Search Posts
Keep in mind, he's been mangled twice by the Reaver (An arm and a leg), and the arm injury gives him a 50% chance to lose any spell he tries to cast. I reasoned that he wasn't using spells yet due to the risk, so he was waiting to see if help came, and would have rolled the dice so to speak if it became the best option.
Sure can, Aerondor. I just had to have the downloads section in my digital content recreate the file for me. Though when I got them they were labeled backwards (Half sheets under full and vice versa).
The religion check and the pikachu's do specifically state to the banshee at the start of the fight that it's not allowed to wail. Suggesting they're keeping it under control. I threw some other strong hints about their manipulation of it to the party as well. If they bypass the guard encounter, they're suppose to shout about the banshee being active and the fact it's going to wail as they lock the PCs in with it. That should also clue them in to the fact it needs to die as a priority.
I think he's just remembering it backwards.
It only ever states that they take half damage and that spells have a 50% chance to miss them if they have an affect besides damage. It never states they have the same limitation when attacking corporeal threats.
Bronze House Reprisal is my personal favorite in that range. It’s a 5-9 with the second half a massive infiltration effort with a lot of ways to handle it. Even just smash and grab style, though where is the fun in that?
I don't think they ever defined names of the Grippli tribes. But anyone that played Chalice Part 2 mentioned above will recognize Purpurrup as the Grippli they rescued before and was part of the tribe guarding the temple before it was largely wiped out by cannibal halflings. And the other tribes came and joined up to help her tribe defend the temple after all of that happened.
I know it won't really help at low level, but if you run high tier there's a 5th level druid the party can likely befriend. My group correctly remembered after completing the final fight that he and his daughters were still around. So they stopped back in the abandoned town and asked him for help with the disease. They stuck around for a day so he could memorize the spell and cleared it up for them. And while he's only minimum caster level, it's the same as paying cash or PP, but at no expense and spares them the risk of making saves on the trip home if it works.
I hear you on the armor, but even with low key armor the babau should only have a 50% chance to hit a front liner. The slime, though, should only matter for natural attacks. 1d6 can’t bypass the hardness of metal weapons like swords and axes. It had a 1/6 chance of giving any hafted weapon like a spear the broken condition if you fail the save and the GM rolls a 6 on the damage, which the weapon can still be used to attack. And all this is assuming level one with no cold iron. I thought the fight was fine, maybe undertuned in the high tier due to PC action economy and the backup being easy to avoid slimes. Maybe the PC dice ran cold for you, I actually struggled to even hurt the party I ran for before it died. I imagine a ranged character could significantly weaken this encounter as well.
All I’ll say is when I ran this the party easily rolled over the combats, they weren’t even a challenge and never looked like that when I prepped. Even this Babau does very little without sneak that is hard to get considering the flank buddies and dr cold iron is easy to beat, either with a cheap cold iron weapon or a half decent melee smacking it. I’m not certain why your group struggled, but this was a pretty mild scenario in terms of combat and was far more setting and story driven, which my group enjoyed.
The rumor mill leaked the reason once it became known it was not being revealed due to abuse of the NDA. He used his privelages as VC to confirm if another VC was maintaining his requirements to be a VC after complaints were made by other VOs. He reported his findings to the RVC and was removed for doing so. There are a lot more sordid details to it and actions that are being questioned in regards to how the organized play rep handled the situation. But if you want details I would advise you read the locked threads that contain them or read the thread on Reddit which summarizes things well so we don’t get this thread locked like the others for bringing up details.
Congrats on the 5th star, Hmm
The way we decided to run it at my venue was: Don't count Eylara as an action, treat it as before the investigation as a chance to figure out what they can investigate. If they don't find her (wasn't an issue) then we'd go to Canvassing while using the time rules it includes to see if they even have enough time to investigate. Then after talking with Eylara we had them start picking actions, but pointed out while they knew from Eylara guards left the prison with a key and spare uniform, they wouldn't know when or where they went without having someone do the prison first. And then they'd still need to canvass without considering the time to do it if they wanted to learn about the Pharasma cult if they didn't detect evil on the prison. Basically, just treat it all as nebulous beyond them having to scope out the prison before they can know where to do some of the rest.
As you can see it really depends on what you want to do. My Mystic focuses more on control while I have mind thrust. My other spells are charm person, command, and summon creature. It really just depends on what you want to be able to do with yourself and how hard you want to go into the healing role. As Sebastian notes, there are fights where SP never get depleted and you won't need as much healing, so having other things you can bring to the party is important.
