OoC

For any discussions in general or questions.

NOTE: I am still in the process of setting up all the Lore and Character Option material

Welcome all

I hope everyone is excited.

As I said in other posts, the Lore stuff is all optional but I wanted to provide it for the group

hello and thank you for inviting me. I'm looking forward to getting into the lore

Sweet, some of it I have included is the material from the 2nd book Humblewood Tales.

Including a couple of the subclass options

Excited to give this a go!

At first, I had an owl artificer in mind, but I am reconsidering it as it's not really supported with feats or new spells.
A predator warlock does sound fun—a mouse who was fed up with always being the prey.
I'll read up on the lore and sleep on it

One thing is for sure, the starting feat is the Bandit Cunning

Predator warlock sounds awesome.

Since this is third party artificer isn't mentioned in any of the texts. I will go through and "homebrew" which ones would fit.

Omg I'm so excited!!! Not really sure what I'll play. I'm leaning towards a hedge (mapach? raptor?) ranger, but I wanna read up on everything before making up my mind.

I hope I didn't overwhelm with the amount of Lore and content.

I'm leaning heavy to a Mapach Night Domain Cleric. I really dig the lore

Love the lore!

Hi, thanks for taking me along.

Hehe... giving inspiration as a motivating to include the lore is nice.

I'ld like to be a mapach rogue with the Bandit Defector background in this one. Even if I like the community cleric very much.
Would it be possible to be a ferret/mink/marten instead of a raccoon?

We build a pure mapach party and lots of DMs questions are already answered! XD

I also looked at the Bandit Defector background. Our charactes might have defected together?

I'm going to look deeper into a character tonight. Artificer (bird), Warlock(mouse) and Layline wizards(??) are all on the table. Gotta dive into the lore first, before making the final choice

@valdattaMadun : can you add/allow custom sheets to the game?

done

I’ll be jerbeen.

Yeah, for sure. :)
But first I need to figure out a few other things. I'll come back to you then.

I can't always get the character images I want and keep seeing great ones that others use. How are you guys getting such cool lookng art?

I'm actually using AI art from https://www.bing.com/images that runs on DALL-E

For my character art I asked it to make "ravenman in a green jacket and feathery arms. holding two wooden shortswords. comic book style. White background"
After a few attempts I got something where is also had wingsI used paint.net, removed the extra wings. Added two more layers. The first one was white and then I asked the AI for a forest image, also comic book style and placed that as the last layer. Then I set the white background to be 90% transparent resulting in the effect that you see now.

My second go-to option is heroforge.com. Here you can make a 3D mini, give it equipment, race ect and paint it. I know that AI art generators do have a hard time making animal hybrids so my first character attempt was done with Heroforge. I would then zoom in on the mini and take a screenshot to get the avatar I was after.

The HUGE advantage with heroforge is that you can produce several diffent versions of our character and use them in different contexts

I have has relative successful attempts in hero forge for humblewood characters. Hedge, mapach and sone of the birds have been tough

Thanks for the tutorial! I was able to make something passable lol.

Yeah, I tried an AI but it had trouble with the wings. And since I actually plan to use them I wanted them done right. I will try a couple different engines and see what they can do

Sorry for being slow, I finally finished writing up the backstory and filling out the character sheet for Leif Truetail!

How far is it from Meadowfen to Ashburrow?
We left Ashburrow and saw the smoke 1 day after we left, crossed paths with the guard after that, arrived at Meadowfen.

Couple days So basically you saw them half way. the guard has been gone a bi

Day 0 - you left Ashburrow
Day 1 - You see smoke
Day 2 - You see Guard
Day 3 - You arrive in Meadowfen
Day 4 - you have awoken this morning

They were traveling at a faster, more urgent pace than your group.
The guard would usually send messages back each day by a fast rider or magical means. None have been heard. since they should have arrived there. Which would have been later Day 2 based on their pace.

I will generally assume that all party members are there in instances like this. I know post rate is assumed 3/week so I don't want to leave anyone behind when they are still posting that rate.

Making someone roll their dump stat is always fun

Grateful for that Advantage though 😅

So, I wasn't making this unknown but this is my first PbP GM'd game. Just getting a little admittedly self conscious of the pace of play or anything. I am not infallible but open to feedback if you think things are going too slow, too fast, or if I keep missing things. Feel free to let me know here or message me, whatever you feel most comfortable doing.

