GMTheBobJones #6–19: Test of Tar Kuata (Inactive)

Game Master TheBobJones

Guess he'll be accepting a surrender this fight. Or we'll see. Unless you'll have the non-lethal combat count.

"Accept the surrender of an enemy combatant (other than an evil outsider or undead creature), and ensure his fair treatment until he can be safely released, ransomed, or delivered to authorities for justice. Alternatively, allow an enemy combatant with no means of escape to flee without further harm."
or
"Rescue a named NPC who is a divine spellcaster with a good-aligned deity or a named outsider with the good subtype. Alternatively, collaborate with the NPC to overcome an obstacle directly related to the PCs’ success conditions, such as defeating a foe; summoned outsiders do not contribute to this goal, but called ones do if not coerced into service." (If Bertrag counts)

Sorry for that confusing last post GM - I had a change of heart right after I posted my move. No sense in waiting to throw that stone. I hope that is ok and I hope I didn't Cyrus you in the middle of a response post....

Character Name: Amaranti
Your Name: Jyri K.
PFS #: 96960-4
Faction: Scarab Sages
Chronicle for this character: #13
Starting XP: 12
Starting Gold: 2834
Day Job roll: nope
Any Faction Boons you would like to me add/Notes: Is either of these two applicable:?
-Recover a piece of the Numerian device known as the Sky Key, whose strange properties are of special interest to the
faction leader Tahonikepsu.
-Participate in an adventure that includes at least three encounters in one of the following regions once controlled by
Ancient Osirion: Geb, the Mana Wastes, Nex, Osirion, Rahadoum, or Thuvia.

-Recover a piece of the Numerian device known as the Sky Key, whose strange properties are of special interest to the
faction leader Tahonikepsu.

Yes :)

Welcome to Tier 6-7

Active Conditions: protection from evil, Weapons against evil; Faustus: See invisible, Perceive Clues, Shield of Faith, freedom of movement, Haste; Ibid Heroism, Haste; Amaranti Heroism, Freedom of Movement, Haste; Kaisharga mage armor, Haste; Lort bear's endurance, Haste; Cyrus ring of climbing, invisible

WTF!?!?!

Things are quickly becoming very difficult for me, or any GM in a PbP setting. Please make sure all your individual conditions are updated in your tag line in [], and I will apply Global conditions, i.e. Protection from evil, in my rolls.

Wow... This fight is going to be bananas.... Good luck GM.... I'll do everything I can to keep track of me...

-Posted with Wayfinder

I think protection from evil is only on Lort?

Yeah, not a global condition. Need to wait until I ding level 7 (2 fighter / 5 cleric) before I get the communal version of that. Sorry boys! It's all in my tagline, including the +2 to my saves vs evil things.

So FYI, for environmental effects not caused by them (eg. the oppressive heat), I'd be -2 from the numbers in square brackets. I'll remind you if it comes into it.

Anything else we can do to make your life easier?

... and if it's PC buffs you're concerned about, we may be playing 6-7, but we ain't even level 6 yet. ;-)

Well, except for the accountant we brought along.

And don't forget your level 4 who is punching above his weight. ;)

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!! F*cking classic.

Ok, so I'm nerding on all cylinders for this fight. What's the game plan, i.e. do we need any special strategy?

Ibid had some oil of align weapon which could be used to coat 50 projectiles, and Miro has Ibid's wand of gravity bow. Would you all like the old man to focus on the beast or the worshiper? My fear is that the beast has DR 10 / Good or something insane. Also, if there is a darkness spell cast, Ibid has his Dayfinder handy, to cast daylight (on the off chance we need it).

Let the nerding commence...

And don't forget your level 4 who is punching above his weight. ;)

If this is me, sorry about that. His stats should be good for Ibid being level 5, I just forgot to update his level in the tag line. Sorry, sorry, sorry!

As per the previous post that included a GM rolled Ibidopedia check (and subsequent embedded link), it has DR 5 / something. I'm assuming it's evil, so we shold be fine (ie. no need for align weapon).

