Gregor, that’s fine, but I am okay with others using those rules. Take 20 is certainly something I would limit to thoroughl searches (with perception) or disable device checks and only when not under pressure. There may be a few other situations where it’s applicable, but those are the main two I can think of. At the very least, it saves time from having to roll over and over again in those situations where you’ll eventually be able to get a 20 anyway if you roll enough.
In the interest of giving Gilda and Matiscio a chance to post and to give you more time to discuss your game plan, I'm likely going to hold off on updating us till at least Friday due to Thanksgiving here in the US. Today's Thanksgiving Eve (is that a thing?) so I'm guessing a lot of people are already traveling. Safe travels to those who are and I think we'll be back into the normal swing of things by Friday or next week at the latest.
Evander can walk around staggering as though drunk. That will probably be a Bluff check, but he's decent at those.
It looks like there are 6 alleyways - we can only cover 4 of them.
I actually think that the alleyway Didiana's covering can be covered by Gregor on the building next to it - Didiana should move to watch the top right alleyway. If Evander gets accosted in the bottom right alleyway, she should be able to hear that happening and interven. Gilda and Matiscio can take the bottom center and bottom left, and whoever is near the bottom center can also watch the top center.
I've moved people's tokens into what I think is a good configuration. Do people agree/disagree?
Is that big building with the fenced-in yard a bar?
Yup, I'm okay with this game plan. Can't really think of much else to do.
And oddly enough I do the exact opposite of Gregor in my own games. Unless it's a high-stress situation such as combat, I want nothing but take 10s from my players. It's funny how differently people play the game.
I think everyone is too open and exposed. I put red circles on where they should be hiding to be better hidden themselves. As such, I think Gilda is the most in the open even there, and should have the cloak.
That works too. I just picked places where people had a good view of the alleys.
@Evander: It's not a bar, just a larger home and animal pen (which is unoccupied, at the moment).
Darn. I hoped it was a bar - I'd have Evander hang out there pretending to get drunk. Ah, well.
You could always fake heartache / being kicked out and be yet another bum who gets to live on the wonderful streets of Kintargo? Also, I moved Matiscio into one of Gregor's proposed 'red spots' ;)
With Matiscio not rocking a shield (until combat), he'll only have a -2 ACP so that brings his stealth up to +6. I think it's easiest if you assume he's simply taking a take 10.
My PC decided to die. On Black Friday. So until I get a new one I'll be forced to do most typing on my phone -_-
That stinks. I guess it happened just in time for Cyber Monday. Thank you for the heads up.
I read the discussion first, and when you said your 'PC decided to die', I was like, "Wait. Crap, what happened to Matiscio?" until I finished reading.
Didiana, as Gregor is just before you in initiative, he would not likely move the extra step unless you telegraphed your intentions prior or during his action, as it would require one more acrobatics, and not put him in flank with Matiscio.
In the name of verisimilitude, it seems unlikely, as you didn't have a visual before I moved. Not that I'm against it, or wouldn't have if our order was shifted, just that when he went he wouldn't have thought of it.
Continual damage from bleed and effects such as sleep can make things messy, indeed. I'll simply go with whatever the DM rules, because things can get messy enough in convoluted PbP combat scenes without me making a fuss ;-)
Also, praise Irori for CMD boosting feats.
Sorry for my absence. On Black Friday my PC died and a couple of days ago my laptop's adapter died. Only now did I get the replacement power supply delivered. Yeah, great week u_u
No worries, Matiscio. I apologize for not getting in an update yesterday. I’ve been sick pretty much this whole week and it decided to kick into overdrive yesterday. I’m hoping to get an update in tonight if it gets a bit better.
Going to hold off on updating us so you all can discuss your plans a bit more (and so everyone has a chance to contribute to said plans).
Right then. A third level of Sorc.
+7 hp (+4 class, +2 Con, +1 favored class)
More spells known (+1 1th lv. AND a bloodline spell)
More spells per day (+1, for 6/day)
+1 Fortitude and Reflex saves
+4 skill points (+2 class, +1 Int, +1 human):
--1 Intimidate
--1 Sense Motive
--1 Knowledge (planes)
--1 Spellcraft
+2 background skills
--1 Lore (criminal law)
--1 Perform (violin)
New feat: Arcane Armor Training
And finally an all new bloodline power. Fairly substantial upgrade overall. I went with the alternate bloodline mutation instead of what the Infernal bloodline would otherwise have given me at lv.1, but think I'll stay with Infernal as written for the level three power. Not that the alternate Blood Intensity isn't tempting... That is real, real good... But I may be able to pick it up later when it will be more effective, and the fire and poison resistance that comes with Infernal is very flavorful, all things considered. Besides, I'm gonna have to guess that fire resistance in game themed around devils is bound to come in handy.