I am super excited about this campaign and I want to make sure you all are having fun. :)

In my experience as a GM each game, or group of players in a game, has a different flow. It usually takes a bit of time to get a feel for the rhythm. Some players are consistent, some prolific, some sporadic, etc. So far so good. No one's dead yet anyhow :)

@runekyndig just awaiting a morning action from you I know you advised you wanted to check out the rock

I have overextended myself and I am going to drop out of this game. I'm sorry for the inconvenience that might cause us and I beg your forgiveness. I have also been on GP daily for over 5 years, and I am considering taking a longer break, once I have ended all my games.

hey I do not blame you at all. Take care of yourself

@All

I am asking the next person on the waiting list if they want to join, there would be a logical place for them to get into it narratively or if everyone it is good we can "oh we have always had this guy in our party" as well.

I'm good either way! It's so early in the game anyway.

What is everyone's timezones by the way? I want to be sure to make sure people have a reasonable chance to post and I think at least one person may be in quite a different timezone than me.

I am PST, West Coast of America

I am EST, east coast

I'm in New Zealand time zone, but I tend to post throughout the day, usually several times a day. More often than not, I'm more concerned that I'm "hogging" the game by posting too much, so I try to limit myself to one post a day at most, but sometimes I can't help myself.

Us mountain UTC-6

ABRA KAZZAM New player insert any easy you like

@Runekyndig> Have a good time! Best of luck. 😀


I am in CET (Central European Time) and good either way. 👍

Also....new player incoming. :)

Thanks for the invite!

What class type is needed most?

Ysolde, I will let team decide

Notes on character creation,

A ton of setting specific character options.
Tasha Ability score moving ok.
Inspiration given if you tie your backstory to lore.

Your character will join the group at the next encounter scenario.

Wizards, sorcery, or Warlock maybe? Don't think we need anything.

Could definitely use a full arcane caster type, but I don't think anything is actually "needed". Most importantly is for you to play what you like.

So if my held attack hit and kills then did that mean 1 on the stacks did not happen? If so which one so I know how much HP to restore

Great, I decided to go with a Vulpin Wizard. Likely to become an evoker, but may change my mind when level 2 comes around.

Man, I am totally the odd bird out.

To be fair I couldn’t find a good picture of a crow wizard that I liked. Fox girls were much easier to find.

No worries. Just don't blame me for Charun getting a hero complex for championing for the humblefolk. I'm sure Sherry won't let his who get to big though. :)

I've always wanted to play a Redwall type of character, so it was always going to be Humblefolk for me, and most likely jerbeen lol.

can I just say...I almost forgot how swingy lvl 1 combat can be..

Yeah, that's why I consider level 1 to be apprentices not yet ready for the real world. I always start games I run at level 3 just to avoid accidental TPK

But it is a bit more Nerve Racking / Thrilling. Makes leveling up all that much more appreciated 😀

Yeah, the one thing with this module that I generally have done in my IRL games I have ran is speed up the level curve so you hit level 2 and level 3 sooner. The as written milestone leveling for the module had me once during an IRL game have everyone at level 1, for three 4hr sessions. level 2 for 2 sessions. Which I have changed to sort of switch around so going to Level 2 happens sooner, and level 3 comes a session sooner. It requires some combat tuning but honestly most everything else still works.

All good, no one's dead, yet....

yeah, I think I just say this in a way of "we may be level 1 for a bit longer but not THAT much longer"

Just to be sure expectations are out there.

For me, level 1 is all about charging in and hoping our rolls come out better than their rolls lol. I'm loving it though.

@Ysolde what is your timezone? just so I have an idea on posting schedule and everything. We have everything from New Zealand to Europe, so unless you are in India you probably will be on similar time zones as someone :)

@valdattaMadun I am in Eastern Time. So I don’t post after 11:00 pm or before 7:00 am Easter time.

So anytime of day other than this Sunday?

And I never apologize for a dad joke

He he he, Dad POWER!

Lol

I vote for a separate loot thread. If there is something of interest for somebody, we could give it to that person or roll who gets it.

And when we sell stuff nobody wants, we divide the money equally. :)

Yeah, that's what I've always done with 5e to help keep track.

Made a thread

Would any of the loot even fit a jerbeen?

