Sola Fide

Well I've been holding off working on the campaign for the last few days which is why if you've tried to get into the campaign of a night it hasn't been there (because I haven't had it open).  I've done about 50 hours preparation so far and I didn't want to do a heap more given it was looking a bit shaky scheduling wise.  It's not that I am not keen, it's just a little harder to find the motivation to press on to hour 51 of the pretend world when the real world issues haven't quite been sorted out yet.  I am sure we'll sort out something, and so...

Subscription

Sola fide I subscribed to the Pathfinder Adventure Path series starting at AP #55 (the first of the Skull & Shackles Campaign) and then promptly pre-ordered the Rise of the Runelords: Anniversary Edition hardcover too.  I pre-ordered because for this particular special release pre-ordering entitles me to the PDF download too, which means it should be relatively easy for me to cut & paste material into FG2.

Henchmen

I'll prepare a couple of characters ready to fill the ranks on any night that someone can't play.   That way the party can continue with enough heft to 'get stuff done'.


By the way, MilSims has a sale at the moment.

Any decision on a night yet?

Are we playing tonight for example?

Characters

I have successfully imported Blukvard the Druid into FG with a combo of PCGen and the FGImporter utility.  So you can email me the PCGEN files for your characters to my home email address (the netspace one).

Dave casts Cure Light Suckiness

With the general bumminess of the way this is heading, I thought I'd share a couple of web sites I've stumbled across in my week at the PC preparing 'RPG stuff''

This is the coolest tiling terrain I've ever seen.  Watch the video, its like a eugenics programme where the genetic stock is from  old school and awesome.

Speaking of awesome old school stuff, can you believe this?  If I didn't still have my originals lovingly preserved in my RPG shrine I'd be on amazon instead of typing this.

I remember when White Dwarf was a pretty cool RPG magazine.  But there where any number of them, Sorcerers Apprentice I have here somewhere.  Anyway, Kobold Quarterly is an interesting little magazine braving the online RPG business with its narrow margins (profit margins not print margins) and keeping its head above water.

Community consultation about D&DNext (5e)

This next one needs no introduction....+5 Crossword of Slaying!!

In the Background

Just as you occasionally see a photo in which the goings on in the background are far more interesting than the foreground (often comically), tonight's experience proved to me once again how interesting character backgrounds can be.

Jacko the Druid

Jacko jumped onto FG2 tonight while I was building the module for the town (more on that later).  We bounced ideas back and forward about the background history of his character.  How he fitted in with the world and his reason for being where he is.  As we got in to more and more detail, his character's story really started to take shape.  I'm really impressed with where it took us and how it developed into a rich character story that really makes sense on a number of different levels.  Some obvious, some subtle.  I'm pumped!

Sandpoint Module

The other "background" at play in the campaign is the town of Sandpoint. This too has it's own character (and I'm pleased with how well the two are now merged for Jacko's character).  For the purpose of running the campaign on FG2 I've been trying to modularise components, so that I don't have one enormous campaign mess whenever I fire up the program.  I know you guys are interested in how we can use the Fantasy Grounds software so I thought I'd share a bit of how I've organised things.

I've basically divided stuff up into modules (FG's name for them).  I can load/unload the modules at will into the main campaign on the fly.  So for example if you are in Sandpoint I can have the Sandpoint module open.  This dynamically adds extra tabs to the relevant sections of the FG desktop.  E.g. A new tab appears in the story section that has just story entries for Sandpoint.  I have colour-coded (and for that matter symbol-coded) the tabs and ensured they appear with hover text when I load the module.  So for example all my town modules will be globe symbols on a bright yellow ribbon (tab).  When you leave Sandpoint on your adventures I can simply close that module and open any others I might need. This ensures I don't over load the system or (more likely) my brain by having thousands of entries to wade through. To give you a feel of the scale at the moment I have about 60 story entries alone for Sandpoint already.  There will be 20 or 30 more before I'm finished I am sure.  Another 130 so far for the main part of the module itself.

Class, Race & Time

Class

I understand from Jacko that you have all made choices regarding class as follows:

• Adam - Druid
• John - Ranger
• Russ - Warrior

Favored Class

Not sure if you guys have discovered this rule yet...  

Each character begins play with a single favored class of his choosing—typically, this is the same class as the one he chooses at 1st level. Whenever a character gains a level in his favored class, he receives either + 1 hit point or + 1 skill rank. The choice of favored class cannot be changed once the character is created, and the choice of gaining a hit point or a skill rank each time a character gains a level (including his first level) cannot be changed once made for a particular level. Prestige classes can never be a favored class.

Unless you post a comment to the contrary I am assuming you are all taking your starting class as your "preferred class".

Race/Gender

There are a number of plot points that are based around specific circumstances of party make-up, particularly race and gender.  Things like "the dragon eats the shortest available elf in the surprise round" so in order to maximise what I can prepare ahead of time, what would be really handy to know now is:

• Name
• Race
• Gender

Play Time

When are we going to play?  I see 4 main questions here:

1. What night are we playing? (Fri, Sat, Sun suit me best)
2. What time are we starting?
3. How often?  Weekly? fortnightly?
4. Are you ready to start now?  I could start from tomorrow night if you wanted

Getting the Most from the Blog

I quite like how useful the blog has been for delivering content quickly (especially now that I finally figured out how to get my cascading style sheets working - it doesn't help with design bad taste but it's at least consistent!)  I'd like to see the blog used as a central collaboration/discussion tool and steer away from the emails (which I'm not seeing).  The comments as a mechanism for discussion works very well (certainly on the fantasy grounds and Paizo forums anyway).

