GM ThinkingFlesh's GM101 - Phantom Phenomena (Inactive)

Game Master Caro Cogitatus

If Gulch is going to start provoking (meaning he isn't getting cover from the angle), as soon as he realizes that, he will turn around and help people out of the pit.

I figured the height difference would protect him from AooO's. Until he attempts to get onto the island itself. This is how I see it:

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Gulch is at the bottom, plant at the top. 5ft up (at the X) is still greater than 10ft from the plant, and the hard corner provides cover even at the top, no? Like being down a hallway with someone standing on the side of the door.

Cover Rules from the pfsrd site has a picture that I'm trying to use to interpret what is happening.

I would rule gulch out of range as well as he is also low on the wall and he would indeed get cover from the sharp angle.

The critter has 15 foot reach -- does the Hivemind still think Gulch is out of range?

Regardless, Gulch has seen the maximum reach of the tendrils and can stay out of range if he wants to.

The fungus is at the edge of the cliff, so it seems to me that the edge doesn't provide cover or concealment in this case since the fungus has reach and therefore uses the ranged C&C rules.

In this diagram, "Rogue" is the fungus and "Fighter" is Gulch, and the view is from the side.

As always, I'm happy to be convinced. Feel free to edit the diagram to make your case.

Oh. I thought the thing was slightly back. Nevermind. :)

I realize in retrospect that I did the Surprise round wrong.

What I should have done:
* Fungus is aware of all of you so it acts.
* Every party member gets a Perception check vs. the fungus' Stealth. Those who beat it can act.
* Fungus is first in initiative so it has everyone Flat Footed (as it turns out, with dicebot rolls it wouldn't have mattered)
* Fungus only gets one tendril attack in Surprise round.

So it got an extra attack that it shouldn't have had, but most party members would not have acted at all (only Wormling has a Perception high enough to have a reasonable chance).

Not that two f***-ups equal a success, but hopefully that means it wasn't a lopsided error in favor of Team Monster.

Question: Would you have done a Take Ten on Perception for the party, or a GM roll?

Anyway, I think I *finally* understand Surprise round mechanics now. Yay, me!

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Update: right on cue (a few days too late for me), there's this.

Hum...during Manor I went with a GM roll to see if anyone noticed Andolf and the mites hiding but I can also see how a case for using Take Ten could work just as well.

This is how I think about it:

At a table, everyone would roll perception vs the rolled stealth of the enemy. In a PbP, I would do the same thing except have the GM roll all the dice to keep the game moving.

I think an opposed check should be rolled, but something with a flat DC (ie a trap, notice special objects, etc.) should just have a take ten. In this event, I wouldn't even notify the PC's that a check was made and just tell the ones who succeeded that they notice X. If nobody can make the check on a 10, I'd probably do GM rolls again just to give them a chance.

Of course, I'd let PC's roll perception if a check hasn't been made yet on their behalf. For example, if a PC steps into a room and rolls perception (before I've described the room), I'd let them use that roll regardless of what I'd typically do.

Does all of that make sense?

Yes, to me, and I would do the same.

Sounds perfect, Wormling.

Can Elena heal herself even though she has no points in her Heal skill and she doesn't have a First Aid kit?

The rules for Heal say it's usable untrained, but you need a healer's kit. But then it gives a rule for the cumulative penalty for not having enough healing kit uses.

This thread indicates you can Treat Deadly Wounds without a healer's kit, albeit at -4. As I read the rules you can try (I wouldn't allow it during combat) using your Wisdom modifier and a -4 penalty, so unless you have 18+ Wisdom it's impossible.

Wasn't there a rule that you can't try an untrained skill for higher than DC10? I can't find that now. If so, that answers it.

As far as I know you can try any skill untrained if the DC is 10 or less. 11+ and it requires training unless the skill says otherwise. However, I can't quote you a source.

My next post will be in 7 hours.

The DC 10 thing is only for Knowledge skills.

So... A lot of confusion about skills, AoOs, and cover. Also a lot of confusion about retcons.

