RPTools.net

You can rename the maps and, myself, I keep them hidden until needed and even then give them pretty generic names.

You should be able to rename the map already, check the Map menu.

Ah ha! I had missed the Rename feature of the Maps (although I do agree a GM name would be nice).

The Hills map in the Hive campaign file is a great example of a not very functional MapTool map generation technique. On my 3GHz P4HT with no one connected it takes upwards of 30 seconds to drag a single PC token onto the map. The map has a bunch of repeated stamps (trees) with a fair number of VBL blocks scattered about. Also, the tree stamps I dropped on were resized in MapTool so they are way over sized for the map.

I did this map this way to specifically stress test. Now I know that I must be much more conscious of stamp sizes, quantity, and VBL usage.

http://rapidshare.com/files/120327925/M ... cmpgn.html

Cool, I'll use that during my profiling session

After our final return to the Galactic Repository, we found ourselves with a little downtime. The automatons deemed our exit a low priority. We thus had a few weeks to wait while they fixed other things. Eventually they were willing to clear the door for our benefit. In any case, our implausible plan of stuffing intelligent mice up the nose of a powerful entity to eat it's brain proved surprisingly effective. The repository of knowledge was secured and we were given the opportunity to spend some of our downtime researching the vast archives. While much of the writing was for a world with different mechanics than our world, there were a few volumes that contained texts that were quite useful indeed!

Each of us found out how to bring on a Healing Surge as well as a Second Wind. We were also able to glean special knowledge of ways to gain an additional action 1/day. Lastly, I found an ancient text that allows a wizard to cast an unusual form of cantrip. I can cast this more or less at will and create a cloud of daggers (1D6 – Affects a 5x5x5 square – reflex save) as long as I stay focused (1 std action). Others were able to research similar special powers unique to their classes.

When we finally exited the repository, we caught up with the instrument maker. He was disappointed to learn that he could not take the perfectly musical rock. Had a bard in his shop, Cacyn, who chose to join us in our travels. We agreed to resume our quest to reach one of the main cities and register as an adventuring group. I fear we are well beyond any illusion we are anything but full blown adventures at his point and I am convinced that we will be arrested before we arrive at the capital.

Just before Tilverton, we encounter a road sign... A bad sign...

The road appeared to be closed and there was a hastily constructed detour. There was a LARGE sign bearing the mark of the Purple Dragons warning us not to proceed on the main road under penalty of death. We looked down the detour and pondered the probability it was a trap. This was a real quandary! If the sign was a construct of bandits, we would surely be attacked! If it was a legitimate mark of the Purple Dragons, we would be on the very wrong side of the law indeed! At this moment, our fortunes change. A cloud along the main road told us that a group of horsemen was approaching. We sought some measure of cover, but we were unable to hide due to our horses. My goat hides in my pocket just fine, thank you!

The approaching horsemen turn out to be the Purple Dragons. They informed us that Tilverton had been annihilated. If we dared even approach the town we will be annihilated as well. The puzzled looks on our faces must have spoken volumes as, after a brief pause, he explained that he would kill us if nothing else did. That was enough for me. He prattled on for a while about details. He then asked us for our adventuring papers, which we don't yet have.

We were promptly arrested. He was fairly nice about it. I had figured we would be bludgeoned into submission, then arrested. I chose not to ask why for fear of giving him an idea.

We were taken, politely, to the captain of this brigade. She was also surprisingly polite and made us a very generous offer WE COULD NNNNOOOTTT REFUSE. (see also: Bludgeoning) Being wiser than the average rock, we accepted. We were given temporary adventuring papers and a task to locate a band of dwarves who had agreed to patrol a trade trail. They were hired for the task as the Purple Dragons had all hands assigned to guard the smoking hole that was formerly Tilverton. They set out 2 weeks ago but are at least 1 week overdue. The captain is worried, but noted that there may be a very good reason why they have not returned, such as a vein of ore... Were are given a few names and some general directions.

We headed off up the trail and, after a time, found a single Dwarf in vicious armed combat with a giant ant. At the moment we spot him, he manages to fell the beast. The signs of a serious battle remain scattered about. A number of giant ants had met their end. He spoke to us briefly and we discovered that he is a prospector by trade rather than one of the band we are looking for. He has abandoned his home up the trail as a result of various troubles similar to the ants.

