Nothing to be sorry about IMO - it's probably what at least half of my own characters would do in this situation!
On the other hand, if he'd asked if you were gods, you might not have wanted to be quite so honest :P
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Zithembe's feat of breath holding and walking across the bottom reminded me of a news article I saw last week.
This guy "broke the record" for static apnea, which is holding one's breath but not swimming, diving, etc. Hence "static." But he "cheated." He hyperventilated on O2 for the last couple minutes before going static. The official record attempts don't allow that.
The official world record is 11:35 for men and 9:02 for women.
And, yes, one of the reasons I spend a lot of time at beaches is that I freedive. Well, Nomadical does, not Holan-Ji.
Freediving? That's pretty cool! Definitely not something I'd be brave enough to try.
How'd you get into it, if you don't mind me asking?
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In other news, I'm going to be out of town from tomorrow through Wednesday afternoon/evening. I'll have my Chromebook with me but I don't know if I'll have the time or energy to do any posting. Just a heads-up!
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To avoid boring those who don't care, I'll spoiler it. Not trying to hide anything, just compressing the Discussion flow.
I've been swimming for over 4 decades, did scuba as a teenager, and my parents were scuba instructors in their 50's (well after I'd moved out.) I've competed in open-water (ocean) swim racing, so clearly I'm pretty comfortable in the water.
In Oct '19, I was snorkeling in Australia on the Great Barrier Reef, and I was diving down to look at the fish some 20 to 30 feet down. I didn't think anything of it myself until back on the boat one of the staff said "Oh, you were the freediver out there." Never having heard the term, I looked it up and realized that's the kind of diving I want to be able to do wherever I travel. Minimal gear, no bubble noise, no recovery times, and completely safe to go flying afterwards. Which is kind of important when flying is my job, and they change my schedule at the drop of a hat.
I went to some training in the Philippines, and I've easily gone down to 26 meters (85 feet) and back on one breath. That's really just beginner level though, cause I only started truly doing this a little over a year ago. Honestly, a lot of it is mental and a big part of that is simply being able to relax and be comfortable in the water.
I don't compete in freediving, nor try to set records. I don't spearhunt either. I do it to enhance snorkeling and get closer to the fish and corals. Like when I was in Hawaii last week diving just off one of the beaches and swam down with a turtle and a couple big pufferfish. It's a blast!
Back from my trip and ready to roll on! About to catch up on your posts and start working on an update now :)
That's amazing. Thanks for sharing!
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Sorry to keep you waiting. GM made her first post as I was in the crew van headed to the Cincinnati airport. Having now landed in Korea after the 14 hour flight, I can finally post.
But I just figured out how awful using a natural attack plus a melee weapon is. The natural attack is secondary (-5) and they both incur 2-weapon fighting penalties. -6 on the melee weapon, and -11 on the bite. Forget it. He'll just bite the sand. Maybe grapple if it looks useful, but we'll see.
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I'm not sure that's right Nomadical. (I have a few characters that use natural attacks, sometimes in combination with weapons).
If you use a natural attack as well as manufactured weapons, your natural attack is a secondary attack. This means -5 to hit, and half strength bonus on damage (as well as half bonus damage from Power Attack if you use it). That's it.
It's completely different to two weapon fighting.
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Huh. Well it appears I still had an old copy of the CRB.
Under Natural Attacks, the current CRB sixth printing (2013) says:
You can make attacks with natural weapons in combination with attacks made with a melee weapon and unarmed strikes, so long as a different limb is used for each attack. For example, you cannot make a claw attack and also use that hand to make attacks with a longsword. When you make additional attacks in this way, all of your natural attacks are treated as secondary natural attacks, using your base attack bonus minus 5 and adding only 1/2 of your Strength modifier on damage rolls. Feats such as Two-Weapon Fighting and Multiattack (see the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary) can reduce these penalties.
Which supports your statement.