There's not a lot of explicit information here, mainly just follow-up to now hidden arguments/discussions. This thread is giving me the impression that the issue/drama is that there is one RVC that a couple of people really hate because he's the only RVC willing to tell people no.Why is there a no? What determines yes's and nos? That I think is the bigger issue here. Is the rvc being fair to all our do some get better treatment? And the big question I would like to know is scarab getting the yes's more than others? The short answer is yes. And the concern becomes that he ensures his convention that he makes money from gets support, while cutting it off from possible competition. I’ve also heard complaints from locals who went to that convention that he plays favorites in GMing support for his friends and people he likes without supporting others. We’ve lost a lot of VOs I my state and had trouble recruiting new ones due to people not wanting to deal with this RVC. We’ve been told by people they like PF but don’t want to get involved in society play because of issues in the region. We’ve had him arbitrarily add requirements to earning 5th stars that forced our VOs to go to John Compton to get the star approved. The VC that was removed with Michael banned from Cons in Georgia due to repeated behavior issues, but this RVC made him a VC anyways. There is an ongoing trend of this RVC negatively impacting the region and regular complaints being brought up about it. And yet here we are seeing yet another person resorting to bringing it to the forums because they feel ignored by Paizo.
I would have loved to join in, but I've already played it locally.
Spoiler: I played that one with my Scarab Sage Paladin as well. He demanded the lich let them kill it to start atoning for what it had done, instead of making them fight some guardian for it for no reason. I mean, the Lich would get reborn anyways so no long term problem for it and he was sent there to recover the gem.
It refused, so the party killed it and he brought the stone back to sages figuring if anyone could get a lich out of it, it would be them.
I think the problem is you're shoehorning the factions a bit into how you want to perceive them. The Dark Archive isn't evil, though a bit self-serving. They're goal is to deal with all the things that are too dangerous and either lock them up somewhere safe or figure out how to control/disable them. The self-serving comes into the idea that if they can harness these dangerous things, they're willing to. I've seen paladins in that faction because it fits them well, it's the place that most needs guarding. The Exchange is about making money, so yes there's greed involved. Can't help that, but any character interested in helping their own finances or the finances and resources of the society has a reason to be here. The Grand Lodge's motto means you prioritize being a society member over any of the other factions. That means you won't risk a mission to rescue slaves, make money, or get a dangerous artifact. It's not as domineering as you say, it just means they care about the Society's "Explore, Report, Cooperate" over the secondary goals of other groups. This really is the faction for a character that doesn't fit anywhere else. Liberty's Edge is actually a really interesting faction this season. Since their leader was busted doing a lot of questionable things, is currently on the run, and the faction has picked up a new leader to handle things. Though this is my least favorite faction. Scarabs are neat, they're about preserving old knowledge, but actually overlap a lot with the Society themselves. Hence their retirement after this season. Silver Crusade is less paladin and more just be a good person. You prioritize helping others whenever you can. That's just being nice, but it's also why good divine characters migrate towards it, because they generally like to help people as well. Sovereign Court - That's fine, but I'd argue this is probably the most important faction. It's not noble's and their shenanigans and more developing inroads and connections with people in political power (from negotiating to black mail) to be able to get things to happen when they need to, and cutting through all the shenanigans when necessary. It's the Illuminati, but theoretically for good causes that came about when all the world governments were dragging their feet to help stop a demonic invasion. I actually really enjoy this faction.
My favorite comment about the Blakros museum I've heard is consider these two phrases and decide which is truer: "Blakros museum blows up once a month while under the guidance of Nigel Aldain." Or "Blakros museum ONLY blows up once a month while under the guidance of Nigel Aldain."
Vesk Natural Weapons:
"Vesk gain a unique weapon specialization with their natural weapons at 3rd level, allowing them to add 1–1/2 × their character level to their damage rolls for their natural weapons (instead of just adding their character level, as usual)." Hammer Fist:
"You treat any unarmed attack you make while wearing heavy or powered armor as being made with a battleglove (see page 187) with an item level equal to or lower than your soldier level, and you calculate damage for these attacks as if you had the melee striker gear boost (see page 112). If you have the melee striker gear boost, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with your unarmed attacks when using this ability. These unarmed attacks don’t benefit from other abilities that apply specifically to unarmed attacks (such as the Improved Unarmed Strike feat)." The Vesk weapon specialization only applies to their natural weapons. Hammer First only applies to unarmed attacks, which Vesk natural weapons are not. So no they don't stack. Even if you assume the Vesk natural weapons count as unarmed attacks, they don't stack because Hammer First specifically that it won't stack with other unarmed attack powers. As someone with an Armor Storm Vesk Soldier, trust me when I say you don't need them to stack. You'll still do plenty of damage anyways.