You can use short swords and you can always have the armor refit

Yeah...I haven't really thought about limiting armor too much on race/size restrictions. General rules apply, armor is designed to be fitted and tightened as needed for common humanoid shapes and sizes of the area

Also this weekend looks crazy busy will try and keep up posting at least once a day.

Busy my way too. I’ll be more active tomorrow hopefully, since I unfortunately have to work

So the Birdfolk and Humblefolk are locals and aware of other races beyond thei boarders. Are all known races similarly animalistic? I assume ousiders are rare in the woods and surrounding region.

Correct. All races are animal themed, from lizards and frogs to cats, goats.

There are also other surfaces native to other regions, armadillo-hedge, parrot-luma.

The races available here are the ones tgat are native to the Wood and there is hpp material for.

Also Birdfolk/humblefolk generally extend to other regions as well. An Elurian native to another continent is humblefolk still. A parrot-luma is still birdfolk

As Sherry sells all the stuff (expact the special short sword):

40gp - 4 short swords
40gp - 4 Leather Armour
45gp - 1 studded leather armor
25gp - 1 short bow

=> 150 gp would be the price if all of it was new.

How much does she get out? Shall I roll persuasion?

Sorry almost forgot about that.

Roll persuasion
The studded armor and bow are by far the best conditioned gear in the loot as well

I am on vacation Sunday through Tuesday so posting will be spotty or non-existent

Can sell my leather armor since I took the studded.

I have a vacation with the family this week, might be sparse until Friday. Will try and do at least one post a day as needed.

If everyone is in on the plan, seems like we just maybe need one more "leave with Eliza the letter" and I can move us forward.

I wasn't sure about giving her the letter. So left that go others to decide

Yeah when that is decided we can move forward I think

I'm going on holiday for about a week. This game moves at an easy pace that it shouldn't affect anything, but in case it does, it's because I'm out and about.

Me as well, will be gone until sunday. But playing through a fight should be possible with phone. :)

My 2 cents

I prefer side based initiative. Them, us, repeat. This is very flexible for various player time constraints

Also seen initiative slots. Any character can act in any PC initiative role slot. This has more DM demands and player/DM interaction than the side based but is still flexible and fun

Strict initiative is the slowest/most convoluted for PbP in my opinion.

Yeah, my thought was "strict initiative" but I totally see that.

For this battle, we will go with this ruling with this initiativeSince how initiative is laid out for this battle, Sherry, Scylla, Hurin and Leif can go in ANY order. The two slimes then go. Then ANY PC can go again since at that point it is only PC turns until the two slimes go.

I will look into "side initiative" more firmly set up after that.

Ok, I wasn't sure about initiative order so I waited. Will keep this in mind for the future.

I didn't specify that before, but figured it is a decent way forward considering time zones.

Now that we passed through the slimes any player can go...

@grifter730 hope you don't mind a rolled your readied action and strength save if you wanted to add the favored foe to the attack feel free to roll for it but didn't think you would (considering it is only long rest times a day and all)

No problem at all. I’m so tired by the end of the day each day so far, so I barely have energy for posts. I’m out for another 5 days or so, but I’ll try to at least post when possible.

sorry being slow to respond over the weekend, my kids got strepped throat (and I did as well) so I was taking care of that. Should be better now

valdattaMadun>
I wanted to ask if there was a way we could shorten the typical dungeon crawling a bit, as it is pretty time consuming and not very entertaining (at least for me). It could feel a bit rail-roady, but it is a dungeon. As long as we have the chance to participate and make some preperations I think I am fine with a bit of a streamlined narrative.
I'd also be okay with handing over a few dice rolls to you if it makes the whole thing smoother.


This seems like a great story arch in an interesting world. Maybe we could speed up things here a little to get to the next interesting story piece (interaction, fight, decision, ...). :)

Have a great weekend!

Yeah...honestly that has been on my mind without coming up with good ideas on how to do it.

The options I came up with were to potentially "railroad it" but just sped up. Idea would have been

1. Fight outside as is
2. "You travel down the tunnel it begins to collapse, make your save"
3. (what I am about to post about happens)

It is a bit railroady, you technically had some options on the tunnel collapse (looking at them to determine what you can do to avoid collapse/prebreak them/specifically state "I am going carefully" (which some did to get advantage when it collapsed from others). But it would speed it a long and get to the "action" quicker and I could use passive skills for some of that more.

This is the only true dungeon crawl in the pre-written adventure, which also makes it odd.

