DM Dr Evil's 00-01: Silent Tide (PFS) - First PFS PbP Gameday Event (Inactive)

Game Master DM DoctorEvil

If Cressyk can fit south of Nessian, he will do the following with the remainder of his actions. If he can't, then he'll stay where he is.

Swift action: Cast Litany of Sloth at Nessian
Move action: Move through Nessian's square to the other side, allowing someone else to flank.

Elael runs up the stairs, eager to get back into the thick of things. He manages to corner Nessian between himself and Cressyk.

Attack, Flank: 1d20 + 5 + 2 ⇒ (12) + 5 + 2 = 19
Damage: 1d4 + 1 + 1d8 ⇒ (1) + 1 + (1) = 3

At the bottom of the stairs, Rhanloi looks up, and if he can see Nessian, he fires his last force missile at the War Hounder leader! damage: 1d4 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2

Jiro moves up the stairs to get into a fighting position with Nessian. "To Pharasma's embrace with you!"

Swift action - challenge. Double move.
Challenge: 1 DR/- vs Nessian, +1 damage vs Nessian.
I'm not entirely sure if he's just a floor up .. or two floors up, but I double moved myself on the map hoping I did it right!

It is one floor up to the second level. Don't know why they put the ground floor map on there twice. I changed some of your actions slightly to best effect.

Pyramid of the Dog - round 5 - concluded

Cressyk casts his slowing spell on Nessian, allowing the half-orc to slide by him unimpeded. The inquisitor now stands on the edge of the siege tower's upper opening, but also flanks the War Hounder's master.

Elael rushes up the stairs and sticks his knife where he thought Nessian was, but the blurred outline fools the rogue, and his attack misses.

Jiro yells a challenge in his native tongue which emboldens his attacks and strengthens his defense. He moves into position, patiently waiting for the right opportunity to end this.

From behind, Rhanloi's last force missile flies between the heroes, catching the surrounded villain with a sizzling sound.

Catching his breath, Archibald also climbs the stairs hoping to witness the end of the Black Echelon threat.

End of Round 5

Elael miss chance: 1d100 ⇒ 11

Pyramid of the Dog - Round 6

16 Nessian (blurred)
13 Elael
12 Cressyk
11 Jiro
7 Archibald
5 Rhanloi

Recovering from his sloth, Nessian pulls something from his belt, tossing it at Elael. The tanglefoot bag explodes on contact into a mess of sticky goo. He shrugs his shield around trying to cover both flanks, flail held ready.

SA toss the bag (which wasn't really a stored item), MA ready the shield. Elael needs DC 15 Reflex save or be entangled by the bag's gooey contents. All of you now may go and see if you can finish him.

Opting for deadly precision, Jiro aims for the man's neck. A horizontal feint into a diagonal cut tried to bring an end to Black Echelon.

Attack: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (8) + 7 = 15
Damage: 1d10 + 7 ⇒ (4) + 7 = 11

Cressyk swings his greataxe once more at Nessian, hoping to drop him.

Attack (Greataxe (2H), Justice Judgement, Flanking): 1d20 + 4 + 1 + 2 ⇒ (11) + 4 + 1 + 2 = 18
Damage (Greataxe (2H)): 1d12 + 6 ⇒ (11) + 6 = 17
Miss Chance: 1d100 ⇒ 38

Pyramid of the Dog - Round 6 - continued

The samurai's blow is deflected by Nessian's shield, and the greataxe of Cressyk looks for the world like it will hit, but it strikes a magical barrier surrounding the man, and is deflected from harming him.

He has downed a potion of mage armor in addition to the blur effect in the first two rounds of the fight, he will be quite hard to hit for a while, especially with the shield up now. Don't forget your blur miss chances also.

You see Rhanloi cup his mouth and scream...only none of the party hears anything. Nessian, however, is assaulted with Rhanloi's ear-piercing scream.

Reflex Save: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (16) + 6 = 22

Elael dodges by the thrown bag, and the goo explodes behind him. He lashes out with another dagger strike.

Attack vs. Nessian: 1d20 + 5 + 2 ⇒ (5) + 5 + 2 = 12
Concealment: 1d100 ⇒ 23
Damage: 1d4 + 1 + 1d8 ⇒ (1) + 1 + (1) = 3

Pyramid of the Dog - Round 6 - concluded

Rhanloi magically throws his scream across the room where only Nessian is affected. He contorts his face in pain, but is not dazed and the effect isn't as dramatic as hoped.

Elael avoids the tanglefoot bag, but his knife strike misses as he has to dance out of the way.

With only one Magic Missile left in his arcane arsenal, Archibald shrugs and fires it.

