A River Into Darkness - GM Justaworm (Inactive)

Game Master justaworm

I stick with the core rules: 1 or 20 on a skill is not automatic and a 1 or 20 on a saving throw is automatic.

So, given your awesome roll on the Knowledge check, you just haven't been here long enough to have that knowledge. Though, as I mentioned in a previous post, I don't mind if you peek as long as you don't utilize the information.

In the Campaign Info tab, check my roll templates set up for your Initiative and Perception checks and let me know if anything is off.

I think I may have you roll your own saves because at least Stig, and it seems like someone else, had some complicated saving throw mechanics involved. Once I get a good feel for these, I may go back to rolling them to keep things moving better.

Investiture boils down to I can as a swift action on my turn gain a +1 to a single saving throw type for 1 round. I have to take an action to activate it so I will let you know when it is being used. :)

ahh, ok. i read fast and wasn't sure if it was something you could decide to do when the save came up. I missed the swift action part.

In the Campaign Info tab, check my roll templates set up for your Initiative and Perception checks and let me know if anything is off.

I think I may have you roll your own saves because at least Stig, and it seems like someone else, had some complicated saving throw mechanics involved. Once I get a good feel for these, I may go back to rolling them to keep things moving better.

Waseem’s init is +3 and his perception is +4. You have Jaqu’s numbers correct. It might be worth noting that Waseem has lowlight vision and Jaqu darkvision.

Sorry, just got around to checking this now.

Shwartos perception is only +10 (+11 vs traps). The racial modifier that herolab prints was already included in that

Shwartos perception is only +10 (+11 vs traps). The racial modifier that herolab prints was already included in that

Your lines of info by your avatar do say Per +12 (+13 vs traps), in case you missed that after noticing the hero lab thing.

You are absolutely correct. It IS 12 (13 vs traps). I went back to herolab to confirm

4 ranks, 3 class skill, 1 attribute, 2 racial, 2 from familiar

Thank you for noticing that!!

I must have had the "Close to familiar" box unchecked when I copied from herolab.

So, 12 as long as my familiar is nearby. Which will almost always be the case

Thank you for noticing that!!

No problem :)

Selena, by RAW you don't need to make a Perform check to utilize Bardic Performance, well I have never played that way at least. Your bardic performances Supernatural abilities and so the skill check doesn't play into them.
The Perform skill would come up in any other situation where you are performing.

For roleplaying flair, you can always make the check just to get an idea of how good you might be playing, and there can always be some play from that with PCs and NPCs. Regardless of the result though, everyone gets the appropriate buffs or debuffs.

Selena, by RAW you don't need to make a Perform check to utilize Bardic Performance, well I have never played that way at least. Your bardic performances Supernatural abilities and so the skill check doesn't play into them.

The Perform skill would come up in any other situation where you are performing.

For roleplaying flair, you can always make the check just to get an idea of how good you might be playing, and there can always be some play from that with PCs and NPCs. Regardless of the result though, everyone gets the appropriate buffs or debuffs.

Okay, good to know, thanks! I'll probably continue doing the checks for flavor, then; I like that idea.

Just a note, I should not be marked as hasted (on the whiteboard). Waseem can cast it on 4 creatures (since we're at 4th level), and he cast it on Jaqu, Shakaro, Stígandrr, and Shwarto.

Just a note, I should not be marked as hasted (on the whiteboard). Waseem can cast it on 4 creatures (since we're at 4th level), and he cast it on Jaqu, Shakaro, Stígandrr, and Shwarto.

Correct. Also note that it will only last 4 rounds.

Just so you know, Waseem can’t read your character profiles and doesn’t know who’s a frontline fighter and who isn’t. I didn’t want to metagame so I just had him cast haste on Jaqu and the first three other characters who ran out the door.

Selena Shadethorn wrote:

Just a note, I should not be marked as hasted (on the whiteboard). Waseem can cast it on 4 creatures (since we're at 4th level), and he cast it on Jaqu, Shakaro, Stígandrr, and Shwarto.

Correct. Also note that it will only last 4 rounds.

Just so you know, Waseem can’t read your character profiles and doesn’t know who’s a frontline fighter and who isn’t. I didn’t want to metagame so I just had him cast haste on Jaqu and the first three other characters who ran out the door.

I 100% agree with who you chose for hasting, both in the RP sense and in tactics, so no worries here. :) I hope I didn't sound passive aggressive or anything.

Not at all. I just like hearing myself talk (or type) :-)

How come you can't read our profiles? Something on our side or yours?

Shwarto gets some benefit from haste but he definitely should NOT be your primary concern. He'll only ever get one attack a round, even with haste.

Not to mention that you have to make perception checks to see him a lot of the time :-). Sneaky little bugger :-)

heh, I took it to mean that Waseem the PC cannot read your profile.

Shwarto, a couple of things from your last post.

(a)can you not access the battle map link? you mentioned not knowing where you were.
(b) your Shift ability is a spell-like ability and uses a SA, not movement.
(c) Next round, you will be able to step back into the inn, which will help you maintain cover. There really isn't much cover elsewhere.

heh, I took it to mean that Waseem the PC cannot read your profile.