Agree with you guys, dungeon crawl on pbp absolutely kills momentum, and kills the roleplaying aspect of it as well. It becomes mostly mechanical, so anything to speed things up, I’m all for. Roll for me if it helps. Anything but a long crawl.

On mechanisms I've seen in PbP is for the DM to list out challenges and each player has to solve 1. Players are other assigned a challenge or pick one.

Challenges can include minor fights, natural challenges, traps, etc. Each player is to try and resolve situations focusing on their character, include 1 to 3 rolls and the DM narrates results.

This let's the difficulty of the experience be presented and overcome but speeds it up.

yeah, and honestly me being admittedly slow for a bit hasn't helped as well.

Anything further here I will try and streamline as best I can. I will see what I can do in terms of speeding it all along.

thanks for improving. *big thumbs up*

even if there is a trap less, or a crossroad you decide for us, we will be fine. and will never know. ;) don't overthink it, you are doing a great job so far. keep it up! :D

Sorry about the absence. I unexpectedly took a new job so I've dropped a lot of my free time. I don't want to hold everything up so it's probably best if I drop out. I appreciate the opportunity! Good luck everyone!

Nooooo... the cleric goes down :( Good luck in your new job mate!

Take care of yourself. Life happens.

For everyone else, I will move combat forward bit will pose the question on either looking for a new player or going as is?

There's still 4 of us right? I'm good with going as is.

Take care z3bul0n

I'm fine with as is or opening it up for others to join

Good luck in your new job! :D

I am good either way as well.

Good luck z3bul0n.

I am good to continue either way.

What gives it disadvantage?

The crit in combination with the slayer feat, I took as Sherry's free feat. :)

Cool. Nice to learn stuff, thanks 👍

Ugh finally got to cast Burning hands and rolled two 1s…

the dice is a cruel mistress

My sympathies. At least you did some damage. Nothing like missing an attack with only a single attack per round.

How Psybermagi described his movement would be nice if people are able to? basically give cardinal directions on movement to describe where you are moving around to.

This should give me a better idea on where you guys are going and could be easier to track.

For the record the map extends beyond this I would just need to zoom out

For the record the map extends beyond this I would just need to zoom out

Since this is the first scenario like this...I want to be clear this setting in generally isn't really a "enemies are going to attack a downed player" type game to me

Moving forward but still need Scylla's death save.

If you guys want to wait you can, since her nat 1 could change her situation/healing plans greatly

We are out of initiative.

I'll be gone over the weekend and maybe not be able to post. Back on monday/tuesday. :)

So one of my issues with the module is that the level 2 milestone has SO MUCH stuff to cover before you get there. You guys haven't gotten quite there yet but when I have ran it for my IRL group I did level up them at this point in the story before. I am going to leave it up to a vote, if you want a level up or not now or follow the module closer.

only difference is that I need to make some manual tweaks to an encounter or two in order to coming up to make them harder if you do level up.

Also another question:

I have an IRL friend/coworker who was thinking about potentially joining Gamersplane. Since we lost one person recently and we had kind of a "ok as is or open it up" view. I wanted to just check if that would be something you all would be comfortable with?

I know it being an IRL friend can be awkward for others (but shouldn't affect gameplay)

Bring them on in.

All good with me!

That's okay with me, as long as everybody is treated equally. But our adventure is great so far, so no problem there. 😊

With the American holiday I might get to posting this weekend. Take the time to level up and Tuesday I will start the next bit

Thanks. Wild do and everyone have a nice weekend!

just waiting for further responses, if nothing is said by later tonight I will narrate the start of travel

sorry guys, life got the best of me the past few days regarding setting up the next phase here. should be done soon

No worries I still need to level up

in fairness to you, you have the most important of decisions of the whole group on level up with subclass

I decided to try the new class from this supplement

Humblewood has new classes...?

New stuff

Aww, nothing for rangers. I think I was gonna go either Drakewarden or Beast Master anyway, so it's all good I guess.

That was a big missing thing for me...hopefully the release something in Humblewood2 (currently in playtesting)

They did create an entirely new class as well in the playtest...not subclass but class

Oh oh oh Slime Warden or Ooze Master

Is the playtest content freely available by any chance? I’m curious to see what all they have.

much (all?) was placed in the Character Options sub-forum

New subclass was what I meant

The playtest is only available for patreon supporters.

I did get the new class playtest as part of my backerkit for Humblewood Tales book after we already started.