But somehow I was using an old copy of the first printing which says:
You can make attacks with natural weapons in combination with attacks made with a melee weapon and unarmed strikes, so long as a different limb is used for each attack. For example, you cannot make a claw attack and also use that hand to make attacks with a longsword. When you make additional attacks in this way, all of your natural attacks are treated as secondary natural attacks, using your base attack bonus minus 5 and adding only 1/2 of your Strength modifier on damage rolls. In addition, all of your attacks made with melee weapons and unarmed strikes are made as if you were two-weapon fighting. Your natural attacks are treated as light, off-hand weapons for determining the penalty to your other attacks. Feats such as Two-Weapon Fighting and Multiattack (see the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary) can reduce these penalties.
Note that they deleted the two bolded sentences. Not sure how the pdf got swapped out with an old version. Thanks for straightening me out supervillian. Now I wonder how many other things I've messed up by virtue of having that out of date CRB.
Wow, yeah, that's pretty rough. Glad they changed that!
I mean...I can't do it with THIS game but if this were Campaign Mode I'd be happy to throw more Confusion-effects at you guys if that's what you're saying you want...
;)
(Working this weekend/tonight but will hopefully be able to get an update soonish.)
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Oh sure, next level that'll be loads of fun. Let's inflict confusions on the Raging wild-shaped Large Dire Tiger with Reach!
"I know frog's legs taste good, and three yummy little lasses, but not sure if jade is even edible. Let's find out!"
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On an unrelated note, a question about Hep's Weapon Song. Her post says "Holan-Ji has the surprise to see his weapon..." (singular) Is she only giving it to him? She can enhance all of the team's weapons.
He's using 2 weapons this fight: the cestus and his natural weapon (bite), and he should be able to enhance both weapons. But does he have to enhance them with the same benefit? In this fight, the cestus would need to take a +1 since it's not magical. But his bite is already +1 by virtue of an Amulet of Mighty Fists. So could he put flaming on that instead, or does he have to select the same effect for all different weapons? The archetype ability isn't particularly clear as to who selects the benefits. In a skald's normal raging song (which this replaces but is based off of) the party member elects to accept the song or not.
This shouldn't be an issue after this fight. Normally he'll be using his natural weapons, all of which are affected by the Amulet, so he'd just add the same effect to them all.
After doing a bit of quick forum-fu it looks like a lot of the specifics of how Weapon Song works were never clarified, at least not that I can find.
I believe I previously ruled that for my tables, I would allow each PC to select which benefits they receive from the Weapon Song. This might be overly lenient of me; more than one GM seems to opt to rule that not only does the skald pick the benefit(s) but that said benefits apply to all weapons - whether it's actually a boost to any particular weapon or not. But at this point in time, I don't consider allowing each PC to pick as being something horrendously game-breaking.
Following from the above, I'll allow you to select different benefits for each weapon if you're using more than one, such as with TWF or natural attacks. That said, I reserve the right to revisit this and change my ruling if I feel that it's warranted. Of course I think just about all of you would probably be applying the same effects to all of your weapons anyway so as Holan-Ji said, it may not even be an issue after this particular battle.
So, yeah. Where Weapon Song is concerned, expect some table variation, it seems.
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She can use on everyone's weapons (and does it with style!). FYI, Lady L, Weapon song works on every allies (plural) within 60 feet
but it's the first time that Holan Ji sees her using this ability (eveyone else is quite used to it by now), so he might be a little surprised to see his weapon react to Metalicca. ^^
Yesterday, I tought of that going to bed:
"A confusion spell enters Hepsubia's mind and says "Honey, I'm home!" "
It made me grin in the darkness. ^^
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Ah, okay. He actually had a Spell Warrior skald in the last trilogy he played in. So he's familiar with the ability, but I don't think he ever did flaming with it cause he didn't have his AoMF until the end. But it's a great ability, and once he no longer needs the cestus he'll have flaming fangs and 2 flaming claws! Fire Kitty of Death! Just like Dyer :)
And he (well, Nomadical) does love Metallica!
Fire Kitty of Death!
I've got a gnome summoner/fighter that rides around on one of those :D
(Well, sorta. The eidolon is built to serve primarily as a mount, not a cheesy pounce-monster.)
