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Gwendolynn Von Holden's Diary: Can't a girl get some sleep around here?
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<blockquote data-quote="BSF" data-source="post: 4208314" data-attributes="member: 13098"><p>This was one of the more interesting moments in the campaign from my perspective. I could knock on Eeralai on the lack of description for Caradec, because I went to a lot of effort to describe Caradec! Dragonskin belt, specific aspects of his holy symbol, all that sort of thing. But let's be honest, this session was <strong>years</strong> ago and Eeralai wasn't paying a whole lot of attention that night anyway. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> But why was this one of the more interesting moments? </p><p></p><p>Well, it has to do with die rolls.</p><p></p><p>Understand, Ternell was a character built with Intelligence as a dump stat. This is a challenging thing when the player is a smart guy! It is even more challenging when I develop a PrC for the campaign that the player wants the character to take and one of the required skills is several ranks in Knowledge (Religion). So Ternell started out a little behind and he had been dumping skill ranks into Knowledge (Religion) to catch up. Also keeping in mind that Aaron has ranks in Knowledge (Religion) and Intelligence was not a dump stat (Charisma for him). So what I am saying is that I have two PCs who worship the same deity that are trying to bump up their Knowledge (Religion) skills and end up with much different skill bonuses. </p><p></p><p>I have an NPC show up to help Ternell get his warhorse because I am somewhat old school and I like the idea of the quest. I just didn't want to divert the entire session to the quest. So I have a representative of Ternell's god show up. Yep, Paladin's don't need to worship a god in 3.0, but Ternell did so I played with it. Now I have a couple of PCs with Knowledge (Religion) and they haven't had much chance to use it lately. I hate when skills aren't used often. I love Knowledge skills since I see them as a way to enable the character to know a lot, and they enable me (the GM) to expound on the setting. So I offer to let the PCs make Knowledge (Religion) checks to see if they recognize this guy.</p><p></p><p>Here I am thinking, OK, he is some sort of messenger or angel or something. I'm sorry, what was that? Didn't I know? Umm, no I didn't. With this campaign in particular, I tried to only answer some of those questions when I absolutely needed to. Understand, this encounter came at the end of the session. At the beginning of the evening, the player had reminded me that Ternell was now 5th level and should have access to the Special Mount. Since we were in the middle of the forest, he wasn't sure how that would work out. So, I resolved that I would facilitate that somehow. After we were wrapping up the session, I popped this encounter out, pretty much on the fly. My logic was that Ternell's player was the only one that needed to be involved and we could hash it out after everybody left, if we had to. I gave the other players the opportunity to observe, in character, or to bail out. Most of the players wanted to stick around to see how it turned out. </p><p></p><p>Anyway, I asked for Knowledge checks. Aaron rolls well. Ternell rolls a natural 20 and ends up with a better roll! My thoughts were that this could very well be the only time in the entire campaign that Ternell knows more about some aspect of the religion than Aaron. (Well, unless something helped boost Ternell's Int stat.) Sure, you can't have a critical success on a skill in 3.0. But it is always exciting to roll a 20 so I wanted to go with it.</p><p></p><p>All of a sudden, I need to explain who Caradec is and describing him as just some angel won't be good enough. I take the player aside, mostly to gain myself another minute of thought time. Then I start expounding that Caradec is a lesser known figure of the church, but mostly because so much information has been lost over time. He lived hundreds of years ago, was known to have defeated a blue dragon (remember that belt?), he was not just a Herald of Pter (a different PrC I decided), but he was also a High Knight of Pter (the same PrC that Ternell was angling for) in his mortal life. But that wasn't all, I started expounding that when Caradec died, he became one of the Three and Thirty, which is Pter's angelic support structure. The Three represent Solars who represent Chaotic Good, Lawful Good and Neutral Good. The Thirty represent the 10 Angels beneath each Solar that help support that infrastructure. So, Caradec wasn't just an angel, he was a former mortal whose deeds were so noteworthy to Pter that he was elevated to being an angel and was assigned to part of the angelic support structure that Pter uses to manage his influence in the world. At this point, I had just fleshed out more of my campaign history as well as cosmology. And it was definitely worth it! The player enjoyed having his PC know these things when Aaron did not. The other players enjoyed hearing this information come out. It just made for an interesting way to wrap up the evening. </p><p></p><p>So, when it came time for the rest of the PCs to decide if they wanted to watch Ternell undergo his trial, or just hang out back at camp, most of them wanted to watch the trial. It did require Caradec promising that nothing would happen at the camp while they were gone though. But when a powerful angel tells you that everthing should be OK, you tend to trust him. </p><p></p><p>End result - Ternell was tossed into a maze with a minotaur. I retroactively explained how these trials work much later in the campaign, so I will save that explanation for then. The other PCs could watch the trial, but they couldn't do anything to interfere. It was very Star Trek like in that the viewscreen would show what was happening, but there was no real interaction. How did it turn out? I will see if one of the players wants to describe it. If not, I will add that in later. