Defense of Brookside

Game Master caster4life

Yes it's just the air inside that's limited. I'll assume you guys stuff unconscious people in there and bloop. As Mel says, we're not doing ourselves any favors by dragging out this decision.

As previously suggested ...

I'd just like to add that I didn't overlook your response, Túrion -- when I wrote mine, I hadn't seen your initial post suggesting putting all three of them in the bag of holding. It wasn't there yet. But when I posted my response, I got a 504 Bad Gateway error, and then my post magically appeared hours after it was written. In the meantime, you had posted.

So, thanks to Paizo's crummy web infrastructure, you effectively ninja'd me even though hours went past between your post and mine.

Paizo's technical problems are the main reasons I'm moving more and more of my PBP to Discord. But don't worry, Kazador. I won't move this one as I know you absolutely hate Discord for PBP. XD

And thank you for that.

I am ok with discord. But all of these applications are "invasive" - they give me notifications, they demand my attention.
The boards are "passive", they wait patiently until I have time to tend to them, then tell me what's new.

Yeah, I'm old school about it. I do understand the merits of the different medium, but if given the choice, I'd prefer the boards, too.
(That said, it seems more and more games are moving away from traditional pbp here :( so I suppose I'll have to adapt, over time.)

Yeah I try to do somewhat more traditional PBP while on Discord but I'm still getting the hang of keeping the rapid people from running away with the game. Personally, I don't get any Discord notifications sent to me as that would make me insane.

I like the series of longer posts here. I suppose that could be replicated by Discord, but I think many small rapid posts fits that medium better.

In truth, my preference would be a wiki. Being able to say things like
"Milord [[Turick]], how goeth it?" and having Turick be a link (with backlinks) might make things MUCH easier to track. There is no wiki that meets the criteria, alas, so I would be forced to do so myself.
Hmmm. GitHub Markdown?
PBP on GitHub doesn't sound right.

I also really, really like the portrait pics in the top right of the post. I'm a visual thinker, I guess.

Edit: Paizo's 'sometimes it takes a while for a post to show up' drives me crazy. I always worry I have lost the post (which also happens)
I guess we could do links in Paizo, but if someone has to keep looking up the url to make a post it sort of ruins the point.

I am spoiled by our GM's benevolence. :)

Okay, so our next target is Baron Cust. Here's what we know about him already:

• He's an arms dealer.
  
• His family profited greatly during the River War and gained a patent of nobility at that time for services rendered to the crown.
  
• He has been raking in the money lately.
  
• He's been working with the Reaps, probably due to blackmail of some kind.
  
• He likes well-trained hunting dogs.
  

At one point there was talk of Túrion getting a job as a kennel master for him, after the haring. But that never went anywhere.

What we don't know about him:

• Where he lives.
  
• Where his business is located.
  
• What kind of guards he has.
  
• Exactly what the Reaps have on him.
  

Aye, it never was the right time to go forward with the kennel master thing, but it may give me a 'in' on getting on the grounds mundanely.

What I would be interest in is Turicks take on what we should do next.
I mean, Cust is a high-profile target. I would understand if they don't want some outsiders doing THAT, and rather have the Royal Guards move in with us on standby or, more likely, securing more evidence in a less public action.

I mean, no objections against going for Cust, just saying I'd like our contact person in the government to actually greenlight that, or align actions with us.

Maybe they suspect treason in the ranks and so the guard can't be brought to bear against him, or some other reason.

On a totally unrelated not, I just spent some time perusing the Pathfinder 2e skill rules again, and checking out some of the stuff Paizo has released since it first came out (mainly the Skill Points subsystem from the 2e GMG).

Aaaand ... I still don't like it. It disincentivizes specialization. The if you've got a skill increase to spend you could get +2 in an existing skill, or you could go from rolling a basic ability check in a skill to rolling at level+ability+2. The numerical benefits of going from "untrained" to "trained" are much better than going from Trained to Expert.