I took it to mean that, as well, that it would be mixing player knowledge with character knowledge

heh, I took it to mean that Waseem the PC cannot read your profile.

That’s what I meant.

Atk 1: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (9) + 13 = 22

Dmg 1: 1d8 + 13 ⇒ (2) + 13 = 15

Atk 2: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (11) + 13 = 24
Dmg 2: 1d8 + 13 ⇒ (1) + 13 = 14

Atk 3: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (7) + 13 = 20
Dmg 3: 1d8 + 13 ⇒ (6) + 13 = 19

Holy crap, Stig! Did you really just do 48 damage in one round?

I am playing a monk in another game (just started) and I would really like to know how that works. Is it the investiture thing?

Yeah, no kidding. He punch! To me, it looks like it's a combo of mainly power attack (+4), that divine thing (+1), and inspire courage (which should give everyone , hint hint, +1 to attack and damage rolls). Plus dat 20 strength (+5). Throw in a couple of extra attacks (Haste, flurry of blows), and that stacks quite nicely!

What is this? Are we having a snowball fight with a dragon in a town in the jungle? :)

Also, this is great, haha

@Shakaro, your charge is fine.

@Shwarto, if you feel like whatever the dragon does or doesn't do won't affect your action, go ahead and post it too. If your planned action becomes totally invalidated (it flies away, dies, etc.), you can revise it. That way, I could possibly finish out the whole round in a post. It is totally fine if you want to wait and see what happens though, as that is the one benefit of a low initiative.

Selena basically got it spot on :). The investiture pool allows me to cast divine favor on myself for one point which is increased by fates favored to a +2 to hit and damage. Adding in the strength and inspire courage gets us up to +12 damage per hit (huh. I dont know where got 13 from. My damage should have been 45). Haste and flurry of blows gives 2 extra attacks so that is a minimum of 39-60 dmg per round if all hit. I can get another attack by spending 1 ki which raises it to 52-80 dmg in one round. This is all excluding crits.

Shwarto, a couple of things from your last post.

(a)can you not access the battle map link? you mentioned not knowing where you were.
(b) your Shift ability is a spell-like ability and uses a SA, not movement.
(c) Next round, you will be able to step back into the inn, which will help you maintain cover. There really isn't much cover elsewhere.

I can access the map but the map and my impression from your earlier description was at variance so I wasn't quite sure :-)

Shift IS a SA. Its an exception to the normal rule. Because it acts as dimension door it DOES end my turn.

"Shift (Su): At 1st level, you can teleport to a nearby space as a swift action as if using dimension door. This movement does not provoke an attack of opportunity."

Did Jaqu get bit? I thought he was just slashed with a claw as an AOO

It was a claw attack but Waseem rolled a 1 on his knowledge check, what does he know? Please feel free to correct him in game.

"Shift (Su): At 1st level, you can teleport to a nearby space as a swift action as if using dimension door. This movement does not provoke an attack of opportunity."

Ahh, I missed the swift action part. That would have been fine.

It was a claw attack but Waseem rolled a 1 on his knowledge check, what does he know? Please feel free to correct him in game.

I don't believe any of the bite attacks landed. But, there is no harm in going with the idea that combat happened so fast that it wasn't necessarily clear if a claw or a bite hit Jaqu. Maybe the mouth and claw were very near each other at the time.

I believe a Heal check could likely clear things up for sure.

Selena basically got it spot on :). The investiture pool allows me to cast divine favor on myself for one point which is increased by fates favored to a +2 to hit and damage. Adding in the strength and inspire courage gets us up to +12 damage per hit (huh. I dont know where got 13 from. My damage should have been 45). Haste and flurry of blows gives 2 extra attacks so that is a minimum of 39-60 dmg per round if all hit. I can get another attack by spending 1 ki which raises it to 52-80 dmg in one round. This is all excluding crits.

Yeah... +5 STR, +4 Power Attack, +2 Divine Favor, +1 Bard... that's pretty amazing. Of course, any character with a STR of 20 is going to do really good melee damage. By 4th level my dwarven monk should have an 18 (she has 15 right now).

But... Hmmm... Looking at the archetype I can see you traded two feats to get the investiture pool and the divine favor ability. It's really good, but I'm not sure if it is worth two feats (plus the fate's favored trait) to me. I had planned to try to get Crane Style and focus on defense. And my character is not human.

I do tend to make divine casters with the fate's favored trait though for this exact reason.

I do tend to make divine casters with the fate's favored trait though for this exact reason.

Fates Favoured is almost brokenly good for a trait. Especially with the proliferation of luck bonuses since it was first published (many, many halflings and half orcs seems to have been favoured by Fate, regardless of what their back history might imply :-))

Not saying that you shouldn't have taken it, mind. I've got Animal Companions with Int 3 and Extra Traits who have taken it :-) (fluff wise, they've all belonged to people worshipping a God with the luck domain and were sent to me by my God :-))

Shakaro Jun wrote:

I do tend to make divine casters with the fate's favored trait though for this exact reason.

