The Pact Stone Pyramid (Inactive)

Game Master Pact Stone GM

A Pathfinder Module, converted from 3.5 to the Pathfinder system, with a party of level 7.


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Moonpate wrote:


I've got my spell load out complete (I think, unless someone has some good suggestions). I'd like to reload my ring of counterspells with Lightning Bolt, seeing as how there is a trigger happy malcontent out there trying to zap us.

-

I'm always amazed at how often a ring of countersells happens to work. Statistically, it really shouldn't. The odds of getting hit with an exact specific spell when there are so so many is really pretty low - especially if you don't know your GM's pet spells. But here Moonpate has already gotten his money's worth and has a reasoned plan to pull it out a second time.


Hurgah the Reaver wrote:
Hurgah stirs in his sleep, grumbles Zzzz...hrgm...dontreadexplosiveruneswhilestandingnexttohurgah....grmh....zz zz and settles back to his dreams about spoiler-buttons in the pale desert moonlight.

-

I hope this doesn't derail the discussion about what the Dune Squad will do next, but this lull is a good opportunity for me to pull the curtain back on something I've been dying to share.

When Sceptre performed his initial ambush, he actually snuck in and cast sleep on Hurgah and Moonpate, while they were sleeping and Karek was circling. (The old 'sleep on the sleeper' trick.) What I expected would happen is once Karek read the explosive runes he would then attempt to wake them up by calling to them and Moonpate and Hurgah would then have to make saves, potentially being left out of the combat, at least until Karek ran back to wake them physically. This would have left Karek rather vulnerable to more spell fire for a couple rounds.

However, because Karek instead walked back and triggered the explosive runes over top of Moonpate and Hurgah, they were automatically awoken and they never knew a spell was cast upon them in the first place.

Hence, it's possible Karek inadvertently saved everyone. I love it when a good plan falls apart.

Then again, you guys were rolling pretty hot and Hurgah and Moonpate may have just made the comparatively low DC save anyways. But it's neat: there was a spell in play that nobody ever knew about.


Male Humanly Awesome 'n Totally Rockin' Paladin of Greatness

Per Ring of Counterspells:
I agree. It's basically a gamble. It truly is a long shot on picking the proper spells. Too bad there isn't a ring(or something else of that nature) that counters spells of a specific level. At least then you've got a chance. But I guess that would be too overpowering seeing how casters only have a selective number of spells as is.


Male Human Writer 2/Dreamer 7
Pact Stone GM wrote:
Hurgah the Reaver wrote:
Hurgah stirs in his sleep, grumbles Zzzz...hrgm...dontreadexplosiveruneswhilestandingnexttohurgah....grmh....zz zz and settles back to his dreams about spoiler-buttons in the pale desert moonlight.

-

I hope this doesn't derail the discussion about what the Dune Squad will do next, but this lull is a good opportunity for me to pull the curtain back on something I've been dying to share.

When Sceptre performed his initial ambush, he actually snuck in and cast sleep on Hurgah and Moonpate, while they were sleeping and Karek was circling. (The old 'sleep on the sleeper' trick.) What I expected would happen is once Karek read the explosive runes he would then attempt to wake them up by calling to them and Moonpate and Hurgah would then have to make saves, potentially being left out of the combat, at least until Karek ran back to wake them physically. This would have left Karek rather vulnerable to more spell fire for a couple rounds.

However, because Karek instead walked back and triggered the explosive runes over top of Moonpate and Hurgah, they were automatically awoken and they never knew a spell was cast upon them in the first place.

Hence, it's possible Karek inadvertently saved everyone. I love it when a good plan falls apart.

Then again, you guys were rolling pretty hot and Hurgah and Moonpate may have just made the comparatively low DC save anyways. But it's neat: there was a spell in play that nobody ever knew about.

Very neat - thanks for sharing, Beetle. I feel better about my burns already.


Male Human Wizard Level 8 - Conjurer
Pact Stone GM wrote:

When Sceptre performed his initial ambush, he actually snuck in and cast sleep on Hurgah and Moonpate,

That Beetle is one sneaky bug!