As for new spells I get to pick one and automatically receive uh... Protection from Good.... Hmm.
Would like to ask the front-liners in the party about that lv.1 spell Di gets. I'm eyeing Enlarge Person. Would that be something any of you would appreciate on the regular? Won't do much for stealth, of course, but it is a pretty good buff. No point in taking it if no one's interested but I'd think it would be pretty effective on Matiscio. And combining it with Evander's Longarm formulae could lead to some real dumb shenanigans...
Shaman 3rd.
HP: +8 (5 base +2 con +1 favored)
skills:
+1 perception
+2 bluff
+2 sense motive
+1 lore (old kintargo)
+1 sleight of hand
2nd level spells prepared:
cure moderate wounds, spiritual weapon
feat: extra hex
hex: chant
Gregor is taking his 1st Bard level now
HP: +7 (5 base, +1 Con, +1 FC)
Class Skills: 8 (6 class, +2 Int)
+3 Bluff
+1 Perception
+1 Perform (Oratory)
+1 Spellcraft
+1 Stealth
+1 Use Magic Device
Background Skills: 2
+2 Perform (Oratory)
New Bard Spells Known: 4/0th, 2/1st
- 0th - Daze, Detect Magic, Light, Read Magic
- 1st - Cure Light Wounds, Feather Fall
Feat:
Lingering Performance
Evander is stepping partially into Lia's role with a multiclass to Inspired Blade Swashbuckler.
HP: +7 (6 base, +1 Con)
Class Skills: 7 (4 Class, 3 Int)
+2 Acrobatics
+1 Bluff
+1 Perception
+1 Sense Motive
+1 Stealth
+1 Knowledge (local)
Background Skills: 2
+1 Linguistics
+1 Knowledge (nobility)
Deeds Gained:
Derring-Do
Dodging Panache
Opportune Parry and Riposte
Feats
Weapon Focus (rapier) (Class)
Fencing Grace
Now I'm combat effective!
Also, Evander really isn't a good candidate for enlarging. He survives through dodging and finesse - enlarging him works the opposite.
Matiscio, however, could do well with it.
Will sit down later tonight or somewhere tomorrow to do the leveling up crunch. It will be a given that Matiscio is taking his third level in the brawler class.
Gregor, it seems appropriate that we would have at least one bard in a city like Kintargo. : )
Evander, which language did you learn?
No worries, Matiscio.
Oh, sorry! I learned Celestial. I think that means with Celestial, Elven, and Infernal, I can help Rexus with the translation, right?
Unfortunately, the cipher is in Celestial, Elven, and Strix. You can still attempt to aid the project with a linguistics check, though.
Ah, that's right. Strix was the third one. Well, can only pick up one language at a time (unless I get a headband with it), so that'll have to wait. I still have my comprehend languages extract for a once a week aid, too.
Level 2 to 3
HP: +9 (6 base, +2 Con, +1 favorite class bonus)
Class Skills: 7 (4 Class, 1 Human)
+1 Perception
+1 Acrobatics
+1 Stealth
+1 Sense Motive
+1 Knowledge Local
Background Skills: 2
+1 Lore Kintargo
+1 Profession Guru
Class Feature
Maneuver Training (Grapple)) +1 bonus on combat maneuver checks when grappling and a +1 bonus to her CMD when defending against grapples.
Feats
Iron Will (+2 to Will saves)
I honestly didn't know what to spend the second background skill on so I figured 'guru' would fit the bill, what with him being big into PFs variant of yoga and martial arts.
Head on over to the discussion thread to decide on your rebellion actions for the next week.
Here we go again! Thanks to us being rank five we got *two* actions this phase. Our *notoriety* is six. Is this high? Not really, as this gives us a six percent chance (a d100 roll) to be caught by House Thrune and, as a result, suffer the consequences. 'Lie low' eats all of our actions and reduces our notoriety by the current number of teams we have: two. That doesn't sound too great, to be honest.