Nessian Fort DC 16: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (13) + 5 = 18
Ear Piercing half damage: 1d3 ⇒ 1
Archie MM damge: 1d4 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4

End of Round 6

Pyramid of the Dog - Round 7

16 Nessian (blurred)
13 Elael
12 Cressyk
11 Jiro
7 Archibald
5 Rhanloi

Grunting with pain and frustration, Nessian looks desperately for a way out. Gathering up his strength, he bull rushes Elael trying to move him off the spot in front. But his force isn't enough to move the elf.

Nessian Bull Rush vs CMD 15: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (7) + 3 = 10

Elael gets AoO on the bad guy in addition to his normal attack, still have the 25% miss chance. You guys are go again.

Rawr!

"You're done!" Elael shouts. As Nessian begins to rush him, he gets down on his haunches and stabs low, at Nessian's belly.

Attack: 1d20 + 5 + 2 ⇒ (9) + 5 + 2 = 16
Concealment: 1d100 ⇒ 90
Damage: 1d4 + 1 + 1d8 ⇒ (1) + 1 + (2) = 4

And my actual action..

Lunging forward from his crouch, Elael goes in for another stab on the criminal leader.

Attack: 1d20 + 5 + 2 ⇒ (18) + 5 + 2 = 25
Concealment: 1d100 ⇒ 13
Damage: 1d4 + 1 + 1d8 ⇒ (2) + 1 + (6) = 9

The crowded affair leaves something to be desired. Jiro tries to wield his oversized sword grace, but finds himself stabbing air again and again. Nonetheless, he kept on pushing the argument.

Attack: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (11) + 5 = 16
Damage: 1d10 + 7 ⇒ (1) + 7 = 8
Miss Chance: 1d100 ⇒ 57

Digging deep into his magical knowledge, Rhanloi points his finger at Nessian and a ray of frost shoots at the blurred man!
Ranged touch attack: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (11) + 2 = 13
Blur effect: 1d100 ⇒ 97
Damage: 1d3 + 1 ⇒ (2) + 1 = 3

With Archibald's spell specialization, he deals an additional 1d4 with his magic missile.

Damage: 1d4 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2

Archibald, breathless from his climb up the stairs, wheezes words of encouragement from the sidelines as he attemtps a daze spell. (DC 13)

Cressyk swings his greataxe once again.

Attack (Greataxe (2H), Justice Judgement, Flanking): 1d20 + 4 + 1 + 2 ⇒ (15) + 4 + 1 + 2 = 22
Damage (Greataxe (2H)): 1d12 + 6 ⇒ (1) + 6 = 7
Miss Chance: 1d100 ⇒ 23

Pyramid of the Dog - Round 7 - concluded

As he fights off the bull rush of the trapped criminal, Elael stabs once but watches it deflect off the shield. He stabs again, a sure shot headed for the belly of the man, but the blurry outline and form cause his thrust to be in the wrong place, and it misses.

Cressyk, who is used to things dying by now, swings again with his greataxe, but the blurry shape of Nessian causes his swing to miss as well.

Jiro mutters in frustration as his sword slices nothing but air, the target nimbly leaning to avoid him.

The elderly wizard twirls his fingers and watches as the man's eyes cross and his arms freeze as the Daze confuses him.

Rhanloi's frost ray deflects off the dazed man's magically induced force field and misses.

DC 13 Will Save: 1d20 - 1 ⇒ (7) - 1 = 6

It's a little sad that the guys who roll enough to-hit, then roll low on the miss chance. Oh well, with Nessian dazed (no AC impact), you guys get to go again.

Pyramid of the Dog - Round 8

16 Nessian (blurred) (dazed)
13 Elael
12 Cressyk
11 Jiro
7 Archibald
5 Rhanloi

With their enemy dazed and unable to act, the heroes get another chance to end this fight.

Elael to start but everyone can post their actions.

Jiro dodges to the side to let the ray of frost by, but the effort takes its toll on his accuracy.

Attack: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (7) + 7 = 14
Damage: 1d10 + 7 ⇒ (4) + 7 = 11
Miss Chance: 1d100 ⇒ 89

"Die already, criminal scum!"

Attack: 1d20 + 5 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 5 + 2 = 8
Damage: 1d4 + 1 + 1d8 ⇒ (2) + 1 + (4) = 7
Concealment: 1d100 ⇒ 90

He whiffs yet again, his dagger hitting only air.

Isn't it a 20% miss chance? A 23 would've hit, no?

Cressyk's arms begin to tire as he swings his greataxe yet again. This had better not go on much longer.