Out of further curiosity, can you elaborate on how well (or not) my Black Tentacles spell performed underneath the palanquin golem?


Moonpate wrote:
Out of further curiosity, can you elaborate on how well (or not) my Black Tentacles spell performed underneath the palanquin golem?

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It’s been a while so I am bit light on the specifics. But here is how I remember it.

The monks pretended to try to trip the golem with pole arms to prevent your escape – a virtually impossible feat and as you know the golem crashed right through the barrier. The real point of the attack though was as a distraction so four other monks could slide out of their hiding places and board. From there they were going to target the enemy wizard.

However, Moonpate elected to have his archon cast detect evil at just the right time and the ruse was discovered. He then cast the spell formerly known as Evard’s black tentacles. There were some questions as to what would happen exactly given the location of the golem. I ruled the tentacles reached just high enough to get the monks underneath.

Unfortunately, the initial grapple rolls were too low to grapple the monks. The monks then had the option of climbing aboard. However, at that point the fusillade of arrows began and realistically the tentacles were actually a better option than climbing aboard to be shredded. Technically you can’t be hit by friendly fire in d20 anymore, but that would be an absurdity in this particular case where you have a hail of arrows.

At the time Moonpate dim doored everyone away, no monks were killed, though they may well have been before the spell’s duration ran out. The monks would still need to escape the area of effect to avoid being attacked.

So it was a bit of a fizzle, given that it is something of a powerhouse spell, but these particular defenders have pretty decent CMD scores, being monks with Improved Grapple. That or they got lucky on the die rolls, I can’t recall the odds off-hand.


Male Half-orc Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager) 4 / Sorcerer 1/Dragon Disciple 3

In the interest of moving things forward, I think we are ready for Hal to go ahead with his sendings.


Male Dwarf Cleric 8

Yep, I am going to get those posted now.


Denis, does that mean you have settled on the below? Or has it changed following your discussions?

Halstadt Morgrym wrote:

Sample Sendings:

Donkor - Found Scarab. Meet (north - south - east - west?) [Hal should have been able to decipher the best point of entry] post at dusk. Pyramid almost open. Must enter find destroy PactStone. Site heavily guarded. Thalia present may have seen us.
Once Donkor responds to me I will contact Karek.

Karek - Found Scarab. Meet (north - south - east - west?) [Hal should have been able to decipher the best point of entry] post at dusk. Donkor seperated will meet. Pyramid almost open. Must enter find destroy PactStone. Site heavily guarded. Thalia spotted.

-

If Hal were to pick between the compass points of the camp as entry points, as I understand the above, here’s a recap of what he knows:

Northwest: This direction leads to is the Master Camp and is probably an easy elimination. It has the highest security of the entire dig site, save for possibly the pyramid itself.

Straight north or northeast: These areas seem to have a higher guard presence on account of recent violent activity and proximity to the pyramid itself. The giant excavated dirt mountains provide some interesting possibilities for hiding though.

Straight east: This seems relatively okay. This is the direction the infiltration team came at it. It leads to the stables. It was patrolled, but nothing the infiltration team could not handle with the benefit of a sizeable distraction. You are mindful though that a suspicious body was buried in that area very recently and security may have increased.

Southeast: This area is comparatively the most quiet by a fair margin, the patrols seem to give it a wider berth. This would probably be a first choice scenario save for that Hal also recalls that the Scarab though previously cautioned against going near the graveyard on account of the area's guardian.

Straight South: Travelling straight up between the slave camp and the graveyard is an interesting possibility. You do know that those strange eyeballs patrol those dunes – or at least they did when you cut across that region last night. The biggest problem here is if your groups fail to link up, the approaching party is going to stumble straight into the pyramid the army that awaits there.

Southwest: is closest to the slave camp and provides by far the most opportunities to blend in, though many members of the Dune Squad do not blend very well, or at all without magical aid, particularly if they retain their habit of carrying large weapons. If the plan calls for slipping in with the locals this direction could be ideal. Otherwise it’s a poor idea with far too many eyes about.