Paradoxically, there's no way to be just a little trained in something. Either you're Untrained and rolling a raw ability check, or else you're Trained and get level+ability mod+2.

For example, Mel has two ranks in Profession (Sailor) because it came up a couple times in play. If she were to reach level 20 without adding any more ranks, she'd still be no more than basically competent. On a nat 20 she'd post a check of 28.

But you can't do the same thing in 2e. Once you're trained in a skill, it gets better at every level and there's just nothing to do about that. A level 20 2e Mel trained as a sailor would have +23 an her check and be hitting DCs of 30 (Master level) on a 7+. On a good day with a 17+ she could hit DC 40 checks (Legendary level). And that's if she never took another increase in Sailing and canonically hadn't touched a boat in years.

Sadly, it doesn't look to me like the optional Skill Points subsystem helped. It's just inherently a less granular system for reflecting your character's abilities.

Thank you for so elaborately summing up one of my grievances with 2nd edition. I love skill points. I love systems that give me more skill points. But I want it to reflect who the character is.
(I think I mentioned it before - even before background skills was a thing, I allowed all my players to designate one "hobby" skill that was a personal interest to the character and automatically had their character level as ranks, as well as a "interest" skill that automatically had half the character levels ranks in it - both also became class skills...while on first glance that would emulate such a system, the practical effect was that the characters really interacted with their "hobby" skills as it was part of their identity, leading to more interesting builds, AND possibly freeing up skill points that they would otherwise have invested anyway for some basic competence. But as said, that was 2 skills, one full, one half, and the effect was more skill points to round out other aspects - in 2nd edition it's this all or nothing thing. Yes, a Level 15 Character is supposed to be better in most things than a Level 3 - but not if that level 3 spent all his life on sea and the level 15 once made a single boat journey and had to learn some basics to help pay for passage.
*sigh*

The other, from personal play experience, for me, was the diminished spellcasting in favor of scaling cantrips. Maybe in higher levels it would not have mattered much, but in early and mid-levels, I felt that I either could have no utility, or only resort to the same 3 cantrips over and over during combat.

Lastly, many Feat choices seemed very limited. I think Pathfinder overall did a decent job avoiding the power creep that plagued 3 and 3.5 - maybe a bit too much even (No Vital Strike on Spring Attack? Sad....)
But second edition I sometimes found myself just picking something that felt like it was a thematic fit even if I would never make use of it, because there were too few meaningful choices available.

Turick winces at the total and nods. "I understand that skilled and secretive force comes with a large price tag."

Oh, come on, 800 gold is nothing - his outfit is probably worth half that - and it's not like he's paying us in the first place. :)

That said, IS madame trying to rip us off? That's quite a lot of material, and several trained hireling plus a specialist(even above minimum pay) for quite a while.

I am spoiled by our GM's benevolence. :)

Indeed! I was looking through the intrigue notes just now!

If we can get some addresses for Cust, then someone could do a flyover. That'd give rough layout.
I think the servant route might be risky a second time, unless we do it very fast indeed.
Once the investigation commences there are some spells we can use that might trawl for information.

Quote:

Turick winces at the total and nods. "I understand that skilled and secretive force comes with a large price tag."

Oh, come on, 800 gold is nothing - his outfit is probably worth half that - and it's not like he's paying us in the first place. :)

Obviously can't say that IC but still - the cost of a minor renovation should not put a dent into his expenses budget :P

That said, IS madame trying to rip us off? That's quite a lot of material, and several trained hireling plus a specialist(even above minimum pay) for quite a while.

Hmm. A single well furnished common room and bedroom costs 1200gp according to the SRD. On the other hand we're repairing, not building. On the other hand she probably wants it done on the quiet and may well need to bribe some of her employees.

I can also see that it might not be the money so much as the 'off the books' money. We're making him risk a link to us.

---
Part of me wants to dig up that architect and have a chat... I reckon there's something weird about the house.

Ooh. Digging up the architect for a Speak with Dead session sounds gruesome, but effective and comparatively low risk. Unless he was cremated, of course, in which case it just wouldn't work.