Just like Dyer :)
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I was gonna offer to save Z's Voices in your head for Hep, but she ninja'd my post as I was typing and made her saves. That's okay, though, I'll still just use the reroll to make sure he doesn't end up attacking a teammate. Cause that could be bad.
We have another option for rerolls when Effie is performing, Holan-ji. Effie knows the Saving Finale spell and will happily use it whenever needed/asked for.
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Holan-Ji feels the same, especially about Iyasset's attitude and behavior (which I think I've made obvious in character.) He doesn't like being someone else's catspaw (pardon the pun). Though being paid extra might take the sting out of it. Alas, pre-printed chronicles....
I suspect we have to either fight Team Rock+Fire or Iyasset, who might summon others to his side for CR balance. I'm not in any hurry to start the fight, so just point him at the targets once we decide.
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Iyassa has been a bit of a douche :o
As hilariously strange as it might sound, I'm actually taking this as a compliment :)
Headed to bed soon, will check in later and see if you guys have reached a consensus - or close enough - on how you'd like to proceed!
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@ Zithembe and anyone else with the "Seen it Once" boon.
It reads that if anyone in your group identifies one of the creatures, you get to recall a bit of information the next time they are identified.
Maria has successfully identified Earth, Air and Fire elementals this scenario so you should be able to mark off a category to automatically recall next encounter. She is taking "Resistances" as her tidbit, fyi.
I honestly didn't expect anyone else to have the boon, but that is awesome you do!
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That's so much easier now! I didn't realize it was anyone in the party.
In regards to coming to a consensus: I have a minor preference for taking the Ainsi's side when the Goanron inevitably reject the peaceful suggestion for reasons that I think are not influenced by my knowledge that a battle is inevitable.
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If required to make a vote (as it seems Zith is hinting the scenario only leaves us with two options) then Maria will vote for the Air Elemental. We made a deal with them and she won't willfully back out just because someone else offers the same thing, even if Iyasset is a bit of a jerk.
Better to stick with the jerk you know than the ones you don't? :D
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Effie votes Goanron (if we need to vote).
Iyasset is a jerk who made us fight and wanted us to kill. He basically has no redeeming features. If the Goanron offer us a deal Effie would go for it.
Plus: the Goanron look to be in a stronger position right now.
Plus plus: they have fire elementals. Effie isn't strongly attached to her Ifrit heritage, in fact she's always been kind of scared of it, but she's coming to terms with the fire inside her. This is her first encounter with creatures from the plane of fire. In a way they invoke a sympathetic response in her.
I think Zith's idea of splitting up and reuniting is a great one (even if the scenario script can't cope with that :o ). Will post in-character shortly :)
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^ true, although at the moment none of us is spoiling for a fight. Rather than wanting to betray Iyassa, Effie's first preference is that the two sides come to an agreement. If they won't (and that seems to unavoidably be the case) Effie would still prefer to avoid violence but doesn't feel bound to side with Iyassa - the deal with Iyassa was made with no other options on the table aside from quitting the mission.
Above all though, Effie will defend her comrades against any aggressor.
Okay, so now that a decision has been made, I'll offer (spoiler-tagged) behind the scenes info about the scenario for anyone that hasn't already played/GMed it.
So the idea behind the scenario is that Jamila warned the Ainsi and Goanron that Pathfinders would come looking for her, hoping the tribes would consider you hostiles and basically slow you down. But apparently the timing and general descriptions matched up with some ancient prophecy (that isn't ever really elaborated on beyond 'TEH PROFESY') so the two tribes actually decide they'd rather befriend you and send out emissaries to watch for your passage.
The choice of passage you take through the Underdunes determines which emissary you meet first. You took the high path so you ran into Iyasset. Both emissaries can be influenced to be more friendly towards you; the friendlier they are then the more they'll help you out if you get into a jam during the trials. Iyasset offering to go fetch you clubs before you tackled the sandmen, for instance. They'll also pull folks out of the 'fire' if someone gets knocked unconscious while fighting the sandmen or trying to navigate the flying room.
