So a couple GM thoughts.
I like that you are working this out/thinking through this.
You already saw one of the cats pounce. Mobility is something they are good at.
Dispel magic does not work on an anti magic field. “Dispel magic does not remove the field”.
In fact, even disjunction only has a % chance equal to its caster level of working against an anti magic field.
The blue cats are definitely not a linchpin fight. So running away is an option as well.
And you could justify it as moving to a more important fight. You just have to get a way to get Amaranti back on his feet.
Also, I am open to “rule of cool”. If there is not a rule saying that I can’t allow something, and it’s very heroic/cool and your dice kind of support it, I’m apt to allow it.
|
I for one and all for bailing on this fight and getting to the third level of the museum. We truly have encountered the perfect foe for our party.
As for getting Amaranti out of harms way and back on his feet. Giovanni can use his chains to move him next to Luisila so that she can work her magic on him.
Perhaps Fandral moves around the Lions and power slides into Amaranti’s body making a CMB Check to bull rush. It would provoke an attack if the cats want, but Fandral almost wants to be attacked with his build. Once clear of the field, someone uses breath of life?
|
|
Proposal response:
Well, I don't know if those rolls will work even with an unconscious, immobile opponent.
Giovanni could 5' to the right, and from there a successful repostion attack could move Amaranti 5' to the right, but that reposition movement will provoke. The cats shouldn't have reach to hit him there, though, should they?
So the time line of Amaranti and the cats position, was this.
Amaranti charges the blue cat. He ends his charge in the closest space from which he could attack the target which was 10 feet away. Kaisharga then grabbed the cat. Upon a successful grapple, the cat was moved adjacent to Kaisharga, and adjacent to where Amaranti had to be in because of his charge. The cat and Amaranti must currently be adjacent because of the charge followed by grapple combo.
But that said, Amaranti currently has no dex and no strength. For the sake of what we are doing here, his CMD is certainly no higher than his BAB. 10+BAB -5 dex -5 strength. But because BAB represents ones martial ability, I think a corpse has a BAB of 0. For a bull rush a CMB roll of 10 would be needed to move him the required distance.
There are other ways of doing it for sure, but as Fandral’s build is meant for “taking attacks” and his CMB roll would only fail on a nat 1, I offered it as an idea.
As far as weather CMB should work on an unconscious immobile opponent, at least to me it seems that it should work better.
And as far as Giovanni moving Amaranti, by the time he can, it will have been over 1 round.
So since Amaranti’s death:
Giovanni attacked
Luisila is aiding another with diplomacy. - They are somewhat intrigued, but because it was aid another, someone else will need to seal the deal.
Avenlina can cast breath of life, but that means that either Fandral or Holly needs to get Amaranti out of the anti magic field.
Holly is really good at talking thanks to her bardic ways.
What I propose is this- Holly try to talk down the cats, capitalizing on Luisila’s efforts.
Fandral then moves Amaranti, bull rush will work as long as he does not roll a nat 1.
As soon as Amaranti is out of the field, Avelina uses her false priest ability and her scroll to Breath of Life Amaranti.
With the above proposal there are two ways it can fail. If Fandral rolls a nat 1 on his CMB roll, then Amaranti will need a raise dead.
If Holly fails to talk them down, then the fight is still on. There is a DC for taking to them instead of jumping them, I will use that DC. Holly failing this does not preclude Fandral from attempting to move Amaranti, though the AOOs are almost certain if she is unsuccessful. And damage from AOOs applies as a pentalty to the CMB roll as well. But even in this case, Fandral is good at parrying atttacks.
|
BTW, I'm not sure if there any official guidelines for it, but on our local games the basic ruling is that monsters don't hit dying(=hp below 0) characters. I see none of the lions' attacks put Amaranti from standing to death, so would the lion have attacked someone else with its last attack?
But, as I said, I'm not sure if this is just an unwritten rule with local GM's...