Thank you for running Shifty, it was a lot of fun!
I've butt heads before, certainly. I had one recently in the online setting where there was a disagreement over how I was running a scenario. But I didn't want it to end on a bad note, so while he opted to leave the game I talked to him for a while in PMs, and we ended on amiable terms. And he wound up giving me some tips on getting used to running in online mode, and how to run/present/manage things to improve the experience. Helped me see a few places where I wasn't doing things on here that I normally do at live tables just because I wasn't converting to the medium well, and now hopefully I'll run games better in the future. So sometimes you can even turn those situations into positives.
The packages are broken up into 3 parts on the charts/lists if I remember right, and each section should be found close to or in the same room as one of the encounters as the reward for that encounter. You can put things anywhere you want, but as you noted it can mess up the flow of things if you stick the big bad right at the start and he's the first person they see. You're correct, they shouldn't be able to bypass the major threat with skills checks except in morale conditions. Such as the Nightmare dragon trying to negotiate at low health, but it also states he just attacks them again later, likely on their way back to last wall.
The intrepid party manages to finish off the remains of the attacking cultists, ensuring the safety of those auction goers that couldn't get out when the initial skirmish and freeing several of their members from the various arcane hazards scattered about. You get barely a moment to breathe as you step outside, because you manage to catch sight of the thief with the key heading down a roadway towards the edge of the city and realize you need to pursue them. And now everyone's favorite mechanic... a chase! Here's an abbreviated version of the mechanics for people if they aren't familiar or need a refresher. Chase Rules:
It takes a move action to move through a single square. When a character exits from a square, he must choose one of that square’s two obstacles to face as a standard action before moving to the next square. Instead of exiting a square, a character can choose to take another action not directly related to navigating the chase’s course, such as casting a spell or drinking a potion. A character may attempt to move three squares during his turn by taking a full-round action. That character must overcome both obstacles on the square he is leaving. In this case, if a character fails either obstacle check by 5 or less, he only moves one square forward and his turn ends. If a character fails either obstacle check by more than 5, he cannot move at all that turn. A character unfortunate enough to fail two obstacle checks in a turn becomes mired in his current square. A mired character must spend another full-round action becoming unmired, effectively losing his next turn. A character can also choose to make a ranged attack or cast a spell during his turn in a chase. If the action is a full-round action, he can’t move at all. Use the number of squares and their established distances (in this case, 30 feet) to determine ranges as necessary. The terrain where the chase takes place might provide the target partial or even full cover or concealment. A character can only choose to make melee attacks against targets that are in the same square. Generally speaking for this chase if you are 1 card away there's clear line of sight, 2 cards away there's cover and concealment, 3 cards away there's improved cover and concealment, more than that and you have no LOS/LOE It proves more difficult to get out of the square where the cathedral rests then you imagined, and the massive crowd of onlookers becomes it's own obstacle. Everyone can start trying to move with the crowd or force their way to the other side.
-- Bold is up (Round 1) --
Lasaraleen -
Hey guys, Aerondar let us know his laptop died and he’s out of town. I’m running a gsmeday right now and on my phone, but when I get in tonight I will update you. I haven’t read the gameplay thread but assume the combat is wrapped up and I will post you into the next scene. You will one round between this and the next event if I beat aerondar back here. =p
The party positions, unable to immediately act to counter the darkness. Uesugi waits to strike back against the cowardly actions of a shinobi, but no assault comes. Sirettis sees your target shift away from Uesugi while pulling out a vial of something and down it at the same time a new faint transmutation aura appears within the darkness to Mr. Peppers eyes. You also see that she manages to clear her eyes of the spray of glitter and starts assessing the group of pathfinders gathering around her. To the east screams of fears are met with the elated and fervor driven battle cries of more cultists. The sound is growing closer. GM Stuff:
-- Bold is up (Round 5) --
Sir D (-1)
(Round 4)
There is not hard rule on how this functions, but the way I run it and have always seen it run is you need to see the effect in action to try and ID it, such as the darkness. Otherwise you’re effectively getting the benefit of a 7th level Greater Arcane Sight with a 3rd level spell with how high the modifiers for knowledge arcana tend to be, as your only need a +14 modifier to identify every spell possible without a roll. That’s too strong for the comparative level of spell.
