High is a hit when rolling against miss chance.
You're welcome, Mel! The character deserves it.
I'm insisting on unification of the dice because I found it suspicious that my player in another game rolled d2's and got all hits when I had immediately before said "roll d100's." I know he was frustrated about some recent misses due to miss chance and I can't help but suspecting he rolled d100's, didn't like what he saw, and tried d2's before hitting "submit." I didn't want to accuse him of anything (and I'm certainly not accusing you of cheating to miss!!! XD) but I just wanted to make my expectations abundantly clear for him going forward. Now that I've learned this should be done, I'm implementing this kind of controlled miss chance roll in all my games. I'm not worried about you guys. It's just that I've just now learned this is definitely the way to do it.
Oops. I posted a gameplay post here in discussion. I've moved its contents to gameplay now. I hope that doesn't mess up the d20 rolls -- they were a 1 and 2, for the record.
Interesting situation. This led me to learn that unconscious creatures automatically count as willing targets of a spell. Crazy.
And severely out of step with the times!
You're saying gunpowder is severely out of step with the times?
73/74 HP, with 14 temporary HP.
Managed to make the DC19 to cast Kazador’s third dimension door!
That was *very* close.
Sigh. Typed out a long post, but this touchscreen is slow. Invalid now, but here it was:
Muse held on to Legacy as long as he could, but felt the Champion slip away from him. Fortunately, teleporting dwarves teleport. Unfortunately, Kazador didn’t elect to bring Brolin along. Minding the Rune Warden’s advice, Captain Muse retreats to the wheel and takes the total defense action. Waiting for the dwarf’s return, a parting shot seems to be in order.
“Those big colorful sails you see on yonder Sonder, I want you to think of them as a warning. Like on a colored frog or insect, bright colors denote danger. I want you to go and tell all your pirate buddies what happened here today, and I want Van Beem’s whole armada to know; this is what happens when my boat is attacked. Don’t let it happen again.”
Protection from arrows works against non magical shrapnel, right?
GM: No, I mean considering an unconscious creature "willing" is out of step with the times. :-Þ
And! You may recall I concealed Mel's seventh level feat and choice of Refined Education skill for an appropriately dramatic reveal? Well, I think this counts!
She took the feat Healer's Hands from Planar Adventures. The full mechanics are complicated because of how they interact with Mel's archetype, but the gist of it is that she can use the Treat Deadly Wounds application of the Heal skill as a full-round action and restore a great big chunk of hit points and ability damage. Currently 35 hit points and 4 ability score damage, or 42 hp + 4 ability score damage if she hits DC 30. She can do so seven times per day.
This will continue to get better with level, both in times/day usage and the amount of hit points and ability score damage healed. For that matter, because of the Healer's Satchel specialization, Mel can heal ability score drain. Though it's a lot slower.
Treat Deadly Wounds: When treating deadly wounds, you can restore hit points to a damaged creature. Treating deadly wounds restores 1 hit point per level of the creature. If you exceed the DC by 5 or more, add your Wisdom modifier (if positive) to this amount. A creature can only benefit from its deadly wounds being treated within 24 hours of being injured and never more than once per day. You must expend two uses from a healer's kit to perform this task. You take a –2 penalty on your Heal skill check for each use from the healer's kit that you lack.
The feat Healer's Hands from Planar adventures modifies this. It says:
Benefit: You can use the Heal skill to treat deadly wounds as a full-round action. You do not take a penalty for not using a healer’s kit when treating deadly wounds this way, and you can do so on a given creature more than once per day. When treating deadly wounds this way, if your result exceeds the DC by 10 or more, add your ranks in Knowledge (planes) to the damage healed. These benefits do not apply to creatures that are not healed by positive energy. You can use this feat’s benefit a number of times per day equal to your ranks in Knowledge (planes).
So basically, it lets her do it a bunch more times per day (7, currently, because she has 7 ranks in in Knowledge [Planes]), much faster (as a full-round action instead of an hour), and if she hits DC 30 she can add her Kn (Planes) ranks (not score, ranks) to the amount healed.
Using a healer's kit when making a heal skill check gives you a +2 circumstance bonus. I figure in order to get that, she'd still need to expend at least one use from the healer's kit. The feat specifies that she takes no penalty for NOT having a kit, but to get the bonus she has to expend a use. Hence the Healer's Satchel she got, which is basically a bottomless supply of healer's kit charges (10/day).
Now things get really interesting, because Mel is an Unchained Rogue with the Phantom Thief archetype. Phantom Thief sacrifices quite a lot -- no sneak attack, ouch! -- but in exchange, she gets the "Refined Education" class feature.
