near as I can tell this is our haul from the last expedition into the mines and against the ankhegs.
5 flasks worth (acid (5 lb, 50gp in value)
?? gp from the wight lockbox
?? gp five small rough clear gemstones
+1 heavy pick
ioun stone
2 acid sacks
chitin
?? gp in sack is a small collection of coloured stones
plus the 5000 gp to be divided 8 ways (1 party share for Doc's potions) = 625 gp/each
Ok, so the baqic plan is to use the axel of the wagon, and one of the wheels as a crank to haul on a rope. That rope will be attached to a trap that Doc and Grusk are going to cook up. The trap will serve to launch a short chain-and-grapple forcibly into an ankheg. Then we've got an anchor point to haul it in and shoot it to death. If it pulls free it'll leave it's guts behind.
So, cart goes to rope, rope goes to trap, trap fires grapplechain. Summoned critter is bait. Fish for bug, rinse repeat.
Note: The reason for the chain is to resist the acid long enough to haul the thing out. Voice, if Doc were to take some time to boil down the Chitin, could he make an anti-acid resin? (even if only temporary)
Lockbox is 500gp, five small rough clear are diamonds for 400gp, last is ~150gp for the coloured stones.
Doc:
I've a fair idea of what you're looking at. I have no problems with the premise... set it up in character and we can run with it.
Without metagaming too much, you won't have any problems with the chain being acided away. Ankheg guts is non-acidic, and they'd more likely struggle and fight than be intelligent enough to try and gnaw on the chain.
Efficacy of trap will be reliant on how you describe it in character, but said work would not be entirely wasted...
A thought for later regarding the winch-
Now that this idea is lodged in Doc's head I plan on upgrading this winch system.
There will be two main mechanisms.
One will be a "pull winch" in which a lever is pulled that drops a gear down between the axel and the winch, so that as the axle turns it moves the winch's gears and reels in the line. That will mean that if the wagon is moving away from something it will be sucking the rope back in very fast and hard.
The second system will be a spring tensioner, where a heavy coil spring is wound by spooling out the rope. Pulling a lever to disengage the spring tensioner will cause it to release and spool the line back in automatically (vacuum-cleaner cords work on a variation of this idea).
The first will be much* stronger of a pull, but would require us to be moving. The second would be very fast to pull in but would only have as much "strength" as the spring could produce (a lot, but not as much as an ox pulling on gears that mechanically amplify pull strength)
What do you guys think?
Sentis is ever amazed at the craftiness of dwarves.
Doomed - just an acknowledgement that both of those mechanisms are fine as far as I'm concerned.
For the pull winch - are you going from large to small or small to large with the gearing? The description of the action suggests small to large (with it being reeled in faster) - but that would significantly increase the force required to do so would it not?
There's already a large to small ratio. The wagon wheel and the axle. The axle is spinning at a (relatively) much faster speed than the wheel it's attached to. That creates the primary force. We put a gear on the axle which normally just spins free.
The winch has a single gear with a negligible size difference that is disconnected from the axle gear until a smaller gear (a bridge gear) is placed between them by a lever in the wagon. This translates the speed of the axle directly to the speed of the winch.
The rope would be reeled in at the same rate the wagon moved. 5 feet of distance covered by the wagon equals five feet or rope pulled back in. The speed of the winch would then be based on the speed of the creature pulling the wagon, which is a factor of that creatures effective load. Heavy loads get pulled in slow and steady, light loads are going to get whiplash from being yanked so hard.
Simply put, when the wagon moves 5 feet, the load attached to the winch gets pulled 10 feet (5 feet from the wagon's movement, and 5 feet from the rope being "shortened")
It's been a while since physics at Uni, so I'm just trying to get this straight and understand.
In essence I fully understand that the movement of the wagon can be leveraged into a double action by using secondary gearing off the axle to drive the winch. So cart moves forward + winch acts to pull the creature further than merely the cart movement.
Step by Step:
1. Wagon wheel rotates 360 degrees (for the sake of ease lets call that 5 ft horizontal motion)
2. Axle also rotates 360 degrees as it is fixed.
3. Rotation is carried through gearing to the winch.
4. At even gearing ratios - the target gear rotates at the same speed as the drive gear.
5. Therefore the speed of reeling would be dependent on the diameter of the winch itself. For a 1 to 1, the winch drum would need to be the same diameter as the wagon wheel.
6. With some gearing ratio adjustment included you would be able to have the winch drum size reduce while maintaining the same speed of pull (through increased revs).
Does this sound correct or am I a failed Engineer?
Mechanically in game - I'd state that there is a mechanism there (black box) that gives a 1 for 1. So cart moves 5ft, and the rope would also shorten by 5ft. It would be as easy or hard as the bullock / drawing animal would normally be able to pull the secured load.
