PFS - PbP Gameday IV - #4-05 The Sanos Abduction (3-7) (Inactive)

Game Master Paladin of Baha-who?

Discussion thread!

Dorn settles in to play dice, swill ale, and speak much too loudly within the confines of the Obligatory Inn's common room.

Zac will join.

Orophin sings everyone a song while they wait.
PFS character: 100387-1
Faction: Liberty's Edge
Day job: singing (takes 10 for 28 and 50gp unless I go for a faction card thing)

Avril walks over to Orophin to listen. Her smile lights up her face. Once he takes she claps and says. "That was really pretty. I wish I could sing half as good as you, but my talents lie elsewhere. Between adventuring and running the keep I don't have much time left." She pauses for a moment, then with a slight blush she says. "You yourself are even prettier than your song though."

Though I won if we might as well do this in the gameplay thread while we wait.

"You run a keep? Wow, that must take up a lot of time. "

Orophin grins at Avril.

"I run a small venue myself. Put on the odd production now and again. I really wanted to be a bard, but my calling was elsewhere."

The dwarf in the corner is heavily scarred even by dwarven-warrior standards-- most noticeably, he has several prominent scars on his bare-shaven skull.

His gear is dinged and dented and crudely patched in a dozen places, not showing the usual care most dwarves give to their equipment. Similarly, his beard is ragged (and, at the moment, flecked with bread crumbs and soup).

The back of one hand has a tattoo in crude, blocky dwarven runes.

In short, he is the polar opposite of the graceful, refined, and attractive elf-man singing in the tavern. Dorn lets out a belch after the song.

"Not bad, lass!" he says, a little too loudly for polite indoor conversation, to Orophin. "But yeh need to sing about battles and things, not trees an' love an' poetry crap!"

"It's not too bad, I check in in between pathfinder missions for things that needs to be dealt with."

Avril is really liking the positive attention. "With your looks and charm I figured you might be a bard. What is your calling then, if that is not what you are?"

Avril turns towards the dwarf. "It's a man, not a girl. Don't we get enough of battles out on our adventures? It's nice to be able to relax doing something else."

Avril turns towards the dwarf. "It's a man, not a girl."

"Eh?" The scarred dwarf squints suspiciously at the elf. "How can you tell?"

"Now, that solves a problem I always wondered about with dwarves." laughs Orophin.

"As for my calling, I relish life. I find beauty in it everywhere. Even in the beard of ... Probably over here. Look at the fleas. Each a little cosmos of energy and vibrancy. Each doing its own thing. They don't understand the world they live in... Probably... just as many of us don't understand the world we live and love in."

However, always keen to please an audience, Orophin changes song moving to one in which a dwarven knight finds true love in the mist of battle... but his love is turned into an Axe half way though the song. The song finishes in fine style with the consummation of the couples love in the skull of the foul witch which transformed the dwarf-maid in the first place.

Dr. Strang has gained a level since applying. So is now level 5.

I don't think that changes anything, tier-wise, just wanted to note it!

Not that long until we start now. It might be nice if we could get the intro stuff out of the way so we can jump right into the meat of things. That's allowed right?

I'd be happy to, except I haven't received the scenario yet. I hope I get it soon!

I guess you folks can all make in-character posts, introducing and describing yourselves, for now. (Some of you have already been doing that I see, which is great!)

Glad it is not just me. I've not received mine and was really hoping to get some prep time in this weekend.

Yeah, same boat. No scenario yet. Also I currently have a semi-broken computer, which makes it a pain to tag and do things on the boards--I've bought a replacement, which should arrive here well before the 19th, it just limits my ability to screw around on the boards as much as I'd like. :P But I will toss up another silly post for Dorn, because he is a silly dwarf.

"Now, that solves a problem I always wondered about with dwarves." laughs Orophin.

"As for my calling, I relish life. I find beauty in it everywhere. Even in the beard of ... Probably over here. Look at the fleas. Each a little cosmos of energy and vibrancy. Each doing its own thing. They don't understand the world they live in... Probably... just as many of us don't understand the world we live and love in."

