. Please do not misunderstand me, I am the first one that homebrew and change the monsters, but I always try to balance them... and most important, balance the PCs so they can take it. One way to do this is to give the PCs a faster leveling rate, the enemies can have more HP that the PCs can take in two or three rounds, with high AC and with advantage in the attacks, but the PCs must have something to compensate, like a bulk of HP, a good array of options and a couple of magical objects...
Another example that cames to the top of my head is that lighting storm and the dead of our companion. I do not know if the player talked to you to leave the campaign, but if not, excuse me to tell this, but it seemed kind of extreme and unfair. Granted, the usual result of a lighting stroke you is dead, but we are playing a fantasy game... not a reality simulator... and if you want the storms and lighting to be deadly, so be it, but do not throw them at lvl2 characters because the players lose the feeling that they are in control of the destinies of their characters, and for an envioremnet unfair and where you don't have control over anything and bad things happen.. we got real life ;)
Then again, I do not remember if we got XP for enduring that storm... and if we didn't we should, for that's an encounter, and a very hard one, so if we did get XP for that, in my opinion there were few in comparasion with the threat the encounter had.
Perhaps if we change the way XP are awarded, like beign able to give them and leveling up even during adventures ( I use to award them after every encounter and the level up when the do a rest) or change to milestones, with those shared between missions and intermissions would help.
One of the most difficult parts of beign a DM is to keep a balance between dangers and players power, but I find that 5e ( having played to all of the iterations of D&D and a lot more of games) has this balanced pretty well, with the changes made to the monsters kept to the minimum things,most of the time to add a twicht or to surprise your players, tend to go smoothly, changelling but fair and with little need for "DM intervention" to save the PCs unless a miriad of bad rolls in a certain encounter.
Now, I hope that you all don't see this like a bunch of complaints, I am trying to explain my point of view making examples of our adventures, to found my point of view on data if you will.
But then again this could be only my feeling and I could be wrong.
I agree with Frandal on all counts. Thank you Zulk for DMing! Your commitment to this campaign is unmatched in my experience in PbP. The fact that this campaign has been going so long is a testament to your creativity and the commitment and endurance of the DM and party members.
I agree that many of the encounters have seemed to have "Deus Ex Machina" moments, something unexpectedly saving the day simply because the encounter was too difficult to begin with. I also find leveling my character to be one of the most fun parts of D&D 5e and share the frustration that a year spent in this campaign, posting almost every day and sometimes many times in a day, only to have a level 3 character.
Alright then. Just make a in game post where your characters take the Dragon's Lair mission and we'll be on our way.
Runt looks over the mission bills presented to her. With her finger she points at the one she is told pays the best.
lol. wrong thread
Grianne Wildpaw: Wood Elf Druid level 12 (8W-4L)- - Coliseum of Conquest: Master of Faerie Fire. Just don't ask her to spell it.
Grianne Wildpaw: Wood Elf Druid level 6 (2W-1L)- - Coliseum Reborn : Master of a Myriad of forms.
Runt, the Stormchosen: Half-Orc barbarian level 5 -- The Guild
Tomoe Gozen: Human Fighter Samurai level 5 -- Cronero (Solo Campaign)
Hey everyone. I just wanted to let you know that I made a few last minute changes to the Orien map. Be sure to check out the new map on the campaign page. The thing is, I wanted a way to show things like forests and grasslands on top of plateaus but couldn't find a color I liked. Now I found a way to show it by not using solid colors and I basically put the grassy areas that were always supposed to be in Orien but weren't. Don't panic if the map looks glitchy, that's not a problem with the image or the site, that's just because of me using 50% colors.
You guys got really unlucky with this encounter. I usually roll for both weather effects (such as the cool breeze that gives you free d4s to add to rolls and the heat wave that Gendan is all too familiar with) and random encounters. When I get an encounter, I roll again to see what kind of encounter it is: Combat, Environment, Social or no encounter. According to my notes, to get a storm or other natural phenomenon as bad as the one you got, the time for a random encounter to take place and that of a weather effect to start needs to be within a few days of each other (which is a not something that happens too often). Then the roll for random encounters must say that there will be one and that the type of encounter will be an Environment type encounter. When all of these conditions are met, you get a storm (or something else) as bad as the one you currently have. You can bet I was surprised when this thing still managed to come up from dice rolls.
