[ACG][OutPost I]Hawkmoon269's Season of Plundered Tombs Table 3 (Inactive)

Game Master Hawkmoon269

Hm, I don't think that was quite right, but I'll let our GM Hawkmoon request corrections if necessary.

- After beating the henchmen (nice job, by the way. And the flavour of the Tomb Raider getting shot as the 'exploration' into the Henchman amused me), you have to take 1 acid damage to close the location, which you did. I don't believe I (Estra) have to take any damage, though, since it doesn't say it deals damage to any other character at your location.

- Unless there's a rule about Scourges I don't know about, you don't take more than 1 acid damage. The acid damage causes you to have the Scourge of Vulnerability displayed in front of you, as listed in the adventure rules. The "Scourge Die = 1d4+1" rule is only relevant if you suffer a non-defined scourge. So if something inflicts a "generic" scourge on you, you roll that and get the scourge stated in that number (each scourge is associated a number from 1 to 10 that can be found in the Scourge Table above the forum thread).

-As a result, you should have only taken 1 point of acid damage, and so you need to discard 1 card. Since you'd acquired the Blessing of Wastek, and discarded the Quarterstaff for combat, your hand would have been: "Blessing of Wastek, Amulet of Mighty Fists, Viper Strike". So you'd discard 1, then redraw up to your hand size of 4.

-Also, I noticed on your deck handler you'd pasted a cell rather than just pasted the values for Quarterstaff, so one of your cells is miscoloured. I don't think that's an issue, per se, just something to note in the future (since it can cause problems in other parts of the spreadsheet).

There's probably a few elements in your Deck Handler that could be cleared up, but none of these are important. When you acquire a card, whether its in your hand, discard pile, or elsewhere, I think you should add it to the "DON'T LOOK" tab. That way, if it's shuffled back in, it can be properly drawn from the deck. I guess you should also state that you have the Scourge of Vulnerability displayed under the Display column?

Also, when posting your end-of-turn spoiler/character details, just copy the cells A:32 to A:58. Just a part of one column; no need to include your character name and the like, since those cells already have that information ready.

TL;DR: You haven't taken as much damage as you thought - just 1 acid damage, so you made unnecessary discards. Depending on what the GM says, you can un-do that or just leave it as is. There's also some parts of your deck handler that could do with a fix-up, but everything else is fine.

Oh, the GM will need to shuffle the Gnoll henchmen somewhere else as per the scenario rules, unless he wants us to do that ourselves from now on.

I’m not certain myself how the scourge die works, but I’m pretty sure that Estra doesn’t suffer any acid damage, only Gronk does. Who despite taking damage had a productive turn!
I was planning on having Qualzar go back to the Shifting Dunes, but since there’s a 1/4 chance of a gnoll going there too, I’ll wait for Hawkmoon to reset.

Hawkmoon:
For future reference, could I have rolled 1d4 to see where the gnoll went, and then, assuming the gnoll went elsewhere, take my turn? Or is it preferable to wait?

Agent Eclipse:
Hah. That’s a much more straightforward solution than all that typing I did.

Yewstance:

[...] It also clearly makes up for my generally weak skillset for Estra (no d12, core combat skill is Divine with only d10+2, two d4s and only 3 trained skills). [...]

Hey now! Some of my favorite gnome sorcerers have no d12s, d10+2 for their combat, and only 3 trained skills. Though you do have me beat with 2 d4s. :P

...Actually, I just checked, and none of us have d12s! There’s got to be a good name for our party out of that fact.
Perfect 10s?
No-decahedrons?
Decimators?
10acious?
10-4?

I'm kind of guessing at a thing that someone made for me with the spreadsheet and trying not to make too much of a mess of it, and have no idea how to fix the mess at the moment, to be honest.

EmpTyger:
I suppose we really shouldn't roll to see where the Gnoll goes, as it will involve shuffling the decks, which messes up the "Card 1, Card 2" spoiler format of the play-by-post. I guess it shouldn't matter if you're not moving to the shuffled deck, though.