SKILLS

Untrained Skills: If it is usable untrained, like ride, acrobatics or heal, anyone can do it untrained. Elena can attempt to heal herself. Or we can try to get Fran or someone down to heal you. If Mr. Sunshine could carry touch spells, he would already be there.

Trained Only Skills: Some skills can only be done if trained: UMD, Spellcraft. A few of these trained-only skills have special exceptions written into the skill's detailed description:

• Knowledge Skills will let you make a DC 10 check untrained. This will not allow anyone to aid another for knowledge checks with a DC higher than 10.
  
• Handle Animal has an exception that allows you to use it untrained to give orders to domestic animals like horses and dogs. You cannot use it this way to teach a trick -- it just allows you to command an animal used to taking orders from people to do a trick it already knows.

RETCONS

Yes, a lot of things went funky with that surprise round. The good news is this sort of thing is why we're all doing GM 101. So that we can these kinds of mistakes HERE and learn from them.

This is the sort of thing that I would have retconned. I would have declared that the second attack never happened in the surprise round. Don't be afraid to retcon in a combat... It happens all the time in PbP!

This is a complicated fight with terrain, cover, reach, and other issues. Making mistakes is very easy under the circumstances.

GOING FORWARD

This is the nastiest fight in Phantom Phenomena. What can we as a team do to help each other and move forward?

Yay, Hmm is back!!! It's great that this is a place where we are learning and I'm grateful that this is a class. Also, I'm a total newbie myself so I would probably make even more mistakes than everyone else.

I just want to mention one thing going forward:

I am disappointed that I never got to choose where my character got placed on the map when initial combat started. It feels like the GM played my character for me and never gave me a rolyplaying opportunity to place Elena on the map. I posted at lunch time when Elena was still outside of the cave, then only seven hours later when I get home we're in combat and I never was given the opportunity to place my character. Just feels like I got the short end of the stick and I wasn't given the opportunity to roleplay my character. I find it especially strange that I wasn't given the opportunity because of the rich roleplay we did while traveling up the mountain.

Then, after not having the freedom to actually play my own character and place them on the map, Elena is attacked and knocked unconscious in a Surprise/Round 1 thing. I feel like I had no control over my own character. I went from posting only seven hours earlier outside of the cave, to being moved inside the cave - without any input - and dealt a massive amount of damage (which I'm 100% okay with - let the dice fall where they fall!)

How many other people actually picked where they wanted their character to be on the cave map within that 7 hour window?

I don't remember who was behind Elena, but considering story and mechanics, Elena would be in the front but would always have a character with a light source directly behind her or next to her because Elena lacks low light vision and does not have a light source. (Or, she would ask to have Dancing Lights cast on her - whatever - as long as she has vision.) Considering the roleplay aspect, when Elena enters into a cave or any other dark place, Elena would ask a party member before hand to please light a torch. It feels like the story skipped from A to C.

I feel like such a mean person. Sorry, I don't want to come across that way. :'( I'm just disappointed that my character was placed on the map without my input and combat was pretty rushed.

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I will be home to post around 7pm EST.

Elena, deepest apologies. It's a fine line between moving the combat along and allowing everyone every chance to chime in. This time I seem to have gone too far in the "moving it along" direction.

I'll try to remember that in the future.

And thanks for speaking up! This is a class and feedback is a big part of why I'm here.

From the other side, I'm finding it hard to reconcile asking for a Saving throw or an action, and having that player post in Discussion but not in Gameplay so I feel like I'm being ignored. And I get it -- we all have busy lives and I'm just as guilty of skimming the thread and missing an important plot point as anyone. But it's still a little irksome to me at times.

I think if/when I run a session after this, I will have to be up front in the Recruitment thread that I like a fast game.

I'll slow it down for the remainder of this adventure. :-)

Edit:
I went back and looked, and it was 3-1/2 hours between "place yourselves on the map" and start of combat, so Elena is definitely correct. I was excited to get this end cap combat started and took the postings of several characters as equivalent to everyone posting. Definitely my bad on that one, and I will try not to do that in the future.

^ Nope, not mean.

As a GM, this is the sort of character frustration that you want to see aired by your players rather than bottled up. This way you can deal with it.

