GM Cody's PFS 2-08 The Sarkorian Prophecy Game (Inactive)

Game Master Codanous

Time to discuss!

Welcome to my first public game of PbP PFS. I've been doing PFS for a number of years but only recently broke into the PbP field. Its been a ton of fun as a player, I've GM'd one game already for some local friends and felt ready to branch out.

I expect the usual Flaxseed Lodge type of player, it is how I learned so I treat it as the standard. Of course real life comes first, but I do appreciate daily posts if possible, even if its a post in the discussion saying you can't post, helps reassure us you haven't forgotten about your new digital friends !

If you could give me your

Player name
PFS Number
Character Name
Faction
Anything weird or odd about your character you feel I should know about, like you breath fire or have 4 arms or are an enchanting fox demon from that place that gives you that trait for +1 DC.

Dot.

Thanks for running the game for us, DM! Heading to bed. I'll make a proper post tomorrow.

Gerald
'Dame' Alie Saechel, the Stormtamer
12445-2
Sovereign Court

HellOOOO everyone and thank-you for running the game for us, GM Cody!

At least daily posting will be no problem. I feel like I owe that to the players that missed out.

How’s the weather in Bluegrass Country, Alie? It’s about time you and Werepox showed up in one of my games ;) I don’t think we’ve gamed together since Scions of the Skykey III.

To business!

Player name: Yours is mined
PFS Number: 69095-1 (Yep, Luisila is my first PFS character)
Character Name: Luisila
Faction: Grand Lodge

Luisila is a vanilla healing ☞ buffing ☞ archery cleric. Her player loves roleplay and cooperative, tactical combat. Her damage output is meagre at these levels. Rather her SOP in combat is to keep the heavy hitters up and (pre)buffed, while using magic to help out anyone in trouble.

Oh! One more thing. @Dien, you owe me big time for filling in your details on GM Cody’s list at Position 2, so you could win the lottery ;)

*laughs* I so do, Luisila, thank you. ;)

I have four different characters in tier I could bring, but it looks like we have arcane and healer covered well enough, so I think that it is likely that yes, Conan and Luisila shall RIDE AGAIN!

Player name: Dien
PFS Number: 30341-4
Character Name: Conan O'Brien
Faction: Liberty's Edge

His posted sheet still lists him as level 9 but I'll get him upped to 10 right now.

There we are. BEWARE, EVILDOERS, CONAN HAS BECOME MORE MIGHTY YET

This will be fun. This character is a bit complicated and I miss a lot of opportunities in F2F.

Hey Lui, good to see you again!! Things have been great in KY for the last few weeks. Nothing better than here for spring and fall as the seasons change. Bummed about our basketball team losing last night in the tourney, but that's part of it.

How are things?

I don't think I've adventures with Conan or Marta before. Nice to meet you all. I love dragon disciples! I've got a Core sorcerer that I am going to eventually take that route.

I don't think I've adventures with Conan or Marta before. Nice to meet you all.

Thanks! This is Marta's first PBP game, though I've played a number of other characters in PBP. I hope she will be entertaining, though not quite as entertaining as Conan. I hope he does puns.

Question for you: Marta has a wand of mage armor and a wand of shield; neither of which she can use very well (UMD +2). Would any of you be willing to use the former to cast Mage Armor on her and the latter to case Shield into her Ioun Stone? I'd hate to waste space in the gameplay thread begging for castings - unless of course you thing the role-play value would be worth it. In F2F games it definitely isn't so I'm used to getting that out of the way up front.

As Luisilla said, to business:

Player: miteke
Character: Marta (full name Telmar So Melnap)
PFS Number: 141936-1
Faction: Liberty's Edge
Wierdness:

Alie would be happy to use your wand and pre cast any spells you need, Marta.

Thanks, Alie.

Hey guys, most of you have checked in, just waiting on Werepox47, I'll give him another day before calling in a the reserves :).

Player: Sarah
Character: Reyna "the" Silver
PFS number: 68127-4
Faction: Silver Crusade

Aasimar Warpriest of Iomedae, I have lots of buffs that I can cast on myself and on party. I have a very good heal. I also have a necklace of fireballs and can cast up to 4th level spells.

This is my first high level PbP and I'm very excited to play and get to know your characters! :)

@Reyna, I hope you don’t mind me having a look through your spell list. I didn’t want to double up on too many of your spells unnecessarily. I have Inner Sea Magic and whoa! Crusader’s edge is a pretty good spell. Thanks!