However, always keen to please an audience, Orophin changes song moving to one in which a dwarven knight finds true love in the mist of battle... but his love is turned into an Axe half way though the song. The song finishes in fine style with the consummation of the couples love in the skull of the foul witch which transformed the dwarf-maid in the first place.

"What Problem Is That?" Dorn half-yells, his face scrunched up in confusion as he's trying to figure out if that was meant as a dig at dwarves or not. Dorn has a lot of trouble keeping track of when he's supposed to be angry.

However, the song assuages his uncertain emotions. By the end of it, Dorn is sniffling, eyes watering. "That's a beautiful song," the dwarf whispers hoarsely.

"Why thank you. I myself find it quite touching." smiles the would-be-bard.

"I hear the VC is putting together the paperwork for us at the moment."

A towering man with long, thick hair and beard enters the inn and walks towards the counter. A green dragonhide armor is visible under his coarse clothes and a greataxe is hanging on his back. He orders a pint of beer and eagerly takes a big sip of his ale. He then listens to the singer, seeming to enjoy him.

Avril shakes her head ruefully. "Phaw, paperwork, I don't have much patience for such things. I wish we didn't have to deal with it and just do what we are good at instead. I get more than enough paperwork in relation to the keep. That brings me a thought though. We can tell each other what we are good at. That might be useful if we do end up working together, figuring out tactics and the like. We might get some good stories out of it too." She brushes her long hair behind her ear and smiles. "Myself, I ride into battle on my trusty mount Cryxial. We charge at things and take them down in one go. Well if there is a clear path at least. This last adventure I was at we hardly got to do this at all. Some guy kept blocking our path with a bunch of earth elementals. At least that's what he called them. They finished off the enemies before we got a chance at glory. A bit frustrating really. It would be nice if you guys try to leave an open lane if we do get into battle so we can charge." She starts out bright and cheerful as she explains, but then drops into a more somber mood towards the end of her story.

I see no reason why we are RPing over here instead of in the gameplay thread.. Can we please continue there?

Aye, this should be under gameplay =)

What, you don't have a 36000 worth item to lend me? Very disappointed.

By the way, I am going to skip the faction missions on this one. None of them are particularly interesting. If it's alright with everyone, I'll also probably skip the optional encounter, unless we zoom through the ones before it.

You are the GM of course, though I am of course curious what faction things we would lose out on...

We don't. Faction missions stopped in season two, replaced with secondary success conditions.

Just fyi, I will update him asap, I guess the DM is a day late on the chronicle sheets. The chronicle sheet pushes him to level 4, then two adventure paths get applied immediately upon reaching that level, thus bringing him all the way to 6.

How about I post the faction missions as a link you folks can roleplay or not as you desire?

-Posted with Wayfinder

If as Orophin says we aren't getting anything from them it's not that big deal for me. I would be up for playing it anyway, but PBP is so slow anyway that it might not be a good idea to add more things. I'm kinda waiting on Dr. Strang to reply to Crxial, though I'm also kinda ready to move on...

I'm fine with skipping them.

All of them are of the form "acquire a meaningless macguffin for your faction head", "deliver this meaningless item to a random NPC and don't let members of other factions know", or "talk to a random NPC and succeed at a single, pass-fail, hope-your-2-skill-ranks-per-level-fighter-has-it-trained skill check". I think I'll link them anyway when I get home tonight. IMO, faction missions like these are why faction missions had to be changed in season 5.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Aren't fey Knowledge Nature? That's on Doctor Strang's list of trained skills right?

yessir.

Strang's just not the type to overplay his knowledge skills. There's always more to learn, so thus he will never know much! =)

As Dorn only has the one (knowledge skill), I might as well make the most of it. ;)

So what's the deal with dorn's scars anyway?
Strang being a doctor... and even has surgical tools in his pack and the know-how to use them... perhaps it was a medical procedure he'd recognize?

Or just battle wounds?

You hinted at medical earlier... though not the exact type of procedure.

Here's the faction missions if you want to look over them. As previously noted, they will not affect your prestige points in any way, which is why I'm not going to the trouble of sending them in secret to each of you. If you want to roleplay them, feel free.