We also learned that he had seen the band we are looking for at his former homestead. He gives us the kind of directions only a dwarf could understand. It is pure nonsense to me, but others in our party managed to follow him well enough. After a good solid march, we discover a large cabin. As we prepare to hail, we are addressed by some fellows pouring out. They tell us to go away and suggest we are jumping their claim. We assure them that we are not claim jumpers, but they won't hear it. We elect to try to subdue them.

The party spreads out and begins the offensive. As some in the party approach, they are horrified to discover that these dwarves are changed. They appear to have been transmuted into insect like shadows of their former selves. After a few rounds of combat, they are subdued. These are clearly two of the dwarves we are looking for, Dorlin and Isskolar. They are bearing medallions with insect markings. After a period of questioning, they agree to take us to the “Queen”. I find this prospect worrying.

We travel with them to a tower...

--------------------

We refresh ourselves that our mission is to find the dwarves and return them safe and sound. Dorleen and Iskilar – our chitinous dwarf prisoners want to take us to their queen. We are pretty sure we don’t want to see the queen, but also sure we need to enter the anthill to save the dwarves. Oh bugger.

Before leaving the path, we meet with an armored almost giant who wants to join us. After her promises not to kill me and take all my possessions when we are in the trees, we allow him to join us.

We go into the woods and do find the ant hill. Smoke, Ghrym, Mordacai, and Beverly Hill stay outside the ant hill guarding the dwarves.

Halbord, Wait, Larka, Feliz, Kayssim, Calaudra, Electra and Goth enter the ant hill. We see two ants dragging the carcass of a boar into the ant hill. The initially seem to ignore us as we move in. Goth charges to the front and nearly dies from the initial attach of the first two worker ants. Then he Burning Hands them and uses his new Fey Step power to retreat to the cleric who cures him.

Our new fighter, Halbord, is pretty good with his chains, killing the first and second and third and fourth ants that he attacks. As he mows through the ants, they claw and bite, but he is invincible. Maybe they don’t actually have the ability to do damage? No, Larka jumps in and is immediately hurt.

We defeat the ants and move into a room full of decaying body parts and carcasses. Yuk. There are crates with golden eagle runes on them. Wonder what that means.

We find dried figs and 3 crates of expensive and yummy dryad walnuts. Continuing to the next room – oh my goddess – there is an Ettin. Holbard goes in as does Electra and Felix and Larka. He gets two attacks of opportunity and Larka drops. Bravely Caulaudra brings Larka to zero, steps into the room and cures Hobard – that situational awareness is very cool. Now, if we can only get out…..

We strategically retreat – this ettin is one tough bugger! He follows our retreat. For a moment I thought we would get red Lizard Woman boots and grey Lizard Woman gloves, but it seems that Larka worked a second wind and is more than 0 htpts now. Electra summons a dog and Felix shoots many magic missiles and Wait hits it too. As a team, we manage to make it drop! Yea us!

Setup changes:

1) Dumped the D-Link USB-phone adapter. Wired up my own adapter to send the phone to the headphones+microphone jacks of the laptop. This reduced cpu utilization from 85%++ to 35% and the sound was still great. HURRAY!

2) Hosted the campaign on my beefier desktop, connected as a GM with the laptop.

This significantly improved token moving. Everyone was able to move tokens at the same time without issue.

One issue from this setup. When I placed a token on the board, then changed its image, that image never propigated to others.

3) With the improved cpu utilization, I was able to add in streaming video. It was only used to show the cookies that one of the players brought (but sufficiently hungered the remote players).


Observations:

The various text boxes were from the 2 bards trying to keep up bard song info for the party. From this I definetly see a need for a floating info box tool. The MT text gets lost in the fog of war (hence the multiple repetitions of the song info).

Perhaps just a toggle for Text that makes it globally visible / over top of fog of war-VBL?

------------

MapTool requires additional communication. I find the players get absorbed in the tool when it is their turn, and it is not obvious if they have started or finished their turn. Having players verbally (or in chat) state they are starting, and have ended their turn, greatly speeds up the play and smooths it out too.

Setup Changes:

1) Tried to use the Chat-Cord to connect the speakerphone to the PC. This produced some bad hum in the audio, so replaced it with my ugly hack cord which works flawlessly.

2) Tried to use an on table top grid for initiative tracking. While this let the remote people see the order, everyone pretty much ignored it and listed to the person calling initiative (so and so on deck, such and such's turn). General consensus was that the on map tracking is not functional. So we will continue to EAGERLY await a basic Init Tool inside MapTool. The issue is people do not want to have to zoom out and in all the time.