Yup it is in the bottom left hand side of the second floor map, which should be the first slide in the slide show. Let me know if you are having trouble seeing it on your browser. I know sometimes it’s hard on phones. If that’s the case, I’ll cut and paste just that portion into its own slide.
BTW, I'm not sure if there any official guidelines for it, but on our local games the basic ruling is that monsters don't hit dying(=hp below 0) characters. I see none of the lions' attacks put Amaranti from standing to death, so would the lion have attacked someone else with its last attack?
But, as I said, I'm not sure if this is just an unwritten rule with local GM's...
Yeah, it’s kind of a gray area. The last guidance I saw was to play the monsters to their tactics, and if no tactics, then to their mental stats. An ogre might not know any better but the Dweomerlions knew that unless you are dead, you are not really out of the fight. And after the smack of about 100 damage in one round (between you and Kaisharga), they viewed you as by far the biggest threat. The Dweomerlions have a high enough Knowledge Arcana to know that killing a high level adventurer puts the rest of the party on a one round timer as well. They had a higher int than anyone in the party. Because of this I made their choices reflect it.
The not killing PCs falls kind of into the don’t be a jerk rule. I try to avoid it if the party does not have the resources to deal with (i.e. they are low level). But this is high tier. Killing a down PC is a little jerky, but there are two things that I felt offset the “jerkyness”. With breath of life the negative level is not permanent and I helped the group move toward a solution that I thought might help get you out of the situation. (Nudging toward a diplomatic route).
The end result is:
The party is all alive
The party had to work together to pull it off
No significant gold had to be spent (Avelina’s false priest ability with the scroll)
The party had to expend some daily resources.
The party is a little degraded after the fight (your temporary negative level)
Just my thoughts, I’m open to criticism and your thoughts as well.
|
|
Honestly, I thought you were generous in how you handled it.
Then again, I'm used to being knocked down and removed from fights multiple times per module. If they are using those tricks on my character, then they are NOT using them on anyone else, right?
But . . ..
My 4th weekend of BSA camping starts tomorrow night. This time my wife is going, and she asked me to post my reminder messages tonight so she can push me out the door that much faster if I get out of work late.
|
You were generous enough to give an out. And I appreciate it.
My thoughts are in line with your, plus, I also factor in alignments, but that is me.
I have My dice have killed a few PC'a in my time GMing, multiple game platforms. Do I feel bad, yeah. But it is a game, and you can always create another character.
In PFS, as long as I stick to tactics, I feel that I am not in the wrong. Usually they do not write in the tactics, "prefer to leave PC's alive", I have seen it on a handful of occasions.
Most of the PC's that have been killed were from crit rolls when they were already down a significant amount of hit points. I do not fudge die rolls, and I always roll in the open on attacks. Even in play by post, I spoiler the information to save space, but if you feel cheated, feel free to open it.
I'll use an example of a scenario I just ran IRL. CR 12 creature with , I think, 20 intelligence.It knows that if you are still breathing, you are still a threat. And it being evil, had not problem, taking one more swipe at you.
Another scenario I had over a year ago, I knocked out a majority of the party, killing two of the PC's. Yes the thugs were evil, but in the scenario, it said that it "only after the gold and treasure", so I got some guidance from the VL, that was at my table, and we came to the same ending. The thieves would take all valuables and the society would have to come and recover them. Could they of coup de grace, yes. But I chose not to since, not all thieves are murderers. Unless your pathfinders and this is a tomb full of treasure.
Now I will step off my soap box.
|
@GM Michael, as we’re spending a night in our own beds in Absalom, I’d like to do a little shopping and re-jig my spell list if that’s OK.
At the witching hour on Day 2, Luisila will offer to ✨cast restoration on Amaranti, and contribute 150gp to the 1000gp of diamond dust required as a component of the spell to remove a permanent lost level.
@Amaranti, have you got the remaining 850gp to get that lost level back?