10-4, or just Ten-Four, does sound pretty good to me. :P Decimators is also nice. Perfect 10s works, but I'm not as much of a fan.

Wei Ji/Gronk:
I can fix up your spreadsheet if you'd like, and if I'm given permission by the GM (and when I have the time). In the meantime I won't touch it, but I can explain what it's doing (from what I know of it) so that it's more clear in the future.

The "DON'T LOOK" sheet/tab (which really it isn't a problem if you see; I just think what cards we're playing isn't necessarily supposed to be open information for everyone) is a list of all of 'your' cards for your character deck. By that I mean all cards in your actual deck, but also your hand, display, buried, discarded, etc. Basically "When I finish the scenario and pick up all of my cards, what does my deck look like?"

When you set cell G1 (next to "Draw:") to 1, what it's doing is it will randomly pick a card from the deck shown in the "DON'T LOOK" sheet that is not already in the "Hand", "Buried", "Displayed" or "Discarded" columns. I think it will just generate the Recharged card at the 'top' of the Recharged column if there are no other cards to draw, since the recharged column is basically demonstrating what's on the bottom of your deck (in the order you recharged them).

For example: if you're told to shuffle your deck for some reason, you can just delete all of your cards in the Recharged column, since now your deck has been 'randomized', and when you next draw from your deck it could be anything.

A good thing to remember is that this spreadsheet isn't really making a 'deck' of shuffled cards. When you draw; it's just randomly picking from a list, and when you place them in your hand (or any other zone) it makes sure it doesn't pick the same card again. Picking cards randomly from a list one-by-one is just as good as drawing the top card of a perfectly shuffled deck, though.

I can try to answer any more specific questions if you'd like, or provide any more clarifications.

I didn't make the thing, it was given to me and I tried filling it out and then mangled it horribly.

Toss me your email via PM and I'll email you permission to fix it.

I know you didn't make it, but really it's almost perfectly filled in as-is. There's no real mangling done.

As I said, I'll wait for the GM's input before I do anything, though. I'm waiting on whether you're expected to un-do your discards or keep them discarded.

Hawkmoon:

For future reference, could I have rolled 1d4 to see where the gnoll went, and then, assuming the gnoll went elsewhere, take my turn? Or is it preferable to wait?

Yes. You can totally do that. Then, just randomize your exploration. So, say your rolled 1d4 and the gnoll went to Windswept Chasm. There were three cards there, so now there would be 4. Just say "The Gnoll is card 4" and roll 1d4 to find out which card you'd get while exploring (since shuffling is just randomizing). You can keep exploring by doing the same. Say you rolled card 2. Now there are only 3 cards left. Just say "Exploring again. Skipping card 2." Roll 1d3. If the result is 2 or 3, edit the roll to add 1 to it (thus skipping card 2) and take the result.

I can always catch back up to what you post.

I commented in the gampeplay thread about the scourge, but I'll repeat it here and add a bit.

First, the "Scourge Die" sometimes you will suffer a random scourge. For instance, the Evil Eye.

You get a random scourge for that. The rules say that the way to determine the random scourge is to roll on the scourge table. The adventure tells us what the "scourge die" is that we should roll. In this adventure, it is 1d4+1. So if you examined the Evil Eye, you would roll 1d4+1. You'd look up the result on the scourge table and that is the scourge you get. If you rolled a 2, you get Curse of Poisoning. Roll a 3 and it is Curse of Vulnerability.

Other times, you are told that you just suffer a particular scourge. For instance Voices of the Spire.

That simply tells you that, in certain situations you get the particular scourge Curse of Vulnerability. No need for the scourge table there.

That is what the adventure power is doing too. It is telling you that if you are ever dealt Acid damage, if it isn't reduced by at least 1, you suffer the scourge Curse of Vulnerability.