Attack (Greataxe (2H), Justice Judgement, Flanking): 1d20 + 4 + 1 + 2 ⇒ (12) + 4 + 1 + 2 = 19
Damage (Greataxe (2H)): 1d12 + 6 ⇒ (10) + 6 = 16
Miss Chance: 1d100 ⇒ 89

Rhanloi, out of useful magic at this point, can only watch in sick fascination as Cressyk's greataxe nearly cleaves the blurred man in half...

Nice hit, Cressyk!!

Archibald lets out a triumphant shout as his spell takes hold, his hat nearly falling off of his head. Snatching at its wide brim and pulling it firmly over his eyes, Archibald lets another daze spell fly.

Augh! I was running him at 25% miss chance, but after looking it up, you are correct. I will allow this round to hit in exchange.

As Elael's miss distracts Nessian, the half-orc inquisitor manages to slice him with his axe. The blade goes deep into the villain crumpling him in a heap on the floor.

End of Combat

Ok, end of final fight.

Time to investigate!!

Rhanloi casts detect magic and scans the fallen war hounders, Nessian, and the tower, looking for clues and perhaps the journal.

FWIW, Archibald - you can only cast daze once per target per minute (10 rounds)

Cressyk watches as Nessian falls, then looks around to see if there are any other opponents. Finding none, he relaxes somewhat. No more of Gorum's justice will be dealt by me this day, I hope.

Seeing Jiro's wound, Cressyk walks over and lightly touches it, offering a prayer for healing.

Cure Light Wounds: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6

Then, he joins Rhanloi in helping search the bodies and the surrounding area.

Perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (11) + 8 = 19

On his person, Nessian has a masterwork flail with the word Augur scratched roughly into the handle. He also has a composite longbow (+2 STR draw), a scroll of Cure Moderate Wounds, a scroll of Delay Poison, a scroll of Arcane Lock, and a jeweled earring worth 100gp. A purse at his side contains a few odd coins, as well.

Further searching the room, you find in a desk drawer the old codebook you had been seeking. Showing it to Yargos, he quite easily finds the master abort code.

Using the colored lanterns littering the floor of the tower, you sequence the correct code and the Silent Tide invasion is aborted (for now...)

After the final code is sent, Yargos gladly gives up the codebook to the safekeeping of the Pathfinder Society. He remains friendly and offers his aide if you should ever again need it.

You also receive a cryptic note, once safely back in the Lodge house, from Grandmaster Torch. "One hand washes another. I do so hope we do business again soon!" is all it reads.

END of SCENARIO!

Here is the thread to post your characters for review and comment prior to opening the game on 10/5. Everyone should dot in and have their PC's ready to go soon.

This is the inquisitor you've been waiting for. Thanks for taking this on, DM!

Hey Cressyk, thanks for jumping in first. We should be on schedule for a 10/5 start. This is Cressyk's first PFS game, right? But it looks like you have more experience?

I'll be checking his crunch out in detail tomorrow and will PM you with questions?

Welcome aboard!

Hi friends,

Knorrin here, ready to serve!

~~

This is his first actual adventure, but I applied some GM credit from FS I: In Search of Lore, buying some better equipment and purchasing a Wand of CLWs with my 2 PP.

He a dedicated healing Cleric 1 of Sarenrae with Aasimar (Angelkin) and Kelish ancestry.

Feel free to PM me with questions!

~~ Matt

Here's Elael. This is also his first actual adventure, but I, like Knorrin, applied credit that I used to get some decent equipment.

Let me know what you think, I'm pretty sure he's all legal.

Twigs here.Archibald has just completed Part II of First Steps (regrettably I had to make a second "PFS Character" alias for him, and it ruined my nice neat list of aliases.). I still need to sort out the chronicle sheets, but my alias should be ready by the fifth.

Hi! A'letta here.

I have yet to make an alias for my character, but I'll see to it straight away since I got plenty of time today :)

Hey everyone! This is Rhanloi, and elven evoker from the frozen wastelands of the north...and that's not paint or dye across his eyes - it's the only place that ever saw sunlight, and so it's a very unusual tan line =)

Tada! A tanky front-liner with a decent diplomacy, bluff and sense motive. I'm not entirely sure yet if I want to focus so heavily on the social skills, but weapon focus katana and climb/swim are dreadfully boring alternatives :p

2 wizards, 2 clerics, a rogue and a fighter. This should be interesting...

And hail to my elven brother!

SAMURAI! With amazing diplomacy skills!

Hey Cressyk, thanks for jumping in first. We should be on schedule for a 10/5 start. This is Cressyk's first PFS game, right? But it looks like you have more experience?

