DM Delmoth's Strange Aeons (Inactive)

Game Master Delmoth

Dervak moves in, draws a javelin, and throws it at the rat.
Javelin: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (13) + 2 = 15
damage: 1d6 + 4 ⇒ (3) + 4 = 7

The javelin impales the dire rat through the neck, creating a javelin rat shishkabob that clatters to the floor.

At that point, a scrabbling noise underneath The broiler reveals a tiny rodent-like creature with huge glowing eyes and a rat's tail, simian-like appendages, and fleshy tendrils trailing from just below the eyes almost to the floor. It is tittering angrily as it charges first target, again Dervak.

As it moves, so does a 15-foot cone of blue-green light emanating from it's eyes like headlights.
Bite charge attack: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (20) + 8 = 28
Crit confirm: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (18) + 8 = 26

See guys, this is what die rolls over 10 look like :D

Damage, minimum 2 damage total: 1d3 - 2 ⇒ (2) - 2 = 01d3 - 2 ⇒ (1) - 2 = -1

Dervak finds that the bite wound, not itself serious, does cut deep enough to bleed more than a typical wound. Take 1 bleed damage at the start of your turns until a 15 dc heal check succeeds on you. Or you receive magical healing

Arcana: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (18) + 9 = 27
Does it have any special abilities? DR? Poison/diseases?

"A Zoog!" Oscar exclaims. He moves into the room so that he can have a clean line of sight on the creature.

Attack: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (15) + 4 = 19
Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 4

Forgot to post initiative order, will resolve Oscar's action after Julius'

Zoog's have no DR. They have two important special abilities:

Otherworldly Touch (Ex): a Zoog's natiral weapons can strike incorporeal creatures as if they possessed the ghost touch enchantment.

Spell sight (Su): A zoog’s eyes radiate normal light in a 15-foot cone and increase the light level by one step for an additional 15 feet beyond that area. Any magic effect in this area glows faintly. This glow does not reveal the magic effect’s school or strength. A zoog can quell or renew this light as a swift action.

They also have constant detect magic and speak with animals effects; you suspect the latter is how the rats were operating with more than inatinctual intelligence.

Also, fun fact: zoogs hate cats, and go to extraordinary lengths to destroy and devour them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If it's Tiny, it has no reach and would have to enter Dervak's space to attack.
If so:
AOO: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (16) + 5 = 21
damage: 2d4 + 6 ⇒ (3, 2) + 6 = 11

Huh. I had completely forgotten that. They also can't charge, which I didn't know. I will take the AoO; it disabled the creature, which prevents it from biting. Nice!

As the creature rushes teeth into it's target, Dervak manages to club the thing down with the flat side of his blade. It smacks flat onto the floor with a crunch, and appears disoriented and terribly wounded from the blow.

Mala leaps and bounds into the boiler room, positioning himself behind the creature as it fights Dervak. Attempting to stab the weird little thing.

Attack: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (9) + 7 = 16
Damage: 2d6 + 5 ⇒ (2, 3) + 5 = 10

Mala impales the zoog on his sword cane, and after a gurgling wryly, the light literally goes out from its eyes,plunging the room in quiet darkness once more.

"Well, that was exhilarating." Oscar pipes in. "Zoog are intelligent, can we get some light in here and check under the boilers for any possible stashes?"

Pausing, he looks at the boiler and does a little mental geometry. "I do think this is directly above our prior accomodations."

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"Can you eat zoog?"
Dervak retrieves his javelin and enjoys a light snack of rat.
"Street food! Hah!"
He has spent a lot of time living in slums and outskirts of cities eating rats; this is how one gets by as a pariah.

Oscar is correct, the boiler feeds straight down to the furnace in the basement. In fact, an intrepid adventurer of small stature could shimmy up and down the shaft here if he or she desired.

There is little to note in the room itself, as it maintains the cracks and debris present throughout the otherwise intact rooms of the facility. However, underneath the broiler, there does appear to be a number of small items tucked against the wall between the two broiler. Reaching them will not be easy for medium sized creatures, who's shoulders and heads would prevent them from reaching far enough under.

