Kingmaker [PbP] (Inactive)

Game Master Jeff Przybylo

You actually have Gary Gygax to blame for this one. Owlbears are a relic of the first-ever roleplaying game of its kind - first-edition D&D.

You actually have Gary Gygax to blame for this one. Owlbears are a relic of the first-ever roleplaying game of its kind - first-edition D&D.

I genuinely didn't know that - ah well, honest Homer* nods sometimes...

* the Ancient Greek, that is, not the yellow doofus

My internet Pathfinder group has a soft spot for them after the level two monk (the most maternal, overprotective, bleeding heart type you've ever seen) survived three full rounds of Owlbear mauling (going unconscious once and being healed) in order to keep the mother Owlbear from triggering a trap which would have killed its chicks. After finally subduing the mother, the group managed to disable the trap, save the chicks from poachers, and then revive the mother from a safe distance.

In Pathfinder Society, we have another Owlbear story. There is this extremely boisterous, friendly, and loud halfling druid with an Owlbear companion. The name she's given it is "Also Boris" because her original bear animal companion was named Boris, and this one is... also Boris. She calls it a "Bear-Owl," and is fond of telling people "It has strength of owl, wisdom of bear! Is perfect beast." with a faux Russian accent.

(:

I was very much in Vosil's camp until I saw Avatar last of the air benders.

Hey guys, I'm going away until Saturday so please bot me as necessary.

We haven't heard from Kaalib in a while. Frankly, the post rate wasn't that good to start. I'm not NPC'ing him, I have enough to do in this fight.

OGGM, I noticed that the owlbear is still on the map but the simpleton is not. Does this mean that the owlbear is difficult terrain or otherwise disruptive to the battlefield?

OGGM, I noticed that the owlbear is still on the map but the simpleton is not. Does this mean that the owlbear is difficult terrain or otherwise disruptive to the battlefield?

Exactly. Also the grease should be visible as a gray square.

I'm sorry about the posting rate. I'll drop out after the fight.

Since I picked up with you guys, I've had to pick up a second job, and it's made me a bit less responsive. My wife also got pregnant and has been on bedrest for the last week and a half, so I've had to take care of the kids a bit more than usual, also cutting my time down. She just got a good bill of health, so I'm a bit more free, but it could relapse. I'm going to cut back on things at least until September when the baby is due.

I'm sorry to hear that, but I know the feeling.
Magna was out for a while too.
I hope the tide turns, and you can (also) rejoin later.

Congrats,I hope everything goes well with the pregancy. Kaalib can always spend some time with his people and return to the story later.

What they said - congrats and best wishes.

Good luck to you, Kaalib. I've enjoyed your interesting take on a tatooed sorcerer quite a bit.

Good luck Kaalib, I hope your wife stays well, and congrats on the new little one!

Good luck! You shall be missed. Naralesh will have to go back to being the only arcanist around. :(

Think it's just Edric we're waiting on, who asked to be botted. Presumably he just takes a swing at the bandit in melee with him?

GM I hope you don't mind if I post for Edric. You seem busy enough without having to worry about a PC.

I don't mind if other players post for Dregan if I'm away.

Please do. Ran into a ton of 'secure.Paizo' timeouts last night.

At 7:15 am today, they walked me out of my place of employment. My new job is finding another job, and until then, I don't have time for all my side projects. I'm going to try and keep this game going, along with one other. I wanted to post this because I'm dropping some of my other games and I didn't want any confusion.

That sounds deeply unpleasant, OGGM. All the very best to you and yours, and with finding another job.

Glad you're planning to keep this game going. Appreciated.

I'm very sorry to hear this, OGGM. You and your family are in my thoughts. Please keep us updated on what is hopefully a very short time of unemployment.

Sorry to hear that. Hope you find another job soon.

That is horrible. Good luck with finding a new job. Let us know if there is anything we can do lease the load for the game.

Hope things pick up quickly for you OGGM.

Been a pleasure playing with you Kaalib.

Should end up between the owlbear corpse and the front bandit. I assume Vosil wants to be in the square next to me.

Not quite, I think: my plan was to move around the corpse and end up out of reach of the two bandits in front of the Stag Lord, but within 15 ft of the Stag Lord.

Essentially, I moved 3 squares West of my current position and then 2 squares South; I'm right next to the owlbear's corpse and I think you're in the square Southeast from me, directly adjacent the bandit.

OGGM: very quick question. Do I have concealment (20% miss chance) against the Stag Lord? If so, not only is there a miss chance but Sneak Attack doesn't work against a target with concealment (see link here).

OGGM: very quick question. Do I have concealment (20% miss chance) against the Stag Lord? If so, not only is there a miss chance but Sneak Attack doesn't work against a target with concealment (see link here).

You do not have Concealment from him.

:(

Oh well, I guess it's appropriate really - Vosil's too flamboyant to be inconspicuous.

You caught me - it's the hat!

Apologies for cluttering up the Gameplay thread with rules stuff! I'm continuing the discussion here.

I've had a look at the rules for blindness and although blindness removes your Dex bonuses, you're not flat-footed as such, so the blinded bandits do threaten.

According to the rules for moving through threatened squares, you need to make a successful Acrobatics roll just to be able to move through someone's square, otherwise you're stuck. Plus, I can only move 3 squares, or the DC gets ridiculous.

So, I need to make 3 Acrobatics rolls:

#1 leave first threatened square (DC= bandit CMD+4)
#2 move through bandit's square (DC=bandit CMD+9)
#3 leave final threatened square (DC=bandit CMD+4)

If I fail #1 I get an AoO from all 3 bandits; if I fail #2 I'm stuck in place, unable to move past; if I fail #3 I get an AoO from the two blinded bandits.