So, yes, when Gronk took 1 Acid damage and it wasn't reduced, he had to suffer the scourge Curse of Vulnerability. If he'd had something like the Bone Lamellar, he could have reduced that Acid damage and not suffered the scourge.

But alas, he didn't.

So let's look at the scourge itself.

So, by the time you get Curse of Vulnerability, you've already been dealt that 1 Acid damage, so it doesn't apply to that situation. But the next time you are dealt Acid, Cold, Electricity, or Fire damage, you won't be allowed to reduce it. That means that later, if Gronk has the Bone Lamellar and is dealt 1 Acid damage, he can't play the Bone Lamellar to reduce it. If he was dealt 2 or even 3 Acid damage, he couldn't play the Bone Lamellar to reduce it, but since it was 2 or more, he could banish the Curse of Vulnerability.

Let me know if that all makes sense.

Oh. And all that to say, definitely get back the extra cards you discarded. You should have only discarded 1 card for the Acid damage and that was it.

Alright. Hawkmoon/GM, would you be okay if I was given write permissions to Wei Ji/Gronk's deck handler, or should I stay hands-off for now? That way I can help troubleshoot/clear up things in the future if requested.

I'm okay with it, and still trying to learn here, shocked I've been as effective as I have been. (Honestly expected to be dead by now given the lack of choices of places I could go to...)

The flavor of this team is the best. :D

Here I am with boring "spirits talk about scattered armor and items", and here's Qualzar causing havoc, Gronk's allies getting shot, and Rizza talking to the voices in his head that he's hearing through his tinnitus.

That's fine with me. And Wei Ji, you've been doing great.

Thanks, but we've still got a bit of a ways to go, right?

Alright, I've tweaked Wei Ji/Gronk's Deck Handler on request.

I'll also post the amended summary for Gronk here. I'll leave it to Wei Ji to repost that in the gameplay thread to more 'formally' keep track of our hands/cards.

There does seem to be a small problem that I can't change with my permissions (but Wei Ji probably can), where in cell A32 there's an unnecessary line break. It says...

"[quote=Gronk the Woodwose
]"

When it should just be on one line. I'll replace the square brackets with round ones () for demonstration.

"(quote=Gronk the Woodwose)"

Hand: Blessing of Wadjet, Viper Strike, Burst Bonds, Dog,

Displayed: Curse of Vulnerability,
Deck: 9 Discard: 4 Buried: 0
Notes:
Sideboard cards:

Will post with my next turn.

There also seems some weird formatting with quote marks ("") on the character summary, but that might just be a result of my permissions or settings, since I don't see anything wrong with the sheet.

I was having the same issue and having to delete the " in every post I made.

Huh. I can't modify it; I don't seem to have permission to change those cells for whatever reason. If you can find a way to change my permissions then I'll try to fix it. Weird; my deck handler doesn't have the same issues.

Thanks, but we've still got a bit of a ways to go, right?

Oh yes. But for this being such a new experience to you on so many fronts, you are doing a great job learning and adjusting.

Thank you.

Also Yew? I think the person who created it is watching the threads here, so the discussion may catch their attention and we may get insight we're not aware of as of yet on the spreadsheet.

That's Tyler. I'll draw his attention to it.

Found and fixed the issue in Wei Ji's sheet. There was an extra whitespace hard-return after Gronk the Woodwose's character name, which was being pulled into the auto-filled section. :)

So, whilst we're waiting for Skizza's turn; strategy talk.

Currently we're in a position where we CAN choose to move into game-ending positions, with 4 remaining locations and 4 players. Some possibilities for positioning would include;

• Brickworks: Gronk. In a game-ending scenario, Gronk shouldn't have to worry about spending 2 cards for his amazing 1d10+1d8 strength roll, so he shines here. Estra almost auto-passes if she can recover Honaire, but that's a moot point whilst he's in my discard pile (whoops).
  
• Shifting Dunes: Anyone, as long as they have a weapon or attack spell handy. Special note that Gronk has small advantages against the summoned eel due to the Animal trait, but the advantages aren't relevant if we're finishing the game.
  