"SPIE!" Mala barks, spooking his eye out of its socket. "Check under the boiler there for us will you?" Waiting for Spie to complete his task Mala watches Dervak eat. "Well I suppose that's one thing you could call it. Friend, I swear, that if we get out of here I will personally treat you to the finest food my wallet can muster."

"Now that I have my things, I should be able to retrieve whatever is down there, should i be able to see it." Oscar offers

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"Wonder what that zoog was doing here. It must've just moved in whenever this place went to hell, it didn't really have much of a swarm to try and control."

He eyes Dervak eating the rat. "You've never had rat before, Mala? It's good when you're a broke college student..."

Oscar will light a torch, dropping down and looking under the boiler.
"Hold on, I think..." he says, focusing his mind.

Using mage hand (no concentration check anymore, yay!) to pull items out from under the boiler.

Oscar manages to float everything out from under the broiler. Among the worthless junk is a small pouch of coins worth 10 gold, two severed toes from different coloredd, opposite feet, an unused sunrod, and a peculiar Doll. This doll is small, more of a charm than a toy, and is wearing a ragedy approximation of Qadiran clothing. There is a small loop in the top of his head that might be designed to string a necklace through. The doll seems old and well used, but not mistreated.

As you take your time retrieving the items, you begin to hear a pounding sound coming from down the hall. It sounds like someone is banging on a door from that way.

"You guys hear that? Think it might be Cerio? Or another one of those shapeshifters? Maybe we should go check it out."

"Yes, let's go see what it is."

"Let's" Mala gestures Julius towards the door. "You seem to like taking point, have at it!"

"Ready! " He says, pocketing the items until they can take stock later.

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Map updated, please arrange yourselves accordingly

A little ways down the hall there appears to be a human doctor banging on a door. "Please open up!" she cries, "The monsters are coming, you're in terrible danger!"

There is a muffled reply from the other side of the door that you can't quite make out from the door to the broiler room.

The woman is wearing linens and what you can assume is the smock of an asylum nurse.

Julius walks out of the room slowly, making sure to stop a safe distance from the woman.

"Uhh...ma'am? I don't mean to be rude, but what're you doing out here? There's monsters out here, aaaand...you're one of them, aren't you?" Julius looks down briefly, muttering "Great, now you sound just like those guards. Good job, Anderson..."

"Oh-!" she exclaims, appearing startled to hear Julius talking to her from down the hall."Me? A monster? Don't be absurd. Hey, come help, there's a child in here!"

´bluff: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (19) + 13 = 32

Mala dips his head outside the door. "Bite your finger, they bleed differently than us. A little pain is a small price to pay if you're really not monstrous."

Dervak would be suspicious, but not against a Bluff check that good. He believes her. I know it's suicide but there's no way he can even come close on a Sense Motive.
Sense Motive: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2
See?
The half-orc goes to help.
"Fine, I will open the door."

The woman backs up out of the way for Dervak to get to the door. It is locked or jammed shut. A small voice from the other side of the door shouts "Go away! Leave us alone!"

The woman glances towards Mala with an angry look on her face. "What are you suggesting, sir?"

Yeah, there's no way I can hit that bluff check at all...

Sense Motive: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (10) + 4 = 14

Julius calls over to the door. "You okay in there, kid?"

Social skills are not mind control, we have SO many reasons to be cautious in character that it boggles the mind. No matter how good her bluff check is, no one that has seen a shapeshifter shapeshift and then been told there are more of them skulking about would help her without evidence. ESPECIALLY considering her attire's similarity to our captor's.

"NO!" Mala jumps in front of his comrades. "Those guards where suspicious of US! And we where telling the truth! let her prove it, it only takes a damned second! Look!" Mala bites down on his thumb, taking the tip off. Drops of crimson blood drips from the wound. The woman's question is meet with an immediate response. "With all due respect, I'm suggesting that in times of crisis intense precautions must be taken. I'm not asking much! Mala flings his bleeding thumb in front of him to prove the point, he seems to be in the early stages of a panic.