Subscribe

You can subscribe to get alerts when new blog entries are posted.  There are a few ways to do this:

• you can open an individual post (ie click the post heading or select the post from the blog archive list in the right sidebar) then click subscribe by email at the bottom.  You need to be logged in to your google account for this.  Please don't anyone say you don't have a google account, because it's like saying you don't have arms.  You can live but it sure is hard to interact with the world.
• If you use blogger at all you can follw the blog from your blogger dashboard.  
• I think I could also set up an RSS feed, but then I'd have to figure out how to do that, and I think I can better spend my time reading up on druids and the starting town.

Ranger Danger

Ranger Danger

Things will certainly be interesting with 3 Rangers.  The first few encounters are quite easy so there won't be any problems there.  But as the module heats up the encounters start to get a bit tougher and towards the end there are some very challenging issues for you to face.  Some of these will require a certain amount of creativity and, more to the point, diversity to conquer. As it is you are only a 3 person party rather than the recommended 4, so you are already a little behind the 8-ball diversity wise.

Whatever Floats your Boat

Having said that, if you all want to play rangers then who am I to say "no".  It will certainly make knowing each other easy and it will sure make for an interesting game. What I'd really hate to see, though, is that I spend 50-100 hours working on the campaign (and I've already put in a lot of hours) only to have it fizzle out after a session or two because the party balance is so screwy you can't accomplish anything.  I'm just throwing it out there that some consideration would be appreciated if it ends up so messed up you can't help but get killed and have to start a new character.

On the plus side, an all-ranger group limits the amount of reading on classes I need to do.

Time Heals all Wounds

Rubbish.
Magic is what heals all wounds. You may want to consider to whom you will be turning when all these rangers need patching up.  Maybe you wont need it.  You'll probably be lousy with Cure Light Wounds when you finally hit level 7, I'm sure no one will need healing before then, what with the heavy reliance on non-confrontational role-playing you're all known for :-)

On the plus side, I haven't read any of the spell casting bits yet, so that might save me a lot of research too.  I should probably read the wound stabilisation and dying rules pretty thoroughly though.

All the Classes Rock

From what I can tell, PF has made all the core classes pretty awesome.  I don't pretend to have read them all, but just as an example, I think Bard has become a pretty playable class now.  Spells from level 1 and pretty decent combat capability.  It appears that Leonard Cohen is a level 20 bard with his ability to depress you so much with his songs that you literally take your own life. This  Bardic Performance stuff is on top of spells and from what I can see basically gives about 6 spell like effects per day at first level (assuming CHA 14) going up by 2 per level. So a 4rd level bard (with just 14 cha) is ripping out 12 performances a day plus plus 7 spells.

Fighters get more feats than a centipede and Druids can get all companioned up with pet wolf/bear/etc at lvl 1 as another couple of examples.  Barbarians can get a bit crazy too--+8 str rage bonus (and x1.5 damage bonus for 2 hander) combined with auto critical hit anyone?  If you fancy being a Barbarian but don't want to be a Shoanti, you can be a shipwrecked Linnorm (viking) who has been living in Sandpoint for a number of years.  Though obviously you're a long way from home and no free Shoanti totem spirit.  You still wont have any healing but at east you'll have d12 hit dice :-)

Character Creation

First order of business is character creation. Click the links in this post even if you don't think you need to because you already have the material.  It reveals a few cool things I've found this morning.

Character Generator

You can, of course, go all old school and use the Core Rulebook  to work out your character.  Please note we are using only the Pathfinder Core Rulebook  for the moment. However, I recommend downloading and using PCGen, an open-source (ie free) program for generating RPG characters.  This will guide you through the generation process without the need to understand intimately all the subtle differences between 3.5e and PFRPG.  If you do your character 'old school' I'll verify with PCGen anyway.  It's not pretty (like Hero Lab) but it's a lot more free.

1. Download and install PCGen
2. Settings > Preferences > Character Stats > Purchase mode > High Fantasy (20) > OK
3. File > New
4. Follow the "Things to be Done" list on the Summary Tab (I managed to nut it out at 2 in the morning so you'll figure it out)

Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide 

The Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide is available for free on the Paizo website.

1. Create an account at Piazo
2. Add   Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide PDF
3. Go to the My Downloads section and download your PDF
4. While you are there you can also grab the free Character Sheet if you like
5. There are some other freebies around the site if you look long enough

Rise of the Runelords Bonus Feats

You cannot have a bonus feat as described in this Guide.  This is because:

• the players guide was written for 3.5 prior to PFRPG.  
• You get more feats in PFRPG anyway
• in later adventure paths, these were replaced with "traits"

Exception - Varisian Tattoos and Shoanti Totem Spirits

• If you are (1) Varisian; (2) meet the prerequisite; and (3) come from Sandpoint- you can have a Varisian Tattoo as a free bonus 
• If you are (1) Shoanti; and (2) come from Sandpoint- you can have a Totem Spirit as a free bonus 

Traits

One of the exceptions to the only Core Rulebook rule is that you can choose a trait if you like.  You don't have to choose a trait, it's purely optional.

Get info on traits from:

• the bottom of the Advanced Player's Guide New Rules section of the PRD; 
• downloading the free Pathfinder Character Traits Web Enhancement PDF from the My Downloads section;
• PCGen > Feats & Abilities tab > Traits sub-tab (2nd row of tabs appears when you choose Feats & Abilities tab in 1st row)

Choose carefully though, I'll be expecting you to exhibit the trait and will assume that it is perceived as a trait of your character by others.  If you're claiming the benefit of a trait, I might be tempted to have some fun with it. For example, if you chose the trait courageous (+2 trait bonus on saving throws against fear effects) I could see myself tempted to ensuring you are actually "courageous".