Right. Cressyk is new to PFS, and I'm working furiously to get more experience for myself and my characters.

I'll be checking his crunch out in detail tomorrow and will PM you with questions?

Sounds good.

Looks like all 6 players are checked in!

I'll do a quick verify of your builds etc tonight and get back with questions etc.

Are you okay using Roll20 website for mapping? I am considering doing the maps, battles, etc there, but still doing the dialogue/posting here. The interface is better than simple Google Drive as I've been using. Give me some feedback either way.

In my mind, the faster we get these scenarios done, the faster you get XP and GP. If you want to have a quicker posting expectation, I am up for that. My suggestion is 2x per day minimum including weekends (unless excused). Thoughts on that? I know we have some timezone issues with European and Australian contingents and wonder how that affects them.

I can post 2x daily but can only get in to Roll20 from my computer at home...work computers run older versions of Windows and Explorer! And I can only view Google docs at work - not manipulate them at all. In one game I'm playing I only see one room because the Google doc is magnified and I can't zoom out =( First world problems!!

I'm east coast U.S. for time considerations...

imgur.com is a very reliable image host that is accessible on all platforms, from what I know :) I use it for my after action reports of EU4 games.

As for time-zones, I got plenty of time and am up pretty late and up real early .. so I should be 'good'.

I live in the Pacific Time Zone and can post multiple times a day.

I have been a player in one game using Roll20, where the maps and icons were there and the dialogue and rolls and such were here, as you describe, and it worked fine. (I have been using MapTools, mostly because I started it first, but have been meaning to try Roll20 sometime. A good way to allow players to move their own characters is nice, and doing it through MapTools presents some people with firewall problems, apparently.)

I'm in West Coast U.S as well, and generally check about four or five times a day, with significant time for posting in the early afternoon and at night, so 2x a day is perfectly doable for me.

I'm fine with whatever mapping tool you use, as long as I can easily access it :D

By the way, I totally want to keep doing scenarios as long as you're willing to run them, so if you ever want to run a PFS scenario and Elael isn't busy in one, feel free to ask me.

By the way, this is totally a good party :D Except for that both of our wizards are evokers (I kind of think evokers are boring XD) we have an awesome party.

We're just missing trapfinding for magical traps and non-magical ranged damage, I think. At least our party should have an easy time with incorporeal foes ;)

Right, cause I don't have trapfinding XD That's not exactly the kind of rogue I was planning to be. Not that I won't max out Disable Device. Disguise and Bluff are exciting to me conceptually.

oh so you're a sneaky, no-good liar eh? Explains a lot, really...

Almost. I'm a sneaky, Good liar.

I'm on Mountain time, and am generally on during the day on weekdays and at night on weekends. Posting multiple times a day shouldn't be an issue.

I've done a roll20/paizo mix before as well - it's not terrible, just a minor annoyance.

I guess my question would be what the issues you're having with Google are? With open permissions for moving the tokens around, it seems to have much the same functionality as roll20.

You should join the Chelish, Elael! We got cookies and succubi.

With all due respect (read: none) the Chelish are a pack of self-serving sycophants with no personal power who use real slaves and summoned slaves to do their work for them.

:D

I can just take your cookies and kill your succubi (I mean, not yet...considering I'm still CR 1/2...but that's beside the point).

Sounds like Elael should be Andoran...:-P

Hey now!! Not all Chelish are fiend-humping arcanomancers! Some of us serve the almighty Asmodeus and work hard to get where they are in life. Honest, hard work, none of this slavery business ye be talking about!

.. who am I kidding :D

That was totally what I intended. Must have misclicked. Hey, I fixed it! :D

As an old-school guy, I miss the classic dungeoneering 'thief'. Do people play that anymore - people seem least satisfied with the Rogue PF conversion - and does the traps feature come up much in PFS scenarios? I've only read or played a few PFS scenarios now, all Tier 1/Tier 1-2.

Hey Dr Evil - do you want/need me to switch up Rhanloi so we don't have 2 of the same wizards? Haven't played this character in any PFS games yet (not for a lack of trying, though!) so I have no real skin in the game (like Archi, who has done a couple scenarios...)

Let me know and I'll work up something else...
=)

Two evocation wizards are better than one evocation wizard!

As for the dungeoneering thief .. if your DM runs tons of traps, yeah, it's great, but otherwise the rogue class feels pretty lackluster to me. Sneak Attack is great on paper, but poor in practice. All the other classes got damage that scales nicely: power attack and deadly aim are linked to BAB, challenge and smite and favored enemy are tied to levels and the spellcasters scale with caster levels. The rogue gets sneak, but the higher the rogue gets, the more reason he has not to be in combat. AC ain't great, HP ain't great, to hit ain't great and to be able to do damage, you need to be AWAY from your teammates.