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="BSF, post: 4208314, member: 13098"] This was one of the more interesting moments in the campaign from my perspective. I could knock on Eeralai on the lack of description for Caradec, because I went to a lot of effort to describe Caradec! Dragonskin belt, specific aspects of his holy symbol, all that sort of thing. But let's be honest, this session was [b]years[/b] ago and Eeralai wasn't paying a whole lot of attention that night anyway. :) But why was this one of the more interesting moments? Well, it has to do with die rolls. Understand, Ternell was a character built with Intelligence as a dump stat. This is a challenging thing when the player is a smart guy! It is even more challenging when I develop a PrC for the campaign that the player wants the character to take and one of the required skills is several ranks in Knowledge (Religion). So Ternell started out a little behind and he had been dumping skill ranks into Knowledge (Religion) to catch up. Also keeping in mind that Aaron has ranks in Knowledge (Religion) and Intelligence was not a dump stat (Charisma for him). So what I am saying is that I have two PCs who worship the same deity that are trying to bump up their Knowledge (Religion) skills and end up with much different skill bonuses. I have an NPC show up to help Ternell get his warhorse because I am somewhat old school and I like the idea of the quest. I just didn't want to divert the entire session to the quest. So I have a representative of Ternell's god show up. Yep, Paladin's don't need to worship a god in 3.0, but Ternell did so I played with it. Now I have a couple of PCs with Knowledge (Religion) and they haven't had much chance to use it lately. I hate when skills aren't used often. I love Knowledge skills since I see them as a way to enable the character to know a lot, and they enable me (the GM) to expound on the setting. So I offer to let the PCs make Knowledge (Religion) checks to see if they recognize this guy. Here I am thinking, OK, he is some sort of messenger or angel or something. I'm sorry, what was that? Didn't I know? Umm, no I didn't. With this campaign in particular, I tried to only answer some of those questions when I absolutely needed to. Understand, this encounter came at the end of the session. At the beginning of the evening, the player had reminded me that Ternell was now 5th level and should have access to the Special Mount. Since we were in the middle of the forest, he wasn't sure how that would work out. So, I resolved that I would facilitate that somehow. After we were wrapping up the session, I popped this encounter out, pretty much on the fly. My logic was that Ternell's player was the only one that needed to be involved and we could hash it out after everybody left, if we had to. I gave the other players the opportunity to observe, in character, or to bail out. Most of the players wanted to stick around to see how it turned out. Anyway, I asked for Knowledge checks. Aaron rolls well. Ternell rolls a natural 20 and ends up with a better roll! My thoughts were that this could very well be the only time in the entire campaign that Ternell knows more about some aspect of the religion than Aaron. (Well, unless something helped boost Ternell's Int stat.) Sure, you can't have a critical success on a skill in 3.0. But it is always exciting to roll a 20 so I wanted to go with it. All of a sudden, I need to explain who Caradec is and describing him as just some angel won't be good enough. I take the player aside, mostly to gain myself another minute of thought time. Then I start expounding that Caradec is a lesser known figure of the church, but mostly because so much information has been lost over time. He lived hundreds of years ago, was known to have defeated a blue dragon (remember that belt?), he was not just a Herald of Pter (a different PrC I decided), but he was also a High Knight of Pter (the same PrC that Ternell was angling for) in his mortal life. But that wasn't all, I started expounding that when Caradec died, he became one of the Three and Thirty, which is Pter's angelic support structure. The Three represent Solars who represent Chaotic Good, Lawful Good and Neutral Good. The Thirty represent the 10 Angels beneath each Solar that help support that infrastructure. So, Caradec wasn't just an angel, he was a former mortal whose deeds were so noteworthy to Pter that he was elevated to being an angel and was assigned to part of the angelic support structure that Pter uses to manage his influence in the world. At this point, I had just fleshed out more of my campaign history as well as cosmology. And it was definitely worth it! The player enjoyed having his PC know these things when Aaron did not. The other players enjoyed hearing this information come out. It just made for an interesting way to wrap up the evening. So, when it came time for the rest of the PCs to decide if they wanted to watch Ternell undergo his trial, or just hang out back at camp, most of them wanted to watch the trial. It did require Caradec promising that nothing would happen at the camp while they were gone though. But when a powerful angel tells you that everthing should be OK, you tend to trust him. End result - Ternell was tossed into a maze with a minotaur. I retroactively explained how these trials work much later in the campaign, so I will save that explanation for then. The other PCs could watch the trial, but they couldn't do anything to interfere. It was very Star Trek like in that the viewscreen would show what was happening, but there was no real interaction. How did it turn out? I will see if one of the players wants to describe it. If not, I will add that in later. :) [/QUOTE]
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