Besides, this is going to open up a whole excellent discussion about botting, player agency, as well as ground rules for marching orders and standard procedures in Dungeons. In PbP, it is a delicate balance as a GM to figure out such things as character placement, botting and other such things. On the one hand, you don't want to lose pacing and have everyone lose interest when the game stops moving.

WHENEVER POSSIBLE, get your players to agree to a marching order and standard dungeon operating procedures in advance.

Bad things happen. The dice fell in a crappy way. But these sorts of complaints are not attacks, but rather opportunities to listen and take the pulse of your players.

To be honest, Elena, like Thinking Flesh, I often will make the choice to move things forward and bot. Pacing is critical in PbP! This sometimes means that bad things happen to a botted character, or decisions are made for the character that the character themselves would not do. It's a balancing act. Most of the time, it works. Some of the times, it doesn't, and we need to talk things through.

Incidentally, this can happen even with the most experienced of GMs*. Keeping the communication lines open between players and GMs is critical.

Hmm

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* Very recently, we had a similar situation erupt in a game that I was playing. I felt so horrible about something that had happened when I was AFK that I was thinking about quitting the game, even though it was a good game with an excellent GM. We talked the situation through, fixed things going forward, and it got better.

On another note, another question for the GM Hivemind.

When characters move in and out of a spell's area of effect, do they lose the effect when moving out, and do they make another Save when reentering?

This spell-like ability is similar to Silence in area, but it's a mind-affecting effect so it's not a simple question of acoustics. If a character is outside the effect when it first appears, but later moves in, they should require a Saving throw, yes? But the general rule is "once saved, saved for good against that casting of that spell" so moving out & in would not require a new Save every time, I think.

Thoughts?

ThinkingFlesh --

I am sorry about the whole not posting my saving throws. I was not trying to ignore you, though I am pretty sure that it came off that way. My bad!

I will say that most of the time I just roll saving throws for players to speed things up. This can cause issues though if players feel like they could have used Saving Finale, Misfortune or something else to reroll that saving throw.

You just have to let them use their special abilities and retcon in PbP.

We all have to strike a balance.

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Everyone Else --

Yep, I have been a distracted puppy this week. My sincerest apologies. After being ill for two weeks, I came back to deadlines on all sides both IRL and for getting stuff together for the upcoming Cosmic Captive special.

This is one of those moments where I am going to wail, "I am the worst GM Teacher in the whole world!" There. Now I got that horrid thought out of my system, I can move on.

:)

There was one advantage to me being AWOL for a couple days, though. The group hive mind started speaking up.

So... We are almost to the end, and I think we've been learning a whole lot.

Hmm

Thanks, Hmm. Your guidance is much appreciated.

I've been playing PbP for years and GM'ing in person for several months, and I'm discovering how little I know and how easy it is to get things wrong.

Thanks, everyone, for working with me and for your own GM efforts.

For the first time, I am starting to worry that we will TPK. We really need to get this thing down. Or make a strategic retrreat, and come back with new spells prepared. It's not like the plant is going anywhere.

Ya. This is surprisingly rough.

How do we go about getting out of here and regrouping?

Got rope?

No, i neglected rope, silly me. Hopefully someone has rope and we can climb out and all full withdraw?

Returning fresh with better tactics might work for us. For example, pelting the darn thing with ranged.

Though it could also help if we could get our Paladin out of the pit. Herbicide could make all the difference here. Alas, it's a plant, so not evil. No smite.

Fran's got rope; if we're definitely thinking of a possible retreat then she can throw it up to someone on the ledge and we can go from there. Otherwise she's probably going to try and finish healing Elena on her next turn.

I buffed her ac to help. I can assist with the climb, so can Rhasuel and Wormling. I ran out of actions or i would have assisted this round. Wuth the angle can i make ranged attacks from in the pit?

Gulch is expendable (and a big dummy) so I'll have him keep slogging forward.

Wormling will help make the climb so the sane party members can escape!

Gulch can you help people out of the pit?

How does carrying people out work? I assumed it was no problem with Wormling because he is a small character. I am more than happy to have Gulch drop down into safety and carry people out.

He'll get a wonderful sense of satisfaction pretending to be a paladin as he saves a paladin ;)

EDIT: I've already posted. GM: would you let me change tactics or wait until next round?

