Rewards?

I've had a recommendation for some meta game reward for creative thinking/great role playing/doing something cool.
Here's my idea:
1) At the end of every session, secret ballot on who did the coolest/best/most creative thing done IN CHARACTER
      a. Either just the person in general or a specific thing
2) The winner is presented with a token either right then or at the beginning of the next session
3) This token can be used at anytime to force the re-roll of any ONE dice
      a. Your dice, your friends dice, an enemy's dice (any ONE dice)
      b. Attack, damage, skill check, saving throw (any ONE roll)
4) The user of the token determines which result to use

Rules of the token:
1) No one can have more than one token at any one time
2) You must receive at least two votes to receive a token (if everyone votes for themselves, nobody gets nada)
3) If you have a token and were voted to receive a 2nd token, the token will go to the player with the 2nd highest vote total
4) If everyone already has a token, learn to use them!
5) The token must be used before the next dice is rolled
      a. If an attack hits you, you have to use your token before damage is rolled
      b. If the damage is already known, you can have it (one dice anyway) re-rolled, but you cannot have the attack re-rolled
6) The dice re-rolled using the token cannot also be re-rolled using any other ability/effect/feat
      a. Except if another player plays his token on your behalf


What do you guys think?

Adventure 1, Session 1 - The plot unfolds...

FEED BACK!!! –
Give it! Some of you already have, and I thank you for it. I'll take general feedback as well as specific stuff. Examples help. If you aren't having fun, I'm not doing my job. Too much ROLL playing and not enough ROLE playing? My descriptions weak and without feeling? NPC voices all sound alike? My email's insipid and stupid? Just let me know.

Character Build –
Before the next session you are free to tweak your character's skills and feats. There MAY be one more opportunity to do this before I hand over the DM chair. No guarantees. I don't want you to feel stuck with an uninformed/bad decision for the rest of your character's life. However, before we begin adventure 2, you will have to live with what you picked (unless the next DM is very nice).

Alignment –
There's a brief description of each alignment in the Pathfinder book starting on page 121. Read about the alignments. Alignment isn't hard and fast, it's a guideline for your character's behavior. You are free to change your alignment. You can RP your character anyway you want. Only Sam and John are significantly restricted by their alignment (Mike to a lesser degree).

I may use your alignment against you in an RP way.
"Although you didn't want to kill him, you feel justified in his death. You know that the law can be bought around here, but you cannot." Or, "You try to ignore the screaming child, but it's cries tear at your heart. You give the mother a few silver to feed her starving babe." Or, "Turning the him into the authorities is the only thing you could do. Losing a hand is the penalty for stealing, even if it was just bread."

I won't MAKE you do anything (3 silver won't make a big difference in game terms), but I may leverage your RP alignment to motivate, reward, or punish you for sticking to it.

Rage –
I'm torn. I think we can do this one of two ways: (Suggestions welcome!!!)
1) Blind Rage – You mostly unaware of your surroundings, you need to make a will-save for things to click.
a. Standard Rage Penalties
b. If someone yelled "Don't go through the archway" while you are enraged and chasing a guy who just ran through it
c. Be lead into a fairly obvious ambush while chasing someone
d. To notice that someone has surrendered
e. To notice your friends need help while you are engaged in melee
f. To ready or delay an action
g. To use a non-thrown ranged weapon
2) Reckless Rage – You are aware of your surroundings but generally don't care about your own safety
a. Standard Rage penalties
b. Will saves only for Read/Delay and non-thrown ranged weapons

Mike, you are free to do one or the other (or an agreed upon 3rd choice). I don’t need to know immediately, but this will affect how the NPC's rage as well.


Power Level –
To easy? The encounter with the Black Horses was supposed to be a wee bit more challenging. I ran it by the book (complete with surrender when they thought you'd use lethal force). I think it was less of a challenge than the module intended. Partially cause we started at level 2 and partially because of Pathfinder.

I'm going to tune the next encounter a bit based on this light, please give feedback.


Story/Summary/Saga –
I'll write up the plot summary to date, as well as what the NPCs have done. I'd still like for a bit about what your character has done. Successes and at least one failure if/when possible. IE: "Cut a man sized crab in half with one swing. But ran up the stairs in to a dark hall way and wiffed a mook 3 times in a row." I think this makes the characters more real, and is usually humorous to boot.