So what's the deal with dorn's scars anyway?

Strang being a doctor... and even has surgical tools in his pack and the know-how to use them... perhaps it was a medical procedure he'd recognize?

Or just battle wounds?

You hinted at medical earlier... though not the exact type of procedure.

Oh, yeah, I did it in the meta-chat and forgot to stick it into his actual intro. Oh well.

Dorn has 10 int and 12 wis, how come you are playing him as brain-damaged? Avril got 7 int, she's pretty "blonde" even if her hair color doesn't match.

Maybe he was ridiculously smart before and this just dumbed him down to normal?

Dorn has 10 int and 12 wis, how come you are playing him as brain-damaged? Avril got 7 int, she's pretty "blonde" even if her hair color doesn't match.

....be... cause I want to and it's part of the backstory I created for him?

He has Int 10 because he's not actually stupider than average: he has specific brain damage that affects his memory centers, but his logic faculties are fine. "Intelligence determines how well your character learns and reasons." He could still add large sums together or solve a logic problem as quickly as anyone else with a 10 Int, he has as many skills as someone else with a 10 Int. He just has trouble recalling things at times.

He has Wis 12 because the Pathfinder stat of "Wisdom" can mean many different things: "Wisdom describes a character's willpower, common sense, awareness, and intuition." He's strong-willed in some situations, fairly aware of the natural world, and trusts his instincts a lot.

Most of the negative aspects of how I see his brain damage are manifested in behaviors that affect how he would be socially perceived by others, which is why his penalized stat is Charisma.

Stats govern how good or bad your character is at things in generalized ways, but with the possible exceptions of Str and Con, it's problematic to try and express different nuances of stats with a flat score. A wolf-scarred oracle probably has a high charisma, but looks ugly and horrific.

If I had described a character missing one hand, would you ask "why are you portraying him as physically impaired if his Dexterity is 16?"

TL;DR, "because I want to." And second reason: because I hate jackpot barbarians, and dumping stats down excessively, and I don't do it for my characters as a rule.

Avril, could you please put your vital stats into the Class field of your profile so they show up under your name, like the others have?

I meant to do that but forgot, sorry, will do so shortly.

There we go :).

@Food:Are everyone bringing food or are you planning on hunting? That would slow our speed to half. Do we have anyone with 20 speed movement? If so the people with 40 ft could use survival without slowing our progress. At maximum we'll need 3 weeks of food, 1 week to get there, one week staying there and one week back.

With +11 in Survival, I am able to provide food and water for everyone but I move at 20 ft. I guess it would be too slow on the way out but it could work on the way back. For now, I will buy a week's worth of trail rations.

Strang bought a couple weeks of rations, so he's good.

I'll just buy a weeks rations as well then.

I could throw a chakram at the beasts while Cryxial is moving towards them. That's only -12 to hit :p. They are 160 feet away from us right? I'm waiting for Zac/the owlbear to post before posting my action as I want to know what it does.

Wow that's one scary owlbear... 5 attacks at +9. We have people at level 3 in our party :o. Here are the regular rules for reach.

@Zac: You got 30 foot movement due to only wearing medium armor and armor training right?

Is there any vegetation in the owlbears area? I may cast entangle.

And here I gambled on there being not much difficult terrain... Avril's effectiveness is dramatically reduced if she can't charge.

Does entangle really need more than grass? There should be grass on the ground no? I think it only has a problem indoors or in caves and such.

There's grass, so entangle will work, but it's not high enough to cause difficult terrain. Ignizi is a druid and is able to control how the grass grows, and she keeps it low for her comfort and that of the folks researching with her.

Never seen a ruling like that before, partial spell effects. Sounds fair though.

@Beomir: A radius spread is a circle, not a square. You can see the same link I posted above for reach. They don't have the 40-foot template, but you can extrapolate it from the 20-foot one.

Hopefully the other Owlbear moves out of the entangle area since I can't really charge the one Dorn is fighting as that would put me in the entanglement area. Would have loved to be able to focus fire, but oh well.