Ith's PFS pbp (Inactive)

Game Master ithuriel

Grey's ears flatten to either side of his skull, and he hunkers down at the edge of the pit, refusing to move.

The Handle Animal DC to 'push' an animal is 25. Don't forget, though, that you get a +4 on Handle Animal checks versus your animal companion...

A stone rises from the floor of the pit, and whistles through the air towards Grey...

The Will of Zyphus: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (9) + 3 = 12, for 1d6 ⇒ 2 damage.

...narrowly missing his left flank.

Unless anyone else wishes to chime in, feel free to try to continue making him cross.

DM

Alie pokes her head out the door, seeing Kovar struggling with his animal. "All wolves love to chase rabbits, right," she asks no one in particular as she begins casting a spell. After a few seconds a bunny appears on the bridge, shakes his tail at the wolf and begins moving toward the opposite end of the bridge, toward the party.

Cast Silent Image.

@Kovar: I am going to rule that Alie's action is good for an assist on your 'Handle Animal'.

Using a much stronger tone this time, Kovar calls his companion across the bridge, throwing in, "Besides its much safer on this end, you won't get hit with that silly rock!"

Handle Animal: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (17) + 12 = 29

Not needing any more encouragement, Grey bounds across the bridge, his hackles up, and his tail between his legs.

As soon as he crosses the threshold, however, the door slams with a resounding bang.

Let me know what you want to do in the Gallery ;-)

Which door slams, DM? Did Grey make it to the rest of us, or is he separated from us?

For clarification, once he crosses the threshold, and joins the rest of you in the Gallery, the door slams behind him.

Hustavan shakes his head, and sighs in relief.

"Well, that went better than expected; more than a few would-be cultists have died in that room..."

Valeros is silent while he stares at the gallery until he comes to the one depicting the recent events at the opera house. "What the hell is this?! Is this supposed to be things they have done in the name of their twisted god?" The warrior stops in front of the painting of the wagon running over a child and his face goes hard, "Tal. Find me some cultists, NOW." The Andoran maintains a white knuckled grip on the hilt of his longsword while pacing among the canvasses.

"I'll see what I can do Val..." Tal has a look about the gallery.

Perception: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (4) + 12 = 16

"No reason to linger in this room...let's go find Valeros some action," Alie says, spurring her friends on.

As he leads Hustavan in front of him, Wadi mutters to himself, "Always on the move..."

As Talhaearn begins to explore the room, there is a loud 'click'...

...the party has a split second to glance at him in horror, before there is a loud BOOM, and a fair chunk of the room is engulfed in fire, instantly incinerating a good portion of the paintings.

Explosion of Fire: 6d6 ⇒ (3, 4, 2, 1, 1, 1) = 12 fire damage, DC 25 Reflex save for half.

Reflex: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (15) + 1 = 16.

Hustavan screeches as he is badly burned, and nearly falls over.

The room is now on fire...

Choking back tears, Hustavan yells:

"Quick! Through to the next room! I know for a fact that there should be nothing to burn in there!"

Talhaearn: For future reference, you *can* 'take 10', or 'take 20' when searching for traps...

DM

"Argh, I hate fire!" the little gnome screeches through the smoke.

Reflex save 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (5) + 2 = 7

Damage 12 - 10 = 2 fire resist...WOOHOO!

Wadi dashes through the room , dragging Hustavan behind him. He shakes off the effects of the flame with only a singe or two. Once the group has escaped the fire trapped room, he touches Hustavan with his wand. "Easy there, Hustavan. This won't hurt."

Use wand of Infernal Healing on Hustavan. He gains Fast healing 1 for the next 10 rounds.

Alie rushes forward through the smoke and flame, stopping momentarily to wince at one of the burning canvases, before hurriedly opening the door to the next room.

Coughing and spluttering, the rest of the party piles through into the next room, quickly followed by Alie.

Alie takes an additional 1d6 ⇒ 3 fire damage in the process.

A half-moon-shaped cliff splits this 25' x 25' room in half. The lower side, along the south wall, is twenty feet below the higher side along the north wall. The cliff is rather smooth, seemingly absent of handholds or any easy way to climb it. Barely visible in the upper half of the room, two simple wooden doors lead out to the north and east. The room smells vaguely like cooked meat.