We could 'Recruit Supporters', but I'm entirely unsure as to whether it is a good idea to rush through the rebellion rank table. Surely there must be a drawback to this? If not, this is a good way to ensure more actions and team slots.
There's 'Reduce Danger'. A relatively simple DC 15 Security check will reduce our danger rating by 5 for a week (and an additional 5 for every 10 by which we exceed this DC 15). Our current danger rating is 20.
We could also upgrade our Freedom Fighter team to Infiltrators. This would cost 250 gold, which we got, and open up the 'Rescue Character' action. The rescue DC is a Security check of 10 + the to be rescued character's level. This also increases the notoriety by the char's level, or half if the check fails.
I'm not entirely sure if the last phase has been added to the spreadsheet yet, but I .. think? .. we fixed our teams last round? If not, we could also spend an action to bring it back to full strength again, I think.
A few things to keep in mind:
You actually get 3 rebellion actions this week (2 for your rank and 1 from Gregor as the strategist).
Also, you did 'repair' your disabled team from last week, so they're good to go.
This will be the last week that you can recruit Crowe and his team. They'll be heading out from Kintargo if not recruited this week.
Lastly, rank 5 is the current maximum for the rebellion's rank, so keep that in mind. You're currently rank 3. I did some updating on the rebellion sheet, so it should be up-to-date now.
Going to hold off on updating us to give you all more time to decide on your rebellion actions for the next week.
Evander, your linguistics check is more than enough to help Rexus for the next week and might just net you an extra helping of information from the documents.
Durp. I even opened the .pdf while typing all that out. Guess I'm just terrible at the Rebellion rules ._.
I say we recruit Crowe and his team for one action. For another, let's upgrade our existing Freedom Fighters to Infiltrators so next Rebellion phase we can rescue Crissali.
Our final option, in preparation for this, should be to Reduce Danger - especially since we intend to rescue Crissali.
I unfortunately see no point in recruiting Crowe when we already have a team of freedom fighters. All they're going to do is eat up a precious team slot we could use for a different type of team. That said, it makes sense outside the mechanics so yeah.
Definitely upgrade Freedom Fighters. Gotta get Crissali back.
And while I'm loath to have even a single week where we don't Recruit Supporters (sweet, sweet PC boons), sure - let's Reduce Danger. Have to keep them streets clean.
Looking at the rules of it, here's a few things I see:
At max rank of 5 for this module, we have a maximum number of teams at 4. Our current maximum is 3. I would rather we have one of each type before duplicating. So, I agree with Didiana, that it doesn't make sense to recruit Crowe.... except for the fact where it makes sense in story.
Can we upgrade The Fushi sisters? If so, into what? Regardless, they currently don't really have an action we need right now.
I agree we need to upgrade to get the Rescue Character option, and story wise why would we turn down recruiting Crowe?
Sadly, though, Reduce Danger has no bearing on the rescue action. Reducing Danger affects our chances of getting an event during the event phase as well as the level of event we get. Our event chance is fairly low, and only gets higher when we don't get an event the week prior.
I personally think that the sooner we can get our rank to 5, the more open our choices and options become in the subsequent weeks, opening up more actions, more teams, and more bonuses to our attempt to perform any action.
Therefore, I think:
Recruit Team (Crowe)
Recruit Supporters
Upgrade Freedom Fighters (don't think we can upgrade a team we are recruiting, or I would suggest upgrade Crowe to make it feel more like we got more out of it).
Alright, everyone so far seems to be in favor of recruiting Crowe and upgrading your current freedom fighters to infiltrators. As for the third action, we still need a consensus as to whether or not you want to Reduce Danger or Recruit Supporters. We can keep things moving in the main story, but I want to make sure everyone's on the same page before I run week 3's rebellion actions. If we need to do majority rules, that works, but we still need Gilda and Matiscio's thoughts on the specific actions. Everyone else, please feel free to chime in again.
Gregor, the Fushi sisters are a unique team, so they can't be upgraded. Keep in mind, though, that they don't count against the total number of teams you can normally have, so they can just be there if you decide you want to make use of them.
I'm fine with recruiting Crowe since we can upgrade his merry band, and I'm down with going for Recruiting Supporters. I guess we can't upgrade the newly refurbished Crow Company so that leaves us with Reduce Danger for slot three ;)
The plan was to upgrade our other team of Freedom Fighters, not Crowe's (yet).