Oscar weighs the options, thinking. She could kill us. I don't know what's going on and can't extrapolate the validity of her claims... This is probably going to be murder. But what if I was a murderer? I can't risk taking the chance she's an innocent. I need to make the shot before something happens.

Oscar waits until Mala gets everyone's attention with the dramatics and then, with a look of extreme distaste on his face, shoots the woman with his bow.

Ranged Attack: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (20) + 5 = 25
Crit confirm: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (14) + 5 = 19
damage: 3d6 + 3 ⇒ (3, 1, 6) + 3 = 13

Well, if it isn't a monster, it should be an instant kill... :/

"Sorry chaps, I'll take the blame for this." he says quietly after his arrow is let loose.

Interesting. So, apparently someone dressed and acting like a human, saying "I am not a monster," is not a believable lie. True, like Mala says, you have reason to be suspicious perhaps, which would categorized the lie as unlikely, but even still, I didn't see any sense motives beat 27. He was right to mistrust her but at least wanted to get evidence. Yet Oscar outright shot her, crit her even, and didn't even attempt a sense motive. Might have to examine your alignment for that. If someone in a perfect human disguise says she is not a monster, and that lie is not believable, what in this game could possibly constitute as a believable lie? Anyway, no one had moved their avatar around except for Dervak so I put you guys where I thought you would be for the actions you described.

The woman screams in pain as an arrow lodges directly in her midsection. She is so surprised by the pain that her disguise vanishes and she is revealed to be the shapeshifter you suspected her of being.

Monster initiative: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (15) + 1 = 16
Oscar initiative: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (9) + 4 = 13
Mala initiative: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (19) + 2 = 21
Julius initiative: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (9) + 3 = 12
Dervak initiative: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (11) + 1 = 12

First up, Mala!

I apologize. I thought his motivations were clear: he wasn't denying her bluff, he was realizing that he was more afraid of being killed by a monster than he was afraid of harming an innocent person. Oscar is neutral, and considering what the group woke up to, and our lack of materials or magic to make him feel safe, he's got very little to go with. He heard it from the guys at the barricade: this way there are doppelgangers. Not: this way theres survivors and maybe doppelgangers. This could have been a normal person; I don't know what kind of encounters you have planned so I was actually preparing to write about how Oscar would react knowing he just killed an innocent person. :/

TL:DR bluff worked, Oscar acted out of fear. He probably needs someone to talk him down from shooting everyone we meet out here...

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Weird, I moved my model last night but I guess it didn't work, for some reason.

Julius ducks as an arrow comes whizzing behind him. He whirls on Oscar. "Are you kidding? You can't just fire on someone randomly, that's what the guards were going to do to us! Now we're no better than-"he stops talking as the woman screams and reveals herself to be a shapeshifter. Julius turns back to her, grumbling "Okay, so maybe he was right..."to himself.

Julius definitely sees where Oscar's coming from here-once he sees what Oscar's trying to accomplish, at least.

"OSCAR! We will have WORDS after this sir!" Mala steps up to the creature, Staring into it's eyes as he draws his sword cane. In one motion thrusting up towards the creatures neck.

Attack: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (6) + 5 = 11
Damage: 2d6 + 5 ⇒ (3, 2) + 5 = 10

It shifts to the side, easily dishing the attack. Its large black eyes try to find Oscar through the two people in front of it, and it hisses in frustration at finding itself blocked from the one who wounded it so. "I will cause you such magnificent pain," it growls as it sends one claw at Mala.

Claw attack, Mala: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (12) + 8 = 201d8 + 4 ⇒ (2) + 4 = 6

"I will have what was promised me in my dreams!" The last part it screams as it throws a claw at Dervak.

Claw attack, Dervak: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (13) + 8 = 211d8 + 4 ⇒ (6) + 4 = 10

Next up, Oscar, then Julius, then Dervak.

So the thing about "Block Initiative" is that we can go anytime within our block. It speeds things up a lot, without changing game balance; it's functionally equivalent to having Oscar and Julius delay until Dervak acts. Then maybe next round Dervak would delay until Oscar acts. As long as we stay within our block (which Mala isn't) it doesn't really change anything.
Given that Dervak really needs to act and move before either Oscar or Julius can do anything useful, he'll take his turn.
Otherwise I'm waiting to post until Julius says "I delay until Dervak acts" and then he is waiting around until I post.