Add in the fact that skills got condensed so you don't NEED 8+ skills, the fact other classes can do what you do while bringing more utility to the table and yeah, that's the reason why I'd say. Not that I care much about powergaming, but I truly feel like a weak character when I play a rogue. Not that that stops me from playing one ;)

I play on saturday IRL and I'm playing a ranger3/rogue3/horizon walker and the full rogue in the party just cries when he compares what he can do to what I can do :x and my apology for the lecture, haha.

ninja edit - I also think rogue talents are pretty lackluster, but if you know what you're doing, you can make it work :)

Rhanloi - I want you to play what you like. We can make it work with 2 wizards, as long as they aren't counterspelling each other...

This is PFS, so your character will only be with the group and this GM for a little while before joining other games....(a single tear runs down my cheek, and plop onto the desk). So play what you like, damnit!

Rogue may feel a weak character but once all those BBEG's are killed in combat, no one can get the loot in that DC 30 Locked chest without one. Rogue's just aren't combat characters, more like bards in a support role IMHO.

We can make it work with 2 wizards, as long as they aren't counterspelling each other...

This is such a deliciously evil idea that I can make no promises. :P

Re: the maps, I've been really digging the Google Drive setup and been meaning to learn the ropes to use it elsewhere. At the end of the day it's your call, as you're the one doing the legwork, but I'd cast my vote for the Google Drive.

Ouch! But I can see a wonderfully dysfunctional relationship between us:

"I'm your elder and you should listen to me, you young whippersnapper."

"Bite me old man - come near me and I'll turn you into a newt!"

"What?!? I was tossing fireballs around before you were born! You should respect your betters!!"

"Yea, whatever...toss this!"

Yeah, the reason that dungeoneering rogues aren't very popular any more is because most paizo published adventures don't include very many actual...dungeons. Not that Elael is terrible in a dungeon...he'll certainly be weak and all for awhile, as a rogue, but I'm fine with that.

I do know what I'm doing, and I think I can make it work :) and Elael is certainly going to multiclass. I haven't nailed down what yet, though.

If it helps, I just recently made a knife master/scout that I think might have some merit. Scout adds more ways to catch enemies flat-footed, which means more sneak attack damage. Something to look at, anyway.

eh, too late to do much build-checking tonight, but tomorrow looks a little more promising.

I think we'll stand pat on Google drive for maps (hopefully Rhanloi can find a way to view) and we'll ask folks for 2 posts per day for now, and see if we can keep the pace up.

I'm really not sure about my Skill Focus Diplomacy pick. On the one hand, Iron Will OR Weapon Focus Katana are nice, but on the other, with my Resolve and Order powers and good wisdom I should be fine in that field until 5/7+. And I can always pick weapon focus at 3, followed by weapon expertise at 5.

Decisions, decisions! I just don't know how useful diplomacy is in PFS.

ninja edit - I use the nodachi right now since it does 1d10 with brace over the katana's 1d8 with deadly, but the samurai weapon expertise doesn't let you use the nodachi .. hence me thinking - why not pick up the katana thing at 3 when I get free quickdraw with it? I could also use the naginata, but that thing has 10f reach.

I see you, you little munchkin, Jiro...

If I wanted to munchkin I'd play my patented barbarian 1 / wizard 1 with improvised weaponry and a large iron-bound spellbook! Rage, enlarge, SMASH! Oh, and also has a gore attack, because, why not.

discussion thread is now open, gameplay will open later today. I just got word that Knorrin will be unable to join us to to unforeseen family crisis. We still have legal table, but I can search for one more player on short notice if you like --any preference for class based on group dynamic?

Sword Saint

The samurai loses his mount, banner and mounted archer abilities in return fro this.

I like having a healer in the group...

You are right. An inquisitor of Gorum won't keep up with healing, unless equiped with a CLW wand. Even then, when faced with conditions and afflictions, we'll be screwed :)

Either a cleric, druid, or oracle, please :D Elael will do his best to not get hurt, but there's only so much a guy can do, right?

I asked another player to join in Zoog's spot. They will bring a healer to the table so Elael can resume insanity. I expect to post the setting post after midnight tonight (US Central time) so be watching for it.

Gametime is not far away. Please muster in the discussion tab when you can. There are a few important things happening over there.

Aziza, if you make it here, please LMK ASAP.

Welcome aboard!

She looks good to go to me. Welcome to the game. I'll get you an initiative count in the first round.