I'm fine with Recruiting Supporters. I thought Reduce Danger would help with when we engaged in the "Rescue" action, but if it doesn't, we can grab more supporters.
Possibly going to be a hard couple days on posting for me with the holiday, and we're also moving this week. Don't hold anything back on Gilda.
No worries, Gilda. Thank you for the update. Hope the move goes well!
So to confirm, everyone, you're going with Recruit freedom fighters, Upgrade team to infiltrators, and Recruit supporters, correct?
As I understood it, I believe so, the recruits being Crowe (which I thought you said had a lower or no DC, but couldn't find it).
Also, if the agreement was for Supporters, then it will be the extra action (if Crowe was no or low DC), to add my extra strategist amount to the check. Otherwise, the extra action will be whichever has a the higher DC.
That sounds good to me.
Matiscio's Historian of the Rebellion trait allows him to give a +2 bonus to either Loyalty, Secrecy or Security. Since we are going for the Recruit Supporters action, it might be best to assign that floating +2 to Loyalty this turn.
Going to hold off on updating us till more people can chime in. Also, I'm going to wait for a couple more people to give the go ahead for the rebellion actions you all are interested in. I just want to make sure most of us are on the same page.
Also, Christmas is in 2 days, so I hope everyone has a good one. That also means that we're likely to be extremely slow for the next three or four days, so I may or may not update us during that time. We'll see how it goes.
Yup. Recruit Crowe, upgrade team, recruit supporters (+2 bonus). Very much agreed.
And also yup, I can pretty much guarantee that you won't see any major posts from me the next two days at least. Christmas, y'all!
Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and/or any other holidays you may celebrate! Hopefully we'll hear from most of you before next year. ; )
Rebellion Week Three
Upkeep Phase
It appears Evander’s words to Zea had an effect as you gain tiefling supporters from the Devil’s Nursery.
Supporter Attrition:
Lose only supporters.
Notoriety Maximum: N/A
Treasury Shortage: N/A
Increase Rank: N/A (Currently Rank 3)
Deposits and Withdrawals: -250 gp to upgrade Freedom Fighters to Infiltrators. Removed 250 gp from the rebellion's coffers. (786 gp remaining)
Activity Phase
Action 1: Recruit Crowe
Crowe readily agrees to join the Silver Ravens along with the other freedom fighters in his group. (No check required)
Action 2: Upgrade Team (-250 gp as mentioned above) Starting in week four, Geoni and his fellow freedom fighters will have the training necessary to officially be considered Infiltrators. (No check required)
Action 3 (+2 Bonus): Recruit Supporters
Added the +2 from Matiscio’s trait bonus and +2 from Gregor as the Strategist.
(I'm going to assume Lia is leveling along with you in the background, otherwise you would be shortchanged on the number of supporters you gain.)
Between your recruited supporters and supporter changes from the upkeep phase, you have a net gain of 6 supporters. This gets you to rebellion rank 4. You are now considered Guardians (of Kintargo)! Yes, I'm well aware this is kind of a lame level up bonus... but you also get a bonus feat! You get to select Alertness, Deceitful, Persuasive, or Stealthy as a bonus feat. Please indicate you selection in your next discussion post and update your profile page and stats accordingly.
You also get +1 to your focused check (Secrecy) from leveling up.
Event Phase
No event!
With how much use I'm getting out of Disguise, I think Deceitful is an excellent choice for me - although Alertness was awfully tempting.
I'll be going for Alertness! Also, I hope everyone had some wonderful holidays. I know I did, according to my scales :'D
Gregor is going with Alertness as well, the guardsman in him needs those skills.
Echoing Matiscio, I hope all of you had a lovely Christmas. As for the belated Christmas gift, I'll take Persuasive. It offers both further specialization with intimidate, and shores up diplomacy which I probably won't put further points in.
Nice to see people eager to get back to it after the holiday hiatus!
Gilda already has Alertness from her familiar, at least when it's near.
We'll go ahead with Deceitful as I think it'd be fun for Gilda to be able to exaggerate stories or make up other inane facts that are hard to detect the truth behind...
Going to hold off on updating us (obviously). I think things will be back to normal once we get a day or two past New Year's. Hope your move went well, Gilda.