Straight west: This direction has a few detractors. First, it is close to the Master Camp; second it is the direction the Dune Squad first approached the dig site from, the direction of Sothis and the obvious angle of approach. It is also the angle most caravans come from, which means a lot of eyes are posted here. With the right disguise, it could still be possible.


Male Dwarf Barbarian (Breaker) 8

I'm loving all the conversation, this game is just hilarious.

I'm ready to set up a return sending. Alive, Bunky missing, attacked in the night, and Sand Sage might be an ally. Anything particularly important to add?


Male Half-orc Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager) 4 / Sorcerer 1/Dragon Disciple 3

Hurgah calls dibs on assasins liver?


Male Dwarf Cleric 8

Emergency wine rations low, resupply if possible is probably a key point for the Potentate!


Male Human Wizard Level 8 - Conjurer
Halstadt Morgrym wrote:
Emergency wine rations low, resupply if possible is probably a key point for the Potentate!

Absolutely!


Update: I understand Mr. Monotony is stranded in the middle of nowhere (camping). If he's not able to check-in by tomorrow, I'll step in to move things along, but I'll try to give him a shot to weigh in. It's too frightening to consider how much unintended damage I could cause with 25 words (or even 25 werdz)


Male Dwarf Barbarian (Breaker) 8

Return sending, draft one.

Escabed, bud vollowed. Bunky missing. Ambushed in nide by unknown assassin. We are dired, bud alife. Hurgah wands liver. Sand Sage podenshul ally?

Two more words?


Male Human Wizard Level 8 - Conjurer
Karek Kogan wrote:

Return sending, draft one.

Escabed, bud vollowed. Bunky missing. Ambushed in nide by unknown assassin. We are dired, bud alife. Hurgah wands liver. Sand Sage podenshul ally?

Two more words?

Pade upset!


Male Half-orc Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager) 4 / Sorcerer 1/Dragon Disciple 3

How about:

Understood. Distraction successful. Killed monks, soldiers. Alive but tired. Bunky missing. Ambush last night, unsuccessful. Assassin escaped. Sand Sage potential ally. Avoid harming osiriani soldiers.


Male Half-orc Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager) 4 / Sorcerer 1/Dragon Disciple 3

I'm headed for Scotland tomorrow and won't return until July 26th. Please GMPC Hurgah if needed. I'm bringing my iPhone and iPad, so if I get web access, I'll check in, but since this is a delayed honeymoon, i probably won't be spending a whole lot of tim on the paizo forums.


Hurgah the Reaver wrote:
I'm headed for Scotland tomorrow and won't return until July 26th. Please GMPC Hurgah if needed. I'm bringing my iPhone and iPad, so if I get web access, I'll check in, but since this is a delayed honeymoon, i probably won't be spending a whole lot of tim on the paizo forums.

Have a wonderful time! Would love to get over there in my lifetime and visit my ancestor's old haunt, Urquhart Castle.


Have a great time over there! My wife and I spent a couple weeks in Scotland for our honeymoon, and it was everything a honeymoon is supposed to be.

Her ancestor is John O' Groat, founder, - oddly enough - of John O'Groats.
If you get way to the northeast, tip a pint to him for us please.


Mike, does this mean I can finally do stuff on the board?

(and) have a great trip Mr. Hurgah!


No! (But soon)

But welcome all the same!

P.S. No Mike's here, as far as I know.


Have an awesome belated honeymoon Jace!


Good to have you on-board Mr. Exciting. Long-time no game.

I like your alias. Us Mr.s gotta stick together. Alas, my Mr. somehow seems drab and boring compared to yours. You're not starting out this game taking jabs at me are you?


I sure hope he is.

OK, Mr. Exciting, Donkor has effectively introduced your PC, you can post as normal now.


Mr. Monotony wrote:

Good to have you on-board Mr. Exciting. Long-time no game.

I like your alias. Us Mr.s gotta stick together. Alas, my Mr. somehow seems drab and boring compared to yours. You're not starting out this game taking jabs at me are you?

