Iron Gods: Forged into Legends

Game Master polyfrequencies

Yes, that makes sense. If there is no magic involved then that makes sense. Thanks

I don't think the Unseen servant has the "skills" to help. But if you find a post arguing that, let me know.

Absolutely, it can only do the simplest of tasks, like sweeping or dragging something. That being said, while looking for rolls for siege engines I only found two worth mentioning:

To summarize the results of my brief time spent researching:
I couldn't find anything that required any skill roll for reloading, and therefore I question how much skill is required to reload the catapult.

On the one hand, I feel like I could order the servant to take Basil's orders and she and her android brain could figure out how to direct the servant to reload the weapon effectively xD

On the other hand, servants created by Unseen Servant might not be able to take orders from someone who didn't summon them, and they might not be able to do anything complicated enough to count as a full round action for reloading without someone else spending non-free actions to direct them in detail xD

If by post you mean something like this, then I'd like to point out that there is at least one opinion in favor of the 1st level spell standing in for a siege crew member.

Almost completely unrelated: Mount can definitely take care of our cart's propulsion if anyone ever takes out our horse xD

edit: Unseen Crew is also a thing. Might need to spell research for a siege engine version, though xD
(maybe a 2nd level version since I wouldn't need the skill checks, days/level, or long range? Just CL number of Unseen Servants?)

counter argument:

Unseen servant: "can open only normal doors, drawers, lids, and the like"; it "can trigger traps and such, but it can exert only 20 pounds of force, which is not enough to activate certain pressure plates and other devices."

I would argue that a ballista is an "other device".

Not sure if it can use a crank and reload. Just don't think it is capable enough.

That's totally fair xD
Originally I envisaged it just handing off ammunition, but I'm not sure how many actions that would be xD
(It can "run and fetch things" after all. Also, upon rereading, it can clean and mend which seems a bit more complex...)

Ah, nevermind, once we have the endless ammunition Manticores Tail mounted on a permanencied floating disk, we can also afford the 2 hirelings to load ammo for me :D

or I can do Spell Research, haha
Though I suppose hirelings are much cheaper than spell research xD

Also, I found this quoted, it's supposedly in the first book of Iron Gods:

An android eats, drinks, breathes, and excretes much like a human, though certain improvements have been made. Androids do not require sleep, and resist biological diseases. Their thin, watery blood carries life-sustaining oxygen in the fluid itself rather than in cells. Instead of clotting, android bleeding is halted by repairs carried out by nanites. These nanites carry out other biological functions as well, including cleansing the body of accumulated toxins. Androids have limited control of their nanites, and can call on them to exceed their normal bodily and mental limits for an instant’s effort. Some android attain a higher level of control, and can marshal their nanites to heal grievous wounds in moments.

So I suppose that settles it ^_^

I understand. It's just a bit frustrating if you roll a Natural 20, expecting to to good, then realize the enemy did not even need a moderate roll to beat that. I suppose I would be less bitter if my own roll had been moderate. That and as you say, we BOTH had natural 20s.

I would also like to point out that Perception covers all senses, not just visual, while invisibility does nothing to dampen sounds - "Hear the sound of a creature walking is DC 10" as per Perception. So we COULD have heared her as she approached, before she got the jump on us.(One of the ways people without Darkvision/Low-Light-Vision avoid getting straight up murdered from just beyond the campfires light)
It's not criticism and I wouldn't want a retcon, you're cutting us some slack regulary, too. Just saying you did have options there, for next time ;)

I appreciate it. I was a bit worried about it, and ran it by my wife last night. But I totally hear it both ways. Nat20s make it all a bit confusing. The +20 stealth is weird, when you can hear it. She had taken an invisibility potion. I figure 1 bomb, with no splash, in pretty close range.. and no sleeping person.

Thank you for understanding. I will take all input to heart.

And yeah, you don't require sleep! Just the spell prep will be a thing, rest and sleep are different things. Thanks

@Keldor: Can you target an object like the cart that big? I know you can put down a 10x10 area, or coat a weapon or armor.. But can you coat a object that is bigger than 10x10?

Just trying to make the orders work, at first I had Basil roll reflex and failed.. so I just rethought it all and decided it would have been done smarter, and with the retcons happening I didn't want to penalize everyone.

Was just a tricky round to get set up correctly. The grease did cause the woman to not be able to move, so that is good.

I do appreciate all the feedback. I am trying to be fair but challenging.

I suspect that he can just coat part of the top of the cart that includes the intruder xD

edit: food for thought
in case she has any morale boosts or penalties, she probably keeps them xD

Initiative order is a nice way to evade the issue. But I was invisible and did not announce my intent(as that would have defeated the purpose) so it would have been fair if you decided I was included in the Grease Area.

Just saying :) And yeah, with bigger "objects" it would default to part of the surface area. After all, I can still cast "grease" on a 20x20 banquet tables surface, or on a few stone blocks making up a castle floor, or some earthy floor with stones and grass on a forest path.

