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RPG Superstar 2015

Shipmaster Dave's Skull and Shackles

Game Master Pryllin

Skull and Shackles Adventure Path
Part 1 of 6: The Wormwood Mutiny


Male Human Cleric 3 (FC) HP: 25/25 AC: 16

That was what I was going for...add in Sacred conduit and Improved Channel...DC 18 willpower save at 1st level.

Selective Channeling is a must if I don't want all of you to try and kill me after the first

Male Human (Taldan) Buccaneer 3- HP 25/25, AC15, CMD15, F+3, R+4, W+1, 0/12 BP Used, 0/4 Lvl 1 Spells Used



Welcome to the ship of


Sevien looks quite fine, except his stats total 22 (-2+2+5+0+7+10).

Party so far -

Lysandra Eventide (Female Taldan Human Bard (Sea Singer) 1 / Cleric of Besmara 0)
Aemilia Fullona (Female Chelaxian Human Rogue (Smuggler) 1
Xantrius Casmirre (Male Taldan Human Bard (Buccaneer) 1
Sevien the Black (Male Varisian Human Cleric (of Asmodeus) 1
Mata/Obsidian (Male Half-Orc Wizard (Foresight Diviner) 1

I'll work on backstories this weekend so we're all ready to kick off next week.


K, I fixed him by dropping wisdom to 14. I figure most of my ability increases will go to Wisdom anyways.


Negative channel focused builds don't really need a high wisdom- stick to buffs and saving throw-less spells and you'll be fine.


Yes, eagle's splendor is high on my list both for the DC of the Channel Energy (CE) and the #'s for my selective channeling...was reading some posts on the boards to make sure I had my CE understanding straight.


Eagles Splendour won't give extra channels as its not a permanent bonus, for much the same reasons it doesn't grant bonus spells per day or extra lay on hands. The DC boost is nice though.

Xantrius Casmirre wrote:

This post wasn't showing up in the thread for me.

This whole thread is problematic, actually. I keep not getting an (x new) notification; I just have to notice I haven't read the last post when I see it in the list.

SKR has posted that Eagle's Splendor does let you exclude more targets for Selective Channeling, although, as AK says, it doesn't give you more channels per day; I actually asked him that question a while back.


I can't see that post either...but I am in total agreement that it doesn't give you additional channels.

Sovereign Court


I noticed the post ghosted but I was too tired to point it out etc. lol. Thanks joana :)

Human Expert 4 / Doctoral Student 5

dot for lurking purposes

Male English Project Manager 13th

I thought I felt something...Tanner what are you doing lurking around here !?!?!?!?! ;]
Glad to see you back in the swing of things, seen you name on some recruitment threads.

Human Expert 4 / Doctoral Student 5

What am I doing lurking around here? Why, how could I miss spying on a game with some of my favorite online people all in one place? This Sevien character bothers me, though. Malthir the paladin would definitely not approve. :)

May I assume we're underway and particulars about our backstories will come to the fore swimmily as flashbacks as the drug wears off? :)

AK suggested that Aemilia take the Scout archetype to get more mileage out of her sneak attack down the road. It doesn't modify the same abilities as Smuggler so is legal. Nothing changes until level 4, but I thought I ought to go ahead and get approval before we start.


You may assume we're underway- It's almost next week here in Oz. :-)
Things will be going slowly while people finalise characters and get back from holidays. And I'm still sticking stuff up and impressed you've noticed already... :-)
Joanna, you may take Scout. Thank you for warning me of the bucketloads of damage you'll be dealing at 4th level and beyond. I'll PM you some stuff I've decided on.
I don't want people changing characters once they've started posting (though you may have noticed I lied about refusing most requests).


heh, I happened to be on and see this as well...let'!!!!! first post up! :]

Sovereign Court


Ah, don't feel bad GM, you said no to me plenty of times ;).

Back although unfortunately just found out I'm being sent of to South Africa for a few days leaving tomorrow tonight, should still be able to post.

Changed my guy around a bit although still need to finish background. Switched from elf to human because (1) I just couldn't make the elven backstory work I kept getting caught up in him having to be older than the Eye itself (2) it seemed better to make him a bit more tanky with party changes (3) I really liked the giant avatar for him :)

Switched to war domain (tactics from APG if allowed which lets him re-roll an initiative, happy to designate that in advance as it could be annoying).

Don't mind at all about the tone. Let me know if I should dial down the crazy/creepy as we progress. He's building towards his fairly significant physical changes at lvl 2: can grow gills, bite things etc.


I say play up the crazy/creepy.
When Sevien starts to keep pet Zombies and Skeletons around I will need someone else to pull their evil half....


As I said to Joana on MSN, DM opened the door to some edgy themed gameplay and Xantrius just stepped through it :P. I'm hoping Xantrius' comedic success gets him some friends in the crew too. Having a reputation as the funny-man is always useful when you've just been press ganged!

Need to get into the bugger's good graces so they let me have my flag poles, parchment and ink pots back. My feat is currently worth less than Skill Focus Craft (Fools Gold).