3) 1.3b32 (was 31 previously)


Observations:

People are still loving the fact that MapTool is enabling our remote players. We would have been too few to play without it, but with it we had a group of 5+GM, huzzah.

Having to individually select each NPC and set ownership really slowed things down. But I understand this is on the to be fixed list.

One player lost the ability to move her token. I was able to set individuals to have rights to the token, but I was unable to set the token Ownership to ALL. We decided to not spend debug time so I just moved her token for her (as this happened late in the evening). In the future, I will have her disconnect then reconnect.

I loaded a b31 campaign but used b32. Was unable to create campaign macros initially. Then at some point I was able to and so I created some. But they were only visible on the machine I created them on. I think this issue is addressed in b33.

I still ran the server on my desktop and had my laptop as an additional GM. Next week I am going to not load MapTool on the laptop but instead just remotely connect to the desktop and directly use MapTool there.

Our very weak approach to visual initiative (I do not recommend this):

2008/06/27 (unedited and perhaps not very good)

Coladra, 5th (EP)
Uaithne, 5th (LGM)
Ghrym, 5th (Todd)
Smoke, 5th (George)
Halbord, 4th (William, remote)
Cacyn, 4th (Tammy, remote)

XP:
4th: 2000
5th: 1183

Synopsys: The Gates of Hell hath let loose the Bugs of War! We are beset by hordes of Giant vermin (ants and their ilk) but we solider on until we bring down the Queen! Alas, we cannot rest because the tunnels go on and on…

Technology: The mapping tool worked really well. It is astounding how much time Lindsay put into this and I, for one, am very appreciative. However, I don’t see how I will ever have the time to work at this level the next time I run.

Initiative: We tested Lindsay’s initiative idea. I found it very cumbersome, but the real test was how William and Tammy found it.

Audio: Once again, audio seemed to be the biggest challenge, but Lindsay & William eventually found a robust solution.

Video: Too CPU intensive once again. It was quickly aborted.

NOTES:
My task is hard. The Lord God is testing me. I am surrounded by scoundrels, perverts and sinners but I struggle on…

Initially my heart leapt at our meeting of Cacyn and Halbord and the chance that the Lord may have sent me the assistance that I have desperately been praying for, but my hopes were soon dashed. The Lord had sent me more sinners in desperate need of guidance rather than the help I fear I need, but I will toil on.

I rejoined the party in the midst of clearing a nest of vermin – and I mean that literally! VERMIN, GIANT ants and a Bugettin, a two headed giant man-bug spawn of hell. The Bugettin was still oozing blood into the dirt of the tunnel as Smoke and I came upon the party discussing how to move the carcass so we could proceed. Digging could cause the dirt tunnel to cave in so it was decided to follow Coladra’s advice, continue exploring South in the hopes that the ants would move the carcass for food.

Southward we encounter a room choked with fungus and mushrooms. It is so packed it is difficult to move and the air is so putrid and close that it is difficult to breath fully. Halbord, Cacyn and Uaithne are sickened and weakened.

As we try to exit the tunnel, ants attack from a small tunnel. We fight our way through to emerge into a large cavern with many ants and numerous small pits in the floor. Battle ensues. As we fight our way into the cavern we discover that disgusting, slimy ant larva are in the pits and the larva are just as nasty as the ants. We kill them all and move on to the Queen’s chamber where there are many more ants. Initially we are not too worried until Halbord gets snagged by the Queen’s pincers – GULP!

Coladra rushes into the room overrunning and ant and taking many attacks of opportunity to open up a path to the Queen. Smoke and Cacyn follow closely behind. Uaithne is apparently already there because there is an ant attacking thin air. There are a few tense moments until Halbord uses his great strength to break free of the Queen. Back to full fighting force, we dispatch the Queen and a few of her minions but some flee before we can drop them. We rush after them but they are gone. Fortunately, we discover that the Bugettin is also gone so we continue that way. In the first room past the Bugettin lair we discover a room with a wooden door. We pass through the wooden door only to be surrounded by dog-sized bug things. We kill them.

Low on spells, we exit the tunnels, pass the night uneventfully and return for more bloodshed the next day. We are determined to rid this place for the foul vermin and rescue the dwarves.

Returning to the dog-bug room we ignore the stairs up and choose to tackle the what is behind the wooden door.

