General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
I just realized that you guys have no leader! What are you doing about healing and buffs?
-blarg
My expectation? Suffering!
With a ton of strikers, they will annihilate anything they get the jump on (to wit, one extremely peeved and ineffectual snapjaw crocodile.) They may be in trouble in an extended fight. The ranger, Dr. Caldwell, also has substantial skill in healing. I have a possible NPC to help with this, but I don't want to use her unless the PCs need the backup.
__________________ - Piratecat, EN World Admin
Currently editing the 4e War of the Burning Sky adventure path. Support EN Publishing, get excellent modules!
With a ton of strikers, they will annihilate anything they get the jump on (to wit, one extremely peeved and ineffectual snapjaw crocodile.) They may be in trouble in an extended fight. The ranger, Dr. Caldwell, also has substantial skill in healing. I have a possible NPC to help with this, but I don't want to use her unless the PCs need the backup.
yeah they are going to have some swingy fights! That was my first thought..they will either slaughter baddies quickly or have to run away because of a lack of healing. Should be fun...
I've read Piratecat's story hours before and he puts a hell of a lot of effort into his games... so why did the players choose non-fantasy names that truly suck? They really break the verisimilitude unless, of course, this is consistent with the game world.
Wow, that's, um...really hostile and insulting to a bunch of people you don't know from Adam.
__________________ Iain Fyffe
Original member of the Rouseketeers!
I have played 4E. And just like all other editions of D&D, it is awesome!
no one quotes me in sigs - Crothian
For some reason, this doesn't fill me with rage. I must be interwebbing wrong. - Cadfan
I personally can't wait to read more on this. I enjoyed the last epic PirateCat storyhour and the subsequent discussions and revelations about the behind the scenes of the game itself.
I also love the fact that the players put in a great deal of work on their characters. And yes, that includes the names. (I'm still trying to get one of my players out of the habit of using terrible JRPG names and its starting to work.. Though the fact he had one character named 'Avec' was pushing it. 'With' isn't too epic a sounding name in any language.)
Looking forward to more reports!
__________________ Marshmellows.. The tofu of candy!
With a ton of strikers, they will annihilate anything they get the jump on (to wit, one extremely peeved and ineffectual snapjaw crocodile.) They may be in trouble in an extended fight.
That sounds about right. My prediction is that they'll be able to get by at first, maybe second level. As soon as monster hps start ballooning past the point where they can drop them in one round, trouble's gonna come knockin'. Hard.
-blarg
__________________ Red Hot Swing
"In Inspired Sarlona, nightmares have you!" -Klaus
I've always heard it said that you should never be afraid to steal good stuff from other people, and I reckon this is the group I could steal the most from! So, yes, I'd like to see it.
Sagiro, many thanks for starting this up - looking forward to reading more in a couple of weeks.
__________________ DM of Adventure Path Story Hour (now in Thunderspire Labyrinth!): Ryam Plays Dice - updated 8th June 09 (campaign on indefinite hiatus).
Player in Swordlands Story Hour: Interview with a Fey - updated 15th June 09. News just in - this campaign may be restarting in the near future! Watch this space!
I also have the singular honour of being Rouseketeer #20.
On starting a new campaign: It was not as long between starting campaigns for me as for Piratecat (5 years, not 16), but I know the feeling of intimidation and worry. . . The previous campaign can have so much momentum and backstory built up it can be easier to figure out what to spring at the party next and what makes the most sense in terms of results/reactions. . . With a new campaign every decision has a greater potential to take the game in a whole new direction - and what if it is a sucky one?
On length: My current campaign is closing in on 2 years long and I feel like it is just getting past those "beginning stages" and finally getting to the meat of it. I expect the game to last 5 or 6 years - so I totally hear where Sagiro is coming from regarding feeling like a 5 or 6 years is just getting started.
On Names: Personally, I prefer real world names (or variation thereof) to too many crazy fantasy names. I mean, those are good too for the occasional villianous NPC or member of some bizarre culture - but typically I am happy taking names from the closest cultural analog to places in my campaign setting and using those. I remember when I first started my "Out of the Frying Pan" story hour someone made a comment about the names from the Bible I used for some NPCs and how his players would have been too taken out of it by such names. . . Personally, I'd rather use names the players can actually remember rather than something like Elamurix, or whatever. . .