Acrobatics(Dex, Armour check penalty): 1d20 + 4 - 2 ⇒ (15) + 4 - 2 = 17
Acrobatics #2: 1d20 + 4 - 2 ⇒ (20) + 4 - 2 = 22
Acrobatics #3: 1d20 + 4 - 2 ⇒ (8) + 4 - 2 = 10

Assuming at least #2 is a success, I end up in the square directly to the left of the Stag Lord.

Right, I'm now off to write out 'I will not mess up the Acrobatics and AoO rules' 100 times on the class chalkboard...

Well, that saved me some work...

Naralesh: thanks for your input; moving this to the Discussion thread. Can you point me to where blindness stops you having an AoO? Can't find it anywhere - all I can see is that it kills your Dex and gives you some horrendous penalties; can't definitely see that you lose your AoO (though you should!)...

I believe you actually only need ONE acrobatics roll - Your move action is as acrobatic as your single roll indicates, and it's compared to each creature's CMD (or CMD+5 if you're moving through them).

And blind creatures can never AoO so you're at least safe from that.

---

And as I just now saw OGGM's post last Friday - Take all the time you need. I recently went through the exact same thing, and managed to get a new position after a hard search. You can do it!

Forums ate this post but I managed to recover it. Looking for the source for the blindness vs AoOs thing.

Found it.

All opponents are considered to have total concealment (50% miss chance) against the blinded character.

You can't execute an attack of opportunity against an opponent with total concealment, even if you know what square or squares the opponent occupies.

Perfect! Thanks muchly.

This is a gray area. If you read the Acrobatics skill combined with Movement rules (specifically movement through an opponents square), as well as the AoO and helpless rules, contradictions come up. The exact circumstances of this situation would - if we go by the RAW - show that Vosil can't move through their square because they aren't helpless, and an Acrobatics check won't do him any good because they can't perform an AoO. So he would be stuck, sort of.

That's just dumb.

In this case we'll use Vosil's first roll as his attempt to avoid the AoO from behind, and the second to get through their occupied squares.

I'm assuming Edric won't manage to get through then... long shot anyway! He'll just beat down the bandit in front until he has room to move :D

There are other ways to get through: Bull Rush, Overrun, etc. Here's a question for Edric: where is the honor in striking down a blind opponent? One who is unable to defend himself.

Thanks, OGGM - that sort of flexibility is the sort of thing I aspire to when I'm DMing.

As for honour - Edric, don't listen to him! It's a trap!

RIP, Admiral :(

RIP Admiral Ackbar

Overrun: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (17) + 7 = 24

Your point is considered - here be an overrun attempt then :)

And yes - it may be a trap, but in my role as Lawful Stupid I have to accept that possibility and go with it! :D

Seriously... I don't think it's too much of a risk - and Edric wants a Stag Head on the wall!

Without getting to the always-contentious 'what makes a paladin a paladin' conversation, there are considerations in this AP regarding such things. We've had the discussion over the first bandits encountered and whether or not to pardon them - see Nat your local farmer.

Those things should be - need to be - considered. I don't believe it's 'lawful stupid' at all. 'Lawful' is one thing, 'Good' is another, combined they make for an interesting RP opportunity. In this case, you have what is an essentially helpless person, unable to defend himself. Making the decision to not cut him down in his current state doesn't mean you won't hang him later for 'unrepentant banditry', should he be un-redeemable.

And yes, I will get to the combat today.

Agreed - one obvious tension inherent in the class is the extent to which the Lawful (tell the truth, respect authority, etc) is servant or master of the Good (stand up to Evil, protect the helpless, show mercy); another - and to me, much more interesting - tension is the potential conflicts between the paths of Good (confront/protect/redeem?) that are possible.

There's a fabulous drawing in (I think) the Pathfinder Unchained sourcebook of the Iconic paladin freaking out in front of two signs: one points to the left and says "Burning Orphanage" while the other points to the right and says "Evil Overlord's Castle"...

I'm loving the different (but still completely plausible) "flavours" of paladin that Edric and Magna have each come up with.

Thanks

My usual thoughts about Paladins is that in the heat of combat they're much like everyone else, so cutting down an enemy who has attacked them and is in their way is more or less automatic. If he surrendered it would be a different matter.

On a personal note Edric is far more good than lawful. He worships Desna and would be a NG paladin if such a thing was allowed. He and Magna may have an interesting conversation about what to do when this is all over...

In that spirit Magna leans heavily towards LN... she is good, and wants to help, but tradition and community weighs very heavily on her worldview.
As for combat, yes, she asked them to surrender, but if they don't, her responsibility is to cut them down, and prevent for them to hurt more people.
As for Kobolds... well... you know what she thinks:
"Against my people's enemy I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except to extract information. I will defeat them and scatter theirs families. Yet, even in the struggles against our enemies, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag."

Yeah, I foresee some very interesting conversations between our characters at some stage... :)

Mercy or Justice... what a conundrum. And now we have divine warriors on each side! :D

While I feel that Edric is in no way violating the paladin code by attacking a blinded enemy to get through him (if the man's still trying to fight, and he's in the paladin's way, he's a fair combatant, no matter what debuffs the wizard put on him), the attitude of "In the heat of combat, a paladin's code doesn't matter as much" sounds like something an ex-paladin would say. You've got to be unflinching, always, or you're outta there.

But in this situation, nothing dishonorable has been done. You're fine.