This can be one sentence, or a paragraph. Up to you.

WBS HP Progression

Raw Hit Points before any bonuses:

PC
Level	d6	d8	d10	d12
1	6	8	10	12
2	11	14	18	21
3	15	20	25	30
4	20	26	33	39
5	24	32	40	48
6	29	38	48	57
7	33	44	55	66
8	38	50	63	75
9	42	56	70	84
10	47	62	78	93
11	51	68	85	102
12	56	74	93	111
13	60	80	100	120
14	65	86	108	129
15	69	92	115	138
16	74	98	123	147
17	78	104	130	156
18	83	110	138	165
19	87	116	145	174
20	92	122	153	183

War of the Burning Sky - Intro II

Emperor Coaltongue:
Drakus Coaltongue has ruled Ragesia for decades, slowly expanding its borders through cunning and conquest. He was rumored to be immortal, but now he is rumored to be dead, which has Ragesia up in arms.

The Scourge:
A decree that all disloyal users of magic in Ragesia and surrounding lands are to be captured or killed. The decree is from Supreme Inquisitor Leska.

Supreme Inquisitor Leska:
One of Coaltongue’s closest advisors, the aged witch has trained and commanded a mighty force of anti-magic inquisitors.

The Inquisitors:
Dressed in bear skins, their faces concealed by bearskull masks, inquisitors are the feared blade of Ragesia, expert in cutting out those who resist its rule.

The inquisitors hunt for dangerous magic, which in their mind pretty much means any magic used by other people. They have special skills for stopping other mages’ spells. Most inquisitors are humans, orcs, or half-orcs, and they carry metal claws on their hands. Many inquisitors are skilled interrogators, and they use their claws to slit the wrists of prisoners, forcing the prisoner to answer quickly.

Gate Pass:
The Free Citystate of Gate Pass lies in the Otdar Mountains, located in the mountain pass which separates two hostile nations — Ragesia and Shahalesti. The pass is a major trade conduit, control of it is vital. Gate Pass has been neutral since the end of their last war, but now from Ragesia a scourge comes for the city.

Ragesia:
Ragesia is the largest nation in the region, and four other nations commonly interact with it. The politics and history of the region are relatively simple, though the recent power vacuum in Ragesia threatens to make things much more complicated.

Shahalesti:
On the far side of the mountains that mark Ragesia’s eastern border spreads the Shining Land of Shahalesti. An uneasy peace exists with Ragesia, however with the Emperor rumored to be dead, there is talk of war.

Links:

War of the Burning Sky stuff:
Player Stuff

Pathfinder Stuff:
Pathfinder Info

Generic d20SRD stuff:
Generic d20SRD handouts

Root:
http://www.mediafire.com/fountain-of-font

John's Game - Update 17-Apr-2009

Newer stuff in bold:

Dwarven Outpost -

• Encounter with orcs

  • PCs:

    • Sam's Dire Bear form maybe a little too dire

    • Orcs can run over rocky terrain through magical darkness with no issues (Nice try Lance)

    • Giant sized Rita still manages to be less effective than BO

    • Delem was participating as best he could

      • Guilt caused DM to allow Delem to actually drop a baddie or two

    • Tenacious G sits one out (he had the sniffles)

  • NPCs:

    • Did about 80% of the work

      • Thank the goddesses the PCs were there to mop up the refuse

    • NPC Dwarven Cleric out damages Delem

    • NPC Dwarven Rogue out damages Delem

      • May have been allowed to sneak attack

      • Didn't seem to draw every enemy in 2000 miles to attack him

      • Delem MUST learn his secret!

    • BO single handedly killed 3 before the rest of the party combined dropped 2

    • BO's lover was the only being to do less damage than Delem (if I recall correctly)

      • Could have been sam's forlorn wolf tho

• Storming the Outpost

  • Recon

    • 15+ orcs just hanging out on the wall

    • 100 yard trench and double gate are the only way in

  • Planning

    • Many hours planning out assault on the fortress

    • 100 yard trench – Check

    • Exhaust port – Check

    • Proton torpedoes – Check

  • Assult

    • After careful planning, we decide to wing it

    • Sam opens the doors (so to speak) with a strategically placed soften earth and a medium fire elemental

    • NPCs:

      • Played a minor role this time

      • Enlarge Person x3

      • Prayer

      • Dropped a few bad guys

      • One really good Hold Person (against the enemy caster)