The dice giveth, the dice taketh away. Unfortunately the luck of the roll can be devastating to one side or another. Poor Hunin, Elsara will attempt to preserve him long enough that he can get a proper burial when they get back.
Current Player In: The Guild as Elsara Deepmoon
Is it just a D4 for Combat/Social/Environment/None? (As opposed to weighting these options and using a percentage die-- I'd expect combat to be since it tends to have the biggest XP payout.) If so, I think that may explain some of why the progression (XP) has been so slow. Hopefully this storm grants us enough XP to level to 3 at least.
Check out my Extended Signature here
Thanks for the game everyone. At this time I am going to bow out of the campaign. As Hunin would say, It was a pleasure to meet you.
Anton - Level 2 Human Monk - storm kings thunder (on Hold)
@Opps sad to see you go but best of luck.
@Gendan. Not exactly. First it's a d12 to see if you get an encounter or not and if it comes up with an encounter, then it's a d4. As for XP payout, combat encounters can give out the biggest consistent payout. However, other encounters can vary from having not enough payout to a lot of it. Social and environment encounters (but mostly social ones) have a higher chance to drop hints to the locations of places where you won't be able to go following just quests.
Sorry to see you going Opps.. we will miss you!
PbP Character: A few ;)
Okay... so remember how I said my PCs been acting weird lately?
Well... I got it fixed last Sunday (it is Tuesday where I am) and all my Campaign notes got wiped.
Luckily I have a general idea of what is in the current dungeon the party is in and what the this current set of missions is all about (The orc one and Necromancer one)
I thought I'd be able to fix the problem myself but the campaign has gone on for too long to do that.
So, I'm asking for a little help.
Can you guys tell me about any recurring or named NPCs you remember off the top of your heads (No need to search the thread). Also are there any plans or investigations or anything else that is going on in the background that involves your characters?
Sorry to hear that. I'd advise keeping notes saved online nowadays, perhaps using things like google docs to keep track of things.
Well from the earlier missions, here's some I can recall:
Current Player In: The Guild as Elsara Deepmoon
That sucks... but I think Pokke did a great job here.
PbP Character: A few ;)
Wow, I haven't used this thread in a while.
So I just wrote down some more lore regarding how the homebrew universe this campaign takes place in was created and how magic works. I also reworked the death and resurrection rules and I think I'm finally happy with how they are right now.
The lore bit is a bit long so give it a read only if you're interested.
Both the redesigned death rules and the new lore is in the Public notes section.
Also, I'm slowly redrawing Rurik Main (I had tests so the reconstruction project was on hold for a long time) and I think I will have the quest list completed soon as well as the map of Rurik.
I thought I'd update you on it.
Thanks for playing in this game.
Thanks to you and your work!
PbP Character: A few ;)
As Frandal says, thanks to you for running this really cool and fun campaign. Really enjoying it so far, and I'll definitely have to skim through the updates when I have a spare minute.
Current Player In: The Guild as Elsara Deepmoon
Thanks for the updates, and thanks for DMing!
Check out my Extended Signature here
I'm dumb, I just realized I could have recklessed on that last attack because these jerks are getting advantage from pack tactics anyway.
Grianne Wildpaw: Wood Elf Druid level 12 (8W-4L)- - Coliseum of Conquest: Master of Faerie Fire. Just don't ask her to spell it.
Grianne Wildpaw: Wood Elf Druid level 6 (2W-1L)- - Coliseum Reborn : Master of a Myriad of forms.
Runt, the Stormchosen: Half-Orc barbarian level 5 -- The Guild
Tomoe Gozen: Human Fighter Samurai level 5 -- Cronero (Solo Campaign)
Alright! I finally got the whole map drawn. It looks a bit different (and uglier) than my original map but it's nothing too big of a change; some spaces got stretched while others got compressed, stuff like that.
Also, the decision to handle every fight using ASCII maps also helped to reduce the work load.
Hey! I was thinking after our last encounter and wanted to bring some things to all of you.