Try being a cleric with no holy's

I like that the more intelligent characters do the smart thing but miss the instinctive reaction to establish pecking order from the get go.

Hopefully noone ends up in the barrel.


Getting yourself whipped about by being defiant from the get go doesn't make you the alpha male, it makes you a moron ;).

Ah Alex lets just hope you don't end up in prison.

Sovereign Court


I went to The Way Valley School in England, at the time one of the worst secondary schools in all of the UK. On my first day (I joined late in the academic year as a result of moving towns) I had to ram someone's head into a wall to make an example of him as every male in my tutor group had decided to 'rough up the new kid' and had me in a corner (there was no malice in it from my end, just picked the first guy within reach). This is also the same school where people are shocked if you tell them you don't carry a knife.

Suffice to say, I know about having to stand up for yourself and about pack behaviour :P. Xantrius however, is trying to build influence in an entirely different manner :).


Yeah the cleric with the 8 STR, few skills, and no access to his powers may seem like a coward...and at the moment probably

Just wait until he gets his holy symbol back or gets another one made....then the real Sevien will come out, all LE of him MUH HA HA!!!!


Well, can't say Xantrius really digs the Lawful aspect, but hes a free spirit and will respect your right to preach about it and enjoy your own philosophy. He might even listen politely and show some interest to maintain his charm offensive.


The good news is you can do all of the plundering and pillaging you just have to do it in an orderly manner... ;]

The demonstrated ability to animate dead ought to come in handy when it comes time to press our own crew: "Your choice: You can swab the deck alive ... or dead. And if you're dead, we don't have to feed you, so you're really going to have to work at convincing us we like you alive!" :)


Yeah, just keep a hold full of them and let them be the first line of

Mata isn't the most likable or wise character. He isn't particularly evil but I suspect I'll cause problems for players several times during the game. If this starts to get annoying let me know.

Tim Woodhams wrote:

I say play it up. Most of us know each other pretty well by now from other games so no one gets offended when we talk about each other's character in a disparaging manner either in or out of character.

It's actually more fun when everyone doesn't get along all of the time, good roleplay opportunities!

Agree Tim. I like it and everybody here will sing out if they feel a line has been crossed. Besides I at least plan to be annoying and evil!

Shipmaster Dave wrote:

(Take 10: 5', DC 10: 7.5', DC 15: 15')

I don't understand this. Are you under the impression Take 10 is a slower result, or penalising it in some way? With a Take 10, Xantrius hits DC15, meaning by this quote that he should be moving at 15 feet.

Female Taldane Human Bard (Sea Singer) 1 / Cleric of Besmara 0

I was a bit confused by that too. Of course I could also see this being seen as a "stressful" situation and taking 10 not being a valid option, but I do not see a reason to penalize someone for taking 10.


Taking 10 and Taking 20



Taking 20: When you have plenty of time, you are faced with no threats or distractions, and the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20. In other words, if you a d20 roll enough times, eventually you will get a 20. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, just calculate your result as if you had rolled a 20.


Since taking 20 assumes that your character will fail many times before succeeding, your character would automatically incur any penalties for failure before he or she could complete the task (hence why it is generally not allowed with skills that carry such penalties). Common “take 20” skills include Disable Device (when used to open locks), Escape Artist, and Perception (when attempting to find traps).


Taking 20 is slower; taking 10 isn't. I can see the threat of the whip making it impossible to take 10, but it shouldn't make taking 10 slower, unless there's some special exemption to the ordinary rules in the adventure text.

Honestly, this seems like a situation custom-made for taking 10, with a bunch of 1st-level characters and the punishment for failure greater than the rewards of spectacular success. We ought to be taking 10 whenever we can to avoid the lash. As low as our bonuses are, we're all eventually going to fail a roll, even those we've maxed out, and then we'll end up out of the action. There's no way Aemilia with her +0 Climb bonus is going to do anything other than take 10; if she rolls a 1 20 or 30 feet off the deck, the fall will kill her, Lysandra. ;)

In DnD 3/3.5 taking 10 took twice as long. Guess its changed in Pathfinder. That said GM can over rule this or just say we can't take 10 (although that may end in us all dying).

Not according to the SRD. Pathfinder copy/pasted, except for changing "not being threatened or distracted" to "not in immediate danger or distracted." I know taking 10's been frequently misunderstood since its introduction, though. Personally, I almost always forget about the option until I've failed a check I could have made by taking 10. :P

I didn't know that. Ok correct the previous commit to it was commonly played in groups I was involved in as taking twice as long.

There are all kinds of house rules that I didn't even realize were house rules before I started playing PbP. I only ever played with one group since 2e before getting involved on Paizo and found out that we'd been doing Two-Weapon Fighting wrong, like, forever. Playing with strangers is a fantastic way to find out what the actual rules say because you don't have the common assumption of "this is the way we've always done it" to fall back on. :)

Sovereign Court


Its an extremely common misunderstanding to think the Take 10 rule takes longer, because Take 20 does. I see it on this site all the time.