      • BO was a great ally tosser and ladder

    • PCs:

      • Sam as (somewhat) Dire Bear does a belly flop on an orc, and proceeds to maul two more. Also ate helpless enemy caster

      • Lance was bravely thrown into the melee and distinguished himself well

      • Rita (enlarged and in charge) excelled at wack-an-orc

      • The G man dropped 1 orc and did a high stepping super flexing 3 hour victory dance

      • Delem finally relearned the secret of the sneak-attack from the other dwarven rogue, did ok for himself

  • Aftermath

    • Not much to be found

    • Goliaths called in to man the base until more dwarves arrived

    • We head to the dwarven lands

Into the Mountains (Dwarven lands) -

• Intro

  • Big people still persona non grata

  • High Priest gives us a high five

  • Sets up clandestine audience with king

• Audience with king

  • Mike's telescope of DM annoyance reveals spiritual stench around King

  • Mythos takes a nap and wakes to tell us we need to nap with him (he's a cuddle whore)

  • Enter fantasy world (where Mythos does stuff)

• Fantasy world

  • Nasty voice calls us bitches, we don't take kindly to that!

  • Rita heads to bed leaving her character in Steven's hands

  • Nasty monster thing, looks like liposuction byproduct and is as toxic as credit default swaps

  • Rita refuses to give dat monster tree-fiddy!

  • Rita gets her ass handed to her again and again and again (and again (and again))

  • No one else really even got hurt

    • Except the following animals that Sam had commit suicide:

      • Uni the innocent unicorn

      • FuckYoCouch the angry badger

  • One guess as to who finally killed the big bad spirit thing...

  • We wake up

• Real world again

  • Mythos has shit-eating grin, Lance's character's ass hurts

  • Mythos offers popsicles ("All you ever want, just drink this 'potion'...")

  • King has Alzheimer's

  • We break cause it's hella late

John's Game Summary

Small town in the north -

• Found Bjorn & Mythos
• Sam's Spider Forest (they don't recognize his sovereignty yet)
• Shipwreck
• Big G finds DM annoying Telescope of True Seeing
  
• Hobgoblin camp
• Tomb dwarven & human, sword, spirit, sage
  

Middle Town -

• On Lock down
• Shady goings on
  

Big city -

• Lord Darkmore?
• Free magic stuff
• Big G gets slight magical upgrade
  
• Look into Middle town
  

Middle Town (again)-

• Warehouse found Lance then burned the place down
• Surprise attack on caravan
• Rope Trick - YEAH!
• Flyby Attack - BOO!!
  
• Church
• Rita gets us hooked up
  
• Vlad - vampire... nope Ogre Mage
  
• Mayor - moron... yep
  
• Map to tower/dungeon

Useless Druid^TM -

• Search for
• Found
  

Ruined Tower/Dungeon -

• Useless druid summons earth elemental
• elemental get's lost and dies from exposure
  
• Green goop
• Lots of traps
• and fort saves
• many disarm attempts
• RAGE!!!
  
• Tentacle thing
  
• Crazy tank guys
• Rita stands her ground and does her god's work
• Mythos be a squishy fairy
  
• Ancient Giant Runes Teleport/Circle
• Bad dude with teleporting grenade
• Treasure!!!
• Big G gets slight magical upgrade
  

Middle Town (again, again)-

• Hero's feast
• Easy women (and men for Rita and BO)
  
• At the banquet
• Silence
• Drakes teleport in
• Big G loots corpses
• Delem begins participating!
  

Big city (again) -

• Free magic stuff
• Sam's Super Spider Armor(TM) done
• Only acid for 1000 miles BO had to give BJ for
  

Road to Orc fort -

• Aspect of Owlbear god
• Delem attempts participating; gets mauled
  
• Orc patrols

Orc Fort -

• Giant fort (built for giants that is)
• Ancient Giant Runes on top
• 300-400 Orcs armed & training
  

Road to Dwarf lands -

• Tentacle thing
• Delem does 13 points in 14 rounds!
  
