Hot DM's Pawns of Time Campaign (Inactive)

Game Master Hotaru of the Society

It's not a big deal unless he crits. The vampire really hated dominating people, and as such had next to no practice. Plus he felt bad doing it even with his life on the line.

Post in all games :

Wife's surgery got moved back a day (scheduling issues in OR). Surgery was completed last night, went smoothly, doctor very pleased with himself. :) Wife awake and says even with the pain from the surgery it's a night and day difference in how she felt before, so good news on that front. I'm afraid I'll be busy again today, but hopefully will be able to get all games caught up and going again by end of week.

Huh, didn't realize we were in two of the same games together

I'm just stalkery enough to always notice such things in relation to me. :3

Is there still confusion, or are we waiting on me? :)

Well, I've got nothing to do. XD Waiting on you this time around, I think.

Alright. I'll push things forward tonight if no one gives me a reason not to.

Mind control from pierce's world is generally much more subtle, and more long term but Pierce still hates mind control in all it's forms.

Just note that Scath considers Pierce entirely in the wrong. He let himself get mind controlled, he let himself be a danger to his 'allies'. Frankly, Pierce is looking a lot like a useless bumbling side kick. :)

Bear on the other hand...

I'm not sure that a RTA that does nonlethal really works for 'tranq'. It's good in theory, but that's really just a nonlethal method of bringing things down. Realistically, you'd need to use a 'poison' or the like and attach it to a dart. (I was basically using firearms that dealt 1d3 damage with a concentrated dose of drow poison).

The cost doesn't really need to be adjusted to make such a weapon (as it's ultimately a nerf overall), but the rounds in that case are pretty expensive.

Rubber bullets are basically the same effect. You don't have to worry about killing unless something goes wrong, but you don't need a specialized gun, either (so far as I know!).

Rubber bullets irl work in any gun the regular bullets they're made like would.

There you have it. If Pierce just wants Rubber Bullets, then you wind up completely covered without needing to make a new gun. But if he wants legitimate tranqs, bullets will be the primary 'price'.

:p In other news, I'm going to avoid using Dominate again in the future. It won't mean it won't come up, but it -really- slows everything down when it does. (and there is still sort of a reason to utilize dominate in the future).

Important Vote Here

I tend to try to run my games fairly democratically. Democratically in that I allow the players to determine who to sacrifice to appease me.

But in all seriousness, Unchained introduces three systems that I am a fan of. More, actually. But in order to not bog things down overmuch, Paizo has pretty much released things that I normally already houserule.

First: Fractional Base Bonuses. This is how I have -always- done things, but it was incredibly difficult to convey the concept to others online (especially when I don't know how capable they are of using fractions in math!). I very very much prefer this system, as it prevents the monkadin magus from ever failing saves again... while allowing said character to still have a workable BAB. It just seems like that's the intended path, and it makes more sense to me. Would the players like to adopt this system as a whole?

Second: Automatic Bonus Progression. I was already doing this, only with a weaker version. I intend to continue giving the weaker version to the players, and do not intend to use the entire system. This is just a simple explanation that states that you can assume you will continue to advance in your Mental and Physical capabilities.

Third: Staggered Advancement: This is not something I have ever used, but it simply makes sense to me. And it can really help people stay in tune with their characters in a PbP... but it also has some hazards to it... like forgetting what you've already leveled up in and the like. I'd like to suggest that we utilize this system. It will allow for much more steady advancement of characters within a PbP where levels may be -months- in between. Would the players like to adopt this system? (If so, congratulations on level 5.25. :p)

If it was the full system for automatic progression, I could've just loaded it up in Hero Lab. XD Easier, but I can do manual adjustments, too.

Fractional and Staggered... *Rubs chin* Looks like those HAVE been programmed in, so converting Hecate to them would be fairly straightforward. ^^ *Is totally cheating through the power of technology and doesn't actually have to LEARN the system in order to use it*

That said, I think Fractional bonuses are mainly for multiclass characters. Scath might or might not benefit (I haven't done the math for him), but I'm not sure the rest of us would see much of a change...? I'm pretty much fine either way for all three systems.

Yeah. Fractional basically hands Scath some will save, but robs him of insane Fort and Reflex saves. (Due to having like 3 different sources of good saves).

So it's primarily him, and possibly RJ (if he's still here in the future) who are the ones currently impacted (though if you guys planned to multiclass, it'd make a difference).