Shopping list:
• wand of CLW (2PP)
• spellguard bracers (5000 gp)
Preparing new spells is fine, but the restoration is not required. If brought back by breath of life, you only have one temporary negative level. The negative level goes away after 24 hours. Of course you are free to cast restoration if you wish, Amaranti would still be under its effect of the negative level, at least for this portion of the day. If you do wish to get rid of the temporary negative level before the 24 hours are up, it only costs 100 gold. 1000 gold is only required for permanent negative levels.
Either way it’s up to you, 100 gold or wait it out. Just let me know.
|
|
OK, I will wait for the temporary level to come back naturally.
I'm all about that Role-play, and am OK with the chance to see the Princess taken down a peg or two :)
It’s theough the DM thread, I’ll pass it along.
Even with Heroism, he is not making the DC with that roll.
The NPC Paladin is a decent fighter, but he is not specifically built for this type of thing. He needed a very high roll to have a chance. Especially when the penalty for being s Paladin kicked in. There is still another chance to impress this guy though. But the first attempt was unsuccessful.
|
|
Heh. Yeah, fighting against people without hurting them is what Giovanni's built to do. Not wrastlin' so much, but there are always other options. <grin>
Gives me a chance to contribute to the table as more than a resource sponge.
Oh, and Giovanni's wand "started" this module with 20 charges. Use it up. Please.
Edit: And, no, Giovanni can't fly. Taking that +19 to a +32 (or +30) is EXPENSIVE.
One thing about doing this as a play by post is that it moves quite fast. The map is updated. You are starting along the left edge which is the southern edge. I placed an arrow indicating north.
yup, ill put him on delay.
|
|
Reposition is normally a standard action all on it's own.
The Quick Reposition feat (Which I have) makes it just another attack type. Let me look up the text again . . ..
Well, pooh. Been a while since I did that. I remembered it made reposition "just" another attack, I forgot the part where it says "on your turn".
On your turn, you can perform a single reposition combat maneuver in place of one of your melee attacks. You must choose the melee attack with the highest base attack bonus to make the reposition.
No, wait, it isn't just me being forgetful or wishing, it was me being lazy! What does the summary chart entry say about the same feat?
May reposition in place of one of your melee attacks
AoOs are just melee attacks, though normally taken not on your turn.
Okay, can't do it off my turn. My apologies.
no worries, you still have plenty of AOO fun available. As long as you don’t roll that pesky nat 1.
In the interest of getting another combat (and hopefully another success) in, I called that combat. The enemies that were left were either frozen in a block of ice or tripped/blind/grappled.
This fight takes place on a very similar map to the last fight.
There we go, Gurtrattle’s turn went well. It could have been 91 damage, but Fandral’s build got to shine. I can just see the rapid parries in my mind’s eye.
Ok, so I did a lot of searching on this and this is what I’m going with. The Bodak has a gaze attack. Gaze attacks “take effect when foes look at the attacking creature's eyes”.
Gaze attacks take place on the PCs turn. But the monster can spend a standard action to target a creature again on its turn. Effectively targeting that creature twice within a round.
Now the Bodak is blind, so here is how I will have that play in, it being blind does not prevent you from looking at its eyes, so the effects on your turn still occur. But because it’s blind, I will not let it target it’s gaze.
I was unsure if I should just give it a 50% miss chance on its targeted gaze but erred on the side of it not being able to target gaze at all.
19 would get you creature type and name. So you would know that it is undead, but would probably not know about the gaze attack.
Avelina, go ahead and make the rolls, I got the darkness levels from the coordinator. Perhaps the darkness that is leaking out of the rift is wispy and you are able to make them out for brief seconds as the darkness wraps around them.
Yeah I’m trying to go off of the Illuminatin Darkness blog post by Mark Seifter. link
I think the overlap should just be the prevailing conditions (normal darkness). Let me know if you think I have it wrong.