Do we actually have access to Speak with Dead? It's generally a divine spell, and we don't have that many divine casters. Mel's one level of Warpriest is not enough to cast it, but she could use a scroll with a couple of checks.

A flyover also sounds like a good idea, especially if said person flying over is invisible.

What other divinatory magics have we got? Mel's got Ears of the City, which is great but can only pick up things people have talked about in comparatively public areas. Have we got Clairvoyance? Scrying? Divination? A divination of something like "How can we best uncover Baron Cust's traitorous secrets" would likely be helpful.

Lastly, I agree that impersonating servants is not the way to go this time. It's too soon after Harcourt.

Yep. Hal can cast pretty much any spell 2/day. Costs, but possible.
And he's a specialised Diviner!

Does sort of need an intact enough corpse though.
And to be used responsibly...

Happy to set up for a Divination if needed. Would make me feel Hal is more useful, given he's not really held up well in combat.

I think you should propose one of both of those in character.

Aye. I can do the invisible Flyover and the Clairvoyance.

But the Speak with dead would be awesome, if the grave can be found.

On an aside: Would the testimony of a dead person be valid in court? If, say, he claims he was murdered by someone(or on someones orders)?

Possible actions:
* Turion to do invisible (magic aura'd) flyover
* Hal proposes divination
* Hal proposes graverobbing
* Look for dead workers in records
* Hunt down widow

Not proposing grave-robbing to the Viscount ;P
Consider it raised once we are in private though, and I very nearly put a Pass Secret Message roll into the post before deciding the hints were for my own amusement.

An aside to the aside: if accepted, would it negate punishment for the necromancers responsible?

Still, might give us the clue to find evidence even if not directly admissable.

Also, Hal can totally forge a note in the man's hand if we need to, and our sense of justice allows it. Personally I reckon he'll have a secret in his lair that'll see him hanged.

If we can find his actual notes it might also give us enough to scry, and possibly even teleport in (though my lord Viscount has warned us that nobles often have security against such)

Well, forging is easy :) Túrion can help out with that, too. But I think we want facts.

It is totally possible he died a natural death with unfortunate timing, but I highly doubt that, given our suspicions.

That said, the workers are a good hint, too. Not only the architect was working on it - if we can track someone who was actually building, they may also remember something that stood out about the layout(such as a sealed secret underground chamber or the like).

That said, Speak with Dead IS necromancy, but not 'evil' - I think there is a good number of perfectly valid uses for that. Even to just help people find peace regarding things that were said - or remained unsaid - while the person was still alive.

I would imagine by itself it should be socially acceptable.
The graverobbing part is what may be a bit controversial...

Noble's outfits are listed as 75 gp. Turick is higher ranking than other nobles but still. 800 gp is a lot! Even for the wealthy, the bill racked up by special ops teams can be shocking.

As to the Madame's bill for you, you could have tried to figure out more about that at the time but you had bigger fish to fry. Let's just say you wouldn't be surprised if she slapped on some I'm-annoyed-that-you-tore-up-my-establishment surcharges.

To be fair:

These clothes are designed specifically to be expensive and gaudy. Precious metals and gems are worked into the clothing. A would-be noble also needs a signet ring and jewelry (worth at least 100 gp) to accessorize this outfit.

So 175 GP is the minimum for his clothing :)

That said, I totally don't begrudge her if we are supposed to overpay a bit. Not just for annoyance, also for letting us use the place and getting involved. She took a risk for us...even if the public would have been alerted in some form it could have been bad for her.
So yeah, all good.
And as said, I still intend to "buy" Isabella free from there, and get her to our Count for some more proper career - I suspect I will need some more funds both for paying out the Madame and paying for her education/food/board at the Count. So yeah, I know it's not peanuts but I'm a bit short on actual cash right now :)

Maybe we should have kept a couple jewels or so from the stolen stuff as finders reward... :)

Clairvoyance sounds like a good idea to me. And dimension door to get inside to grab or investigate if we find a good lead. What could go wrong?