Refined Education gives her a bonus on each skill equal to 1/2 her rogue level, rounded down (currently +3). It also lets you add the same amount to your effective skill ranks for purposes of qualifying for skill unlocks. The upshot of which is that with 7 ranks in Heal, I qualify for both the level 5 and level 10 skill unlocks. Those are as follows:
5 Ranks: When you treat deadly wounds, the target recovers hit points and ability damage as if it had rested for a full day.
10 Ranks: When you treat deadly wounds, the target recovers hit points as if it had rested for a full day with long-term care.
15 Ranks: When you treat deadly wounds, the creature recovers hit point and ability damage as if it had rested for 3 days.
20 Ranks: When you treat deadly wounds, the target recovers hit point and ability damage as if it had rested for 3 days with long-term care.
It's not the clearest phrasing on the planet. Here's how I think it works. First, some definitions:
Treat Deadly Wounds (TDW): restores 1 hp/level, potentially includes your WIS modifier if you hit DC 25, but Mel's WIS mod is +0, so that doesn't matter in this instance.
Natural Healing (NH): restores 1 hp/level, plus 1 ability score damage. Usually requires one full night's sleep.
Long-Term Care (LTC): restores 2 hp/level, plus 2 ability score damage, for 8 hours of rest. But if you spend a full day (i.e. 24 hours), it instead restores 4 hp/level plus 4 ability score damage.
I believe that the skill unlock abilities *add on* to the basic use of TDW, but *replace* one another. That is, once you get the level 10 unlock, it replaces the level 5 unlock because it's better.
So, at level 1-4, all you get is basic TDW: 1 hp/level of the target.
At level 5-9, you get TDW + NH: 2 hp/level of the target, plus 1 point of ability damage.
At level 10-14, you get TDW + LTC, and it specifies the full day's rest version of LTC, so you get: 5 hp/level, plus 4 ability score damage.
I include all 4 unlocks here because you may note that the level 10 unlock does NOT include the phrase "and ability damage" that appears at levels 5, 15, and 20. I believe that's a typo, and it should be included, because it makes no sense to give it to you at level 5 and then take it away at level 10.
To sum up, with both Healer's Hands and the level 10 Heal skill unlock, I believe that Mel can heal 5*level hp plus 4 ability score damage, seven times a day as a full-round action. She has to pass a DC 20 check to do it (fairly easy, she has a +15 now). In a party of level 7 PCs, that would mean 35 hp restored. If she hits DC 30, she gets to add 7 hp on top of that, for a total of 42.
If she fails the DC 20 check, she's wasted a full-round action, nobody gets any healing, and it counts towards her uses-per-day for the feat.
The whole thing is dreadfully complicated, but it works. I wish they had just listed the dang numbers directly in the skill unlock instead of referring back to other bits of rules elsewhere.
I originally took this because Mel wouldn't accept healing from Perrin, and needed to -- you know, not die. But it's still useful now.
Now, with all that out of the way -- Kazador, as much as I appreciate an opportunity to show off my new trick, maybe next time we could try talking them down? We wanted the ship and the captain. We could have offered to maroon the common crew on some little island someplace in exchange for not blowing us to kingdom come.
Brolin, you have time to say that to the pirates before everything goes BOOM. But there's only one pirate left alive besides van Beem now...
Yeah that's a reasonable use of protection from arrows. But it won't help with the fire. Half the damage is from shrapnel so protection from arrows will apply to that portion.
And yes agreed that that definition of "willing" is extremely odd and in fact wildly problematic in a cultural context.
Nice reveal, Mel! So you and Kazador are healing right now? Let's see how good that pirate is at swimming.
GM, here's a roll.
For Iron Caster and time between spells, it turns out no!
Martial Flexibility: “brawler can take a move action to gain the benefit of a combat feat she doesn’t possess. This effect lasts for 1 minute. The brawler must meet all the feat’s prerequisites. She may use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + 1/2 her brawler level (minimum 1).
The brawler can use this ability again before the duration expires in order to replace the previous combat feat with another choice.”
So Kazador uses martial flexibility for the Feat Advanced Weapon Training and chooses Item Mastery Teleportation. With Fort 15 he gets 3x uses of Dimension Door And has 1 minute to cast.
Let’s say he casts two times. He has 1 use left. “The brawler can use this ability again before the duration expires in order to replace the previous combat feat with another choice.”
So he replaces it with Curative Mastery. He loses his last casting of dimension door and can now heal
Okay then. I'm glad you understand your build, because it's sure got a lot of moving parts!
