[OOC] Graveyard Shift

I'll go ahead and give out adventure rewards. Please continue with any questions you have in the IC (or here) in the interim. Why don't we aim to start the next inquiry after the Christmas holiday has passed? That'll give us time to finish any mop up and for you to choose how you want to spend your XP and gold.

You all get +35 XP. (This includes your January 1 award; might as well give it out now in case it puts you over the hump for something you want to get.)

[5 XP] Dealing with the gravedigger
[5 XP] Investigating the crypt
[5 XP] Fighting the fiends
[5 XP] Interrogating Vizeron Dribbage
[10 XP] End of inquiry bonus
[5 XP] January XP award

In addition, you get 900 silver from Lady Dribbage and 300 more from the clerics, for a total of 1,200. We can assume this is split 6 ways (Barvek, Bruv, Hildar, Nera, Nekurr, Tronus), so you get 200 silver each. [I know Barvek is no longer with us, but I've compensated for him with the bonus from the clerics to preserve narrative coherence.)

The thistles could train 'guard dogs'...

Nice, I'll check out the options tomorrow.

Skills
Ranged 1 -> 2 (10xp)
Perception 1 -> 2 (15xp non-career)
Coordination 0 -> 1 (5xp)

Talent
Tier 1 - Quick strike: 1 boost to any enemies who haven't taken a turn in combat yet (5xp)

-10XP Hunter T2
-10XP Inspiring Rhetoric T2
-10XP Leadership 1>2
-05XP Quick Draw T1

Between Field Commander and eventually pumping Inspiring Rhetoric I'll shift likely to a defensive control combatant if we get into the thick of it. So possible cheaper aims or movement and strain recoveries while protecting the squishier younglings (Soom Tm)

Looks good! Yeah, you can assume a few weeks pass between this inquiry and the next. You presumably all do some more mundane jobs in the meantime, too.

This is also a good time to touch base about how we all felt the first adventure went. Over all, I'm happy with how things turned out. My GMing wasn't perfect, but I appreciate your willingness to roll with things when the game may have dragged or gotten confusing.

Areas where I think I miscalculated:

1) In wanting to give you an exciting and engaging final confrontation with Dribbage, I deprived you of the chance to investigate more about what he was doing in the cemetery. This forced me to kind of have Dribbage and Lady Argus give you the info dump about what the plan was (dig the tunnels to avoid the wards, desecrate all the graves from below to then neutralize the wards, experiments with the dogs that fail, sacrifice own body parts to get the gate open). In retrospect, maybe I could have pushed the final confrontation back a day or so in-game.

2) In part to rectify #1, I thought you'd likely try to capture Dribbage alive and interrogate him. But by making him monstrous, I sent an in-genre signal that he was a monster to be slain. When you attacked him upon first confronting him, I had to scramble to ensure you still got to get some of the information out of him. In retrospect, I could have signaled better that maybe your target had done some "body modifications."

I'm always open to constructive criticism, so if there was something you didn't enjoy or where you got confused, I'm all ears.

I thought overall it went very well, there were multiple locales to explore and a good mix of investigating, exploring, and combat. I liked how you gave all the NPC's traits which could be used in social checks too, very fun. You already know about me getting confused during some of the riddles, but that's a personal problem.

Yeah I felt it went very well from my perspective. Everyone seemed to be engaged and have opportunities to shine.

I'll advise about XP spending in the next day or two (not got much time at the mo due to family/holiday stuff) once I've had chance to look over new things in the EPG (is everything in there fair game or is it best to check first?). I also hit enough XP to gain an Ability Point to spend to upgrade my Heroic Ability so I'll have a think about that (will probably go with a Duration upgrade though)

Yeah, understood about holiday stuff. I'm hoping to get the next inquiry started before the New Year, but I'm assuming we'll be slowgoing until then.

The stuff in the Expanded Player's Guide is fair game, but do ask if you want something from a non-fantasy setting (including the Age of Myth one, as I don't think it's balanced vis-à-vis Terrinoth). I'm happy to add Mask and Transform to the spell list. I'm thinking Predict won't derail the game, but I reserve the right to remove it if it seems to ruin the fun of an investigative game.

Once I take a moment to look at things, my XP expenditure should be put together pretty easily. I had a plan through my first Tier 5, just haven't had a chance to look at it between holidays and things. Apologies.

No worries. Do take a look at the stuff in the EPG, though. There's quite a bit in there that is explicitly aimed at Primalists.

Don't have it yet :/

Hasn't shown up, or maybe hasn't stayed on the shelf long enough, at my FLGS for me to get it.

With the 5XP I had banked, I think I'm going with:
[10] Tier 2 Second Wind
[15] Battle Casting
[05] Clever Retort
[10] Block

Sounds good. You can see the new talents in Drainsmith's Talent Tome in the meantime if that helps.

The Ensorcelled (T1), Improved Ensorcelled (T2), and Supreme Ensorcelled (T3) talents let you boost your social checks due to your magical aura. Kind of fun for that primalist who smells of the wild or growls when they talk. (These three also work with Divine and Arcana, but they'd be narratively interpreted differently.)

Druid (T3) lets you add the Summon Ally condition on any Conjure spell you cast.

Face of the Wild (T3) lets you maintain the Transform spell (new spell -- lets you assume animal shapes with Primal skill) without spending Concentrate maneuvers each turn.

The one that is perhaps most helpful to you might be Innate Focus (T3): While not using a magical implement, your character increases their base damage from Attack spells by 2, and when casting other spells without an implement, your character may decrease the difficulty by 1. Strain suffered also goes up by 1, however.

Since you've opted not to use implements, this might be a good pick up for you. Battle Casting will be good, too, if you decide to buy better armor. That's the fun of the talent pyramid, I guess -- forces you to make tough calls!