In regards to dimension door, a lot, if the wards are active. I'd expect it's some sort of teleport trap, and we'd likely end up in some reinforced jail cell or something.
Other than that, I agree :D

Hey guys, I'm sorry I've been completely swamped as of late, and I don't see things changing in the near future. I've loved playing with you all, it's been a blast, but I think it's probably best you everyone if I withdraw. I can't stress enough how much fun this game has been and how much I've enjoyed playing and learning from you all. Thank you, it has been a pleasure.

Oh wow - sorry to hear that Frytor. I was looking forward to more interaction with 'his holiness'!

@Brookside GM: is it okay to put a spoilered conversation in for when we are no longer around Turick? I just can't see Hal bringing up things like necromancy.

I'm also keen not to split up again - too much chance one scene will take much longer than the others.

Goodbye Fyrtor! It was fun playing with you.

Hal: Yes spoilering like that is quite appropriate. And I'm not a fan of party splits for the same and additional reasons.

Goodbye Fyrtor! It was fun playing with you.

Hal: Yes spoilering like that is quite appropriate. And I'm not a fan of party splits for the same and additional reasons.

I am sorry to see you go, Fyrtor, but I believe you will have your reasons for the decision. Best of luck in the future, maybe we'll cross paths again in a game.

Aww, I'm sorry to see you go, Fyrtor. I hope your life settles down soon, and affords you plenty of time for future adventures.

Really sorry to see you go. Wish you the best

Aye, pity the mage guild doesn't keep records for tax purposes or something, but it makes sense. It could have been a second person involved back then, but maybe we won't even need that. If the Widow is even remotely cooperative - or the architect in case we dig him up, for that matter - then we may have all the information we need to proceed right there.

To be clear, we could, technically, probably simply charm her and compel her to cooperate, tell us everything she knows and the resting place of her husband, then leave.
Swift and efficient, but it would feel like violating her in a mental way - even if Hal could fix her up so she won't remember anything, it would still feel wrong. Just putting the option out there, regardless, in case plan A fails.

Also, just because I tried to check if Nelly ever did manage to give back her Hero Point to Mel, I had been scratching my head over something else...with Fyrtor leaving, can we assume he did not simply vanish? That is, does Nelly still have a supply of "Reduce Animal" readily available for now? Or will we need to wrap this up fast or run around with a large Nelly henceforth...?

(Not even asking about the great convenience stuff like Magic Fang etc...but being able to pass as a dog is decently convenient in a city...)

She can have a store of reduce animal, for now. Fyrtor is going to stay at the residence and support you guys.

Could I maybe get some druidic herbalism potions from Fyrtor? I've used up a few of those in the past -- Sky Swim while burgling the Davis residence, and Barkskin during the raid on the Reaps. I'd like two of each of those if possible, but that might be greedy.

Those are the ones listed on his profile

I think we will manage :)

Yes, but I've used up several of those since then. Unless the idea is that he's regularly refreshing those? If so that's fine.

I think his idea was that he can have that many concoctions active and would refresh them if given a chance.
I know there was some alteration, I think I only had one Greater Magic Fang and 2 Reduce Animals there, but yeah, as I understood whenever there was some downtime he would replenish them.
Or we decided to keep the fangs and he was doing reduce animal on demand. Not sure, tbh, it's been a while.

I'm just glad if for now I won't have to find a new cover for Nelly - I was already leaving her back home for a lot of this arc, even after she saved me(again) in that alley.

Fyrtor can be an NPC who makes herbalism potions for the party. That will keep him sort of involved in the game. You guys can manage him together or have one person take charge of his resources.

Gotcha.

It would be super embarrassing if we suffered a teleport mishap and didn't wind up back at Turick's place.

Gotcha.

It would be super embarrassing if we suffered a teleport mishap and didn't wind up back at Turick's place.