The main thing would be to get rid of the web. I think a tactically placed alchemist's fire should do the trick for a 3 x 3 area (it's a splash weapon, and any fire removes a 5ft square of web). Will probably have to hit a target to work well. I'm "happy" for you to throw it at Lort (he's ideally positioned and has an awful touch AC). Would be ideal if he took a 5ft step downwards first, but whatever. Alternatively, smashing it against the rocks in the square with the red star in it would work well, too (no damage to Lort, and we can freely approach him from the south).

Of course, poor Amaranti could use an alchemist's fire, too!

By the way, John, thanks for all the sensible rulings on everything here - and for all the effort it must be! I can really sympathize, and I totally appreciate it. Higher level games are easier in real life because players can interrupt you as you go. PbP makes it (potentially) an extra day+ delay before such clarifications are had.

You're doing a great job of making it run smoothly while still staying fair to us (ie. not making it harder to beat the bad guy just because it's "too hard" over PbP).

Thank you.

I am not advocating a strategy, I just know that it is common to miss information in PBP.

a character entering a flooded square in the webbed area can submerge to avoid the web’s effects, and a submerged character can swim under the webs with ease.

I have been trying to find a ruling on this, and no one has gotten back to me. I was thinking that the QLIPPOTH's web should provide cover.

If you have at least 5 feet of web between you and an opponent, it provides cover.

Okay, I read:

"The web covers all the squares outlined with a dotted line on the map"

But forgot about the "web-strewn dome" thing. That means they're all in the air, right? Duh. I was imagining a web covering that sat just above the surface of the water. Of course Lort can't jump through it.

If you don't mind, I'll do a quick retcon along the lines of what we were discussing above. Really, really sorry about this. I would just accept the ruling that Lort was stuck if things had moved along already (and can still accept it if you like).

Post coming very soon.

@Ibid - Considering the thumping that Faustus just put on the qLippoth, I think we should focus fire on that right now.

For as many buffs as we have, it still feels like we have stepped in the pile of dung here... I don't doubt we can get out of this, but I just feel like this might be the hairiest fight we have been in yet.

Hairy fight... with the Cleric of Kurgess, and the Inquisitor of Asmodeus competing for opening the biggest can of whoop-ass, I personally think it is all over.

Good job, guys, and thanks GM_TheBobJones!

You don't think he has 100+ hit points? Tier 6-7, I'm not so sure...

Lort keeps his blade at the ready while the iron-clad accountant begins to count some eggs that may or may not have been fertilized.

Holy DPR! Come on, all I wanted was one more round! You guys make GMing no fun :(

*cheep cheep cheep* go the eggs.

Ok this is wrapped up except for my Scarab Sages friends. Feel free to RP an ending like Lort has done.

This was a pleasure to run, even if I got a little bithcy in the middle.

Just before my wife and I got married we were having dinner with friends and they told us that there will be at least 5 things that go wrong on your wedding day. Well, only 2 things went wrong so we felt good about that.

When running Mods, I always want to keep mistakes under 3

Mistake 1) So Aramaya was a pole arm master/monk. She should have dropped her spear and Stunning Fisted instead of full attacked and use Ki for defense. You all hit too often and too hard.

Mistake 2) The Knights that say 'Ni" were antipaladins. They were using their Selective Channel Negative Energy and I was trying to position them so you went by the chasm and you had a 25% to fall in. No one went near it so I must have done something wrong with my placement.

Not a Mistake) So there was a lot of chatter on the GM Discussion thread about Tasutek written tactics. I did have a very nice PM exchange with the author (who also checked inthe thread and siad "What a nice bunch of players you have there". Tasutek was a Warpriest, and was supposed to use Enthrall. I instead used fervor for some buffs that weren't able to compete with Lort/Faustus. If he made it past, he would have full attacked Lort, and moved back and healed.

Oh well, sorry for all the confusion surrounding being hot, like a bunch of middle-aged women in menopause.

Chronicles out this weekend, full PP and gold all around.