Totally. But i still remember a certain game where you were a little too exciting if you get what i mean and we almost lost the whole party. you playing a drab character strikes me as a good idea. (You guys do know your DM is total PC killa, right?) Maybe I'll handle the excitement this time round.

Cool to be RPing with you Monotony.


Male Humanly Awesome 'n Totally Rockin' Paladin of Greatness

Okay, I'll bite.

@Mr. Exciting: Who are you?


He's playing Xerissa Auraraun - the new PC who so far has only appeared in Donkor's sub-plot.


Male Humanly Awesome 'n Totally Rockin' Paladin of Greatness

I see. A friend of either yours or Donkor's I'm guessing? Seeing how he's new on the boards.

Or is it another one of your inventive schemes by creating a new account--either yourself or Donkor--and being really secretive about it? And if that's the case then I must say... clever. One can't help but appreciate the sneakiness of it all. :)


Male Human Writer 2/Dreamer 7

Greetings from Scotland. No sign of Nessie so far. About to visit Urquart Castle. Will say hello to Phrip's ancestors. Welcome aboard Mr. Exciting.


Hope you are having a blast!


Javell DeLeon wrote:
I see. A friend of either yours or Donkor's I'm guessing? Seeing how he's new on the boards.

-

He’s a gaming friend of both myself and Mr. Monotony – though those two have not played together for many years (me neither – one of the many selfish reasons I started up this PBP was an excuse to re-connect with Monotony – contrary to his name, he’s a hoot.)

The history is that I’m embarrassed to say we’ve had three players Ekeebe, Bilbo and MoFiddy who disappeared without saying goodbye (all have since resurfaced elsewhere on the boards). I appreciate this is par for the course in PBP culture but I find it sub-optimal for the game. I realized Donkor was unable to split in such a way because I know where he lives. : ) So when we went hunting for a Breach replacement I tracked down another friend of mine (Mr. Exciting) to make a replacement character. Then Javell spontaneously popped up with an even better offer – he was willing to continue with Breach. But it was still bugging me that Halstad sent a message to Krenshar who did absolutely nothing in response when realistically he should have sent in a whole new team of Pathfinders to at least examine the situation. When a couple weeks later Mr. Exciting brought it back up again that he wouldn’t mind playing with Mr. Monotony I was able to kill two birds with one stone. You might rightly suspect Donkor wandered off on his own, just so I could work Xerissa in, but no, Donkor did that all by himself.

Javell DeLeon wrote:
Or is it another one of your inventive schemes by creating a new account--either yourself or Donkor--and being really secretive about it? And if that's the case then I must say... clever. One can't help but appreciate the sneakiness of it all. :)

-

I deny nothing. In fact, I am already running a sock puppet PC already within the Dune Squad. Let the paranoia begin as you accuse each other! : ) Maybe it’s you Javell, you’re timely appearance was rather convenient, don’t you think? Maybe I just recycled the old account I used to play in “Entombed with the Pharaohs”. Or how about Flamethrower (Karek)? Wasn’t it convenient that a player spontaneously stepped in and fixed everyone’s character sheets so I didn’t have to? And then he suddenly made a public commitment to posting once per day when it was exactly what this game needed to survive? Rather suspect, if you ask me. This could be fun.


Male Dwarf Cleric 8

Maybe Hal is a sock puppet. The face on his pic looks kind of sock puppetish....


Halstadt Morgrym wrote:
Maybe Hal is a sock puppet. The face on his pic looks kind of sock puppetish....

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Naturally, he would acuse himself in the hopes of diverting suspicion. But have you ever noticed how close in time "Denis" and the Beetle seem to post? And just whenever the GM is trying to move the plot forward Hal conveniently steps up to the plate with a plan of action. And Hal he was talking about getting inside the pyramid long before it was ever part of the storyline, as though he were a foreshadowing device.

I think the Dune Quad should knock Halstadt out and tie him up as a precaution.


Male Human Cleric/8

This is probably like one of those deep movies where it seems like the protagonist has a happy and healthy gaming life, but there will be a big twist at the end.

