| 14 Jan 2024 |
 wolfmunroe | Roughly how many encounters do you generally expect to have before your party reaches level 2? | 16:45:33 |
| wolfmunroe | I'm trying to do some game prep and want to make sure I have enough stuff prepped for level 1. | 16:46:11 |
| wolfmunroe | It's been over a decade since the last time I ran for level 1 characters. | 16:46:41 |
| wolfmunroe | I suppose I could work it out based on XP rewards for an average party, but I'm just asking for a general ballpark. | 16:47:33 |
 andrei | Depends on the type of adventure. Beginner box (menace under otari) is a dungeon crawl and has constant fighting (8/9 combat encounters till lvlup). It's continuation, troubles in otari is overworld and it has more diversity. Can.t remember how many encounters tho | 16:59:39 |
| wolfmunroe | Well, fingers crossed that I don't have that many. 8 or 9 sounds like a lot. I do like to award ad hoc XP for RP too, so that will subsidize it. | 20:25:10 |
| andrei | The encounters are tiny for a level 1 party. 2 - 4 mobs | 22:03:11 |
| 30 Jan 2024 |
| wolfmunroe | I'm considering a house rule for Pathfinder1e that will allow for characters to take-on negative levels to cast spells they've already expended for the day. Like they can receive 5 negative levels, as though being the target of an energy drain, to cast a level 5 spell. So they would take the number of negative levels that matches the spell's level.
The idea is that it's sort of an option of last resort. Given that the negative levels of energy drain don't become permanent negative levels until after the failed save at 24 hours, do you guys think this is too good? A single restoration cast within 24 hours should remove all the negative levels as they're not permanent yet, and, because they're not permanent yet, it has a material component of 100gp instead of 1000gp.
Is that making it too easy to get an extra spell? It basically means they lose access to a lot of other stuff because of the negative levels, but it's rectified with a level 4 spell and 100 gp if resolved within 24 hours. | 20:06:30 |
| 31 Jan 2024 |
 rhamphoryncus | I'd remove the potential to be permanent and the potential to be killed easier from energy drain. Make it act like a negative level but not actually be a negative level | 00:56:57 |
| rhamphoryncus | The cost of restoration is flat, so it's really expensive at low levels, but super cheap at high levels. Not sure that works | 00:57:38 |
| wolfmunroe | I decided to not use negative levels because it basically allows a dhampir or shabti to get a free spell every day since they suffer no penalties from negative levels (except death if negative levels = actual levels) and automatically shed negative levels after 24 hours.
I'm presently looking at having the penalty be tied to the Horror Adventures Sanity system (which I'm using) or spellblights from Ultimate Magic. I need to review the various means to remove sanity damage and madnesses before I land on what it actually costs though. | 13:57:04 |
| wolfmunroe | It's meant to be an option-of-last-resort, so I want it to be unappealing but not actually fatal. | 13:57:46 |
| rhamphoryncus | That's kinda what I was getting at. Negative levels have undesired consequences | 16:48:49 |
| 2 Feb 2024 |
| wolfmunroe | I realized that this is already one of the listed features of Hero Points, called Recall.
I don't want to fully integrate Hero Points into my P1e game, but I might find a middle ground like introducing Elixirs of Luck. | 08:06:59 |
| wolfmunroe | I'm using Wound Thresholds so I also want to add the option of spending a Hero Point to negate the penalties of Wound Thresholds for one round. | 08:09:21 |
| 14 Feb 2024 |
|  Hilear changed their profile picture. | 04:34:56 |
| 15 Feb 2024 |
| wolfmunroe | This weekend I'm running a level-one one-shot adventure in Pathfinder1e for a couple people who have never played a TTRPG.
The entire experience is only scheduled for 2 hours, so that includes character creation and the adventure.
I think the duo are called in by a friend to look into a family member that has fallen ill, and called to that friend's family estate. I do not know what classes they will be playing yet, as we're going over character creation that day.
As it's only going to be a short adventure, meant to show off the basic elements of the game, I'd like to have some roleplay, some skill checks, decision-making on their part, and at least one combat encounter against the monster that has caused the illness. | 10:18:19 |
| wolfmunroe | I was originally going to go with a ghoul hound as the monster they're tracking down (same CR as a ghoul but lacks the ghoul's claw attacks so much lower action economy) but decided against the ghoul hound because one of the people involved is a dog groomer, and they've already told me they have a lot of dogs, so might feel like I'm singling them out. Instead, I've decided to go with a festrog. Instead of ghoul fever, the family member is suffering from necrotic boils.