This is a stressful situation so normally you can't Take 10.

However, since I don't want to force you all into making perpetual Climb rolls until you fall 60', and since you need to be a creature with a climb speed to "always choose to take 10, even if rushed or threatened", I figured if you weren't 'rushing' I'd let you Take 10, but only move you 5'.
This gives non-climbers a chance to not die while rewarding those who risk randomness.

Also, the DC 15 I quoted to move double (climbing) speed is actually a DC 10 but with a -5 Climb penalty. Because of this, the DC to not fall is still 5, even when accelerated climbing.

I apologise for not making you aware of this option earlier.

Finally, the module states in the event of a tie that the highest final Climb check is the winner. Thus not bothering with initiative. Yet. :-)

I was anticipating some kind of take 10 impediment with the risk of whipping but did think accelerating increased the risk of fall. If not there seems no reason for Xantrius or Nakon (or anyone with a climb of 5 or more) not to just accelerate and its just who fails to hit the DC 15 more (or who wins on the tie if equal).

Given my rolls I'll be 2.5 vs 3 rounds depending.

I have to say I can really see DM's position even if its not exactly RAW. If you can't take 10, for the non-skilled climbers theres a real risk of death from falling from 40' or higher. But then there seems a reasonable chance of severe injury from whipping for refusing to climb :) Maybe the high int characters are supposed to rationalise that they won't be hurt too badly or maybe this is supposed to encourage the group to aid each other from the get go :)

Sevien the Black wrote:
Sevien is at 0 hit points currently.

Technically, you're at 5 hp with 5 nonlethal damage, which means you are staggered but not disabled. You can take either a standard or a move action per round without worrying about falling unconscious, until you get whipped again anyway. :)


Quote: wrote:

DC Example Surface or Activity
with a wall to brace against.
rope, or a rope affected by the rope trick spell.
such as a very rough wall or a ship’s rigging.

I think the true problem is here. Having climbed rigging before, it certainly is not harder than the DC 0 and 5 examples. The DC should be lower with modifiers for bad weather (and maybe a will(fear) (which you could exchange for your climb check if you wanted) save near the top). As the rules are a average lv 1 commoner WITH a rank in climb AND class skill bonus would fall 1 times out of 20 attempts (missed DC by 5 or more) and take 11 rolls in average to get up (another 11 to get down). Meaning a skilled sailor would fall every time they climb (in average) and be high enough to kill them selves maybe 50% of the time. I expect they couldn't take 10 because it would be stressful given they have seen 5 of the mates die from falling in the last week. Sure some of the crew will have str bonus so as to never fall but most coming on board won't have a skill rank in climb and will die before they get it.

Yes the rigging I climbed was modern "olde style" sailing ship and had netting and rope ladders in different areas and I had a harness, but if this is the difficulty without netting and rope ladders any captain with an intelligence of 4 or more will put in on his ship and any captain of less than intelligence of 4 won't be captain for long.[/rant]

Sorry David this rant is directed at stupid rules and module that want to kill people not at you, I think how you are ruling it is excellent considering the rules.


Nonlethal Damage

Nonlethal damage represents harm to a character that is not life-threatening. Unlike normal damage, nonlethal damage is healed quickly with rest.

Dealing Nonlethal Damage: Certain attacks deal nonlethal damage. Other effects, such as heat or being exhausted, also deal nonlethal damage. When you take nonlethal damage, keep a running total of how much you've accumulated. Do not deduct the nonlethal damage number from your current hit points. It is not “real” damage. Instead, when your nonlethal damage equals your current hit points, you're staggered (see below), and when it exceeds your current hit points, you fall unconscious.

Staggered and Unconscious: When your nonlethal damage equals your current hit points, you're staggered. You can only take a standard action or a move action in each round (in addition to free, immediate, and swift actions). You cease being staggered when your current hit points once again exceed your nonlethal damage.

When your nonlethal damage exceeds your current hit points, you fall unconscious. While unconscious, you are helpless.

Spellcasters who fall unconscious retain any spellcasting ability they had before going unconscious.

If a creature's nonlethal damage is equal to his total maximum hit points (not his current hit points), all further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage. This does not apply to creatures with regeneration. Such creatures simply accrue additional nonlethal damage, increasing the amount of time they remain unconscious.

Healing Nonlethal Damage: You heal nonlethal damage at the rate of 1 hit point per hour per character level. When a spell or ability cures hit point damage, it also removes an equal amount of nonlethal damage.

Quoted for easy reference, as it's obviously going to be a major part of this game. Bolded part is important: don't subtract nonlethal damage from current hit points along with lethal, as they're different things and heal at different rates. Also, remember that positive energy heals both lethal and nonlethal damage at the same time, so Sevien is now at 9 hp (1 nonlethal).


BTW Sevien- okay on the diplomacy swap.


Except for purely metagame knowledge, what reason does Mata have to believe Sevius can heal?

Edit: Reading fail on my part, I see he actually declared it himself :)

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