We see a beetle scuttling madly between a bank of computers, each one labelled for a different character that he is playing. The beetle moves to Hurgah's keyboard, trying to puff itself up and look scary; As it moves to Karek's machine, it's head scans around constantly as if looking for something lost; it moves stealthily and quietly onto Gandel's keyboard, adopts drunken mannerisms for Moonpate's machine, and takes measured steps, acting as the calm voice of reason on the keyboard labelled Halstadt; As it steps onto the machine of Sooron, it bounces around seemingly at random.

He looks at the dark and cobwebbed machine labelled Belleson, and weeps buggy tears of ichor. Lastly, he prances to Thalia's machine, and a high-pitched maniacal giggle emits from between it's labial palps, as it does a little dance and proceeds to continually betray it's other identities.

We are all sock puppets, people.


I love sock puppets!


Donkor Sooron wrote:
We are all sock puppets, people.

-

Woah. That was deep. My whole life is just one internal conversation in my head.


Male Dwarf Cleric 8

If you had that conversation 40 years earlier the Dune Squad could have been the Muppets ah well...


JaceDK wrote:
Greetings from Scotland. No sign of Nessie so far. About to visit Urquart Castle. Will say hello to Phrip's ancestors. Welcome aboard Mr. Exciting.

Ahhh, how cool. Thanks for greeting my clan's ghosts.


Donkor Sooron wrote:


We are all sock puppets, people.

LOL! I certainly feel that way most of the time these days.


Male Dwarf Barbarian (Breaker) 8

My name is Prester Young. I don't know what you guys are talking about. (...Anybody?)

Ah, throwing my daily posting commitment in my face, I see. :) I would guiltily renew it, but I'm getting married and going on vacation fairly soon, so maybe after that.

Welcome aboard, Mr. Exciting! I'm invigorated already!


Xerissa Auraraun in the gameplay thread wrote:

Xerissa is on the move with Donkor.

Hey! perception is a class skill for the alchemist. W00t!
1d20+12

-

Just FYI Mr. Exciting,

My bad, I should have told you, but you don’t need to roll for Perception checks (or Stealth). I roll those off-screen. It’s a DMing quirk I have which the rest of these guys are gradually adhering to – or at least grudgingly accepting.

The way it works is if it’s a result your PC shouldn’t know, I roll them. If you make an Acrobatics check to leap over a cliff, you can roll – you know you have failed when you fall down the cliff. Same with a Craft check or Escape Artist check, for example. But with Perception if I roll, you won’t know if you see nothing because of a bad die roll or because there’s nothing there to see. It’s adds a bit of suspense. You can and should though remind me you are seeking to make such checks from time to time, as you have just done.

The good news is I will scrub your roll of 6 and re-roll myself, once there is something material to spot.


Got it, there Beetle. I've always been a roll it in the open kind of guy, but this makes sense to me. Please have Xerissa make Stealth and Perception checks as she and Donkor approach the designated point.


Hey new avatar for Gandel!


Male Half-orc Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager) 4 / Sorcerer 1/Dragon Disciple 3

Hi y'all. Am back in Denmark, but headed for Viking Lodge Summer Games in Copenhagen shortly. A full weekend of Pathfinder Society play, and PFS coordinator Mike Brock has traveled all the way from Seattle to join us.

I'll have very little time to post, so the Beetle can keep the keys to the Hurgahmoblie for a few more days.


Pact Stone GM wrote:
Hey new avatar for Gandel!

Yeah, it felt like it was time for a change. Plus this avatar looks like it's wearing a cool ear-wrap like Gandel's Quisquatl.


Male Human Writer 2/Dreamer 7

I'm back - hand over those keys, Beetle.


Fine - He wasn't doing much of anything anyways, except for maybe taking a long walk on the beach, er desert (sigh). Maybe he can include that in his future ad in the personals section.


Male Dwarf Barbarian (Breaker) 8

Ooh, fun! Personal ads for the Dune Squad!

Have to keep them cheap, though. We've gotten, like, one treasure hoard in a year and a third of playing? 25 words or less, just like a sending.

Hmm...


Male Dwarf Cleric 8

All the treasure is in the Pyramin we just need to find it and destroy it! I mean reclaim it!

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