My opinion, for what it's worth:

Mistake 1)

Not a mistake at all. The one-hit on Cyrus alone nearly killed the man. She ended up dealing lethal damage, actually - so perhaps she should have been disqualified... ;-)

She was a very tricky opponent and positioned herself well around the combat, making it very difficult for us to approach without provoking an AoO. On full defense, she would have gone down slower, but she still would have gone down.

Mistake 2)

That fight was over way too quickly for positioning. From memory, I'm pretty sure we one-hitted (or came very close to doing so) for 2/3 of them. I know Lort wasn't paying any attention to the chasm, so it was a fluke rather than anything else. Also, I'm 100% sure that encounter would have gone down differently if we followed Lort on the mining carts and didn't use the elevator (or couldn't get it reactivated). I'm also pretty sure a number of things would have gone down differently without Faustus's see invisibility and the one-hit on the homunculus.

Not a Mistake)

Always nice to have author compliments. Good on you for PMing him about things you need help with. I wish I cared enough to do that when I ran PFS! At least with an AP, I don't have to*. Assuming a save DC 15-16 for the enthrall, I expect about half of us would have saved anyway (especially with the +2 vs charm effects from inspire courage) and he wouldn't have hit so hard. I really think Amaranti's haste and that scroll of freedom of movement changed the encounter in a big way. That's typical of this level, though. A spell or ability can mean the difference between a protracted combat (and potentially death) and a combat that is over in 1.5 rounds.

Hideous laughter, hold person, flesh to stone and so on are definitely in that category against single BBEGs - "Save or we win" kinda things - but having the right buffs also count on that score.

*I hope you guys know that the tactics as written in the RoW AP don't play out the same way I did that last encounter... but I thought my way was cooler and far more challenging - and realistic - than having Rohkar and the sick bandits holding back in reserve. I didn't know it would go for 15 rounds, though! You have some unusually bad player rolls to thank for that.

So, all that said, thank you again for all the effort required to adjudicate things with a mid-level group like us. I know it's not easy.

You did a great job of running the scenario, and I had a blast. I really, really enjoy playing Lort again (rather than having him as my GM credit baby). He deserves to be played rather than hanging around in the background - though my backstory posts a while back, and the bar-fight vs giant Lort both helped me keep myself attached to him and feeling like he was involved.

Anyway, great job, John! Want to run From Under Ice when Jyri finishes Fires of Karamoss? We've got 3 scenarios to do... and just over 2 months to do it.

or
"Rescue a named NPC who is a divine spellcaster with a good-aligned deity or a named outsider with the good subtype. Alternatively, collaborate with the NPC to overcome an obstacle directly related to the PCs’ success conditions, such as defeating a foe; summoned outsiders do not contribute to this goal, but called ones do if not coerced into service." (If Bertrag counts)

Not sure if this work - as he is neither a divine caster nor a named outsider. Let me know what you want me to do.

Also, Aramaya is not an enemy so that one also does not count.

Anyway, great job, John! Want to run From Under Ice when Jyri finishes Fires of Karamoss? We've got 3 scenarios to do... and just over 2 months to do it.

Thank you, the more I run the easier it will be I guess as I become more familiar with Pathfinder.

I would definitely run again - all depends on timing. Next few weeks might be horrendous, might be ok. We'll see.

I would definitely run again - all depends on timing. Next few weeks might be horrendous, might be ok. We'll see.

Awesome. Thanks, John. Totally happy to wait to see how full your plate is. If all else fails, I can play Lort in real life to catch up on a session and just run From Under Ice myself again for no credit. It's primarily run in Irrisen and not the Lands of the Linnorm Kings (as I first thought), so I don't 100% need to play it with Lort as I first thought. However, it does still lead in to Tapestry's Toil (and another piece of the Sky Key) so we should still all play - or run - it before GenCon... those of us who are going anyway.

before GenCon... those of us who are going anyway.

Ouch. That hurt. ::washes lemon juice Damian just rubbed in his paper cut::

Since Fire is up, and Chronciles are not done - Out of Tier Gold is 2,265, Tier 6-7 gold is 3,242.

Over 2K! Nice. I also looked up a roll of 35... 100gp on a day job! That caravan is going to start paying for itself soon. :-)

I'll probably just grab something uninventive like a cloak of resistance or ring of protection... unless anyone (Jack?) has some cooler suggestions.