And there's no way I'd do the -full- system for automatic progression. Currently, I'm thinking 'resistance bonuses' and Mental/Physical... but with me being the arbiter of when those occur, rather than the book. Doing the -full- system requires a lot of jumping through hoops for anyone who doesn't have Hero Lab. :) (and has the side effect of making it harder to rationalize handing you 50k gp items for defeating significant foes :p)

Here's something from the same place I got my guns
50gp, melee range
Stun Gun

Although the name suggests a ranged weapon, a stun gun requires physical contact to affect its target. The stun gun deals 1d4 points of electricity damage and the target must make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 16) or be paralyzed for 1d6 rounds.

There's a short ranged version as well, costs twice as much, can only be fired once, but you can reload it by shoving it back inside itself

Rubber bullets would also be a good idea, and given the different ammo types, I'm carrying around, a bandolier would also be nice

I however do not have stats already handy for a tranquilizer, and drow poison is WAAAY to expensive to use reliably.

Could you dumb down the new rules into one or two sentences I could understand?

I'm not terribly good at the base system, let alone a new one...

Also, please, please, please, say I don't have to use the unchained summoner. T^T

That fort save is insanely high for a 50gp item... as is the duration of paralysis. Bear in mind that paralysis is helpless, compared to stunned (Drop weapons), compared to dazed (stand like an idiot). Honestly, DC 16 fort -base- for 6 seconds of paralysis -alone- is worth a lot more than 50gp. I'm not sure.

Anyone else have thoughts?

Unchained Summoner = Neat, if you can fit your concept into one of its shells. I don't dislike it, but I never had a problem... and delaying a spell like haste by 5 levels is just nasty.

Fractional Bonuses: If you are not multiclassing, nothing to see here.

Staggered advancement: When you reach midpoints in your level ups (every 1/4 of what you need to ding), choose one: 50% HP, BAB, Saving Throws. When you reach half your level, you get to spend half your skill points for the next level. When you reach the next level, you gain all class abilities and the remainder of your skill points and hit points for that level.

Basic Gist: Scath intends to level up as a dragoon fighter at next level. He values BAB most, then saving throws, then Hit points. So at 250 XP, he chooses +1 BAB. At 500 XP he gets half his skill points and chooses saving throws (for +2 fort!). At 750 XP, he can only choose Hit Points, so he gains half of his bonus HP (Rounded down). At 1000 XP, Scath gets the other half of his bonus HP for leveling up, the other half of his skill ranks, and his class abilities for being a level 1 dragoon.

I misread it, the ranged version doesn't say it can be reloaded
And both versions require both a to hit and a save

My problem is that 50gp is mostly negligible. Everyone and their third cousin could have a dc 16 'you're dead'. Put that into the DM's hands, and let me know if you really want every mook to be able to remove you from the fight for up to 6 rounds and put you in a position to be coup'd for about three times the price of a long sword. :P Then get back to me.

I'd allow that price for a daze or the like. But definitely -not- for a save or die. (because that's what it is.)

Fractional Bonuses : Up to the GM. It'll hurt and help Scath overall.

Staggered Advancement : Never used it, it's interesting concept, but, it's also a lot of trouble to keep track of, and I think a meat game makes more sense for it than a PBP, especially since we're mostly doing the 'level at the speed of story' than via exp.

Automatic Bonuses : Whatever floats your boat. :)

Knowing this:

1. I never multiclass and I really try not to. Capstones are cool.

B. If it's the system we have now, I guess there's nothing to vote on?

III. Have to say I'm not a fan of fractional. I'd rather get everything all at once, so that's my vote. :)

:p I've actually been tracking XP, so there!

We could also just set what you get per quarter so there is no deciding. But it's really not necessary. Mine tends to be leveling reasonably fast (at least from my perspective). :)

Realistically that's what a tazer would do,
How about failed save stun & prone,
Passed save daze (1 round)

I still have to hit them, and with my str, that's far from a sure thing, then they have their save after that
How about also 100 GP, and I have to track charges in a battery, which can only be found in a modernish time period

Just a reminder he mostly has this around for himself, secondary purpose is people he doesn't want dead I promise not to use it on anyone who doesn't fit in those categories

Given all of the other things that come inherent to making a melee touch attack with a weapon that must be drawn specifically for that purpose...

It eats two battery charges per attack, same DC (which is rather high), does not count as a gun (as it really isn't; that's just part of the name) for any features, classs or otherwise. Priced at 500 gp baseline. This leaves each attack costing about 20gp, and opening you up to a lot of 'hurt' if you try to use it for unsavory things. A lot of things will still be immune (immune to electricity, don't have to make fort saves, etc). Just remember that I've already said that I won't kill you unless you put yourself into a poor position. And there will very often be other ways out :P Putting your gunslinger into melee to try to daze/prone a creature that the party isn't going to take prisoner will be a good way to get eated, given AC and saves and such that you're sporting.