• Troops heading to Orc fort
• Captured one and interrogated
  
• Goliaths
• Chief's daughter/newest wife captured
• Camp with Frost Giants and Orcs
• Sam (as a parakeet)
  
• Summons air elemental to divide and conquer
• Calls lightning and toasts some orcs
• Summons fire elemental to fight frost giants
  
• Rita kicks some orcish ass
  
• Delem excites Rita by shooting into melee (not that it does much good)
  
• Big G covers the fragile and participating Delem
• Lance steps to frost giants
  
• Frost giants
• Blindly tossing orcs in a perfect sine wave (and hitting Delem the damage machine)
  
• Orc w/ tank
• Blinded & bitch slapped by Lance (eventually)
  
• Return to goliath camp and rewarded (sammy's new cod piece)
• Goliaths took us to meet dwarves

Dwarves -

• Somewhat stand-offish
• Seems things are a changing in dwarf lands
• King has new advisers and they xenophobic
• Dwarfs trade with goliaths
• Dwarves also sent to investigate outpost that has not reported in
• we tag along

Dwarven Outpost -

• Encounter with orcs
• PCs:
• Sam's Dire Bear form maybe a little too dire
• Orcs can run over rocky terrain through magical darkness with no issues (Nice try Lance)
• Giant sized Rita still manages to be less effective than BO
• Delem was participating as best he could
• Guilt caused DM to allow Delem to actually drop a baddie or two
• Tenacious G sits one out (he had the sniffles)
• NPCs:
• Did about 80% of the work
• Thank the goddesses the PCs were there to mop up the refuse
• NPC Dwarven Cleric out damages Delem
• NPC Dwarven Rogue out damages Delem
• May have been allowed to sneak attack
• Didn't seem to draw every enemy in 2000 miles to attack him
• Delem MUST learn his secret!
• BO single handedly killed 3 before the rest of the party combined dropped 2
• BO's lover was the only being to do less damage than Delem (if I recall correctly)
• Could have been sam's forlorn wolf tho

War of the Burning Sky - Intro

War of the Burning Sky:

Intro:

You've individually found your way to Gate Pass, the town described in the Player's guide. If you took one of the bonus feats, then you've lived in Gate Pass for a while (if you weren't born there).

The mines and farms in the mountains have always provided good jobs. Nearly anyone who's anyone worked at them in some capacity. The mines are a few days journey from Gate Pass, so they setup camps near the mineheads. The camps are operated year round, tho in winter (now) most people sleep underground where it's slightly warmer. Almost everyone works 16 hours a day for 2.5 months, then two weeks off. While in Minetown all are fed and housed, tho the cost is deducted from the salary. A store operates to sell luxury items and the tally is also deducted from the salary. Alcohol is technically prohibited and the possessor is fined if found with any. Everything taken out of the mine legally belongs to the mine's owner, Mr. Arendt. Bonuses seem to be given fairly and often for both miners and other workers (when the mine is paying).

Caves in these mountains aren’t warm, they are damp and chilly. An old wives tale recounts an ancient white dragon took up residence in the mountain range, blowing his mighty breath to the heavens until the mountain tops were covered with snow. He then buried himself and is sleeping.

You've all taken jobs at the mine that suit your backstory.

Suggestions:

John – Healing, Security, Undead removal

Sam – Security, Identifying Evil artifacts, Healing

Lance – Lighting, Identifying Magic artifacts, Security

Mike – Security, Raging, Stinking up the place

Rita – ?

You've worked together on the same shift for about 2 months. You have about a week until you go back to Gate Pass. You've seen some action, but not a whole lot. Mostly little things here and there. Lots of monstrous centipedes and dark mantles, some troglodytes, some ancient skeletons and zombies, the rare Myconid (mushroom man), and one time with the help of Yellowcloud, Lucas and Tarla a Carrion Crawler.

Yellowcloud, Lucas and Tarla have been working in the mines going on a year. They work opposite shifts from you. Your shifts overlap and there's talk around the fire during these times. Below are examples of some of what you hear.

Yellowcloud:

Yellowcloud is a tough tall man with dirty brown hair. Literally dirty. He's gruff and is only really friendly with Lucas and Tarla. He carries a great axe and he's currently head of security for the mines.

"Mines, oh do I hate the mines. Dirty, cramped, smelling of filth, and cold. So cold. On the high Ragesian plains it got cold, but never this cold. Climbing a mountain just to tunnel beneath it. Dirty and dangerous work. If the rocks didn't cave your head in, the goblins, kobolds, giant ants, darkmantles, etc..., etc... would gladly do it for you. Hell one time I had to kill a drider! That thing was as scary as it was ugly. Luckily it was crawling off to die. The cave-in that opened its lair crushed it. No one liked to think about what was in those silk cocoons... That thing had more gems and gold in its lair then we'd pulled out of the mountain in a month of hard work.