Gallix pulls out his wayfinder as the shadows come, but the light it releases is unable to penetrate darkness before him. Sirettis draws closer and her darkvision allows her to see within the spell, revealing the thief still standing where she was trying to clear her eyes of glitter. Mr. Peppers dislodges himself from an inopportune conversation and darts off to catch up with his friends in the starting fray. His magically enhanced sight assaults him multiple magical auras coming from within the darkness. The darkness itself is a faint evocation. He also detects two faint auras of transmutation, two faint auras of abjuration, a moderate aura of illusion, a moderate aura of abjuration, and a moderate aura of transmutation. -- Bold is up (Round 3/4) --
Sir D (-1) - 30 ft out
Distance mode. No need to roll.
Gallix's eagerness to keep up proves fruitful, and though his suddenly increased muscle mass nearly gets him stuck passing through the alleyway he realizes that if he twists just a little bit more to the sides he can squeeze through. He catches up in time to see Uesugi nearly stumble into a pothole, catching himself at the last moment before scaling the wall up to where he last saw the thief. His cries for surrender go unheeded. Poor Mr. Peppers has little luck himself, as his words only seem to further draw in the couple. "Oh, we didn't want to bring up that bit of wear and tear, but now that you mention it we happen to have the most wonderful tailors and cleaners. They could fix that right up for you. We promise they're the best in town. Why we could show you to the shop right now, it's only a half dozen blocks from here and we could brunch!" D. makes a valiant effort to slam a tiny grain of sand into the vanished foe, but it fails to connect. The reason why becomes apparent when the coordinated efforts of Cup and Sirettis are able to pinpoint and coat the assassin in glitter. She had been standing a few feet to the side of the spot the kineticist had aimed for. The burst of glitter gets into her eyes and she curses, rubbing at them viciously as her vision waters and blurs. Sirettis notes the thief holds her position and raises hand over her head moments before the entire area around her and the rooftops goes dark.
Spellcraft DC 18:
Darkness GM Stuff:
-- Bold is up (Round 3/4) --
Sir D (-1) - 30 ft out
Mr. Peppers puts on quite a performance that sends speed rushing through each of his allies. The possibly unintended side effect to this is Gallix taking barreling off into the crowd with distressing speed and force. He knocks over several staring pedestrians, including a child or two, who couldn't quite understand his sped up warning. The latter half of the masses realize what appears to be a wild animal is barreling past and scream about a loose gorilla while diving for cover. His path is clear. Sir D manages to take advantage of the parting sea of people to muscle a few stragglers aside with effort. His mild display is overshadowed by the ease with which he glides through the narrow alleyway, appearing to walk up the wall to bypass the people within. Sirettis simply lifts herself into the air and easily drifts past the people below. She has an excellent view of her allies causing a chaotic mess but has no trouble herself getting through. Cup joins her in the air and easily bypasses the crowd. Though she does so with much more gusto and a screaming to steer her allies away from complete mayhem. Uesugi moves like he's chased a few people through the streets before. He drifts past people like they aren't even there, the bustle of the chaos shoving him along to the alley where he follows after Sir D with less grace, but completely effectively. He drops out of the alley just as a cart passes and its horse rears up. The driver looks ready to curse out the samurai, but the intensity of his shout has the man simply swallow his words and steer the cart to clear the path. As for our thief? Uesugi is close enough to her now to notice a few oddities as she finishes scaling the roof and looks back down towards her pursuers. Not only does she have what appear to be horns peeking out of the top of her head, but a tail trailing behind. The woman hesitates a moment seeing how close things are getting and pulls out a scroll which she immediately reads... then she vanishes right before your eyes. -- Bold is up (Round 2) --
Sir D (-1)
Yeah it sucks a bit, but you’re about at the level where you can always empower for free which makes up for it. And aether gets a lot of fun powers to make up for it, as you noted. =)
Composite blasts normally deal 2d6s instead of scaling like sneak attack on a simple blast. You’re right there, I just checked it. My bad. However aettheric and gravatic boosts are different. Instead of melding into a new blast like fire and earth becoming magma, an aetheric boost adds 1 damage per die to the simple blast of the other element. In this case that’s negative energy for you, which is an energy blast and. Aether can never function like a normal composite on its own. Remember that elemental overflow doesn’t just boost your stats. It gives you +1 atk/+2 dam for every 3 levels of kineticist. If you have at least 2 burn at your level you get +2/+4. I have the same limitation with my void kineticist since gravatic boost just causes them to be d8s.
