Pathfinder 11 - Burned into my brain
Okay, it’s been a while since I updated these. This session took place on April 27. I’ll post the latest session (May 4) in a day or two.
So, to start off, the cast this week:
- Reza, Dwarven Cleric
- Nonnie, Halfling Sorcerer
- Thorbar, Dwarven Barbarian
- Ristan, Half-Elf Bard, played by proxy
Ristan’s player was missing, as was Nox’s. Another player, who will be joining us for the summer, was here, and he ran Ristan for this session. The latest session saw him create his own character for the summer.
For this session, the party was joined by Shalelu, the elf ranger from Burnt Offerings (book 1), who wished to accompany the group to the ranger outpost, Fort Rannick.
Pathfinder 10 - Evil, nasty clockses, we hates them!
Well, this past session ended up going quite well. Good combat, a bit of roleplaying, and a decent feeling of danger as well.
It took quite some effort to get there, though.
Warning to all reading this, this writeup will be half DM log, half rant. I’ll try to contain the rant to sidebars, so feel free to skip them if you don’t care, don’t want to become disenfranchised with the Pathfinder series and Paizo, or dislike mechanical discussions.
As per usual, let’s start with roll call. Present this week:
- Nox, Changeling Swordsage
- Nonnie, Chaotic Evil Halfling Psychopath Sorcerer
- Reza, Dwarven Cleric of Desna
- Thorbar, Dwarf Barbarian
- Ristan, Half-Elf Bard
So, we started where we left off last time. Actually, that’s a lie. We started this session with Reza and I going through spells. This being her first cleric (and most of the players being relative newbies), she was inexperienced with spell selection, and unaware of the benefits of scrolls. As such, Reza now has more generally-useful spells prepared each day, with her big thematic-but-less-general ones (calm emotions, consecrate, speak with dead) on scrolls. I believe she was much happier with her character’s performance this time.
D&D Helpline - Charmed, I’m sure
So we had no game last week, due to sickness and exams, but we’ll be back tomorrow.
Today, though, I’m tackling something that I’ve been meaning to for a while. Specifically, giving a bit of help to Noumenon, who is looking for some workable rules (and more to the point, a second opinion) about casting spells during social encounters.
His problem:
I would like a better way to handle “Charm Person” type spells. I can never start spellcasting in a conversation without making the person so suspicious my DM wants to roll initiative. I don’t want to be reduced to casting a flavorful spell like Hypnotism from around the corner, and I don’t want to waste my feats on silent spells.
Well, unfortunately, I can understand your DM’s point, but he’s taking it a bit too far.
When you cast a spell while someone’s watching you, if it has verbal or somatic components they are going to know you’re casting a spell.
That said, they won’t immediately attack you, unless they’re already unfriendly towards you.
But really, the biggest problem with your DM’s handling of the situation is timing.
Let’s say Tim the Rogue is talking to an unfriendly town guard, and decides to pull a knife and stab him. Fine, surprise round, stabby, roll damage, and (if the target is still alive) roll for initiative.
So let’s say Billy the Wizard is talking to the same unfriendly guard, and decides to cast Charm Person. Same thing, surprise round, cast spell, roll saving throw, determine effect. THEN, if the spell failed, roll for initiative.
If the spell succeeded, the target’s attitude towards you should increase by 2 categories, after which they wouldn’t mind you casting a spell on them, as they’re friendly now.
If the spell fails, however, I’d say there’s a good chance that the target’s attitude towards you might change from unfriendly to hostile (or indifferent to unfriendly). If the target has allies around, who aren’t targets of the spell, to witness this, they will also likely move down one step.
That said, there are ways to prevent people noticing the spell. The primary one involves using the Bluff skill to create a distraction. This should effectively prevent attitudes from dropping, if the save succeeds and the spell fails. The alternative is, of course, preventing the target from hearing and seeing you while you cast. Around the corner works (as long as you still have line of sight), but so does just being further away, or in a crowd.
So this one really isn’t a houserule, but rather advice on handling the situation. I hope it proves helpful to
Noumenon and his DM, as well as anyone else with similar issues.
I have yet to tackle Tommi’s request from back in February, mostly due to lack of time, and then forgetting about it. :P I may still, but it is quite the complex issue. Additionally, I foresee at least some of that issue being dealt with by the new 4e rules. We’ll have to see.
In the meantime, feel free to submit new questions the the Helpline, and I’ll do my best to answer them.
Pathfinder 9 - Utter confusion
Y’know, I had meant to get this up around Wednesday. Stupid rest of life making me busy.
In any case, the game last week went surprisingly well.