Smoke listens and hears running water and movement. Prepared, we enter the room expecting battle. At first all we see are three bedraggled dwarves and a wide flowing section of an underground stream. As we try to rouse the dwarves for an escape, we are attacked by a very nasty flying bug thing, very nasty. Smoke and Coladra are hit with poisoned tail spikes and well into the battle Smoke takes a fly-by attack and is snatched. The bug thing starts to climb and heads back toward the water. As the bug climbs, Smoke breaks free and tumbles to the ground just as Ghrym slays the demon spawn by the righteous power of the Lord.

Setup Changes:

1) 1.3b35 (was 32 previously)

2) Ran a video stream (Ustream.tv) all night
Quickie samples showing us setting up:
http://www.ustream.tv/flash/video/568062
http://www.ustream.tv/flash/video/568053

3) I still ran the server on my desktop and remotely connected and directly used MapTool there.


Observations:

The remote client server approach worked great. The laptop processed the audio and video, while the desktop did the MapTool processing. Additionally I had full access to my image repositories without having to fiddle with the laptop at all.

We had a very good stress test. 10 players, 1 GM, 2 dogs, 2 kids, 6 laptops, 2 desktops. The college person's laptop was overrun with stuff so was not able to connect to the network or run MapTool (this was not a MT issue, this was a silly college kid issue). Only one of the players was physically remote.

MapTools ran flawlessly.

For the first time, we discovered a new way of dealing with stacked tokens. If you double click on the stacked block widget, an overlay pops up with a bunch of tokens listed, you can then right click those to do some operation. We had not known about this functionality. It seems to show the current stack plus all nearby tokens (not just the current stack). I am not sure if this is as intended, but it did confuse us for a short bit.

Campaign macros are not public. This seems unintuitive to me. I had created some campaign macros for all of my players to have access too, but they did not get them. It seems campaign macros are just personal macros tied to the campaign file instead of tied to the PC. I would think public shared macros would be useful.

The ability to adjust properties via macros is fantastic. Previously it was too hard to manage monster hitpoints via MapTool, now it works marvelously, wootah!

I had a mechanics / vision difficulty. One part of the map had a staircase, while another part had the upper room that the staircase lead too. The party got jammed by some guards at the top of the stair. But I had some tokens on one part of the map while others were on another part of the map. Visibility was definetly a challenge. From this I saw a strong benefit for MT1.4 to have a vision layer attachable to objects. That way I could have had a cutout part of the upper floor and lower floor as separate pieces with VBL and moved them to overlay parts of the map as needed.

We continue to wait patiently but hopefully for a basic integrated intitiative panel.



Note this shows ? for some token states. That is because the custom token state graphics do not seem to be associated with the campaign. They seem to be associated with the PC or maybe it is Save As does not save them???

Synopsys: With the Queen gone, cleanup is the order of the day. We search for lost dwarves and treasure!

Technology: The mapping tool continues to work well. The group continues to take a long time to set up and get ready to play. We were in the basement approx. 40 minutes setting up.

Having had a taste of using the tool to DM, I partially agree with Todd that seems daunting to run this way. However, I am also aware that a DM can put as much or as little into the map as desired. Setting up a basic map is as simple as drawing walls on top of a jpg image. I think the effort is minimal if you keep to the minimum (as I did). You can also labor for hours adding points of interest, etc...

Initiative: The old faithful magnet board was in effect tonight. With so many players, it was important to clarify who was on deck a few times to keep play moving.

Audio: Audio seemed to be the biggest challenge, but presented no problems for William. A brief appearance by Tammy did not go well.

Video: Seemed OK, thought most of the video ended up being shots of coaster howling...for dramatic effect...

NOTES:

The party returns to the surface with the freed dwarves and makes camp. We heal and set up a guard detail over the captured dwarves who have been transformed into half-insects.

We reenter the lair and find much of the insect population has dispersed. The bard advises us this is normal behavior for insects when their Queen is killed.

The party approaches a door not previously entered. Smoke checks the door to find it is not trapped and not locked. Behind it is a pile of trash. Out of the trash come giant beetles. Combat ensues. The beetles are not much of a match for the party as they are dispatched before I can really see what is going on in the room. We find a bunch of rubbish as if something was cleaning up the place. There is a rotten body among the trash. From it we recover 5 vials of anti-toxin, half-plate armor (Masterwork), a ring of jumping and an immovable rod.

