Kingmaker continues at a good pace. Played last Sunday, with much more exploring.
No spoilers, but I did run a 4 boar encounter which the group didn't seem to have too much problem with. A good bit of xp there.For the most part, random encounters are few and far between though, which makes them a bit more manageable.
Also, they decided to buy food rather than forage as that takes less time, and time is money and food is cheap.
I've got to read up a little bit for the next part and get my ducks in a row, but I don't forsee any problems.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path
After listening to the Strand Gamers on RPGMP3.com and their Kingmaker game, I had a feeling that I would be running it someday. I ended up buying the first adventure in the path, Stolen Land, a couple of months ago. When my Kalamar campaign got somewhat derailed by Barbed Devils, it seemed like it was time for us to move over to Pathfinder from 3.5.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Changing Campaigns
Remember last post, where I said the trials of the tomb seemed trivial? Well, I just hadn't gotten to the hamatula (barbed devil).
It was interesting to see how the group approached the encounter. First, they assume since one statue started moving that they would all animate and therefore made a stone wall to split the room. Second, they were ready and prepped to attach a real statue, going so far as to ready an action to attack it in case it did move. (I'm glad that happened. I didn't want to look up rules for attacking statues)
And bad luck for the arcane trickster too, which set the whole ball in motion. Fail the trap DC by exactly 5, triggering it. Failed the will save on a symbol of fear which sent her running right by the real hamatula who dropped a fireball on her (good thing she had evasion), but she continued running.
It seemed that the group was especially stymied by the hamatula's powers. DR 10/good, immune to fire, resist cold 10. So a strength 10 fighter with high dex and an icy burst rapier didn't have much chance of doing appreciable damage. Add in the barbed defense and a fight of attrition is one that the hamatula will win.
The hamatula also got lucky and summoned another hamatula with a 5% on the percentile roll. That really made the difficult much harder.
I felt that I used the hamatula's hold person ability and grapple preference to target well. In the end, the arcane trickster died, the bard died, the elf fighter was greviously wounded (brought to less that 5 hp I think).
I think the druid did the right thing by summoning dire wolves to trip up the devils and slow them down just enough to regroup.
At the end of the battle, Chamele the Arcane Trickster was brought back by Aldoran using his scroll of reincarnate as a gnome.
I think it was at the point that the second hamatula appeared that the player's decided that starting the Kingmaker Pathfinder Adventure path now instead of waiting to finish the tomb was a good idea. I didn't intend for the hamatula's to be bleach for the campaign but it appears that they were regardless.
It was interesting to see how the group approached the encounter. First, they assume since one statue started moving that they would all animate and therefore made a stone wall to split the room. Second, they were ready and prepped to attach a real statue, going so far as to ready an action to attack it in case it did move. (I'm glad that happened. I didn't want to look up rules for attacking statues)
And bad luck for the arcane trickster too, which set the whole ball in motion. Fail the trap DC by exactly 5, triggering it. Failed the will save on a symbol of fear which sent her running right by the real hamatula who dropped a fireball on her (good thing she had evasion), but she continued running.
It seemed that the group was especially stymied by the hamatula's powers. DR 10/good, immune to fire, resist cold 10. So a strength 10 fighter with high dex and an icy burst rapier didn't have much chance of doing appreciable damage. Add in the barbed defense and a fight of attrition is one that the hamatula will win.
The hamatula also got lucky and summoned another hamatula with a 5% on the percentile roll. That really made the difficult much harder.
I felt that I used the hamatula's hold person ability and grapple preference to target well. In the end, the arcane trickster died, the bard died, the elf fighter was greviously wounded (brought to less that 5 hp I think).
I think the druid did the right thing by summoning dire wolves to trip up the devils and slow them down just enough to regroup.
At the end of the battle, Chamele the Arcane Trickster was brought back by Aldoran using his scroll of reincarnate as a gnome.
I think it was at the point that the second hamatula appeared that the player's decided that starting the Kingmaker Pathfinder Adventure path now instead of waiting to finish the tomb was a good idea. I didn't intend for the hamatula's to be bleach for the campaign but it appears that they were regardless.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Entering the Tomb
The group has found the Lost Tomb of Kruk-Ma-Kali, but it hasn't been without trial or tribulation.
After Vorian's death at the hand of a beholder, the party entered the Great Valley. There they encountered tribes of hobgoblins, who tried and failed to capture to them. The stronger tribe's spiritual leader and ally of the red dragon Khyrastryx saw the danger they posed, and tried to reason with them.
This was all for naught however, as a great wyvern spotted them on their way towards a mountain pass and flew to warn Khyrastryx. The dragon flew towards the group, trying to gauge their strength before committing herself.