Oh, sure I got paid to kill it. That's all I did in those tiny little holes they called mines. I was paid protect the miners from whatever they unearthed. I didn't get no extra putting that thing out of its misery. I got my weekly wage like everyone else. Mr. Arendt gets everything we pull outta them holes. Sometimes we earn a bonus if nobody dies in a whole month, if the mine's paying that is. Me, Snaggletooth, and the Queen Bee sat around most of the time. Course Snaggly had to patch up the miners every now and then even when I didn't have to get involved. And Queenie was sent to scout about whenever we opened a cavern of any sort. Sometimes she saw nothin, and sometimes she'd run past me with a herd a
troggies chasing her. Stink worse than the latrine shaft, them things did.

Anyway, it's nice to be outta there. If only for a few days. What's this I've been hearing about ol' Coaltongue? Dead? He can't be dead that old snaggletooth was unkillable so they said. I'll be dammed."

Lucas:

Lucas is a slight half-elven man who appears to be in his late 20s. He's the consummate wizard. Intelligent but either oblivious or uncaring of most things that happen around him. He is an old friend of Yellowcloud and they treat each other like siblings. Lucas is in charge of keeping the books and lighting the mines.

"The dunce calls me Buggy. I explained to him that the insect and specific verbal utterances, which if done correctly, channels my arcane power into an object and thereby creates illumination. It isn't THAT complicated. I had to repeat this procedure every 20 to 30 minutes. EVERY time he'd mumble 'buggy'. I began to think my sole job was keep him entertained. No, Mr. Arendt hired me to save money. Torches, candles, and lanterns are all costly and having an open fire while mining isn't always the best idea. Additionally my duties included keeping records, drawing maps, ordering supplies, assisting with transportation, helping out around the kitchen, and occasionally assisting with 'security'.

My primary duty, aside from illumination, was inspection of artifacts. The miners had specific instructions to not touch any artifacts found while excavating. They followed this rule to the letter after Rambin and Turvey thought they'd sneak a look in a sealed metal box they extracted from a larger lead enclosure. They never were quite themselves after that. By the time I arrived the box had turned to dust, the men mumbled about a 'darkness that poured out like tar, and passed right through the ground'. I've yet to find anything in my studies to match the description of the box or it's contents. One never knows what lies beneath our very feet. Strange things, evil things, and most important of all; valuable things.

Have you heard about this inquisition, this scourge? People always fear what they do not understand. Targeting any wielder of magic you say... frightening indeed."

Tarla:

Tarla is a dwarf who doesn't fit the mold. She's slim and nimble for a dwarf, and she's got no beard. She teases both Yellowcloud and Lucas almost as much as they do each other. Tarla is Yellowcloud's right hand woman in a fight. She also scouts ahead when needed due to her darkvision.

"Yellowcloud the brave and Lucas the bright. They keep things entertaining. How I ever fell in with those two is beyond me. We've been protecting the miners, the mine and its contents for about a year now. It's hard work, but rewarding. I've seen more things in that year then I've seen in 24 living in Gate Pass. You'd think the mountains were infested full. Gozreh knows that I've tried not to kill the strange beasts that're down there, but some of em just insisted on it.

The miners keep to themselves. They do their thing and we do ours. If nothing's happened for a while, they get to resenting us for getting paid to stand around. Tho, they're real thankful their not the ones poking around caverns they open up or attempting to shoo something strange that's wandering the mines. Our first tour there was mostly standing around, tho during the second the mine intersected with a nest of giant ants. They mined right into an egg chamber. We kept them at bay for almost an hour with fire and acid. Until the miners managed to dig around and cause a collapse to seal that branch. Almost lost Yellowcloud in the rubble. Lucky it was mostly just the little ones, the big soldier ants can cut ya in half and sting ya to boot.

Yes, Mr. Arendt keeps everything interesting that we find." She whispers, "At least he thinks so. Lucas needs a good bit o coin to craft us some tools that'll make things easier for us." Returning to her normal tenor "As they dig deeper, I fear we'll need even more magical help."