Over 2K! Nice. I also looked up a roll of 35... 100gp on a day job! That caravan is going to start paying for itself soon. :-)

I'll probably just grab something uninventive like a cloak of resistance or ring of protection... unless anyone (Jack?) has some cooler suggestions.

2-3 suggestions that'd be great for a caster like Lort:

Pearl of Power 1 (1000gp) -- 1000gp for an extra spell per day is ... way cheap

Lesser Rod of Metamagic (extend spell) (3000gp) -- again... doubling the time on spells like Bull's Strength, Shield of Faith, etc? Again... get several of these, eventually!

Boots of the Cat (1000gp) - falls do minimum damage, and you always land on your feet? (or ring of feather falling)

I almost got boots of the cat for Cyrus, but opted for his daredevil boots instead. It was a tough choice... I paired it with a PP purchase of the snapleaf though, so I still have a 1-off fall protection.

I had never considered the metamagic rods before... maybe because I haven't been really to afford them (with my casting characters) - that would be genius for my life oracle....

Since Cyrus has a decent amount of gold from scions of the sky key pt 3 (chose not to spend any) I might be able to spring for something fun... I still really really want that agile enchantment for my blade....

Agile definitely rocks for DEX-based characters.

Have I mentioned how awesome this was? I know I thought it. Just in case I didnt:

John, you did an awesome job with this! (still have a few things to finish up I know) but I loved it. Nice work!

Also - I would like to have the box checked for completing a scenario in Osirion.... I don't know how to do that, if I need to send you my "card" or what. I know I wasn't specific on that earlier....

Cyrus - I will have to look that up as Amaranti's request was invalid as you were not in ancient Osirion.

Everyone - 5 CLW charges. I assume we all have a CLW in which case Lucky Person: 1d6 ⇒ 5

1. Amaranti
2. Cyrus
3. Faustus
4. Ibid
5. Lort
6. Miro

Lort takes no charges. The rest get 1.

If that one doesn't work, then I think the only one that is applicable is recovering a piece of the sky key... which is fine with me :) I have the pdf with the card, but this is my first check mark on it, so I don't know what good it woudl do to send you the pdf... unless I printed off just that page and scanned it and emailed it to you...

you are the GM, and you do all the hard work anyways. Let me know what you need from me and I will jump through any hoop to help :) (I just don't know what I need to do... apologies for the ignorance!)

Cyrus... the cards are for now on the "honor system". But, the GM could make a notation on your chron if he/she wishes. I am not bothering to do that, but it is up to the individual GM.

Ah - that makes it easier. Thanks!

I have been marking Chronicles, but like Jack said - not a necessity.

Thanks for the awesome suggestions, Jack. They are all going on Lort's wish list. The ring of feather falling is exactly the right amount of cash, too... hmmm.

Thanks for running the game, it was really awesome! I thought there was really cool sections of description and the end set piece was freaky. Also, i loved where you went above and beyond, adding just a little extra flavor to your descriptions to help pull our toons into the scenario.

This section was one of my favorites, for sure. Having little nods to the character/interactions was totally cool.

The young ninja, although his is currently invisible, decides that this is not enough and begins to rummage through his pack. He finds a love note from Sheeba "When are you coming back my sssssweet?"; a bit of rock from the mine his dad and Ibid worked in; a few Osirion coppers from his days on the street, and finally he finds his scroll. He begins to study the spidery runes, silently wishing Armanati or Finarin where there to help him.

Again, dude, amazing job :)

I agree - I loved that little tidbit. Of course, I did nothing in that last fight... was pretty cool to see the effectiveness of a couple of strong melee characters though.

Honestly, it makes this so much easier from a GM perspective when you have very fleshed out characters with a strong personality and good background. Would love to see more from you two.

Chronicles out - let me know if I made a bo-bo and I will fix it. Once my SS friends pick an NPC I will shut this down.

Again thank you for your patience and assistance. I had a blast and hope you did too. Going to post a review for this mod I liked it so much. Probably my favorite to date.