Around the corned from this door is a set of stairs. Coladra grows impatient (the curious feline will be the death of her someday!) and moves up them without proper tactics or backup. She is met by two half insect-half dwarves at the top of the steps. They successfully use tactics against us and we are squeezed onto the stairs and effectively blocked. Oddly, the party never for a moment considers backing down and regrouping in proper order. Instead they recall we are on a dwarf rescue mission and resolve to use bad tactics to subdue them. Lovely!

In any event, they manage to knock out and push over the dwarves (eventually) and discover that there are several more in the rooms beyond. We have the good fortune that Uaithne had flown past the blockage and successfully greased the reinforcements. That left a slick on the floor which also hampered the party for a bit, but not for long. Soon, our ragged band was pouring up the steps and into and open room where we could fight easily.

The room was very curious indeed. There was a gargantuan wasp hanging from the ceiling by chains. It appeared to be dead, but people gave the stinger end a wide berth.

At this point the original dwarves were down and the reinforcements were regrouping. They were joined by a bug like creature unfamiliar to me. The party called it a formian. At this point, several in the party are hurt enough to call off the subdue mission and get to making serious work of the foes. They were really no match for us without the advantage of the squeeze on the steps and combat wraps up nicely. This is none too soon for several in the party who took serious beatings. At least two of the dwarves are from the party we are seeking. It is regrettable that one of them was killed by the party. We spared several other dwarves that we were not looking for, perhaps that will count for something!

I guess we will be pressing on after a bit of rest!

Subject: 2008-07-25 Journal

Electra (4) – Laura
Goth (5) – Bill
Halbrod (4) – William
Larka (5) – Haley
Mordecai (4) – Doug
Smoke (6) – George
Uaithne (6) – Lindsay

Technology
MapTools has some cool new features, new macros, new token states. Some are a little buggy and didn’t work consistently for everyone, but, hey, it’s a beta! Homework for folks bringing laptops is to ensure that they have a current release of Java and the current MapTools. We also learned that running the Cisco VPN client on Lindsay’s computer interferes with some laptops connecting to it for MapTools, but he can turn that off so we just have to remember to do that.

Sound and video were working fine, although I need to get a sound card that plays well in my box so I don’t have to use my 6 year old laptop for audio 

Synopsis

We recently worked our way through the hive tunnels and into the first floor of the tower that we had seen off in the hills. There, we encountered a few bug-dwarves and a fomorian. We had subdued the bug-dwarves so we had some of our folks escort them to the relative safety outside the hive. Then we went on to investigate the tower…

The Story Continues…

We took a quick look around the room we were in, but there was Colodra’s Bull Strength still in effect on me, so we decided to keep moving along before it expired. There was a big metal door in the room that was sealed with some type of resin, but it looked to be the front door of the tower so we moved on. Exiting the first room, we entered a long room with stairs going up. Around a corner in an alcove was a large deific statue of a scorpion with wasp wings and four pincers. It appeared to be nothing more beyond that, so we continued on up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs was another long narrow room that was covered in a hard resin on the floor, walls and ceiling. The one door that we saw was heavily covered in resin that we had to bash through to allow us to open the door. Beyond the damaged door was a large bedroom with a single bed that hadn’t been slept in recently, a large green rug in the center of the room, a chest in the far left corner, a large dried ant corpse on the left wall adjacent to a door. We made a quick scan of the room but found no sign of threats.

Smoke adeptly unlocked the door which I then opened. The room beyond was a relatively small, narrow room that looked like an alchemist’s lab. There were cabinets with alchemical supplies, specimen jars, a ladder up to the ceiling on the north wall, a table to which a naked humanoid with pale grey skin and large bulbous head was strapped with leather straps. The critter strapped to the table had a tube stuck in his arm apparently drawing blood. Oh, there were also two bug-dwarves and a nasty looking fomorian. The nasty looking fomorian didn’t have a mouth, very odd indeed!

We immediately engaged the critters, Smoke tumbling through the mess to flank one of the bug-dwarves. Uaithne cast Grease on the weapon of one of the bug-dwarves who didn’t seem very surprised. Arrows flew, weapons swung, spells were cast. Then Mordecai changed sides and attacked Smoke! Shortly after which Larka attacked me from the rear, nearly doing me in. Uaithne’s timely dispel magic was able to remove the supercharm (as we found out) on Mordecai while Goth cast fear on Larka (twice!) to get her to flee combat, saving my bacon!

T’Kreen, the fomorian, communicated with us telepathically in an attempt to surrender, but we didn’t fall for his machinations and proceeded to slaughter him. The two bug-dwarves, however, were merely subdued through deft combat skills and planning. Yup, we got lucky!