I’ll still be fussing with my spell list up until the briefing’s finished, so if you’ve got any suggestions, let me know!

@Alie, we had a family outing to our local basketball comp on Sat night. Our standard is not in the same solar system as UK’s, but each team signs a (usually US) import each season. One of our guys played college ball in Texas I believe.

That's neat Lui! I'm a definite basketball nut.

Im here.. I dont post much on weekends sry..

Looking at party comp, which one do yall think I should play.. Human Barbarian and hits hard, or Dwarf Inquisitor that hits hard..

Looking it over I think the Barb might be better for this group. We seem to have plenty of spellcasters, although I'll wait for input. The dwarf can pt up some crazy numbers when buffed. Both are tough though..

Nice to see you again Allie and Luisila! It has been a while..

If there's no input I suppose I'll leave it to the dice gods..

The barb is 1d100 ⇒ 23 low numbers..

50/50: 1d100 ⇒ 32 Looks like its Roary..

Werepox47
45225-1
Roary Flamebearer
Sovereign Court
Dayjob is take 10 Survival, via Hunting Lodge perk, for a 28.
Nothing to weird about Roary, standard invulnerable rager.. He has DR 5/-, Fire Resist 3, and Endure Elements(cold) passive. He can pounce as well..

Barbarians are always good! Its a hard scenario but it was built for 4 players, with 6 I'm sure you guys'll be golden! It looks decidedly like the high-tier as well.

You guys have five, level 10 characters and a level a 9!

Roary is gonna use 2 pp on a potion of flying and spend 4000 on a clear spindle ioun stone to socket into his wayfinder. This will add protection from possession and mental control (as per pro evil spell) passively..

Reyna will sell her cold Iron longsword for 165gp and her Warhammer for 6gp and make her +1 Keen Longsword into a +2 Keen Longsword for 10,0000 gp.

GM Cody: Did you want day job rolls yet?

We got two barbarians and a warpriest, two with keen blades? I may relegate Marta to support just to keep her clothes clean. This is going to be messy :)

Yeah sure, I already have Roarys dayjob, you guys can give me yours too, I knew I had forgotten to ask for something with PFS numbers and names.

You guys defintely have a strong group, lets all hope there aren't and skill challenges :)

Day job roll: 1d20 + 23 ⇒ (13) + 23 = 36

Day job
Perform Vocal 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (3) + 10 = 13

Luisila places her hands over her long ears. "Whoa! What is that noise?"

"Sounds like someone's strangling a Catfolk Soprano."

♭♮♯♩

No Day Job for Luisila

[dice=Perception Luisila] d20+21 [/dice
[dice=Initiative Luisila] d20+5 [/dice

@GM Cody, I will finalize my spell list sometime today.

Also thinking about getting another oil of bless weapon but two should be enough.

@Conan, I have two potions of fly if you want to borrow one.

EDIT: I also have a wand of endure elements to share with the party.

I've purchased my own since last scenario, but thanks :D

I'd post now but I'm racing out the door-- will tag in 5 hours or so.

So awesome to check in and see 14 posts in Gameplay.

I am stuck at work for a few more hours, but will post soon.

Ah no rush :) I am happy to be with active players though! You guys are a lively bunch !

I had a couple of technical questions. First the whole thing around intimidating and stacking fear conditions. At one point the rules stated that if you intimidated someone who was shaken they became afraid. Then they removed that. What is your stand on this. When would it stack.

Second is about the bane special ability. When I activate the inquisitor bane special ability can I just say I declare a bane on 'that' and have it work on whatever 'that' is, or do I need to use a knowledge skill to identify the monster first or guess the category and say I declare a bane on 'constructs' or something?

I've usually seen it run that you can bane your best guess. Your character has experienced monsters before. If it looks like a duck end quacks like a duck you can duckbane

That said, making the knowledge checks just ensures you get the bane right.

How about the whole fear stacking question?

My understanding would be that if they are already shaken from a different effect, then demoralizing them would increase their fear by one step. If you demoralize them and then try to demoralize them again it wouldn't stack it'd only increase the duration. That's my understanding, is that okay?

However I wouldn't say you can stack fear effects from spells, so if Cause Fear causes shaken and then you also doom them, it wouldn't stack to frighten cause it's two different sources of fear?

Shooting from the hip here but that's how I'd rule it, does that work?