• Tarworks: Qualzar or Estra. A 1d10 Charisma isn't ideal, but it'll work with some blessings support. Gronk can also slot in here with a much stronger Strength roll, but is more uniquely suited to the Brickworks.
  
• Windswept Chasm:: Just need someone to beat the villain consistently. Skizza should have the most reliably powerful combat checks if he can go all-out with his abilities and weapons.

Of course, with 2/3rds of the blessings deck remaining, we should probably still just move wherever we want to pick up boons, so we can improve our decks for scenario 2. We don't have to worry about being able to close the locations, since we're pretty good to temp-close them all for the villain when we want. As a result, on my turn I will almost certainly be moving to Shifting Dunes to delve for the spell or allies there.

P.S: Also, people keep picking up blessings from locations I'm at all game (well, Qualzar and Gronk). I feel like my capable Divine checks are being demeaned by the deck orders here. XD

We should probably start stockpiling blessings for closing; we don't need to be spending them for additional explorations any more.

P.P.S: It goes without saying, but be extremely careful if you have less cards in your deck than your hand size. Dying so early on in an adventure would suck. Your deck handler does keep track of how many remaining cards are in your deck in the top-right cell.

EDIT: I'll be posting my turn within the next 2 hours, most likely.

As mentioned in my notes; Spiritual Ally can provide a small help to a combat or charisma check at my location. You all have my permission to use it, or to scout a location with my Conch Shell, as you see fit.

Sorry for the length of my post. I'm verbose in text at the best of times, but apparently I was feeling particularly storytelling-ey today.

I'm sleeping on it, will try to post in the morning when I wake up, brain parsing badly right now for aCG

Rougher start to morning than expected.

Botting permission given for today to Yew (due to them having access to Deck Handler) while I'm at work, move Gronk in accordance with above plan.

I'm perfectly happy to wait until Gronk's ready to take his turn, personally. I'd prefer it, actually.

But for transparency's sake, in case there's agreement with the team and GM for me to stand in for Gronk's turn, I'd be doing the following.

• I may have access to the Deck Handler, but not the class deck or card descriptions. As a result, I don't recall what Burst Bonds does.
  
• Posting as Yewstance, not an alias.
  
• No written flavor, just OOC actions.
  
• I'd be moving Gronk to Brickworks, encountering the top card. If it's an acquired boon, I'd likely discard Dog to encounter the next card, then end Gronk's turn.

I'll defer to Wei Ji's wishes. (And Hawkmoon's, of course.)
But since Yewstance isn't familiar with the Gronk cards, especially if Wei Ji thinks he'd be able to post by 10pm Central, I'd be okay with waiting.

As far as strategy: personally, I think it's a little early to start planning for endgame, with the tempclosing damage penalty in this scenario and plenty of turns remaining. It'll be significantly easier once we're down to 3 (or fewer) locations, and our positioning will depend on which locations.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the temp closing damage. Good point.

You are welcome to take his turn for him, as per his wishes.

In this case, since Gronk specifically gave permission, I think botting would be fine. It's no different than someone standing up from the table and saying "Take my turn for me."

In general, I will recommend that we try to shy away from botting in any automatic way for PACG online play, because a single turn can have a lot of consequence when there are only 30 turns max in a scenario. That said, this scenario seems totally fine.

Here is Burst Bonds for your reference.

Currently mid-Gronk's turn, requesting input from Skizza/Agent Eclipse.

So that's both a great and awkward bane for Gronk. On the plus side; a way to freely offload his Curse immediately, and an animal bane that lets him get a small benefit from.

On the downside, it requires 2 combat checks and he only had the weapons/spells available for 1 potent check. He'd likely pass the second one with his power, but it's far more efficient to ask Skizza to use one of the multiple weapons he has on hand to take the second combat check for him.