Having handled the immediate threats, we went back to the bedroom to investigate the chest. Larka dexterously dodged the trap that she discovered and opened the chest. The chest contained a leather sack with 15 gems worth 50gp each, one 450gp gold ore nugget, a masterwork light crossbow with 10 cold iron bolts and a journal written in dwarven. The journal was written by Hehrenna and describes a process using Formian poison and doppelganger blood to make hiveblood serum. It may be possible to reverse the process by mixing hiveblood serum with a potion of neutralize poison and giving it to an affected person within one month of being affected by the serum. Smoke told us that he has one neutralize poison potion when we decide we want to try it.

Among the alchemical supplies, we found 6 sickly potions which we believe to be hiveblood serum, 4 other potion bottles, two magical potions of a similar type and two more magical potions of another similar type. Delusional magic users claimed to have seen signs of another magical potion among the debris caused by my swinging chains, but I think that is just a case of them trying to get me to realize I should have been more careful.

There were two magical rings discovered on T’Kreel’s corpse. At some point (my memory fails me), we found a flat case that contains a wand which Goth determined to be Charm Person. That had to have been found on the first floor of the tower since Goth tried to use it during the battle with T’Kreen.

We believe that if a person drinks the hiveblood serum and it successfully takes effect (there appears to be around a 67% chance of failure, I can’t imagine that ends up being a good outcome), the following effects occur:
The imbiber becomes creature type Aberration
The chitin shell provides +2 to natural AC
Darkvision
Hivemind (with other bug-critters)
Immunity to poison
Resistance to cold and electricity
STR +4, DEX +2, CON +2, INT -4, CHA -4

Following all of this searching, reading, and discovery, Smoke climbed up the ladder followed by myself. We found a large part dwarf, part ant-queen, all nasty critter living up there. This is, apparently, Hehrenna. It attempted to negotiate with Smoke, promising to give us treasure, information, 3 god-like wishes each, and a pair of underclothing that doesn’t chafe. All of it sounded good, but the pair of non-chafing underclothing is clearly beyond the ability of any creature to provide, so it had to be a con job. Well, it didn’t really promise us the 3 god-like wishes or the underclothing, but it still sounded like a con job. Smoke moved into the room and I followed him. When I got within reach of Hehrenna, I took a swing at it but missed! That seemed to put it out of sorts and it took on a gaseous form before anyone else could engage it. Hehrenna escaped through a hole in the ceiling despite our non-effective attempts to damage it.

We went back down to investigate the unconscious doppelganger (as we now believed). We were able to bring it to consciousness and it told us that T’Kreel had knocked it out a while back and had been drawing its blood and keeping it in a state of weakness ever since. In answer to our questions, Rethool (as the doppelganger was named) explained that some dwarves had come to expel the fomorians from their hive a while back. Hehrenna stayed around to investigate the Formians and fell in love with T’Kreel. The rest, as they say, is history.

We told Rethool that he was free to go and he warned us that Hehrenna is a powerful spellcaster and we had better beware.

We also determined that the resin makes anything covered in it much harder and sturdier.

We eventually forced the metal door open on the first floor only to discover a stone wall beyond it. But, it is clearly the door in the tower that had been protected by the bug-dwarves and Hehrenna.

We left the tower and joined up with the subdued bug-dwarves and our compatriots. We did a more thorough job of examining the tower without gaining any more information. We did discover that one of the rings we found on T’Kreel generates the equivalent of a heavy shield made of some force material (Ring of Force Shield).

There was another ring we had found some time prior to T’Kreen that we determined to be a Ring of Jumping. The second ring (silver) that was on T’Kreen is still an unknown.

We decide to head out to meet up with the Purple Dragons, but expect it to be a trip of a few days.

08/08/2008:

Laura:Electra:4th
Haley:Larka:5th
George:Smoke:6th
Bill:Goth:5th
Lisa:Beverly:4th
Todd:Ghrym:5th
Steve:Felix:5th
Elizabeth:Coladra:6th
Tammy:Cacyn:4th
Lindsay: Uaithne:6th

Synopsis: We regroup, manage to not kill dwarves and actually cure some, drop off the rescued dwarves with the PD, get a quick "teleport" to civilization, try and get licensed (OUCH!), and find a new "patron" who sends us off with a temporary Band Pass to do some checking up on a small town to the north...

Technology: No speaker phone . Many sound problems.

