DM Jelani |
Pounce specifically states you get a full attack including rake. If they didn't have pounce they would have only been doing one attack. If the Allosaurus has pounce it can charge and get a full attack including rake. Surprise round charges are standard actions and only allow up to your speed in movement instead of double. Noted on the combat reflexes.
Hallf the Scaled |
Cool, sorry for the bombardment of questions here just trying to ensure I'm getting things right :) So what about using the move option in a grapple? Would the movement provoke? I think it does by RAW, but I might be tempted to say they get the free escape chance outlined below, even though it doesn't exactly fit.
Move
You can move both yourself and your target up to half your speed. At the end of your movement, you can place your target in any square adjacent to you. If you attempt to place your foe in a hazardous location, such as in a wall of fire or over a pit, the target receives a free attempt to break your grapple with a +4 bonus.
In this case assuming we were still grappling on Hallf's turn he would attempt to move the lion and essentially parade it past Yarra giving her 3 AOOs. Would that work? Would the lion get free escape attempts, etc.? I bring it up now so you have some mulling time :)
Hallf the Scaled |
Lions nom! This is pretty much the peak of his prowess though, wildshape does not get any better sadly, and the close quarters in the keep are going to be rough. Also worth noting he has a 14 AC :(
Hallf the Scaled |
Okay, so I'm guessing two is dead?
DM Jelani, FYI grappling in PF no longer involves moving into each others spaces. A grappled creature simply gets placed adjacent to their grappler, actually they get moved into an adjacent square of the grappler's choice which is pretty handy for Hallf. I think this makes things much neater generally.
Hallf the Scaled |
True, but we are a pretty optimized party with generally exceptional ability arrays and Sigmund is down to what 8 hp? Compared to most CR 6 critters dire lions can put out a huge amount of damage, especially since they have pounce.
Compare the dire lion to the large earth elemental at the same CR - generally considered a fairly tough monster itself - and we see that the lions damage potential is 4d6+1d8+35, compared to 4d6+14, or 4d6+26 if power attacking. Pounce makes it more likely the lion can get off all of its attacks to, and its stealth in its natural terrain means its pretty likely to get a surprise round. The earth elemental is tougher defensively, but not by all that much. They are pretty even, but I'd argue the lion is much more dangerous to the PCs. If a dire lion gets a surprise round and wins init, which is not unlikely, a PC could face a potential 134 damage! And that's without factoring in crits.
Hallf the Scaled |
Too true! On both cats and sarcasm. Its the one thing that makes me jealous of Lion Shamans, there standard action summons are much better pouncers, though they aren't as versatile as a Saurian Shaman's choices.
Kenan Borjigon |
I'm back home. Seems, that it's just an pinched nerve.
Hallf the Scaled |
Sorry for the contingent actions I'll try to avoid, but Hallf wanted to make sure Yarra's attacks could hurt this thing before risking her and part of the tigers job was to draw an aoo so she could charge.
I don't think Sigmund was ever riding Yarra in this encounter because of how we started.
Hallf the Scaled |
Thanks DM Jelani, mainly he wanted to see it strike and make sure it wasn't incorporeal, or exploded with negative energy or something. I figure caution is the watch word in the World Wound - well aside from being out traveling the World Wound.
Kenan Borjigon |
I'm back from my doctors marathon. Pain is gone. Just a small remnant which is easily supressable by painkillers. It was one of the main nerves to the kidney, which was clamped at the spine.
DM Jelani |
I'm gonna try a new XP granting method because of the slow pace of PBP. I am going to give out 1000 XP/character per combat round. So the harder a fight is the more XP you get, regardless of the CR. It's also a good deal faster than normal leveling. Still puts us 2400some rounds away from level twenty though, so I retain the right to raise it to 5000 XP per round at some point.
Hallf the Scaled |
Mmmmm, but doesn't that make crits and such xp losers instead of awesome? Honestly I'm not having a problem with the pace, it seem like we are already homing in on the next level at a decent clip. I feel dubious about a system which rewards incompetence.
Sigmund Voight |
I agree that bigger awards for drawn out combat seems better on paper than in play. Relly challenging fights, fights where players have lots of bad rolls, fights where combatants start far away, and fights where enemies have great defense but mediocre offense can all lead to longer fights, but only the first should result in more XP.
I'm fine with gaining XP the normal way, even at the slow PBP pace.
Another method I've seen used has to do with character level/month played XP as well as XP awarded for completing quests. Usually uses a different advancement chart. (Living EN World uses a system like this).
Advancement by GM fiat is another method I like, as it tailors character advancement to significant story advancement (if the GM is worth his salt, anyway).
DM Jelani |
Well, I'm not fine with the advancement rate.
There's never a fight where 1000 XP/round is less than what the monster would normally give you. For me it's about real life time invested, not the game.
Lets say you defeat a CR 8 in one round somehow. That's 4800 xp/6, is 800 each. So I'd give 1000 instead. If the battle is six or eight rounds and takes a week and a half of real time, you'll get 6000 instead of a measly 800 (to represent how long and hard it was).
So I'm gonna give you guys more XP, if you don't want it feel free stay lower level.
Kenan Borjigon |
I'm fine with it.
Hallf the Scaled |
Well medium summons are sadly lacking, but despite it having god awful luck I do think the young ankylosaurus is a beast of a 4th level summon and its done a pretty good job in just soaking up damage. Seriously 83hp from a 4th level summon damn!
The best saurian summon I could come up with otherwise was an advanced constrictor which is also a SNA IV and would have half the hp less damage lower ac and be even on to hit - that's with squeezing factored in! None of the medium none saurian summons are much better - though the medium earth elemental with earth glide was a contender, but it would have died in a round.
Now I just hope we kill this thing before it turns its attentions to Hallf, whose 16 AC is somewhat terrifying.
I just hope this keep is built for the rotund :)
Hallf the Scaled |
Come on guys let's try to up the posting rates a bit here. I keep seeing the other groups thread up near the top, they'll be forging ahead of us at this rate :(
Please note I've gone ahead and leveled Hallf up in his profile, but kept all of his 7th level info in the classes tab. I think this fight ought to be enough to level us, if not the next one will and I'll be working a lot next week so I wanted to get it done ahead of tiem.
Kenan Borjigon |
I'm ready to post when it's my turn.
Hallf the Scaled |
For the sake of ease...
Initiative Consequences of Readying
Your initiative result becomes the count on which you took the readied action. If you come to your next action and have not yet performed your readied action, you don't get to take the readied action (though you can ready the same action again). If you take your readied action in the next round, before your regular turn comes up, your initiative count rises to that new point in the order of battle, and you do not get your regular action that round.
Normally you ready to go before the character, but since he waited until after all of Yarra's actions were completed he should be behind her in init and so presumably exposed. Basically you cannot get in two turns without the other guys getting one which I think is only fair - surprise rounds aside.
DM Jelani |
Guys, my RL situation is demanding I spend much less time on PBP. I don't want to cancel this game, but I really don't have time to DMPC people. I also don't have time to put in the prep work that goes into something like this for people who aren't posting.
So basically, I've dropped a few games and given this same ultimatum in one of my others. Everyone needs to post once every 24 hours. Even if it's just an OOC that says, "hey I'm here waiting on X to happen." I'll give you guys until Sunday GMT+8 to get posting rates up. If that doesn't happen, I'm going to close this game down and roll the players who are keeping up the commitment over into Group 2. Sorry it has to be like this, but it would save me an assload of time and effort to only run one group. I'm not gonna keep going out of my way if you guys can't/won't.
Kenan Borjigon |
Checking in too. Waiting for finishing the actual round.