Regarding the disarm: It was exactly what I was going for and intended. Negate the one bomb - effectively I was trying to make her waste a turn to give others time to move into position or do something and get on the other side of her to cut off escape.

Heh, I should've gone with the nonlethal damage ray instead xD
But I was hoping she'd roll low on will and I didn't have confidence in my attack roll...

I went back and forth on the grease, if you had been there (invisible) and the spell was cast, I actually rolled.. it was a fail. I just through it over, and decided this fight is going to be his own difficulty (not super easy), I didn't want to drop you to the ground.

I guess I disagree with the grease and surface area. The spell lets you do a 10x10 area. Or coat an object. I don't think that coated object can be bigger than the 10x10 area.

Either way, the cart was mostly coated, but not every inch of its exterior. I figured if we went with order of Init then you would have known.

I don't want to screw with you all too much.

@Thawm - yeah I saw that. if she had failed the will save (very possible) that would have come into play. There are some morale bonuses in there.

The problem is that most "10x10" areas may be part of an object. Say you are fighting on a giant boulder...you can't coat the ground because the boulder is too big?
I meant that if the object is bigger than 10x10, all you can do is use the 10x10 variant ON the object, or part of it.(Note that unlike similar spells, grease does not state that something "obstructing" the effect area causes the spell to fail. So if, say, there was a pillar, you could still use the spell, but only coat the 10f square on the ground NOT part of the pillar.

@Thawm: Well, I think she has great touch AC :P likely imbibed something sending her Dex through the roof.

@Drop: well, I would not have taken my Attack of Opportunity while prone. So somebody would have gotten bombed, and I would have spent my turn standing up(my acrobatics is decent) and grappling her with the invisibility bonus :)
So it could have worked out that way, too.

Just as heads-up - I did add my normal round as well to the post when I realized I was up not only for the AoO.

And yes, Thawm, Pinned should remove the ability to attack entirely, as it's not among the allowed actions.

Keldor, you may want to reassess the situation.
I grappled the alchemist. And used this round to PIN her. I am in control of the grapple. I only have the "grappled"-condition because I am grappling.

Ahhhh! Sorry. I was tired last night and did not understand the situation as well as I thought. This one is really weird. OK...

Retcons all around! :)

I'm really sorry guys. I think I have a tendency to overlook large swaths of text when I think it doesn't pertain to my character.

I really plan to try and do better.

No worries! Blame the virus, that is what I have been doing :)

No worries, Keldor :)
I know. It was not meant as criticism, I just figured you'll want to spend your round meaningful, not - effectively - waste it by misreading the situation.

Le' sigh. Yep.

By the way, I kind of enjoy this pattern...

Meet powerful enemies, subdue them, force them to work for us or switch allegiance - :D

I'm a Paladin now. Its in my nature to give people the benefit of the doubt...until its finally time not to do so. Too bad none of us are worshipers of Sarenrae! One of her tenets is to forgive evil and bring the 'monstrous' into the light of the sun. But I'm a worshiper of 'Old Deadeye.'

Gotta say, you are all making me work out my GM muscles. :)

I like it.

If its not fun or a challenge, what's the point?
=)

Thawm should take a closer look at her gear, which we took possession of for the moment. Including her Alchemy Lab, and any remaining bomb catalysts she had. That is, if she breaks out, she will be unarmed, with no bombs, no Mutagen, no extracts.
Fancy, but you can actually disarm an Alchemist of basically most of his class features. That should heavily discourage her from trying something questionable.

good point.
it's plausibly even worse than a wizard without his spellbook xD

Don't forget there are feats and some magic items that can still help a wizard be useful even without a spell-book. Alchemists are just SOL as far as I know.

SOL? Urban dictionary gives that as "S&!+ outta luck" - that so? :D

Yes.
Other fun acronyms: FUBAR and SNAFU, hehehe...

Those I knew already :)

I'm not seeing this encounter turning out well. We don't have any real social skills among us yet and they have overwhelming force on their side.

Against a single robot we might have had a chance, but two? Plus his other supporters? Ugg.

eh, I have good evidence if he discovers the illusion magic xD
it might be a 27 on that bluff check xD
Also, if he *does* discover we're hiding things, I can pull something small out of my haversack and surrender it xD

In any case, with that good roll on that cover story, I don't think we need any more bluff checks... maybe a diplomacy? xD
probably I'll just hand over the emergency beacon or the suit or something. Whatever looks like it'd fit in a *normal* backpack

I'm more worried about 'Basil' being part of his technology search. If he tries to 'claim' her, I'm worried where this will all go.

I am somewhat emotionless about this mofo. In character.

OOC I would love to try out the Ballista and send him flying. Just not sure if that would be smart. (One level later and I would totally be up for that...)

Yeah me too. At 5th level I can do SOOOO much more.

and I'll have 3rd level spells instead of still waiting for 2nd level spells in my second class xD
Granted, I can nuke the robots with Eroding Ray, but Thawm has poor aim and it isn't just one robot.