Oh, and yeah, Cobalt should totally be nicknamed "Bait".
You know, I'm honestly not sure I'll need to. I want to shoot for a level every 5-6 games, which is twice as fast as my last campaign. We game from 7pm to 10pm, minus some time for food, so that's about two encounters per game when you include roleplaying. I suspect that even if I didn't change advancement, we'd still level at the speed recommended in the DMG.
I probably won't track xp, though. I'm more likely to just level people after an adventure every 5-6 games.
The wiki can be found here, and is in the process of being updated: piratecat wiki
__________________ - Piratecat, EN World Admin
Currently editing the 4e War of the Burning Sky adventure path. Support EN Publishing, get excellent modules!
Since part of my brain is wrestling with a work problem, I'll talk a little about the campaign design. The Sons of Kryos guys posted an amazing campaign blurb a few months back, one that was truly inspirational: a world where everything was going to hell all at once and the PCs were caught in the middle. I loved it, but it was too unremittingly dark for me to be able to pull off successfully. I wanted to take a world where things have been going pretty well, make the players love it, and then have something happen that shakes up the status quo.
For me that means setting up an empire that seems to be in a decadent decline. The far provinces are talking about rebellion, no one knows what the emperor (a God clothed in flesh, according to tradition) has been up to, and there are many forces at work - some mortal and political, some far from what people might expect. For hundreds of years the power of the Emperor's Peace has kept most monsters at bay, and the Grey Guard has easily dealt with what few monsters have been willing to rear their heads. Even so, it's a terribly dangerous line of work. It's about to get more dangerous.
With the empire weakening or crumbling, the emperor's peace is disintegrating along with it. The massive Pledgestones that symbolize this protection are cracking in the countries that rebel. And that's going to bode poorly for the nearby realms. As a result, large sections of the map may shift from civilized to uncivilized. Things start getting ugly, and this coincides roughly with the growth in power of the heroes. I love the points of light concept, but I also take deep joy in city and political games. This should give me both, depending on where in the empire the PCs happen to be at any given time.
And of course, the problems of the Empire are only one part of the long-term story arc. I have some other cool things in mind, but this isn't the place to discuss them.
I've deliberately set the PCs in a country that's halfway between the civilized lands and the more wild provinces. It takes me a while to world-build, and unlike you crazy-impressive top-down guys, I can't create everything ahead of time and present it to my players. My worlds tend to accrete around the heroes as they explore. I can't really do that here since there's more backstory, but I'm keeping geography a bit vague until it forms properly. It helps that the only PC who has "history" as a skill is a warforged who has been stuck in the mud for hundreds of years, and who doesn't remember much.
__________________ - Piratecat, EN World Admin
Currently editing the 4e War of the Burning Sky adventure path. Support EN Publishing, get excellent modules!
For hundreds of years the power of the Emperor's Peace has kept most monsters at bay, and the Grey Guard has easily dealt with what few monsters have been willing to rear their heads. Even so, it's a terribly dangerous line of work. It's about to get more dangerous.
[player]
What are you talking about? The Caprian Empire is doing just fine! Just because a few uppity border countries are twittering about rebellion doesn't mean Capria isn't still a strong and enduring entity. Heck, I've never even seen a monster, unless you count that crocodile, which was really more of a big animal than something strange and scary. Real monsters would be crazy to come near our civilized lands.
It's going to be hard for the players without a leader (though maybe that's the NPC's class). I have two strikers in my campaign, and while they certainly can dish out the damage, eventually they will eventually lose the initiative badly enough to get somone knocked unconscious. At that point... They're in trouble. In a party with a cleric, an unconscious character is back in play pretty quickly.
[player]
What are you talking about? The Caprian Empire is doing just fine! Just because a few uppity border countries are twittering about rebellion doesn't mean Capria isn't still a strong and enduring entity. Heck, I've never even seen a monster, unless you count that crocodile, which was really more of a big animal than something strange and scary. Real monsters would be crazy to come near our civilized lands.
I don't know why anyone would worry!
[/player]
I trust this guy - he sounds like he knows what he's talking about.
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