(I am, of course, assuming that there's no change in OP or Mummy's Mask rules about banes with multiple checks to defeat? As long as the encountering player completes at least one check to defeat, any other player at the same location may complete other checks to defeat.)

Shouldn't take long to post; just a combat 7 check (hopefully passing combat 10) to make. If Skizza declines, then I'll continue with Gronk's turn.

Also, thanks for the reference to Burst Bonds. Nice basic utility spell.

I am home and I will take it. Posting in a moment.

The pupper is down but who takes the Succeed check for him since it was split?

The person who encountered the bane gets is the one who gets BYAs, AYAs, etc unless otherwise specified. So, Gronk.

Gronk's turn is finished, so it's Qualzar's turn. I hope I didn't do anything you wouldn't have done, Wei Ji. In particular, if you want to recharge something besides the blessing from passing that check, I think it's fine if you do so as long as you notify the group.

Thanks for the assist, Skizza (nice; hit the exact number we needed to cure Gronk's scourge).

So no weapons or attack spells in hand anymore, but Gronk's got a great blessing-heavy hand, including a blessing that's particularly suited for acquiring boons. Very important strategy consideration for other players, if Wei Ji agrees to spend blessings on important checks.

EDIT: And on Qualzar's turn we've got Blessing of Wadjet on top of the discard pile. Blessings of the Gods are significant helps to acquiring boons right now, and Gronk using his own Blessing of Wadjet will replace it with another card that may help him on his turn (like a weapon or spell).

Always willing to help out. These games give a refreshing take on tactical play compared to the RPG side.

It's in my notes but I held on to my Hackbut to snipe if another location needs help.

Yewstance: Thank you for running the turn, I just got home and you did it the way I was thinking and also thank you to Skizza for help there.

I didn't realize there was an etiquette about not doing it, but am glad that we were able to make that happen.

Ooof. Sorry Yewstance. At least Estra can make use of that armor before it would have been shuffled away?

Not sure how to indicate that I gave away the Sling on the tracker. I put it in the Sideboard section; was that correct?

I don't see a problem with using the Sideboard for that; since as far as I know it prevents the Sling from being re-drawn. It's probably more appropriate to simply outright delete it from your DON'T LOOK tab and everywhere else in your deck handler (as it's no longer in your deck), but the sideboard solution makes it easier to track and less effort.

Incidentally, thanks for the sling! I did realise after I finished my turn that the Padded Armor was about to be shuffled away, but I didn't mind too much on account of exactly this situation occurring with a bane. That, and shuffling it into my deck is preferable to intentionally discarding it, since I want to keep my discard pile small so if I Cure myself I have a good chance of hitting Honaire. (Though, at this rate, I'm going to make the assumption I won't see Honaire this game, and just act as a more standard Divine caster for the remainder of this scenario)

As it so happens, I didn't even get to use the armor, with a rare example of an unlikely lucky roll for me. :P

Of course, at this rate, I'll likely empty a lot of my hand during my next turn to aggressively re-draw, then try to draw my Cure and bring Qualzar back to health again.

Oh, hang on, question for the GM. At the start of my turn at the Shifting Dunes, which happens first?

Lightning Storm dealing damage to me, or Shifting Dunes shuffling away my armor?

(As an aside, if Estra succeeds at a combat check by using an attack spell, does she draw a card from her power before or after her recharge check? My gut suggests that her recharge check always comes first, as the spell is still deciding what zone to go, and you should always try to finish what's happening before other effects are considered.)

Oh, hang on, question for the GM. At the start of my turn at the Shifting Dunes, which happens first?

Lightning Storm dealing damage to me, or Shifting Dunes shuffling away my armor?

When two things happen at the same time, your decide the order (unless one says immediately and the other doesn't, the that case do the immediate one first).

(As an aside, if Estra succeeds at a combat check by using an attack spell, does she draw a card from her power before or after her recharge check? My gut suggests that her recharge check always comes first, as the spell is still deciding what zone to go, and you should always try to finish what's happening before other effects are considered.)