I'll post later, probably tomorrow, going to finish a thing tonight ^^;

Forgive my delay, but also my ignorance. I have read through everything, but am still not sure of the plan. Please clarify

Current choices as I see them:
1. Sleep out here, and deal with it tomorrow.
2. Approach the "front" gate of the city now at late dusk.
3. Maybe try to sneak in?

Sorry I know its been back and forth and I lost track as a GM.

I believe you are going with 1. Sleeping out here now, approaching the gate in the morning. I don't wnat you all to overthink this, as I have seen my delay caused, but I have enjoyed the discussion. I hope to be not too straight forward and throw you some curve balls when needed.

hehehe, I'm definitely a fan of 1, but we can do 2 xD

I don't see why we shouldn't rest outside, but that's just me. Either way works really. We need to try and get in. Now or later.

If we rest outside first, someone needs to roll for Survival.

I could just pick for the group, but I wanted to wait till there was a final decision.

Not to say its the same with this group, but I have this issue with my real life group sometimes. My wife is totally willing to be the person to say "Ok we are totally doing this" after a group discussion. I am also able to when I play, but her character is totally not the type who would do it.. So we end up just discussing.. then I wait.. finally it needs to be something out of character my wife decides.

haha. If I see a survival roll before I check Monday morning, I will assume you are staying out here tonight. If not, by then, I will assume you are approaching the front gate. :)

I think sleeping outside risks a random encounter during the night, interrupting our rest. Or a number of other things that could happen(like patrols, or that tech league guy sneaking up on us, or ...)

It's why I wanted to go in now, but I am fine with camping outside.
But then under the condition to MOVE AWAY from the city. Scrapwall is a location with civilization, they are probably dependent on food and some level of trade from outside, the volume of traffic in the near vicinity of the city will be MUCH higher than in the wilderness, farther away from it.

Worse, the traffic may be ALIGNED with certain groups(also why I expect patrols, to make sure any supply or trade convoy makes it home safe without being intercepted by another group), and we may have a hard time explaining our presence.

But it seems the popular choice - so yeah, we can sleep another day in the wild, but I'll want to be at least 3-4 hours travel away from the city in that case, on no major routes towards some other place.

Also, I am taking 10 on survival for 16.

The Laws of the Land are just that...and are mostly unknown to Keldor. If Cannibalism is LEGAL in Scrapwall, technically I cannot do anything about it unless they try kill and eat someone I see or know about.

Thats what I mean with cutting pretty close. Technically, if scrapwall has no legal authority in charge, then there are no laws. If there are no laws, then randomly killing a man, raping his daughter, then forcing his wife to cook the son for dinner is perfectly fine because morals does not come into play. Yet I doubt most gods sponsoring paladins would approve of standing by and doing jazz hands per "I don't know those guys, he could be entirely justified".

Understood. I realize I'm taking chances, going in. I knew it would be hard to do. But evil killing evil does not need intervention either. Its in their nature to do so, and needs no help from me.

I think our perspectives on this are what really is different here. You seem to attribute Scrapwall to being closer to a semi-normal town like 'Bartertown' from 'MadMax: Beyond Thunderdome', and I'm imagining it as barely a town only held together with spilled blood and metal. More 'Escape from New York' kinda thing.

@Chances, good.

@Perspective: In fact, I was envisioning it more like a Fantasy Variant of Stalingrad, only with a 5-way FFA rather than 2 parties.
As in, groups hold certain parts of the locale, and even if it's rubble, it's fought over, but the involved parties are somewhat organized in their action and make sure that "their" territory remains theirs and they are not wiped out by a surprise strike at their HQ.
Hence why I considered "sneaking in" and "remaining neutral" as nigh impossible. I expect scouts overlooking claimed regions, fortified sniper posts, basically a war zone with no-mans land(as per the map) simply because that is terrain that is not defensible.

So less of a "regular" city and more of a war zone. Just one that is not completely anarchic with gang territories respecting each other, but split between hostile and organized groups.

I've never seen Escape from New York, but it sounds not so different from what Basil just posted or what I was expecting xD
Anyway, from the description it sounded like we were already 3ish hours of riding away from the city, so I don't think we'll even need to backtrack xD

@GM: let's make some s'mores!
I'll subtract another day's rations from our free food...

get well soon, Basil ^^;

Hey all, I am spinning up a PF2 game. Just opened Recruitment. Wanted to make sure you where aware, if you are interested.

link

Also: A little while off power-wise, but a home group solved the problem of squishy horses by talking over the limitations of Baleful Polymorph with the GM.
(Intent seems to be that you can not give something a more "powerful" form - Player spent some cash to research a modification that allowed to polymorph into horses. So the group would take some prisoners, feeblemind them, then turn them into horses. Made for some phantastically sturdy mounts that were free and easy to replace. Just putting that out there, Thawm...(Feeblemind increased likeliness to fail Will Save and was an additional Safety Layer in case of Anti-Magic Fields or Dispels))