After much discussion, we move off to camp in the woods with the six dwarves in tow. One is unconscious after drinking Uaithne’s potion, two are somewhat subdued after drinking Felix’s potions, and three are just tied up. During the night, the “Queen” tries to summon the bug dwarves and they struggle against their bonds. The evening passes uneventfully.

The next morning we split treasure despite Ghrym’s imploring that we support the poor orphans and odd-fellows at the Bitter Root Ministry, darn heathens! You’ll all gonna’ burn.

Halbrod: 72.5gp & Potion of Enlarge Person
Mordecai: 72.5gp & one 50lb crate of Dryad Walnuts

We travel back to the Purple Dragons with the Dwarves and are greeted by Captain Dunman. We tell her of our adventures and hand over the dwarves and the dwarven journal in case they need to cure others. That evening, we go through a portal that Captain Dunman created for us between the camp and Suzail. We must not speak of the portal. It is a Cormyr state secret so I shall say no more.

Once in Suzail, we quickly find a respectable Inn and negotiate a “reasonable” adventurer’s rate, 2gp per night (stupid negotiators!). After a quick scrub and grub, Ghrym heads out to the market to scout the “competition”. At least this evening, he sees nothing that worries him.

The next morning we do various “town” things which are not interesting enough to cover here … we also go to register as an adventuring fellowship only to discover that we are too large to be a fellowship and must register as a Band. A band registration is much, much more expensive.

On the third day, a page greats us in the morning at the Inn and tells us the Lord Hawklin expects us at 10 for an appointment. The pages escorts us to the south side of the promenade and the Lord Hawklin’s house where Lord Hawklin offers to give us a temporary Band Pass if we agree to go and investigate the former “Temple of Elemental Evil” to make sure that humanoids have not re-infiltrated. The remains of the temple are in the town of Hilp. The responsible people at the town of Hilp are:

Wizard: Burn
Warrior: Rufus
Sheriff: ?

Lord Hawklin tells us we should speak to the sheriff. Two days later we find ourselves in Hilp where we are greeted by the sheriff, Elmo. We retire to the Inn of the Welcome Wench to explain our mission and have Elmo fill us in on the history of the evil temple. Elmo did not participate in the clearing being too young, but was here at the time.

Possibly important facts:
1) The Temple is about 30 miles away in the forest closer to the town of Nulb
2) There is a Moat House closer to Hilp which was also destroyed with the temple
3) A demon was at the lowest level of the temple but was banished
4) The priests wore ocher robes, but at the time, no one could figure out why. Ocher is not a color associated with any of the elemental orders
5) Helm=Cuthbert and they are both just aspects of The One True Lord

August 15, 2008

Kassim - 4
Colaudra - 6
Smoke - 6
Goth - 5
Electra - 4
Felix - 5
Wait -6

Halbord, Ghrym, Beverly, Larka and Mordacai are not feeling well. They got a room at the inn, listened to part of the story, turned green and bought chicken soup and disappeared for the adventure.

The evening opens finding the balance of the adventuring troop at the Inn of the Welcome Wench. The Inn Keeper’s name is Osler Gundergucht. His daughter, Vesta runs the Inn. During the meeting Calaudra buys dinner and drinks for the rest of us. The bar wench Maridosen demands that we buy food. We then discuss purchasing ochre robes in case the evil is back and we need to infiltrate. However, we are not sure if we need yellow ochre, brown ochre, red ochre or purple ochre. We are stymied.

We get one suite for the night and one large room for the healthy persons. The sick persons need to decide if they paid for a private space hung out in the common room. It is unclear how much a non suite room costs..

In case of future need:
Rooms at the inn are comfortable and simple. Each has a soft bed with a quilted blanket, a desk with a chair, and a pitcher of water and a bowl for washing up. A single two-room suite is available for 3 gp per night. Room doors have locks (Open Lock DC 18), and a client can rent the key by paying Maridosen an additional 1 gp per night. A common room, for those unable or unwilling to pay for a private room, is available for 5 sp per night, although the inn does not guarantee the safety of one’s belongings there. A dozen bunks are located here

The bard who is very bad claims he went to the moat house recently and found undead. It was dank and moist and mildew-y. He didn’t see them. He just heard moaning and scratching. Hmmm a couple of live ones or a group of undead ones????? Either way it seems like a job for Ghrym, and he’s indisposed.

We meet a busy body who shares:
• Temple ruins is an excellent hideout for monsters
• Kids hang out at the moat house

Questin Himmble – we meet him – he is an ugly Halfling who looks like a goblin. He knows nothing.