Festrog also doesn't have ghoul paralysis, which is a good thing since there are only going to be two PCs.
Since it is CR 1, I'm reluctant to have more than one festrog, but I'm tempted to have two festrogs. Perhaps the second one only joins the fight later if it looks like the party is going to defeat its partner--they're sentient creatures so it is coming to the aid of its pack-mate. It might also flee if the fight turns against it (leaving an open plot) to be hunted another day.
I'm also thinking about perhaps having the party see a dire rat (CR 1/3), but it's not looking for a fight and scurries into a hidey-hole. If they want to pick a fight with it, they can.
And, for the added choice of endangering themselves, I want the groundskeeper of the estate to warn them about going into the garden, as the garden has a garden ooze (CR 2). It's been left in the garden to eat vermin, but it will attack anyone or anything that approaches it. So the really dumb option is to go pick a fight with the garden ooze, as its attacks deal 1d4 plus 1d8 acid.
I'm trying to think of some more non-combat ideas that help the players feel like they have more decisions to make, but the main decisions I have right now are "where do we look for the monster(s)?"
Any suggestions? This is intended as a strictly vanilla game and system demonstration, so no house rules. | 10:28:41 |
| rhamphoryncus | My only input is to discourage having a wizard. Lots of complexity and very little staying power at level 1 | 16:10:31 |
| rhamphoryncus | Some players may love that though :P | 16:10:52 |
| 16 Feb 2024 |
| wolfmunroe | I don't think I've ever had anyone play a wizard in my games, oddly enough. | 04:55:30 |
| andrei | TLDR: you have below the seeds of a darkest-dungeon inspired plot. Not what you asked for but i felt inspired and maybe it carries on to you
Try to leave them wanting more so maybe finding and fighting this monster they are chasing is part of a little larger narrative. Also foreshadow events to come: As they go through the garden to initially enter the mansion they notice that the many decorative bushes have odd coloured leaves, yellowish, even thou it is spring and plants were green until now. The first portent of doom. If they take an interest thus perception check, they notice that all the leaves have a sickly yellowish color grow twisted, counter-clockwise (which you could use as the sole mystery behind a puzzle if you reinforce it more along the way).
When they encounyer the groundskeeper later, they could notice from distance that he is actually cutting bushes into shape with a longish knife like instrument. If they don.t go he notices and comes to them with a smile. The tool is one half of a garden scissor (for he is half the gardener he was and wits have left him). If asked he knows he lost half of the tool but he can.t bring himslelf to throw it, it is part of him.
I.m thinking something darkest dungeon-esque. Owner of manor found something in the basement, say a vein of yellow glitter that was a joy to the eye(gold) in that rank darkness, that lead to undergound catacombs.
If the owner can speak, you could make it so all still human inhabitants of the place are in states of confusion and mostly remember what brought them joy in life. Confronting them about the rot around them makes them lose it in a fit of crying or mad rambling.
So, the owner explored the catacombs in secret with 1 servant that mined and his chief of staff, found through the temple-like place a number of odd but shiny chalices and tablets, all the while bickering with the others about division of spoils. The miner guy goes raving mad and violent in one such moment, the other two put him down, happy for the extra spoils. Further on those two also go into a fight, the owner end up being pushed and falls into a shallow underground lake while the servant runs away with the spoils. The water could be what protects against this effect (You can foreshadow this by havind the owner in the house lots of buckets of water and cups around him and high thirst. Also the groundskeeper watering the plants copiously. Water slows down the effect they are going through. Maybe the holy type would slowwly reverse but source of evil must be stopped. They don.t realize all this). Thus waken up and shaken he runs back up to the manor, locks the basement and over the next weeks? develops whatever condition you said.
The creature they are chasing could be the chief of staff, disfigured, not quite human anymore, walking on all fours and mad. The reason he comes back up? In his madness he placed all stolen objects back into their place and he now keeps his new house clean and in order but on one of his paths there is a small puddle of water from drips coming from the ceiling. As he routinely goes on that path he always steps in the puddle with his right foot (which keeps it.s human aspect) and a few drips fall on his now-bald head and down his face they go, like tears. This keeps his face still recognizable thou disfigured. (Let.s say spores are the infecting vector, seeds of some god.). Now in these moments some part of himself comes back and remembers food and things from above where he goes crying and mumbling, scratching walls and breaking stuff along the way.