I've seen three major ways of handling demoralization:
1) It does not stack with fear effects or other demoralization effects. Even if the source of the demoralization changes, no stacking is done. Only the duration is affected. And regarding that they usually take the one that has the longest duration instead of adding them.
2) Demoralizing only stacks if the source is different. Thus an intimidation would stack with a doom would stack with a Blistering Invective spell would stack with the enforcer feat effects. But two Blistering Invectives would not stack. Doom is not a demoralizing effect, it is a straight fear effect, so it would stack with itself.
3) If demoralization came first and then a fear effect is added then it would stack, but demoralization never stacks if it is the last thing added. This is because of the strange wording of the original rules and was RAW at the time.
4) From my reading, by current RAW, demoralization causes the shaken condition and stacks. Period. Frankly I think this is too powerful and would not blame a GM for opting for one of the interpretations above.

As for stacking straight fear affects such as doom and cause fear, my understanding is that they would stack causing a panicked condition. That never changed.

From the rules: Becoming Even More Fearful: Fear effects are cumulative. A shaken character who is made shaken again becomes frightened, and a shaken character who is made frightened becomes panicked instead. A frightened character who is made shaken or frightened becomes panicked instead.

Note that it doesn't say that it has to be from a different spell or effect. So two doom spells would stack and cause a frightened condition.

I wish they had used a different term, such as demoralized, for the effects as well as the act of intimidation/demoralization (instead of calling the effects 'shaken'). Then it would be obvious that it does not stack with fear effects. But they added special rules for demoralization and then removed them leaving us all confused. Also, it wold be nice if they specifically addressed fear effects from the same source or different castings of the same spell as your thought that two effects from the same source seems to be pretty common.

I think that your reading is fair, I haven't thought much about it before this or had it come up so I'm inclined to side with the player.

As the GM I will usually go with the most player-friendly ruling while as a player I assume the most obstinate ruling to make sure I don't always use loopholes. We can go with rule #4 for this game.

After the game I'll look into more and if we play again my understanding might have changed.

It was FAQ'd that using the intimidate skill to cause the shaken condition does not stack with itself to cause frightened and then panic. Additional demoralizations only increase the duration.

As far as spells go additional castings will up the fear progression, so 1 doom = shaken, 2 doom - frightened, 3 doom = panic.

Also to note casting doom and then using intimidate does not increase the step either, it will merely add to the duration.

So in a nutshell spells/effects that are not intimidate/demoraliZation skill related will stack. Those associated with the skill will not.

Those are all PFS FaQ'd so must be used for pfs..

Thanks, Roary. I agree with sticking to the FAQ!

This is what the Advanced Race Guide says about aasimar halos:

Halo: Some aasimars possess the ability to manifest halos. An aasimar with this racial trait can create light centered on her head at will as a spell-like ability.

So I guess the ability may be used at will, presumably on your turn.

BUT, that’s up to our ✩✩✩ GM.

Yea, that at will part doesn't actually say free action. I assumed it meant free action but I hate embarrassing myself (as I did with the wand of mage armor, ugh).

Ah. Embarrassing myself on a public forum is my specialty! :)

But I figure I'm among friends.

The usual rule for actions that don't specify an action is that they are a standard.

Pace is very good.

I think it’s the hardest thing to judge as a PbP GM.

I found there was also a lot to keep track of in a PbP 7-11 with players I knew well. You’re doing a great job.

Yeah I was hesitant to run a 7-11 but figured go big or go home.

I don't feel like its going too fast, and I'm definitely enjoying things despite the small bit of complication that this encounter had to it.

Its one of my favorite encounters just cause it really sets the tone for the Worldwound and how chaotic and unforgiving it can be and were only talking about the natural environment, not even about its denizens!

I would think that the complexity would not matter so much if the players work like a team with each other and the GM. I've only GMed one game in years but I'll bet it's nice when you have knowledgeable and friendly players.

I was going to PM you the images of my chronicle sheets but I couldn't figure out how. So I PMed you a link to a google docs folder that has them. But why not put it here too?

The doc folder for Marta is here

I assume you are being truthful unless proven else wise. I am a pretty trusting GM. And I mean for PbP you have to be, so no worries :)

I posted this in gameplay but you may have missed it:

Note that the first two of my attacks were magical, enhanced to +1 by the Bodywrap of Mighty Strikes. I don't know if that mattered or not.

Does it matter? Do I need a cold iron weapon or is magical good enough?

GM also said that "not a single one seemed to even hit the creature" so you might have just missed AC? *shrug*

Could be. Why or if I did no damage makes a big difference in my next action (provided the barbarians and warpriest do not rend it to pieces on their turn of course).