All's Well that Ends in a Well, V.2 (Inactive)

Game Master Choon

Here's what I am thinking for Double File

Row 1: Elion, Kayla
Row 2: Zadira, Catarya
Row 3: Grelthe, Melkar
If people want me guarding the rear I could change with someone in the back.

My main concern with Grelthe all the way in the back is that she moves slowly (20ft), but 5ft one way or another won't make a huge difference there, so I'm fine putting her wherever.

TEAM stuff:
The Lookout feat only works with adjacent allies, so we might want to space out the high perception people to get the maximum benefit of the surprise round. (After looking at your character sheets, I am the only one with a low perception, so I will automatically be adjacent to someone with a better check than me)
Also, I will be reading from my War Prayers book every morning, so we will always have a +2 morale bonus to our first fear save of the day.

Sorry for the silence. I have a real hard time getting to a computer to post anything over weekends. I'm going through everything now and catching up. Elion can take middle watch.

That's good to know, the rest of us can take it easy on the weekends so you don't get too far behind. My computer has issues with the paizo site sometimes too.

That's good to know, the rest of us can take it easy on the weekends so you don't get too far behind. My computer has issues with the paizo site sometimes too.

Khouri: is there a reason you are not using the Grelthe avatar in the discussion thread?

Catarya's SOP plan: We should advance slowly, 5' at a time, and check for traps every step.

If we have Elion and Kayla in the front rank, then Kayla has the best perception, but Elion can detect magical traps.

I would have Elion Take 10 to check a square for traps (he gets a 21 that way), and then have Kayla use the Aid Another action to help, so Elion gets a 23. So we check the left square, then the right square in front of us every time we advance 5 feet.

If we are really paranoid then we could take 20 every 5', but that would mean we take 2 minutes for every 5' we advance. I don't know if you want to go that slowly.

If the people in the second rank can also Aid then they should do so too, but I will not be offended if that is not allowed. Actually I would have one person in the second rank keep detect magic going all the time as long as we are advancing really slowly.

For doors, I suspect that traps will be more common at a door. So perhaps we can take 20 when searching the doors. That gives us a 33 if Elion is taking 20 and Kayla is aiding.

If we find a trap and it is not magical, I have the best disable device skill. But magical traps can only be disarmed by Elion.

My trapfinding is always active... we should be paranoid down here, but it's going to really bog down the game if we do it that way, especially since they are not the ones that are posting more often.

We *should* be paranoid, but I really do think mine is high enough for normal walking, if we want to move the story forward. There has to be a balance between going fast enough that we can enjoy the game and paranoia. I don't want to wait a day between each square.

Catarya's SOP plan: We should advance slowly, 5' at a time, and check for traps every step.

If we have Elion and Kayla in the front rank, then Kayla has the best perception, but Elion can detect magical traps.

I would have Elion Take 10 to check a square for traps (he gets a 21 that way), and then have Kayla use the Aid Another action to help, so Elion gets a 23. So we check the left square, then the right square in front of us every time we advance 5 feet.

If we are really paranoid then we could take 20 every 5', but that would mean we take 2 minutes for every 5' we advance. I don't know if you want to go that slowly.

If the people in the second rank can also Aid then they should do so too, but I will not be offended if that is not allowed. Actually I would have one person in the second rank keep detect magic going all the time as long as we are advancing really slowly.

For doors, I suspect that traps will be more common at a door. So perhaps we can take 20 when searching the doors. That gives us a 33 if Elion is taking 20 and Kayla is aiding.

If we find a trap and it is not magical, I have the best disable device skill. But magical traps can only be disarmed by Elion.

I'm good with this suggestion

I don't want to wait a day between each square.

I'm not sure I understand the problem.

If the GM has the information as to what the rolls are going to be, then we would only stop when we either find something or fail to find something and spring a trap.

So while this means our characters are moving slowly, it won't take any more time gameplay-wise.

The movement speeds in 1st edition D&D basically assumed you were doing the equivalent of taking 20 every step. We are going way faster than that, 25 feet per minute down a hallway.

Yes, your trapfinding is always active, but you cannot detect magical traps with it. And you are the squishiest character in the party, so I'd prefer to keep you out of the front rank.

Developing a SoP is always a good plan. :)

Taking 10/20 on everything would take a while in game. How much food did you bring again? :)

My trapfinding finds things within 10 feet so I don't have to be in the front rank.

My point was that if we have to wait for Elion and only Elion to roll every time we move, then we get bogged down. If you want him to roll 20 times once a day and then use them as needed, that's fine, but it would be nice to have more flexibility. For instance, this hall before us, or the doors that still haven't been opened in the first room.