Fates Favoured is almost brokenly good for a trait. Especially with the proliferation of luck bonuses since it was first published (many, many halflings and half orcs seems to have been favoured by Fate, regardless of what their back history might imply :-))

Not saying that you shouldn't have taken it, mind. I've got Animal Companions with Int 3 and Extra Traits who have taken it :-) (fluff wise, they've all belonged to people worshipping a God with the luck domain and were sent to me by my God :-))

The Invested Regent archetype's flavor is "some mysterious divine force gave me a portion of their divine power so I could lead." Given how well fate's favoured meshed with that and my backstory it felt like a crime to not take it :)

Just to pull the curtain back a little for you all, though that was just a CR6 encounter with a raging dragonnel (3.5 creature), it was potentially deadly for anyone getting hit. Each attack can grab and its snatch ability lets it throw a grabbed creature in any direction. Anyone grabbed would have been thrown into the waters below, already hurt and bleeding.

I figured Jaqu at least was going to unsummon, which nearly happened. Anyone getting tossed down into the water with armor was going to be in trouble. :)

It was a good handicapping encounter. :)

So it’s up to the GM as to how much control Waseem will have over summoned dolphins. If he can direct them he will have them round up the bodies for lassoing. If not, they will undoubtably go after the shark.

Unless you have an ability or spell to communicate with them, the dolphins will likely attack.

Just realized I built my character on 15 points but the recruitment switched to 20 points after it started. If its all right I will update my scores based on 20 points.

Busy weekend guys. We have been full swing into 2 science fair projects and lots of other stuff. I should have an update either really late tonight or tomorrow.

@SHakarao: Yes. Go ahead and fix.

Also, I noticed more than one person had a score of 7. The minimum was 8 after mods. I can't remember who it was, plus please do a double check and make the adjustments before we get full swing into the story.

Oops. Missed that. I had 2 7's.

Sorry about that. It was a sincere mistake :-(.

Fixed. Who needs hitpoints and wisdom :-) ?

Fixed! I also missed that.

Who needs hitpoints and wisdom :-) ?

Haha, I'm in the same boat

No worries everyone. If someone were trying to hide it, they still would have put a 8 down and relied on "messing up the point buy", hah.

Catching up in gameplay now...

Feel free to banter more and I will fast forward to the night's meeting with Kelim tonight if I am able.

A few things:

- Given what you now know with checks and Kelim's conversation, it may be reasonable to assume that you may be indeed headed upriver at Kelim's request.
- I've added links to the 2 knowledge posts (so far) in the static campaign section at the top of the page. Don't forget the Vanji river post I put up just before combat.

After 8 years of PFS it is going to be very strange to be actually working for the Aspis Consortium :-) :-).

I haven't done much PFS, but I know the reputation of Aspis from other adventures, as Serpent's Skull. Since this is a pretty old module that predates a lot of that stuff, it is an interesting situation as a player for sure.

One thing to consider, is that not unlike the Pathfinders, Mordent Spire, other trade companies, etc. there is a lot of "normal" business that is conducted along with "everything else". Most people don't know about the "everything else" and frankly would probably rather not know. A lot of the small operations even within the organization probably don't know about the "everything else", probably much like black projects and Congress. :)

That is kind of the situation in Bloodcove. This city is a key Aspis stronghold as both a sea and major river port of the Mwangi.

One thing to consider, is that not unlike the Pathfinders, Mordent Spire, other trade companies, etc. there is a lot of "normal" business that is conducted along with "everything else".

There is also a MASSIVE amount of "it depends on your point of view"

Shwarto has no problems with the Aspis as it has currently been described. He has no problem with some "beads for gold" type exploitation. He'll have issues if he sees genocide going on, mind :-)

And just to be clear - the above lack of concern over "beads for gold", "exploit the natives" stuff is Shwarto's opinion, not mine :-)

Do we want to all chip in for a wand of infernal healing/cure light wounds? It is 150gp per person which still leaves everyone with 120gp to spend on whatever they want.

A wand of cure light sounds good.

I was going to buy one anyway, yeah. I have a bunch of gold left from character creation. ^_^"

Here's my purchase list, assuming everything is available:

• Wand of cure light wounds
• 7x Oil of magic weapon
• potion of endure elements
• potion of remove disease
• potion of cure wounds
• potion of mage armor
• 5x trail rations
• tanglefoot bag

endure elements you could probably get as a scroll and have a caster cast it on you if you wanted, since that will probably be an out-of-combat spell.

The same is probably true about remove disease.

I don't know if infernal healing will be allowed in this game but if it is it is way better than cure light wounds.

Are scrolls not consumed after a use? I haven't had much experience with scrolls, tbh

Are scrolls not consumed after a use? I haven't had much experience with scrolls, tbh

Yes

I know Shwarto has a lot of goodies like that, so I think we'd be good in that department. I'm not sure how to add scrolls in Hero Lab either, haha, so I've been biased toward potions and wands.