Can Elena make a Strength check to climb up a rope with someone thrown over her shoulder like a sack of flour?

Well...Fran can take move actions and not drop so she can at least dig her rope out. Or she can heal herself and be able to function properly again so she'll probably go with that one, heh.

Mathos, the critter is at the edge of the cliff so you can ranged attack from the far side of the pit. It's smart enough to move out of the way, though.

Elena, yes you can attempt that. I'll let you know the DC when you do. :-)

FWIW, I see that I screwed up again with the tendril Pull attacks -- they should have required a CMB roll. Apologies for that.

So is the general consensus that we are going to retreat or push forward? Elena and I are indifferent.

I am also indifferent. We can stay and see how we go, but it isn't looking super rosy.

If we go and come bsck i will bring rope at the very least. And will prepare ear-piercing scream. It will stun and i think i read it takes more damage from sonic attacks.

Elena's sword has the herbicide on it, so we need to get her to the fungus and the sword into it to take advantage of that.

If we stay i can stay in the pit and stabilize people at the very least so they don't bleed out.

Unless we get a savior gulch soon I say we take a step back and burn it with fire

Okay, folks, I have a retconn suggestion for my egregious mistake in auto-hitting the Pull attacks in the Surprise round and Round 1:

The party gains back 2d6-2 HP for any two party members, and any two (could be the same but doesn't have to be) were never in the pit and can place themselves on the ledge approximately where they fell.

It doesn't fix the screwup, but it hopefully makes it more acceptable. This beastie is a rough one and still has at least one more pretty good trick up its sleeve, but I think you guys can take it down if you work together.

I don't want my mistakes to lead to a TPK that otherwise wouldn't have happened. I'm open to suggestions. We're all GMs here, so anything reasonable is up for discussion.

I am easy about the retcon.

If we go with it I think we put Elena and one other up top. I didn't get pulled in so i will stay down. Gulch is a maybe, or Wormling.

The game is rolling along in the gameplay thread. I will hold off my action until we decide on a course. Do we run away and regroup, retcon, or continue as is?

Same, I'll hold off Elena's action until we decide.

If I had to pick, I'd vote run away and regroup.

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Elena's Climb roll would look like this right?
DC (15) = 1d20 +3 (Str) -4 (Armor Check) -6 (Carrying a party member)

I don't know where you got the -6, but that sounds reasonable to me, Elena.

I'd rather push the plant off the edge.

@KingOfPregens I lol'ed just now.

I'm at work until this evening so bot Fran as needed. Withdrawing is fine by me if that's what everyone wants to do!

Okay, folks, I have a retconn suggestion for my egregious mistake in auto-hitting the Pull attacks in the Surprise round and Round 1:

The party gains back 2d6-2 HP for any two party members, and any two (could be the same but doesn't have to be) were never in the pit and can place themselves on the ledge approximately where they fell.

It doesn't fix the screwup, but it hopefully makes it more acceptable. This beastie is a rough one and still has at least one more pretty good trick up its sleeve, but I think you guys can take it down if you work together.

I don't want my mistakes to lead to a TPK that otherwise wouldn't have happened. I'm open to suggestions. We're all GMs here, so anything reasonable is up for discussion.

If we leave and return tomorrow, should we still use this? Will it break any PFS rules?

I don't think we need to retreat. Put wormling and Fran back on the ledge and apply Rhasuel's cure light to Elena.

If someone else provokes an AoO, Erasmus can attempt a Bull Rush on the fungus. With spirit surge, it's 50/50 he makes it and Elena can do what she does best.

Sure. Let's give it a go.

I would give you the retconn now to either fight on or retreat more safely.

I think if you come back "tomorrow" you'd come back at full health & spells, but the fungus would probably have time to work out some tactics against you. If you were my F2F group I would give penalties for trying to sleep with all the weirdness and strange thoughts in your heads, but here I'd probably handwave it away.

I'll leave it to Hmm whether that violates any PFS rules. If so, we'll of course need to rethink it.

King, the fungus is a Medium sized creature, so your Bull Rush strategy is viable.