I'm waiting to see what people are doing, but I can't tell other characters what to check or when. Should I just open them all? Should we walk down the hall? People are still reacting to entering the dungeon.

Are you proposing that we all post only once a day? We could do that, but ... it just seems slow. Then again, I am not known for my patience. :)

Edit: Ha ha. I brought 40 days worth of rations, but we could probably catch rats if we get low.

I'm not hung to force you to roll every check. That's just silly with pbp. I just need to know if you're checking every square (or whatever you decide) for time purposes.

I do not think checkig every square is necessary. with Zadira getting the "free check" in a matter of speaking that helps.

we should proceed with caution and possibly adopt a mechanic from 5e with passive perception.

assumes we are always taking 10 and thus if there is a trap we may notice it passively thus causing a stop and check further.

the passive check will not grant any details, just the fact that something is amiss and warrants further investigation.

Okay, well, if the whole thing is just theoretical and we don't have to actually roll every time, then objections withdrawn.

Maybe all the trapfinders should just say how often they are checking for traps (or aiding others in doing so).

I have plenty of rations, so if we want to go slow, I'm in. ... A little worried about spending nights down here though.

The whole thing about taking 10 is speeding up play by not having to roll. So the GM knows in advance what our roll is and just has to look up the actual traps. If it turns out that taking 10 is not good enough and we are setting off traps then we can re-think our strategy.

Zadira's thing is nice but it won't spot magical traps.

If we are moving 25 feet per minute then that is still quite decent for careful explorers. At that rate you cover 750 feet in an hour, which is plenty for a dungeon crawl. We're not going to do that many encounters in one game day.

I have 2 weeks of rations but would much prefer to camp outside the dungeon whenever possible.

Detect Magic is a cantrip/orison spell with a distance of 60ft, why can't Zadira or Catarya just cast that every 50 feet or so? And then Zadira's automatic trap sense will notice anything mundane within 10ft. If there is a magical trap, Elion can disable it, but he doesn't really even need to be checking for them, I don't think.

I also don't want walking down a hallway to take forever in game time. Maybe we could say we stop and everyone aids looking for traps at like, doorways only or something?

I was posting as Khouri because this is the out of character thread? But I do see now I was the only one doing that, so I can easily change.

Okay. That's a good idea. I can cast detect magic every 4 minutes (duration is up to one minute/level with concentration), or again whenever I do something else (because then I would lose concentration). So, default, my magic detection is up. I'll go cast it in gameplay to start the process.

Edit: also, looks like some people are already in the hallway, so we should all go and not get separated.

I assume Catarya & Elion would have been closer to the south of the first room at this point, should we move them into the marching order we had agreed on? Or wait for their players to log in and do it?

GM Choon: not sure how Lookout will affect our initiative, but here is the text from the feat:

Whenever you are adjacent to an ally who also has this feat, you may act in the surprise round as long as your ally would normally be able to act in the surprise round. If you would normally be denied the ability to act in the surprise round, your initiative is equal to your initiative roll or the roll of your ally –1, whichever is lower. If both you and your ally would be able to act in the surprise round without the aid of this feat, you may take both a standard and a move action (or a full-round action) during the surprise round.

Because once that takes affect, I will change the teamwork feat.

There is no surprise round this time. In the case of a surprise round that may come in very handy.

You may move yourselves into marching order on the map before acting, yes. I assume you will be stacked up like that before breaching an unknown door like this.

Also, what size are the squares on the map? I'm not sure what legal spaces I can move into?

I tried to move everyone close to our marching order, taking into account specific places people had already claimed. (Like Melkar being by the door.) Please move yourself if you don't like where I put you. :)

the map is in 10' squares.

I didn't really mean to get us out of marching order. I was just trying to push the action along but if we are going to be this careful I will just refrain from doing so.

Pushing the action is almost never a bad thing. I'll allow reasonable re-positioning before a fight because this dungeon will have lots of fights and it can really get bogged down if we fret over every little thing. Some things should be fret over. I don't think pre-battle positioning (when there's not a surprise round) should be one of them.

Cool, that sounds good to me. Glad to know you aren't going to kill us for something like that. :D

If we want to just say we will line up the same way everytime before we open a door, we can do that too? I just wasn't sure if we were doing that this time or not.

Your marks have been tallied. You may view them within.

FYI, Grelthe's SOP is:
- always have her flail out, and a javelin if she is near the back of the party
- always have Lookout team feat prepped until combat starts, then switch to outflank, and reset back to Lookout after combat
- after combat recover any javelins thrown.