Luckily not. Imagine if we accidentally landed in Custs backyard because it looks similar and she realizes where she is?

I deemed it needed an 88 or lower to have the teleport work exactly as intended. I rolled an 88! Randomish number generation is fun!

Hal?
You wanna introduce the dear Captain to "Claim Identity" via Spell Study?
Those guys need to step up their game if they play touchy-feely.
Witnessing that spell would probably give him nightmares on end and make him doubt if his own family is who they claim to be.

Re Claim Identity: I think that proving to the suspicious guard captain that one of us could perfectly imitate him at any time would not be productive.

In other news ... oh, dear. This is likely to be problematic. It almost makes me wish we had suffered that teleport mishap! Let's review:

Fyrtor is not here, and didn't need much of a disguise anyway. No problem.

Kazador has glamered armor, which is easily explained due to a desire to be unobtrusive. No problem.

Túrion has a mundane disguise that Mel has been helping him with. No problem unless the captain goes for the ears.

Hal I'm not sure what Hal's disguise arrangements are like.

Mel: This is where things get really sticky, since Mel is relying on her Hat of Disguise for the appearance of Melia, the only face she's ever shown Turick or his men. Once the captain touches her, it's just a DC 11 Will save to see through the Disguise Self spell. Obviously I don't know what his Will save modifier is. If he rolls really low he could fail the check. But the odds are good that he's about to stop seeing the Melia disguise and see Mel underneath.

If he passes that Will save, he's going to have capital-Q Questions about who the hell Mel is and why she's been wearing a disguise during multiple meetings with his lord, or if she is even the person who was at those meetings rather than some impostor.

Ever since the incident with Alexander Mumblethunder III, Mel has been doubling up on disguise. She's got a mundane disguise set up to conceal the fact that she's an elf, underneath the Melia identity. I just checked the math, and that should be DC 24 to see through (take 10 + 11 Disguise + 5 minor details only -2 different race). I think I'd rather rely on that than on the DC 11 Will save. So my plan is to drop the Melia disguise and let him inspect me in the flesh. But I'm going to wait a moment and see if anyone else has any suggestions before committing to that in gameplay.

If he passes his Perception check versus her mundane Disguise, things are going to get real interesting given Turicks well-known dislike of elves.

Re Claim Identity: I think that proving to the suspicious guard captain that one of us could perfectly imitate him at any time would not be productive.

You think? :D

That said, it WAS kind of the idea, to throw him off. I do have Alter Self ready and could just turn into a bland Halfling or something. Just to show him magic will throw off his game, anyway.

Could Mel maybe mention something from the last meeting where he was that only we would know, and suggest that asking tricky questions about that kind of thing would be a better way to verify identity?
Like, he can play touchy-feeley with Kaz, me or Hal first.
Going straight for the girls seems creepy.
So if you can convince him(diplomacy?) that another method may be better, and provide authentification VIA that method, then he may not even get to Mel in the first place.
And if he needs additional convincing, I can do Alter Self and if he still doesn't believe that it's a thing, Hal can Claim Kaz's Identity or something for a couple hours...that HAS to prove to him that just going for physical features is a lost cause.
If he still insists on feeling up Mel after that, it's no longer for identification.

Been a busy week, catching up on the thread

Sorry for dropping out, had a work deadline and a cold that did not interact well, and I needed to have a clear enough head to work out what spells Hal should have and wanted to avoid too much foreknowledge.

I didn't realise how long it had been since I posted something - I went to see if Hal had Detect Thoughts for the Widow at the start, then realised I hadn't worked out the spells.

Q: what happened to the 5(?) remaining doses of silence powder? Can we assume everyone still has one? Probably worth it just in case.

For the record Hal typically a combination of Disguise skill, Sleeves of Many Garments, and Pauper's Robes. Yes, there's a reason he always seems grimy.

When he needs it he dips into False Face, but avoids it for precisely this reason.

If I were these guards, and someone teleported in, and then I saw them cast a spell - I would absolutely shoot them.