Right so it takes 1 minute for you to change spells, yes?
Also for talking it out...while maybe we could have gotten the ship, Kazador had one comrade dying, and didn’t see a way to keep the enemy captain. He hoped that by teleporting away we would take away their trump card. Didn’t think they’d blow themselves up...
Nope I was wrong about that.
“The brawler can use this ability again before the duration expires in order to replace the previous combat feat with another choice.”
So he uses the ability for X castings of a spell and he has 1 minute until X castings expire
He can end it before the duration expires, losing the remaining castings and replacing it with a new one.
Yeah, that's what I got from Kazador's teleportation too; hence why I wrote a triumphant monologue and not a oh crap everyone's about to die monologue. I didn't expect them to explode themselves, and I figured we'd won.
Also for talking it out...while maybe we could have gotten the ship, Kazador had one comrade dying, and didn’t see a way to keep the enemy captain. He hoped that by teleporting away we would take away their trump card. Didn’t think they’d blow themselves up...
Well, they said they would. And they did.
I think Mel is going to be very unhappy with Kazador once things settle down a bit. And I'd just like to specify up front that that's in character, not out of character.
Well it was definitely dramatic, id a bit more fanatic than you'd expect most pirates to be...
BTW Frytor doesn't know yet what Brolin sacrificed on his behalf, but I do, thank you :)
Heads up. Need to catch a flight tomorrow. Going to be super busy from the 15th-25th. Will still be posting as much as I can though.
And yeah, fair to be angry IC. I know that none of it is OOC :)
Ok good to know, Kazador.
Thanks for clarifying, Mel. It'll be interesting IC. I intended to give you a tough situation and see how you dealt with it. I did see.
Fanatacism: Well it wasn't intended to be suicidal by the pirate who threw the torch. He made it into the water. But he didn't make it to shore like he thought he would... Nobody told them you just wanted Van Beem so he thought that was his best chance to escape a certain trip to the gallows.
There's plenty for you guys to do here before we move onto the next major phase of our adventure at Kazad Gravr. Below is a rough (and far from exhaustive) list. You don't have to do all of this but I figured I might provide a little organization:
1. Try to talk to Fyrtor's dad again.
2. Repair damage to the Sonder.
3. Salvage what loot/evidence you can.
4. Interrogate van Beem.
5. Find a way to get the marines and van Beem to Helm.
6. Debrief as a team.
Has the Serpant sunk yet? If we wait a day I can cast a couple of different spells that would allow us to search the remains of the ship. If it hasn't sunk yet is there any way we could get it to shore?
It's sinking pretty rapidly right now what with the fire and the massive damage to the hull. Each powder keg is a 5d6 explosion and wood doesn't deal with fire too well..
It's sinking pretty rapidly right now what with the fire and the massive damage to the hull. Each powder keg is a 5d6 explosion and wood doesn't deal with fire too well..
Were all of my spells needed for healing? Could I say I have saved my sleetstorm and use that to put out the tires on the serpent? Could the crew row the hulk to shore? Of we could save the ship that would solve a lot of problems and is something we'd be looking to do.
I can cast water breathing and swim down there to grab anything I can lift - and with shrink object that's pretty near everything.
On the subject of making sure the Sonder turns a profit from this, how much are we being paid for the capture of van Beem? I imagine it'll mostly go towards paying the crew, repairing the boat, and Brickenden's family.
If there's no way to keep the Serpent from sinking, are any of our friendly druids high enough level to cast control water? And can any of them scribe scrolls? Muse can't cast make whole because of the time limit to his Spirit Dance, but if someone knows how to scribe scrolls I can help them make a scroll of the spell, and then cast it. We may be able to salvage the Serpent yet.
Given that I'm pretty sure Mel can heal everybody up to full given enough time, it's safe to say you still have your spells if you like. But the Serpent is burning from the inside so a sleet storm wouldn't cut it, though it would extinguish the exterior fires fairly well. That ship is in a bad, bad way. Do you want to try going inside to cast sleetstorm inside the hull somehow?
Regarding control water, you could go and ask them.
Yeah, I'll risk going into a burning sinking ship on a fool's errand to save it, after all we ARE heros right? Lol I don't know how deep into the ship we would need to go though, it's a pretty large area of effect and it can be cast from a long ways away. Also I have create water on hand for putting out easy to reach fires.
Moved the post here, since it's all out of character.
Moved the post here, since it's all out of character.
Well, we'll just have to wait and see what the GM in his infinite beneficence decides.
So, after we find out what Mel finds dealing with the dead, how are we to decide the spoils? The captain's gear seemed pretty nice...