Crumpled at the base of the mid-point of the cliff, is the body of a human woman, her flesh riddled with wickedly-sharp, iron spikes. Turning around to look at the door you just came through, you espy a dozen or so more of the same spikes, deeply embedded in the wood.

Wincing in pain, barely able to stand, now that the adrenaline rush has worn off, Hustavan quavers:

"I don't suppose you could heal me a little? By way of trade, I can tell you that there is a quick way to climb the wall - in the middle there is an easy series of hand-holds; it took me hours to find them the first time I came here..."

Reflex: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (7) + 7 = 14

Tal rushes into the next room and checks to see if he is aflame. "By way of trade perhaps you could have mentioned that the gallery was rigged to explode!"

Perception: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (8) + 12 = 20

"If I knew it was there, don't you think I would have mentioned something? I don't actually like being nearly burned to a crisp..."

I can't get the 25, even with a natural 20.

Alie was smoldering, both outwardly on fire, and inwardly furious. "You've got two options, Hustavan. Either you tell us everything you know about this place including traps, or you head back outside right now! If another trap goes off, so help me, you will never make it out of this place. I guarantee you that.

Alie slumps over in the corner half crispy. "Wadi, can you use that healing wand on me, please?

Tal hands his wand to Fog again. "I think we could all use some healing...."

Alie, a nat 20 always saves so you should roll anyway.

Wadi lays a calming hand on the excitable gnome, and touches her with his wand. Alie gains fast heal 1 for 10 rounds...also she radiates evil during the healing. "You shouldn't jump down his back like that. He didn't know the trap was there." As he finishes his statement, he watches Hustavan out of the corner of his eye...

Sense Motive on Hustavan (is he telling the truth?) 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (14) + 8 = 22

"Thanks, Wadi...oooo, that feels strange! I'm not so sure Wadi...I think this jerk might be trying to prove himself to someone here and get in their good graces by killing us. Next time it happens, I'm going to Magic Missle him in the face. No questions asked. You hear that, Hustavan, you traitor...this is your last chance with me!"

Lol, Alie is mad, and the evil taint of the healing makes me think she would be even a little more evil for the next few rounds!

Reflex save 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (6) + 4 = 10

"B-but... I told you, I fled this place a week ago, when they started trapping this place, and killing each other; I have no way of knowing what insanity they got up to during that time. I can only tell you about the stuff that was here back then. Please believe me!"

"A likely story," Alie hisses as some of her wounds had began to heal. "I say we let Fangs have a bite of a fat Hustavan sausage. If he doesn't know what is and is not trapped,why do we have him with us? Simply slows us down..."

Alie is down five HP currently.

Wadi pulls Hustavan aside out of earshot. "While I believe you Hustavan, I think maybe you should keep a low profile for now..."

"And Tal, my new friend, while you are doing a marvelous job finding all these traps, do you think it would be possible to disarm them before we all get scarred with acid or burnt to a crisp? That would be great."

Wands of Infernal Healing are awesome! I'm having a great time detecting as evil...but it has probably almost worn off by now, so Evil Alie goes away for a while!

"That is the plan Alie...but thanks for the advice."

At this tier I'll need to make 2 consecutive 20+ rolls to Detect & Disable...even with my +12/13 bonuses that can be quite the feat especially considering that there's a trap in every other room.. No one has Guidance, eh?

@Talhaearn: detecting traps, via Perception, is something that you *can* 'take 10' or 'take 20' on... it is just *disabling* them that is the problem.

Reflex for Kovar: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (18) + 3 = 21
Reflex for Grey: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (10) + 6 = 16

Kovar takes out his wand of curing wounds and offers its service to the party.

GM, how would you like for me to handle the wand of cure light wounds?

Reflex 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (20) + 5 = 25 6 damage
It might be a good idea to start scanning potential trap areas with detect magic as well. It will only reveal magical traps, but they are sometimes harder to find via perception.

Still smelling of singed hair and burned flesh, Hustavan cowers in a corner, with Wadi giving him a 'stern talking to', whilst the others heal.