Still sound reasonable? If so... go for it! :)

To be clear, an item that allowed you to cast the 'daze' spell (which is pretty terrible), would cost significantly more. But under the rules I've provided, you can still treat it as a fully fledged weapon, that just happens to have fort save tied in.

Realistically, a Tazer should just not work if you're wearing armor. You have to get skin contact. So, it wouldn't work against armored opponents (unless you happen to get a crit to hit with it).

Take any modern taser, and try to fire it as someone who's wearing cold weather gear. Useless. Same with a leather jacket. If you don't hit skin or thin cloth, it's useless.

I'd be fine with a DC 16 fort save that requires the target to have no armor or to be critted to hit an unarmored section. I think that's what they were going for, they just left out the whole armor negates.

I didn't know that Tazers would be negatively impacted by armor. (I'm not exceptionally worldly or militant :p) Perhaps -not- a touch weapon then, and that covers the 'hit an unarmored section' pretty nicely. If they're covered head to toe in armor, then you're out of luck though, I guess?

I'd say that to hit with a tazer, you'd need to hit at double their armor bonus, because you have to hit a chink in the armor.

But after that, you can continue to pump it until they're down, because tazers stick in. But they could take a full round and one point of bleed to remove it.

This is assuming we're talking about a Ranged Tazer, not a contact one.

And no, tazers would not arc through metal armor. :P

In the real world, tazers are brutally effective and extreamly painful, if you can actually hit someone with them, 9 times out of ten that someone is on the ground, voiding their bladder

They do require something to conduct though, whether that be skin or metal armor, and the metal armor can't be a kind that has padding underneath like any of the plate armor

At minimum, if you get a cheep tazer for example, they aren't going to be able to move that limb

At maximum you can give someone a heart attack or a seizure (this usually doesn't happen)

Some people black out from tazers

Then when you get something like the tazers that some
Police use that are fired out of shotguns, that's potent
Those things have these spikes that wedge themselves the target (leg/lower torso for example) it sends out enough electricity to be painful and to stagger the target, then when they go to remove the tazer it completes a circut leaving them completely incapacitated
If they don't pull it out, it simply shoots the spikes in deeper and increases the current

These things, however, unlike the kind of tazer he's looking for, are expensive,

That being said, he'd prefer a chemical sedative

And that's why I say use damage for a tazer: the goal is immense pain, which is basically subdual (nonlethal) damage. It directly targets the nervous system, and with enough of a jolt, will completely knock someone out. On occasion (like critting) the stars align, and a tazer can become deadly. Remember, real human beings aren't rocking 15 hp at level 1. A crit on a soft target is going to go from nonlethal to lethal in a hurry.

When things work, pain with rapid recovery. When they work too well... death.

I really do believe that your options are: Magic (Wand or Rod of the ideal spell), Poisons (sedative), or just using nonlethal methods like those that have been listed.

For Wand/Rod, I would suggest the frostbite spell, targeting the damage type you want to use. Electric, cold, fire, etc all make sense.

Except in addition to extreme pain every time they're also incapacated for a few seconds, if you have something police grade, potentially a miniute or two.

The "goal" of a tazer isn't the immense pain, that's a side effect, the goal is the seizing up of muscles

For the sedative what he feels like he needs is a few sirenges of something that, unless he tries to resist it, and possibly even then, it'll put him to sleep for a while,

The rest of this falls under "stuff he wants"

*Taps chin* You know... maybe we should go to the Advice board on this one, maybe see if someone can pull up a reference for something similar.

Drow poison really is the go-to for all your knock-me-out needs. It is essentially one of the best poisons because it's just so effective, and at a reasonable price.

As for outside sources, you guys are welcome to it and can link me :p I always feel really awkward doing things like that if it isn't in person or directly to a friend. I think I've covered basically all of the bases, currently though.

The short of it is that I don't want a weapon hanging around that -can- be abused terribly, even with assurances that it will not be. The best I can reasonably do is give you a really low DC Stun, as Stunning Fist is a -feat- that doesn't do nearly as much as that 50 gp expenditure would.

I thought that nerfing it to stun, with daze on a failed save, doubling the price, and having to count battery charges leaving me with only twenty shots between now and when we next make it to a modern world (and even that is with me buying one spare battery) was enough, espically given my promise to not use it on bad guys we aren't trying to subdue, espically given how generally if I get into close range, I die,
But fine, I get it.
We could maybe have him forget to have asked for the tazer, and instead only asked for the sedative & dart gun.