Detect magic+spellcraft would be in order as would be appraise. Anyone who's investigating gear can just throw out a couple rolls and I'll roll more if I need them or just use the first n that I need.
Well, I can cast detect magic and would do so, but I have no ranks in spellcraft (I should fix that).
On another topic, What time is it now? I know it was about an hour before dark when we began the assalt, but it's got to be pretty late by now.
I would like to talk with Brolin more, but I don't think now is really the right time. Frytor would probably join the druids for the night unless invited/asked to stay with the party. Does anyone want to extend an invitation? Frytor still isn't really a part of the party, and if he's going to be he will need to be trusted enough to convince him to stay.
The fight itself was only a minute or so but the aftermath has taken over an hour so it's definitely dark now.
Kazador, I'm trying to get better at understanding your iron caster build, which is awesome and great fun. Something that we've been doing that is, I believe, RAW but not RAI is that since you are picking up non-combat feats (item mastery feats), you can re-select them to get around the uses per day restriction. I think it's more RAI to stick with the "selecting again doesn't grant extra uses per day" that's written into the brawler ability. Plus I don't think it will really be a problem for you since you use multiple different spells anyway.
I’m still getting a hang of it too. My first time doing it! I think that sounds both reasonable and fair. Will be happy to stick to it.
Also will try to get an IC post in tonight
Where are we, at the moment? Ashore? On the ship? Split up between those two locations?
Mel was obviously ashore 'cause you can't dig a grave on a ship. Ditto for Kelian.
Traveling today, so my posts my be somewhat shorter/slower. In Denver for the holidays, then I'll return to my usual haunts on the 29th.
Thanks for the heads up, both of you! Yes split between ship and shore.
So it's just about time to move on from this cove but we need to decide, and some of this should be done in character (as Kelian and Blackskull will have different opinions, for example) how to move on. Do we head to Kazad Gravr next or back to Helm? Sailing back to Helm first will probably cost about 2 weeks. Who know what will happen in that time? But also Errde Blackskull won't be happy about taking her sensitive prisoner into hostile territory. And the Sonder, though sea-worthy, could use some REAL repairs.
Also, Frytor needs to be brought in on the whole secret if he's going to do more than thank the party and head back home.
Either way we go I expect I will be spending a great deal of this downtime making concoctions. To that end I'd like a little time for Frytor to gather a bunch of herbs and such and to have a chat with the druids and confirm the message delivered via bird.
I'm thinking, that we should probably avoid making decisions on the scale of whether to head towards Kazad Gravr or back to helm until Kazador can weigh in - he said he'd be super busy until the twenty-fifth, which we're halfway to.
Agreed. We've just had a lot of stuff happen very quickly -- it's only natural that things would slow down a tad considering the holiday season is upon us.
Sounds good. If it's cool with everyone else let's try to get the conversation to a point where we are going to be waiting for a while, probably repairing the Sonder. Then we can do some of the things that don't require Kazador until he's ready to be more active again.
You don't have to do all of this but I figured I might provide a little organization:
1. Try to talk to Fyrtor's dad again.
2. Repair damage to the Sonder.
3. Salvage what loot/evidence you can.
4. Interrogate van Beem.
5. Find a way to get the marines and van Beem to Helm.
6. Debrief as a team.
I think we can at least do 1, 2, and maybe some more of 3, maybe do 4 (Kazador might want to be a part of that, I'm not sure). In addition, Frytor is still pretty new to most of the people, I still haven't talked to Kelian or Algric at all. Also if we're going to be taking time on repairs there may be some other things we can do as well that would be helpful, like training some animals. Just some thoughts. I'm sure you guys can think of some things to do as well.
That all being said as Mel pointed out a slow down isn't unexpected. I'll be fairly available though if there's anyone who wants to role play getting to know each other better, or some other fun downtime type stuff.
Edit: Quick question GM, how long in game time will the repairs to the Wonder require?
Yeah it's a bit of a holiday slowdown for me as well.
Fyrtor: Depends on how much you want to do. 1 day to get rhe Sonder comfortably sea-worthy and limping along. Probably two months if you want to get her close to full operating capacity as you'd have to cut down a new mast for one thing.
Perhaps we could salvage some bits from the Serpent. Did any of its masts survive in a usable state?
On an unrelated note, is the name "Fyrtor" or "Frytor"? Because the alias says "Fyrtor", but baggageboy has been writing it "Frytor" pretty consistently in his posts.
LOL, I had originally intended it to be Fyrtor, but I've been spelling it so long as Frytor I'm not sure which it should be. Which do you like better?