The bulk of the scenario is the same regardless of which emissary you end up meeting, though they respond differently to some of the challenges you have to face and vary on how they want you to handle them. Iyasset thinks the Plane of Air challenge is great fun, Elsharon hates it and thinks it's the worst. Both sides insist you kill the sandmen, which are hostile to everyone. Iyasset prefers you kill Qiarah while Elsharon prefers you talk her into leaving - you still pass the trial as long as you get rid of her in one way or another though if you do the opposite of what your emissary guide recommends you'll lose some standing with them. So Elsharon would be less impressed if you kill Qiarah, while Iyasset's opinion of you dropped a bit when you didn't kill her.
And this last decision here, of who to side with, does affect chronicle boons as does your handling of Qiarah. Who you side with does also factor in a little with the next two scenarios in the trilogy.
But yeah, you have to side with one or the other, unfortunately.
And yeah, a lot of GMs in the GM thread for this scenario reported that their groups wanted to try and broker peace as well, so you guys aren't the only ones to be a bit disappointed on that front. My other group would've tried it too, had I GMed this for them.
As an aside, there's nothing in the scenario description that says, 'Iyasset is a jerk' so I take it as a compliment that I managed to make him realistically annoying without really even trying.
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In other news, we're almost done with the scenario! And besides getting enemy tokens and some more cool art for my slides, I've basically already got the next 3 scenarios for this group prepped - Parts 2 & 3 of the ToW trilogy and then You Only Die Twice.
(And I've almost got Day of the Demon prepped for another group I'm in where we're doing rotating GMs. Once that's done I'm finally going to start prepping my first 2e scenario, Absalom Initiation. After that, maybe a module? Still want to run a module sometime this calendar year.)
A large part of this is helped by that fact that I've currently just got you guys I'm GMing for and am only in 5 games as a player, most of them requiring just a post a day or so, maybe two. When it doesn't take a million hours to update games I've got more time for other stuff, including GM prep work. Whodathunk?
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I do totally get the writer though. Expecting to walk in as unknown third parties and mend a centuries long divide between two very opposed tribes of elementals is a bit of a stretch.
Also, this is part one of three, so perhaps that is something we have to work harder towards. Even if not, I have really enjoyed playing the scenario with this group.
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Holan-Ji would barely notice 1 cold. Soakin' up damage is kinda what he's here for. Go right ahead.
Hehe, you could even say you were trying to cool the hot-head down.
@GM: I think I had his AC's in his tag line wrong. I can't find how long ago he gave himself mage armor and he didn't refresh shield since we all thought we were just going to go see the chieftain. He did strap on the bracers at the beginning of this fight.
I'm pretty sure the elemental would have hit him. But if you don't want to retcon, maybe that mage armor just happened to wear off in the gap between rounds?
So I had already planned to let the earlier oversight with the fire elemental's attack against Holan-Ji slide *anyway* before I set about updating...and now it looks like that turned out to potentially be very lucky for him!
Anyhoo, we all make mistakes and sometimes forget to keep our taglines and buffs updated. I try to do my best to keep track of your ticking buffs on my end but in general I do ask that players keep their own HP & AC on their taglines updated as much as possible, because that's what I look at when I'm rolling attacks for my bad guys.
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Just so you know, this fight is really out of Maria's wheelhouse. Her Focused Aim (+4 damage) is ineffective vs. elementals due to their immunity to crits/SA. And DR 5 on top of that, she would be doing very little damage to the earth elemental (essentially hoping for high rolls on her d8 bow damage).
That's why she is using flasks to try to finish off a fire elemental or two while the big hitters take out the big enemy, since that does full damage +50% extra. Otherwise she would totally be focusing fire on the big enemy.
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True - a couple of extra d6s on the earth elemental might bring her down sooner. The fire elementals can barely hurt us.
Effie's chipping away with a couple of solid hits, and has two grit left for focused aim. Totally different to Maria's focused aim :)
Still got a burning hands for 4d4 if it comes to it.