Hey power triggers when she succeeds at a combat check. When she succeeds at the combat check, she uses her power before she attempts the next check. So before the recharge.

Thanks! I assumed it was my choice, but I wanted to make sure, especially given that it's a card effect vs a location effect, so I wondered if there was a FAQ or something that overrode normal timing for that.

And the draw vs recharge thing makes sense too, I just was confused because I was mentally comparing it to WOTR Imrijka's bonus exploration effect (which is somewhat different, as its not triggered from passing a combat check, but rather from defeating a monster).

Either way, Skizza's turn.

EDIT: Scenario Update/GM is making me feel really comfortable about where I'm standing with that mention of "Notes: LIGHTNING STORM!!!".

You are welcome. For reference:

Finish One Thing Before You Start Something Else. You do many things in a specific order, and you need to finish doing each thing before you do the next thing... Don’t start a new process until you’ve finished the last one. (That said, if the game doesn’t specify an order for things, you decide the order.)

Attempt the Check. Most cards require you to succeed at a check to acquire or defeat them....

After you attempt the check, deal with any effects that were triggered by the check. If any cards played while attempting a check include their own checks, resolve the current check in this step and the new checks in subsequent steps.
Attempt the Next Check, If Needed. If another check is required, resolve it now. For example, some boons allow you to attempt a check to recharge them, and some banes require a second check to defeat. Repeat this step until you resolve all such checks.

Estra's power is an effect triggered by the check. And the recharge check is "attempt the next check, if needed".

Nice. I need to re-read the Mummy's Mask rulebook I have downloaded...

Note Skizza can now help someone at his location as well as at another location in combat. That and Gronk took 1 damage because Skizza has trouble discerning between bricks and toads.

I'm going to start writing my turn and doing my rolls, but am I allowed to actually post my turn before Gronk takes 1 point of damage? I would imagine so; my decisions are exceptionally unlikely to cause Gronk to change his mind, and his hand is otherwise being unaffected by my turn unless I request a blessing (of which he's carrying multiple).

Even so, I won't publicly post unless I'm given the go ahead, or Gronk checks in to discard due to damage.

Yeah, it's fine.

Wow. What a start to a play-by-post adventure. I have almost NEVER seen such a drastic shift of fortune as this in the Pathfinder Card Game, save for certain points in Wrath of the Righteous around decks 4 and 5.

This 'drastic shift of fortune' being two of us potentially vulnerable to straight up death with this Lightning Storm and still-to-be-resolved Poison Blade Trap. As I've mentioned, I can save Qualzar, but if I fail the recharge check then Lightning Storm doing 3 damage will kill me. Of course, the odds are overwhelmingly likely that the Storm will dissipate or move away on Qualzar's turn, but right now the dice gods are laughing at me. Both Qualzar and I suffered hand wipes in addition to an additional 1-3 threatened damage at the start of our following turns by the Lightning Storm, potentially.

In my case, this turn; the storm didn't move, I rolled another snake eyes this scenario on a check I had good (though admittedly not EXCELLENT, this time) odds for, and on top of that I took full damage from the trap. Perhaps I shouldn't of encountered that, but then we'd have the trap sitting on top of the location and I don't think any of us actually have better odds at it unless we start throwing blessings at a mere 5 point check. And 1d4+1d6 for a 5 should be fine, as the 'average result' of those two dice is 6.

...So, Qualzar needs to take 1d4 Poison Damage, Gronk needs to take 1 electricity damage, and then EmpTyger and I need to come up with a strategy that leads to both of our survival. Ideally, Qualzar takes a small enough damage that he doesn't need my cure, then at least I have a small chance of being able to cure my own Honaire out of my deck and cycling. But I don't even have many turns left, so maybe it's smarter I just cure Qualzar and sit in a safe spot for the rest of the game? That Lightning Storm needs to be GONE if there's ever going to be a completely safe spot, though.

Does Gronk own a cure spell? He's a Divine caster...