GM throwing a bone: Well, you *have* set-off a few traps now, and Hustavan has suggested that their might be *many* more; no-one has any buffs running, as far as I recall, so is their any reason why you don't just 'take 20' searching for traps, from now on?

@Kovar: Just roll for healing? Let me know whom you heal, and how many charges you use? Other people in the party probably have healing, too, though, so you don't need to expend only your own resources...

I see no reason to hurry here. Even though we will lose our chance to surprise the cultists, I think we have triggered enough traps to alert them anyway...

Sorry, struggling to keep up, as I missed a chunk there....

Reflex: 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (7) + 0 = 7

Once out fo the burning room, Fog will blow a couple of channels to heal us all back up a bit....

Channel: 1d6 ⇒ 1
Channel: 1d6 ⇒ 5

Fog will of course, also use any wand handed to him to help, but also has his own, so we should share it out.

Yep...I misunderstood the earlier clarification about not being able to take 20 when there is a chance of a failure (misinterpretting it as meaning that it would also be possible to fail to find a trap.) It sounded weird but i wrote it off as being scenario specific and probably should have asked for clarification. I'm sorry I fubared a faction mission...

"Thank you, Fog. That's much better! Are we ready to get back at it?

No worries, Tal. I never know what I can take a 20 on, either, lol.

Kovar takes out his wand to finish the healing from Father Fog.
Uses 5 charges.

WoCLW: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4 on Kovar
WoCLW: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (6) + 1 = 7 on Grey
WoCLW: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6 on Alie
WoCLW: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (6) + 1 = 7 on Tal
WoCLW: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (7) + 1 = 8 on Fog

Valerous should be healed since he made his saving throw.

Kovar, save your wand. Fog's channels have Alie up to full strength now. Thanks though!

When the fire rolls through, Valeros drops prone instinctively and manages to minimize the burns. Still- his arms are red and singed, blistering in places until Fog calls on his goddess. The warrior shakes it off and flashes a thankful grin. "Good man."

Once everyone is patched up and ready to move out he looks out over the half moon shaped cliff. "Where are those bolts firing from then?"

Whoops, forgot about your Fire resistance. One less charge spent then. Everyone should be at full health then right?

Tal points out the handholds and climbs up (Taking 20 if necessary) and checks the door(s) for traps. (Taking 20)

Although it takes a bit of effort, everyone eventually makes it to the top of the cliff (in Grey's case, after having a rope tied around his midriff, and being hauled up).

At the top, you are met with a disturbing sight: In front of the Eastern door lie two deformed and burned bodies, surrounded by, and bathed in, a pool of congealed oil.

Hustavan swallows hard.

"The Eastern door leads deeper into the complex. The door to the North just leads to the barracks."

"Should we take the barracks out first, no need in us getting ambushed from behind."

"Sounds good to me, Kovar. You okay with that, Tal?"

"That would seem a sensible idea."

"Yeah....sure. Barracks. Why not? The door is safe...I think anyway." In addition to still being warm to the touch Tal is still in a state if slight shock at being nearly blown up.

"Lead on, friend."

Talhaearn carefully opens the door to the barracks...

...and mercifully, no trap is set off.

Inside, the party is greeted by a somewhat surreal tableaux: A row of nine open coffins stretches from east to west across the north wall of this room. Each coffin is made from a dark wood, painted black, and polished to a mirror finish. The inside of each coffin is lined with green fabric and holds a ratty blanket and musty pillow. Boxes, crates, and barrels line the south wall on either side of the simple wooden door there.

The room, however, is not completely unoccupied: The furthest coffin on the east side of the room has the body of a male Elf in it, whilst the body of a male Human lies crumpled in front of the barrels on the southeast side of the room.

As Talhaearn explores the room, he finds no traps, per se... However...

Let me know if you wish to 'take 20' searching the room.

Wadi seems strangely fascinated as he approaches the coffin on the east side.

Heal 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (7) + 1 = 8

Heal: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (17) + 8 = 25

Fog wanders around the room, looking closely at the bodies. "Poisoned eh? Why all the coffins though?

Tal will Take 20 searching the two bodies.