As to the sedative... I was hoping for something cheeper, given how technology is more advanced here and how mass production massively decreases costs, but it'll do I guess, maybe a decrees based on doseage given that he's injecting it directly into the blood streem?

You can get a tazer, at a significantly more reasonable price (as it stands, it is stronger than an at will daze monster from a wizard with a 16 int. It does require two effects, but it's still very, very powerful. I feel I -really- met you in the middle there :p)

As for the sedative: That can work. I'll also base the pricing off of the DC you want (but you can't really voluntarily forgo your body fighting a poison; keep that in mind). I'll let you have a DC 12 version for 50 gp , and a DC 11 version for 25 GP, per dose. You can also stack multiple doses as usual (voluntarily subjecting yourself to as many doses as you like for a 1 DC increase). The pricing for a -higher- DC will follow typical poison rules. :)

If we're going with the rules and game mechanics instead of simply what makes sense, you actually can "really voluntarily forgo your body fighting a poison"
You can declare any skill check or saving throw to be treated as a roll of 1, whenever you want.

Alrighty. Again, doesn't make sense, but I'll allow it :p

Ok, now that there is some consistency, I'll take a tazer whatever rules you think are appropriate, two batteries, 5 small doseage tranqualizers, 2 standard DC ones, a dart gun (maybe 200ft max range, 30 ft range increments, darts do 1 damage and inject poison, each round has to be loaded individually as a move action, non-masterwork) 7 silver bullets to replace those I fired, 2 clips of rubber bullets a masterwork backpack, 2 weeks rations, one watter purifier, and a bandolier.
How much does that total to?

Also sorry everyone for takeing so long with my shopping
But I'm basically done now,

**All three kinds of Taser are available. Just pick one.
Each battery of Hecate quality is 100gp. = 200gp
5 DC 11 Tranqs = 125 gp.
2 DC 13 Tranqs = 150 gp.
As for Silver Bullets there are two kinds:
Basic bullets made out of silver cost 25 gp each, normally. Here, due to advanced processes, you can get them for 10 each. So 70 gp.
Masterwork Backpack is still 50 gp.
Rubber Bullets will be 5gp each (here), so 150gp.
A fortnight of Trail Rations is 7 gold.
**A water purifier is a little harder. You can get water purification sponges for 25gp each, and each will purify a single pint (half a day of water) 25 times. Essentially, you are paying 2 gold per half gallon of water. (A day's supply) So this is more based on 'amount of purification you want to have available'
A bandolier is negligible compared to everything else.

**I have placed asterisks next to things that depend on you, that you need to add personally.
750gp (rounding down slightly), plus your choice of Taser and the number of 'sponges' you want for your kit.

Alternatively to the sponges, is the decanter of endless water (for all your underdark drowning needs), which costs 9,000.

No worries - we all benefit from each member being prepared. ^^

Could you list the full stats and price of each option please.
Wait, standard drow poison is only DC 13? Lame, still it's in character to have them, so have them I will.
Hmm I have enough left over, maybe I should look into getting some grenades
I however don't have enough for the decanter, I do love tha item though

Pierce's Tazer: 1d4 electric. x2 crit. DC 16 Fort Save, Success = Staggered, Failure = Dazed and Prone. Price: 500 gp + 20 GP per use (2 charges).

Taru's Tazer: 2d4 Electric Nonlethal only. x2 Crit. 50 gp, unlimited charges (assume self-charging).
Ranged Modification: +15 GP, reduce size by one step (2d4 becomes 1d6), increase crit range to x3, increase range to 15 feet, and can no longer threaten.

One each of your version, though I thought you mentioned your version dazing on a crit

Kind of. I think that their setup was fine for a 'daze on failed fort'. But then I recognized that it was still kind of silly and didn't at all cover the things that a tazer actually does.

The suggestion for requiring a crit to do -anything- on someone heavily armored came from one of the two cats. :)

Tis the season to be busy.

My job picks up when school is out. I'm going to be a bit more busy for a while. This won't really affect whether or not I -do- post in threads, just the speed at which I do. Some days, I won't be able to really get posts in at work, other days it won't be very bad. Today is likely to be one of those days where I'll either post around noon, or not at all until I'm home.

I should still be highly responsive, just not nearly as responsive as you may be used to. :)

Are we waiting for me to transition? :) I don't particularly want to push Roy, but no affirmation that Roy wanted to go, either. :)

Scath's napping until something happens.