I say surprisingly, because I had done pretty much no prep until about an hour before the game. Projects and assignments were keeping me far too busy. So on Sunday morning, I began to prep.
Withing 5 minutes, people began arriving. On the one day when I wanted people to be late, everyone was early. Fate has a cruel sense of humour, eh?
Anyways, I managed to skim what I needed before we began to play, but I was still worried things would bomb out.
I guess I need to put more faith in my ability to run things on the fly, though, because the game actually went pretty well.
Everyone was present this time.
Now, last time, we left off with the group headed to Magnimar, the big city.
Pathfinder 8 - Late Post, with Conan O’GameTomorrow
Yeah, so, we had a game two weeks ago…
‘Bout time I got around to writing about it, eh?
Cast:
- Nonnie, Halfling Sorcerer
- Nox, Changeling Swordsage
- Reza, Dwarven Cleric
- Thorbar, Dwarven Barbarian
- Ristan, Half-Elf Bard
So, yeah, everyone.
I’m going to go through a bit fast. A lot, while flavourful and interesting, wouldn’t make a good read, so I’ll skim it. Also, it’s late.
In any case, it was an interesting juxtaposition of a game.
Creepy murder, haunting, and seriousness, right alongside complete random sillyness from the players.
The interesting thing? Both emotions ended up being felt.
Pathfinder 7 - Garycon ‘08
Holy crap. It’s been way too long since the last post. Stupid university projects and their… stupidness… yeah…
In any case, Garycon ‘08 was last weekend.
Characters present:
- Nox, Changeling Swordsage
- Reza, Dwarf Cleric
- Thorbar, Dwarf Barbarian
- Ristan, Half-Elf Bard
Missing: Nonnie, Halfling Sorcerer.
We played a regular-length session. Somehow, though, it felt like we just didn’t get as much done as normal. And some of the things we did get done just didn’t feel as substantial.
In any case, as the game starts, Read more
Pathfinder 6 - Of death and helmets
Well, last weekend was the final session of Burnt Offerings, book 1 in Paizo’s Rise of the Runelords series. This wasn’t a long session, but it was still satisfying.
Present this week:
- Nox, Changeling Swordsage
- Nonnie, Halfling Sorcerer
- Reza, Dwarven Cleric
- Thorbar, Dwarven Barbarian
Missing was Ristan the Bard. His player works shifts. As such, she will be unable to attend every week for the whole game. We start around 2 pm, and usually go until around 7 or 8 pm. She will usually join us around 5 or 6 pm on her work days, it seems.
In any case, we started off right where we left off, lost hit points and all. We went south.
Pathfinder 5 - Newbs ahoy!
Short adventure this week. Two friends express interest in joining us, however, so we invited them to do so. Due to this, we spent a fair while finalising characters (and leveling up from 3 to 5) before we played. Thus, I give you this week’s roster.
- Nox, NG female Changeling Swordsage
- Nonnie, CE male Halfling Sorcerer
- Reza, CG female Dwarven Cleric
and introducing
- Thorbar, CN male Dwarven Barbarian
- Ristan, CN male Half-Elf Bard (player female)
Pathfinder 4 - Marathon session, marathon leveling
Oh, yeah. DM log. I should do that. 
So back on Sunday, we played our fourth session in the current Pathfinder game.
Characters present:
- Nox, the sex-changing, race-changing Changeling Swordsage
- Reza, the Dwarven Cleric, still getting used to this Cleric gig
- and Nonnie, the fast-talking, act-before-thinking Halfling Sorcerer
Still on the first adventure, we ended off last time after slaying the Quasit, and looting her tiny kingdom.
This time, however, we had a unique situation. Nobody had to work or go to school on Monday, due to it being Reading Week (Canada’s university spring break) as well as Louis Riel Day (Manitoba’s new February holiday).
So we did what any gaming group would do in that situation.
We gamed for as long as we could stand it!
Awesoming up players and house rules in the CAB game and in the future
Ah, the Rule of Cool.
It’s been written about a number of times in the world of DMing blogs, and is one of my principles as a DM. It guides my play style, and (as you will see below) it guides my house rules.
The guidelines behind perpetrating this rule, however, are not laid out above, though people come out with new ways to do so every day.
Rather, the method for creating an atmosphere of cool was defined years ago, completely outside of the gaming arena. Three simple rules were laid out by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker magazine. Since then, they have been applied heavily in the marketing world, to explain why products succeed and fail. But they are useful in gaming as well.
The three rules are as follows, and are effective guidelines to use while attempting to “awesome up” your games.
- 1) The act of discovering cool causes cool to move on.