First.. I think we should congratulate ourselves.. we had one of the most older threads in the forum, we are playing for almost a year now, and with 187 pages of adventures! And we are still going! With the rating of drops and stops of the pbps I think this is impressive! Special congrats to our DM who is always at weaving adventures to us.
On the other hand, I was thinking about the pace the character advancement is going,compared to the level of the dangers we face. I really love the low levels, but I think that perhaps we are having a little imbalance between the character and personality developments of them and the level they are achieving. I mean, even in a world with low-epics focus ( and this one doesn't seems to be the case with pegasus pulling chariots and circus owning fantastical beasts) the characters tend to develop a little bit faster. I can't even remember the last time we got XP, not to mention leveling up. And I must be honest, part of the fun of the game is gaining levels and be able to do much more cool stuff.
Also, perhaps is only my feeling, but it seems that the encounters are unbalanced... to make an analogy I feel that we are just lvl1 in a MMORPG and walked directly to the High level Raid... alone and unequipped. To be honest Val is thinking that Briggs should bring 50 knights to be able to locate their bones, and that they should be get the hell out of there asap. He rather prefer to face another lighting storm that continue exploring that caverns. Now, I am used to put my players against the strings, so to speak, with most of the encounters, but I don't use to throw at them more than they can chew.. of course there are battles you can win, but not all the battles. I have the feeling that the DM had saved our skins in almost every encounter we faced. The fight against the goblins with adamtine armors and weapons... I got us for dead in that one, we got lucky with Val reasoning... but I do not know how much of "ups I am going to kill them, better talk with the akward elf... " or this last one encounter with the miriad of resistant and pack-tactic gifted ratmans... if not for the apparation of Briggs and the hole in the celining we will be dead now. Please do not misunderstand me, I am the first one that homebrew and change the monsters, but I always try to balance them... and most important, balance the PCs so they can take it. One way to do this is to give the PCs a faster leveling rate, the enemies can have more HP that the PCs can take in two or three rounds, with high AC and with advantage in the attacks, but the PCs must have something to compensate, like a bulk of HP, a good array of options and a couple of magical objects...
Another example that cames to the top of my head is that lighting storm and the dead of our companion. I do not know if the player talked to you to leave the campaign, but if not, excuse me to tell this, but it seemed kind of extreme and unfair. Granted, the usual result of a lighting stroke you is dead, but we are playing a fantasy game... not a reality simulator... and if you want the storms and lighting to be deadly, so be it, but do not throw them at lvl2 characters because the players lose the feeling that they are in control of the destinies of their characters, and for an envioremnet unfair and where you don't have control over anything and bad things happen.. we got real life ;)
Then again, I do not remember if we got XP for enduring that storm... and if we didn't we should, for that's an encounter, and a very hard one, so if we did get XP for that, in my opinion there were few in comparasion with the threat the encounter had.
Perhaps if we change the way XP are awarded, like beign able to give them and leveling up even during adventures ( I use to award them after every encounter and the level up when the do a rest) or change to milestones, with those shared between missions and intermissions would help.
One of the most difficult parts of beign a DM is to keep a balance between dangers and players power, but I find that 5e ( having played to all of the iterations of D&D and a lot more of games) has this balanced pretty well, with the changes made to the monsters kept to the minimum things,most of the time to add a twicht or to surprise your players, tend to go smoothly, changelling but fair and with little need for "DM intervention" to save the PCs unless a miriad of bad rolls in a certain encounter.
Now, I hope that you all don't see this like a bunch of complaints, I am trying to explain my point of view making examples of our adventures, to found my point of view on data if you will.
But then again this could be only my feeling and I could be wrong.
What do you think?
PbP Character: A few ;)
I agree with Frandal on all counts. Thank you Zulk for DMing! Your commitment to this campaign is unmatched in my experience in PbP. The fact that this campaign has been going so long is a testament to your creativity and the commitment and endurance of the DM and party members.
I agree that many of the encounters have seemed to have "Deus Ex Machina" moments, something unexpectedly saving the day simply because the encounter was too difficult to begin with. I also find leveling my character to be one of the most fun parts of D&D 5e and share the frustration that a year spent in this campaign, posting almost every day and sometimes many times in a day, only to have a level 3 character.
Check out my Extended Signature here