The small arc of this adventure could be catching the servant on one of his strolls below (he can be pacified and slowly, partially treated with holy water). The larger one, what brings this corruption and how to stop it? (Maybe the old ritual of rebirth for the head cultist, 1K years ago, involved drinking a "blessed" concoction which killed the drinker. The dead, "blessed" carcass should have sporulated a month later if not for the intervention of other heroes whom fought the other cultists over the corpse, won, piled up all the dead cultists and used a spell to bury them in clay which would harden in time, sealed the entrances and went away to spend their gold, as heroes do. All those corpses became material for the godly spores which slowly ate at the clay for a thousand years. The round clay can be like a womb and if the present day heroes go poke and prod, give em a weird skeleton made of other skeletons that have visible and sporulating gobs of dry meat in their ribcages). Maybe have a small lake above that drips down through the ceiling so that final purification can take place by submerging the room in water if PCs wish it. A hulking skeleton could help by smashing pillars and recoiling in pain when bit of water falls on it.
Themes and elements to foreshadow: spores (which could represent and behave a bit like fire; maybe those that come in contact are slowly disfigured by small burns initially) & thus fire, the counterpart water, twisted objects (burnt things often twist in the process), halves of objects, rote behavior (cults do that), rebirth, greed (gold, shiny objects), joy (memories or hopes), despair (ramblings, violence)
TLDR: the seeds of a darkest-dungeon inspired plot. Not what you asked for but i felt inspired and maybe it carries on to you | 12:06:37 |
| andrei | 2 hours is damn short. Maybe it is best to have pre-made chars that they can tweak. If they did not play before there might be lots of choice paralysis (or lack of with the same effect). How many scenes would you expect to have? 4, 5? My games tend to move very slowly which would make it 2 scenes | 12:06:59 |
| wolfmunroe | That's a lot more than I can fit in two hours. :-)
I'm going to keep it a bit simpler than that.
I don't think any of the living NPCs are villainous, though there was a villainous uncle that died trying to do some magic ritual that triggered the creation of the festrog(s). He was buried in the small crypt on the grounds several weeks ago, and it took some time for him to break out of his stone encasement.
Two hours is very short so I've told the player that I'm coordinating with that we might run long unless she wants to adhere to a strict schedule. I could have showed up with pre-fab characters but I got the impression from early interaction that the player is interested in character creation, so I plan to spend some time going over that with them. I'm taking the Core Rulebook, Advanced Player's guide, and Inner Sea Races along for use in character creation. I was going to take Advanced Class Guide too, but I'll just mention there are more classes as these are intended to be one-shot characters anyway.
I'm trying to balance brevity with everything else.
Your plot idea sounds really cool though. I'd play in that game. | 23:06:25 |
| 1 Mar 2024 |
 justanotherlurker | What's your opinion on the pathfinder novels and graphic novels?
Are they worth reading?
Time and money well spent?
Interesting and entertaining introduction into the pathfinder world of RPG and ACG? | 13:44:21 |
| wolfmunroe | I really liked Prince of Wolves by Dave Gross. I've read it twice. I got my Dad to read it. He also liked it and he's not a Pathfinder player or fan.
I thought Winter Witch by Elaine Cunningham was good too.
I felt like Plague of Shadows (don't remember the author) was weak and felt more like reading someone's RPG campaign.
I'm currently reading The Worldwound Gambit. I think it starts slow, but it has seemed to pick-up in the middle.
I plan to read Master of Devils next. It's the next Dave Gross Pathfinder novel and the next novel in the line in publication order. I'm trying to read them by order of release, so I haven't jumped ahead.
I had a novel subscription for a long time, so I own most of them, just haven't got around to them yet. After I had to cancel my novel subscription, I still bought the Dave Gross novels, as there are five (I think) with the same protagonists. (I also bought a couple others loose after my novels subscription ended, but I don't remember their names off-hand and I haven't read them yet.) | 15:10:57 |
| wolfmunroe | As for the comics, the only one I've read is Pathfinder Worldscape Volume 1. I enjoyed it, though I bought it primarily because I knew it had some Pathfinder1e class archetypes as backmatter. | 15:12:36 |
| 31 Mar 2024 |
|  r changed their display name from rayne to r. | 01:23:18 |
| 10 Apr 2024 |
|  Brendhan invited  Brendhan. | 17:30:06 |
| Brendhan joined the room. | 17:30:13 |