Unfortunately, Chamele, perhaps overconfident in her abilities, launched a lightning bolt at the dragon, revealing herself and her power too soon. The dragon flew straight at her, snatching Chamele up in her jaws. Before losing consciousness, Chamele loosed another lightning bolt into the dragons maw. The dragon bit down, and then dropped Chamele to her death below. The other members of the group made a good showing in defending themselves, but Khyrastryx left them to recover as best she could.
The remaining members decided to hunt her down and avenge Chamele, and proved victorious. The druid's ability to nullify most of the damage caused by the dragon turned the tide of battle. The druid Aldoran then took Chamele with him back to Geanavue to be raised, using some of the dragon's horde as payment. The returned the next day to join Vorian, Kascannia and Cassandra back in the dragon's lair. It was then that the wyvern that they had seen previously attempted to bring the battle to them, but was ultimately unsuccessful.
From there, it did not take long to find the tomb, through the use of divine magics and knowledge that the bard and wizard possessed.
Thus far the dangers of the tomb have proven to be mere annoyances, though this is mostly due to resourcefulness and planning, and it remains to be seen if these will still be in abundance as they delve deeper into the tomb.
After Vorian's death at the hand of a beholder, the party entered the Great Valley. There they encountered tribes of hobgoblins, who tried and failed to capture to them. The stronger tribe's spiritual leader and ally of the red dragon Khyrastryx saw the danger they posed, and tried to reason with them.
This was all for naught however, as a great wyvern spotted them on their way towards a mountain pass and flew to warn Khyrastryx. The dragon flew towards the group, trying to gauge their strength before committing herself.
Unfortunately, Chamele, perhaps overconfident in her abilities, launched a lightning bolt at the dragon, revealing herself and her power too soon. The dragon flew straight at her, snatching Chamele up in her jaws. Before losing consciousness, Chamele loosed another lightning bolt into the dragons maw. The dragon bit down, and then dropped Chamele to her death below. The other members of the group made a good showing in defending themselves, but Khyrastryx left them to recover as best she could.
The remaining members decided to hunt her down and avenge Chamele, and proved victorious. The druid's ability to nullify most of the damage caused by the dragon turned the tide of battle. The druid Aldoran then took Chamele with him back to Geanavue to be raised, using some of the dragon's horde as payment. The returned the next day to join Vorian, Kascannia and Cassandra back in the dragon's lair. It was then that the wyvern that they had seen previously attempted to bring the battle to them, but was ultimately unsuccessful.
From there, it did not take long to find the tomb, through the use of divine magics and knowledge that the bard and wizard possessed.
Thus far the dangers of the tomb have proven to be mere annoyances, though this is mostly due to resourcefulness and planning, and it remains to be seen if these will still be in abundance as they delve deeper into the tomb.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Adventure Packs and Coupons
Finally bought the adventure packs today on the last day of the 20% off sale. Also filled up my cart and used the democoupon1 for the 1st time so that I could afford all the sale packs with my current turbine points.
Now I have some new content for my alts to run, and my main to farm for favor and some of the cool loot I've been missing out on. Gem of many facets anyone?
Now I have some new content for my alts to run, and my main to farm for favor and some of the cool loot I've been missing out on. Gem of many facets anyone?
Monday, May 9, 2011
More news from a DDO player on a Mac
Just wanted to let everyone know that the latest release of wine has some more features for directx compatibility that seem to give DDO a little bit more of a boost, at least in my case on an older MacBook Pro (model 1,1 to be exact).
Some of the tools available to LOTRO players, including LotroBoost got me thinking about using symlinks myself. Because I have a slower hard drive in my laptop (5400 rpm), I was used to running DDO off of a flash drive, and usually booting off of an external usb hard drive for a little bit better performance. (which you can't even do on windows without hacks.)
But, using symlinks (learn more in linux or mac by typing 'man ln' into the terminal), I was able to split the dat files between my external hard drive and flash drive, and still boot off of the internal drive.
End result? Far less lag / frame rate drops in large areas like marketplace or outdoor areas, and improved loading times.
Some of the tools available to LOTRO players, including LotroBoost got me thinking about using symlinks myself. Because I have a slower hard drive in my laptop (5400 rpm), I was used to running DDO off of a flash drive, and usually booting off of an external usb hard drive for a little bit better performance. (which you can't even do on windows without hacks.)
But, using symlinks (learn more in linux or mac by typing 'man ln' into the terminal), I was able to split the dat files between my external hard drive and flash drive, and still boot off of the internal drive.
End result? Far less lag / frame rate drops in large areas like marketplace or outdoor areas, and improved loading times.
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