Dervak draws his falchion, swings at the creature, and steps back.

Falchion: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (8) + 5 = 13
damage: 2d4 + 6 ⇒ (1, 2) + 6 = 9
bite: 1d20 ⇒ 8

Yes, I understand. We've more or less been doing that. I mostly post the order for my own reference in which to resolve the action sequence

Oscar's eyes are hidden by his goggles, but if the look on his face is any indication, they're open wide as dinner plates.

"AaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" He screams. "What? Nononono-" he cries out as he takes a step back.

Taking a 5 foot step away. Readying an action to shoot the creature if it gets within 10 feet of me.

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Hey Dervak, I believe you were flat footed for the claw attack as you hadn't acted in combat yet

Yes. Does he take sneak attack damage?
If so (and he goes below 0), he will use Orc Ferocity to stay conscious. He'll be staggered, but can do his bite attack (standard), which still misses, then 5' step and go unconscious at the end of his turn.

Julius sidles up to the doppelganger and stabs at it. "Right, so this'll be head #2, right? Who wants to bet that the girl behind that door is actually another shapeshifter?"

Attack: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (16) + 5 = 21
Damage: 1d6 + 3 ⇒ (2) + 3 = 5

He does not do sneak attacks

The monster manages to shift to the side and avoid Dervak's attacks, however Julius manages to land his attack when he steps up, and the monster snarls at Julius in fury.

Top of round 2! Mala then the Monster

Seeing that any one of the is easily outmatched by a shapeshifter, mala stabs once more at the creatures throat before stepping back.

Attack: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (17) + 5 = 22
Damage: 2d6 + 5 ⇒ (4, 3) + 5 = 12

Julius, aware that he's now the only person within range of the shapeshifter, adopts a defensive stance just in case.

Pretty sure it's gonna come at me, so if Mala didn't kill it and it does try and attack me, I'm going to use a Panache point and attempt to parry/riposte it. If Mala does kill it, I'll just look silly waving my rapier around, I guess.

Mala's stab hits home, and then creature slumps to the floor, unconscious. The hallway grows quiet, except for hushed whispers from the other side of the door.

"Nice work, Mala. You're good at killing them.
What should we do about the door? I'm willing to force it open. We can tell whatever is inside to lie face down on the ground before we open. If it does, we can see if it is a real person. With magic, maybe. Or beating it unconscious. If it refuses, we kill it."
Dervak is not heartless or evil, but he knows these things are incredibly dangerous and he knows his own judgement is not good enough to identify them.

Oscar sinks to the ground onto his rear, the bow falling out of his hand. He's sweating and breathing hard, and he claws at his goggles to peel them off his face as he stares at the dead monster.

"Nononono..." he mutters. "Another one? I... I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."

"Oscar! You did fine. You had better instincts than I did. Good shot. Get your bow ready again.
Yes, another one. And we have to kill more."
Sorry, he's not going to be a voice of good judgement right now.

"Thank you Dervak, and yes your idea for how to deal with the door sounds fine. First however." Mala sidles up to Oscar as he panics. Grabbing him by his collar and pulling him close to his face. "I will NOT get out of her on a wave of innocent blood Oscar! I will do worse than this if I need to have this talk again!" Mala punctuates his sentence by drawing back and slapping Oscar across the face, though obviously not as hard as he could have. "Now, you know how to use that wand, help me and Dervak out here, we got got in that fight and I'm feeling rather pale."

Afterwards he pushes Oscor to the ground, straightens his cuff links and says to Dervak. "Alrighty then, the door yes?" He makes his way to the door, knocking on it lightly before saying. "We're coming in! If you want to keep yourselves intact I'd suggest getting on the floor. If you aren't one of them you have nothing to fear from us."

A small voice cries out from the other side, "Go away! We're trying to hide fom you monsters, leave us alone!"

The door is jammed, and is going to require a strength check to force open.