GM Rolls:
You see the thief leap over a rather large pothole in the street without even breaking her stride and scale up the side of a building towards it's impressively steep rooftop. -- Bold is up (Round 1) --
Sir D (-1)
D. You put out enough damage that it wouldn't matter either way, but you may want to look over how your composite blasts work. Aetheric Boost:
You infuse a simple blast you know with aether, causing it to deal 1 additional point of damage of the same type for each of its damage dice; it otherwise acts as the simple blast. At 15th level, you can also infuse a composite blast with aether. To infuse a composite blast in this way, you must accept 1 additional point of burn.
So your composite should be 4d6 + 11 (+2 for half con, + 4 from boost, + 4 from elemental overflow, + 1 from PBS) and continue to be an energy touch attack from void. And standard composites are normally your level in d6s, so 7d6 + modifiers.
Sir D attempts to live up to his threats with a vicious blast of void-touched aether that lifts the red cultist off his feet and sends him slamming into a wall. The man slumps down to the floor where he remains an unmoving heap. There's no leaking brain matter, but it's unlikely he'll be posing a threat to anyone in the near future. With their part of the cathedral quiet the group takes barely a moment to breath while the webbing is cleared enough to pass before dashing out the entryway after the thief. You zip around several other clusters of controlled fighting between pathfinders and cultists, but leave those battles in hopefully capable hands to deal with the bigger priority. After stepping outside it takes several seconds to locate the fleeing target on the busy streets, but Mr. Peppers manages to catch a glimpse of her turning a corner at the last moment and you all take off after in pursuit.
Chase Rules:
It takes a move action to move through a single square. When a character exits from a square, he must choose one of that square’s two obstacles to face as a standard action before moving to the next square. Instead of exiting a square, a character can choose to take another action not directly related to navigating the chase’s course, such as casting a spell or drinking a potion.
A character may attempt to move three squares during his turn by taking a full-round action. That character must overcome both obstacles on the square he is leaving. In this case, if a character fails either obstacle check by 5 or less, he only moves one square forward and his turn ends. If a character fails either obstacle check by more than 5, he cannot move at all that turn. A character unfortunate enough to fail two obstacle checks in a turn becomes mired in his current square. A mired character must spend another full-round action becoming unmired, effectively losing his next turn. A character can also choose to make a ranged attack or cast a spell during his turn in a chase. If the action is a full-round action, he can’t move at all. Use the number of squares and their established distances (in this case, 30 feet) to determine ranges as necessary. The terrain where the chase takes place might provide the target partial or even full cover or concealment. A character can only choose to make melee attacks against targets that are in the same square. Generally speaking for this chase if you are 1 card away there's clear line of sight, 2 cards away there's cover and concealment, 3 cards away there's improved cover and concealment, more than that and you have no LOS/LOE It proves more difficult to get out of the square where the cathedral rests then you imagined, and the massive crowd of onlookers becomes it's own obstacle. Everyone can start trying to move with the crowd or force their way to the other side.
Initiative:
-- Bold is up (Round 1) --
Sir D (-1)
Uesugi takes advantage of the the distracted cultist to drive his blade straight through the man's chest with the excessive and stylized gore on a Samurai could manage. He then twists the blade and swipes it out in a blow that cuts the man cleanly in two. There won't be any quick recoveries for that foe. The last standing cultist in the Red robes continues to glare at the party with murderous fervor, unwilling to back down though you see the hints of trepidation in his expression. -- Bold is up (Round 4) --
Cup (-26)
I’m at work for a few more hours. Your update is coming as soon as I get home! Until then please enjoy some oolong.
GM Stuff:
"Gah! What is this abominable little thing! Get away!" He takes several wild swings with a small hand dagger, trying and failing to swat away at Longjing as "dragon" darts around him like a hummingbird. -- Bold is up (Round 3/4) -- Cup (-26)
A pair of crocs, perhaps.
Receiving a spell doesn’t trigger the disease. Being exposed to remove disease or another effect for removing infections with the rarer incurable version can. But as others pointed out the DC is much lower on that version and you should be waiting till the disease is handled before restoring to manage resources. The scenario’s story telling makes it obvious when you need to start preparing for the big fight.
|
Pathfinder Society GM. Starfinder Society GM. 392 posts (2,287 including aliases). 3 reviews. No lists. 1 wishlist. 38 Organized Play characters. 5 aliases. 