Everything else is available

About my roll ingame>
Was it possible for Sherry to earn some coins?

Sorry about that.

Rolled an opposed roll and a d4. You bear it by more than 10 so d4 gold doubled

no problem. thanks! :D

Post should be incoming. Had a bit of time issues with summer starting that was unexpected

Just to let you know: I will be gone from the 10th until the 19th. Most likely I'll be able to post from my phone, but if you want to move the story along, please don't wait for me. :)

thanks for letting us know.

As for the combat, working on the BattleMap now but we are looking like this for initiative

Everyone except Charun acts
Demons Act
Everyone acts

So basically it will become side initiative after the demons act and Charun waits until then.

I’ll get my next post in tomorrow

combat information is up with a map.

This is a fairly tight quarters fight so since your group moved first please let me know if I need to move the tokens around. all started far enough away not to initiate any AoO to basically move anywhere in the house.

Charun is fine as he would not want to stand between Susan and her summons as he was uncertain about both

@Ysolde Just waiting on your clarification before I move to the Demons turn.

Whoops sorry

Damn! And it even was a crit! ;)

pray that the benevolent fates alloy your precognizant thought to become reality in mere moments. (Oh great merciful DM, any chance it can apply to next round?)

giving Sherry a choice to see if that counted or not with the possibility of nothing this round...

I also added some "round" information to help keep things straight. Though Charun's moves can be a little loosey in turn order based on post timing and if his post would "mean more" if it goes first.

Is it our turn now?

It is. Shouldn't have to wait for @soises to make their decision on the Con save/crit delimma.

Leif and Susan are the only ones that passed their Con Save so might be a quick turn

I can still jump around landing on things. So helpful 🤪

Forgot to mention I was on vacation at home. Thought I would log in but ended up playing Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora every day instead…

I am adding/combining several "exploring" sections here, you all seem to be wanting to go directly to the Council but I want you to be able to see Alderheart as well and make decisions occordingly

What, the political leaders are not the best option to go to for help? Surely they are wise and benevolent...

LoL ok let's see....

Charun thinks that all politicians have the best interest of every single person under their purview in mind in every decision they make. None are greedy and when they kiss babies the babies grow up to be upstanding citizens

edit: this is a complete joke...please...please

Time to play lawful stupid?
(Please someone stop me!)

I will be gone the coming week. As we are sometimes high up in the mountains I am not sure this time that I can answer in time. If need arises: let Sherry follow while gumbling over birdfolk and enjoying the big city. :)

thanks for letting us know.

As for moving forward, I am just waiting (maybe one more day) for either group consensus or I will move to the guild

What is the answer to my question - ingame?

Guild +1

Looks like the party is ready to move forward. I will narrate the next bit today

@ValdattaMadun>
everything alright? Are you on holiday? :)

sorry...life been hitting hard was going to post Friday but got distracted.

Wife just went back to work after the summer (she is a teacher) and routines are still sort of wonky

Sorry for stressing you out. I just was keen on continuing our adventure. I have seen too many DMs ending, or even ghosting campaings, that I can keep my cool. ;)

Love this story, have a lot of fun and think that we have a great group in and out of game.


Just one more thing to ask: Level Up time? (now that we've reached the city and brought the dire news). *g*

I think he mentioned that we leveled up early compared to where we're meant to level up, so maybe this was the original place where we're supposed to hit level 2 lol.

Damn.... forgot about that. Thanks for reminding me, grifter. 😀

All of this feels so packed with action and story, that a level up already seems to be earned again. *g*

It doesn't hurt to ask, and I wouldn't mind a level bump before fighting bandits, or evil elementals or whatever is happening in the Scorched Grove. :)

sorry for the last few weeks. This has been a tough couple ones for me. My wife just got back to work (as a teacher) which usually means my schedule gets better and more consistent

That is correct haha

Issues IRL so I will be absent for a few days

Hey guys!

I'll be gone from the 21th of Oct to the 13th of Nov. In this time I most likely can't post here.

Knock knock

DM's not been on GP for ages ("inactive for 24 days").

Life happens.
Just checking as I had not heard anything but wasn't sure if I just missed an announcement.

Not as far as I know. But I still hope that our DM will return gloriously. ;)

DM inactive > 1 month so I am dropping the game. Have fun all. If it starts back up you can replace me or contact me to rejoin