Next morning we set out for the moat house. We find it. There is a blood smear on the courtyard and two corpses inside the manor house and one blue dragon! Yikes. One body is in a ochre cloak. Not sure which type of ochre.

The dragon bites Smoke and then gets Smoke with a fury of blows. Smoke is bloody. A hideous battle ensues. Smoke is close to death. Coladra uses a fast heal and then flanks everyone swings or spellcasts, Goth and Felix cast, Kassim sings, Electra bows and Wait confuses the beast. Calaudra makees herself srong and wades into hand to hand. It breathes and Kassim, Goth (down to -9), and Calaudra nearly drop. With a total team effort, the dragon dies and we don’t! Kassim saved Goth.

Most excellent spells including burning hands, magic missile, sound burst and confusion, two scorching rays and Bellagorn’s sounding horn were used. Several situational awarenesses were used! Dragon was AC 21 with 102 hitpoints.

The dragon was eating two bodies. The rogue has necklace with a black iron triangle with an upside-down yellow Y inscribed within. The cleric also has a necklace. Their stuff is listed below.

Calaudra checks her knowledge religion about the necklaces and learns: It is the symbol of Apep.

Apep is reviled, not revered, in the temples of the Pharaonic pantheon. Officially — according to the priests of Re-Horakhty and the other deities — Apep has no worshipers, no temples, and no creed but destruction and evil. Those deranged, corrupt, and otherwise evil souls who devote themselves to Apep agree, at least in part. He has no creed but destruction: destruction of all the Pharaonic gods, their temples, their clerics, their worshipers, and even the world they created and the creatures that inhabit it. The followers of Apep — not as few as the priests of other deities would like people to believe — do not strive for a world dominated by evil; they strive for the end of the world.

Felix who also knows about religions, knows:
There is a rare and obscure cult known as the elder elemental eye. Not sure of details. It is evil and this is their symbol.


Treasure:
• A normal curved dagger
• Masterwork studded leather armor (dyed black) – Electra
• Longsword – 15 gp
• Shortbow (magic +1) with 12 arrows - Smoke until we find someone better
• 13 gp
• Three 100 gp jade gems – Wait, Electra and Felix
• Chain-mail – 150 gp
• Heavy mace +1 – magic – Goth until we find someone better
• A scroll of cure light wounds magic - Kassim
• 24 gp
• A lilac-colored stone mask worth 200 gp - Smoke
• Ochre colored cloak – not sure which color ochre due to blood
Everyone gets 100 gp. (702/7 = 100)

Technology worked well. The phone was clear and Tammy’s speaker was wonderful when dangling off her forehead. We are still slowed down using the tool and need to stop letting it distract us!


Also shared:
To speak of dogma in connection with Bast is almost contradictory. Bast is a chaotic, often whimsical deity who demands no rigid adherence to principles of faith. In general, she promotes life and liberty, asserting the value of mortal life, things of beauty, and freedom from oppressive regulation. Bast hates evil, particularly Apep and his followers, and people who worship Bast generally share that enmity.

Experience 4th = 514, 5th = 493 and 6th = 429



Here we see the oversized (was a medium sized dragon that I scaled in the token to make the body fit the square and let the wings go larger) dragon that is near death. It just breathed and just about killed off a few of the party. While fun, the blood was too distracting and we will be changing to health bars.

Technology Update

Having a working high quality speakerphone is critical with a large number of same room players. My phone died and we suffered. The Polycom Soundstation 2 has a mini-jack that lets it connect directly to a PC so I just got one on Ebay... so we will be back in business!

The server continues to be amazingly stable. As you can see from the notes, we run with 6-11 players (generally around 7 PCs). Our issues have all been external to MT so I can say MT is flawless.

The changes to macros / properties / states have all be incredibly positive. This past week we explored using the dripping blood over the token to show health. Everyone loved it, but agreed that a health bar would be less distracting so I will be changing to that.

After using MT for all of these sessions, my players continue to be slow to setup and easily distracted with the tool. So much so they forget to role-play sometimes. More practice indicated.

This past session, most of the players agreed they prefer the pog type images for the player tokens. The pogs are far easier to see and quickly identify.

With the looming Initiative tool, I believe MapTool will fully meet all of our core needs. One can always like more bells and whistles, but for 99% of anything we would use the tool for, we are satisfied.

FANTASTIC JOB ALL!

Neat read, liked the recaps!