The map is weird here... is there hallway straight in front of me? It looks like the wall breaks there, but it is covered. If it is just a wall, and the only choice is right, then I definitely go right, but your description said it extended left and right, which made me think there were two options. Can you clarify that before we proceed?

Map more comprehensively updated.

Zadira, I can move you where I am trying to signal for you to check out.

basically along the wall to peer around the corner, but still in a line of sight of Kayla.

Thanks for the map update, GM. :)

Kayla, sorry if you meant a different way. Already posted, but will come join you soon if I am not accosted by a grue. :)

Also, out of curiosity... what is the square with an X in it on the map... one in room 6 and one kattycorner from me in the big long hallway. ... I'm hoping for elevators. :)

Those would be pit traps you've already discovered.

Oooooh. <slaps self on forehead> Duh. Good thing Zadira is smarter than the player. :)

There are a bunch of Cure Light Wounds potions on my body if anyone has a chance to save me later.

If not, see alias for tons of loot. :)

Grelthe will heal your hp next turn, no worries. :)

"This damage does not actually reduce an ability, but it does apply a penalty to the skills and statistics that are based on that ability. For every 2 points of damage you take to a single ability, apply a –1 penalty to skills and statistics listed with the relevant ability."

Note the bolded text here.

You need to take 2 points of ability damage to a score for it to affect you negatively.

I used to think it worked the way you are saying until I was corrected at a PFS session.

Sounds like a GM call. Either way, Grelthe is still rushing to her side.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2kaat?Taking-CON-Damage

That seems to me to say I am interpreting correctly, but... hard to know for sure. DIfferent people quoting different things. GM call, definitely.

I've done some reading and Zadria is still on her feet. Barely. I'll explain when I get the chance. Bah work.

Thanks to how they're worded (and only because of particular turns of phrase in that wording), Ability damage and drain are two very different things. Damage is best thought of as it's own pool that is compared to your attribute score while Drain directly affects that score. That's the reason for the "no effect until -2" thing. It still works like Zadira was thinking, but because it stands apart from your con stat it has no effect until you gain at least two points of damage.

I hope that was at least moderately clear...

Your marks have been tallied.

At least you're automatically stable. :)

I have been reading Zadira's character sheet, and can't figure out why she would automatically stabilize? I am just trying to understand, is there something I'm missing?

Also, your Cosmic Tally-man makes me want to sing "Come mister tally man, tally me bananas" lololol

I didn't think loosing HP from a con change or penalty qualified you for the Dying condition, but I may be wrong.

AH I see :) thanks for the clarification. I'm sure you're right, I was just thinking it was a trait or class ability or something, not an actual game mechanic.

I didn't think loosing HP from a con change or penalty qualified you for the Dying condition, but I may be wrong.

It does if you are a barbarian and come out of rage, though admittedly that's not the same thing.

Hey Zadira, I forgot something. Do you remember how you got poisoned before. I need you to make two consecutive con saves for max 5 more rounds. DC 17 save. You take 1d3 con damage for each failed round.

If she blows it can we retcon staying outside the dungeon for the night? If her CON drops drastically we might want to wait.

I can prepare up to two lesser restoration spells the next day but that tanks my whole second level of spells.

Also guys: Let me know if the accent thing is annoying. I can ditch it if people find it irritating.

Also GM Choon: Do you mind if I add "notes" to the map that represent our handwritten notes?

Oh, okay. Yikes. Is that a Fortitude save, or straight Con? Rolling for straight Con, but my Fort save is one higher:

Con Save: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (15) + 1 = 16
Con Save: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (13) + 1 = 14
Con Save: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (19) + 1 = 20
Con Save: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (12) + 1 = 13
Con Save: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (18) + 1 = 19

Hmm... made it twice (three times if it is a Fort save), but just so happens that none of them were consecutive. ... So, what does that mean? Am I drooling?

I do have an antidote kit... and a healer's kit, so if I can attempt to heal myself I do:

Treat poison: 1d20 + 5 + 2 + 3 ⇒ (8) + 5 + 2 + 3 = 18 (5=base skill, +2 for Healer's Kit, +3 bonus from Antidote kit)

Notes: not at all, go for it.

Blowing it: You can, yes. We'll just shift this to the next morning.

So we are retconning that we left the dungeon for the night so Zadira could rest up and heal, and then returned the next morning?

Catarya, I would prefer without the accent, but if you are enjoying it, go for it.

So... are we saying I healed myself, and got my one point of Con damage back overnight, or ... exactly where am I the next morning? I mean, I'm totally still down there even if I am on my last breath. I just wasn't sure. :)