Ratcheting would prevent the secured load from lengthening the rope / chain (without breaking it), but it would be able to act directly against the bullock's strength and if strong enough drag it and the wagon backwards.
Yeah, that all sounds accurate. I figure, gearing ratio adjustment could probably 1/2 the size of the wheel and keep the same pull speed. If I put in an angle gear the "black box" could be mounted under the wagon horizontally (instead of vertically like the wagon wheel)
Beyond those basics I don't think we need to sweat the details much more.
I love the fact that you can follow me on this subject though. I'm having a blast. Every other encounter is an opportunity for a hair-brained scheme that later turns into a full fledged party resource. I love it.
As long as we're on the subject of engineering and neat stuff for the pimp wagon, anyone have any ideas for things to include?
Some things I thought of:
Headlights/Spotlights made from Continual Flame spells and polished concave reflectors.
A Grapple-Launcher (like the one we're prototyping right now).
A Net-Launcher (non-damaging version of the grapple-launcher)
A launcher for various types of alchemical payloads (a longer range, more relaiable version of Doc's mortar)
An arbalest on a pivot mount mounted at the back like a tail-gun.
A sized up Double Hackbut as a main gun (because Hell Yeah)
We have it waterproof yet?
Well, semi-acid proof? That sort of counts.
If I can figure out how to make glassteel...
Glad you're enjoying it Doc :)
To be honest I'm having second thoughts about continuing on the Serpent Skull AP path and instead taking it in a completely different direction.
Would people be open to more of a bounty / monster hunter feeling?
Im open to wherever you want to take the game.
If you go that way I will help Cortland start the Church of DM Voiceless.
Note: In total I have over 600 hours logged in monster hunter games....
Hmm,
While I'm all for hunting down and kicking the asses of various monsters, just doing that alone doesn't really hold much appeal to me. I like games that have some sort of biger goal in mind, something that will allow my PC to make his mark on the world, potentially forever.
Founding a guild, creating a new kingdom, destroying the enemies of a certain Claw of Shadow, etc are all things I love in a game.
If you can somehow allow us to do smething akin to th above, I don't care what direction you take the game in.
Ia Voiceless Phtagn!
I'm good with that, though I think Cort may grumble lol.
Right now motivations for our group
1. Revenge! other squad got taken out
2. We like to make shit out of these particular carcasses
Dragon hunters sound like a good fit, as Doc gets the idea of layering various dragon hides for resistance anyf%&%ing thing 5 armor!
That would take us looking for dragons of assorted colors!
I can taste the rainbow!
Uh...at level 3 Sentis is a bit concerned about dragon hunting...
Its a good thing we're level 4 then, huh Sentis?
Before I close out the other question, let me pose another:
Do you guys want to roam Golarion? - or stay local to Mwangi / Sargava?
Roaming is cool.
Other Note: Been reading Black Company, having a group travel all over.
Will roaming effect our charter with the Blood Hawks or will be able to negotiate our own deals? I'm fine with either just wondering.
I totally agree with the roaming, sounds awesome.
The Blood Hawks angle is an interesting one, as it's a bit of a relic from when Pentor originally called for people. His original overarching plan involved the Worldwound.
But that doesn't mean that we have to stick to that idea now. You can remain part of the group - you could seek to build your own company - you could relocate to a larger population centre and open a millinery that sells hats to the landed gentry. It really is up to you guys.
As far as overarching plot - that's part of where I was originally going with the SSkull idea, but that AP is thick with jungle and has a lot of underground / city work. I've seen that people seem to be enjoying the wagon, beast crafting and such so figured that continuing in that vein would be suitable.
At any rate we'll be hunting ankhegs for a while yet - so let me percolate it around a while and see what brews. As always, open to any suggestions.
Might be with the individual groups becoming more powerful that no one unified chain of command can really hold onto power, with our generals becoming figure heads or brokers more than actual over-lords.
Sounds good. I wasnt sure if having us stay as part of that Company was something you wanted to keep using as a hook or not. Im not married to the idea. Now that we have a bonified officer in Sunny; starting our own deal is certainly in line. Plus then we dont have to give up a large cut of our hard earned coin to the upper class.
If you hadn't mentioned changing gears I never would have known we *weren't* on an adventure path (I might have figured it out eventually).
The only real long term plan I have for Doc was so start some kind of specialized adventuring equipment company focusing on one-shot alchemical/magical/technological tricks. He pretty much sees the squad as his R&D/testing department already. :)
So I'm up for whatever direction that people want most. Doc's a pretty versatile guy. I'm sure I'll have fun no matter what.
I'd really like a chance to go to Qadira, visiting my homeland would be awesome.
Maybe we can just start doing all the really awesome stuff from the various APs, like exploring the ruins of Thassilon and the ones for the Serpent Skull AP. I mean, we're already here, and we can use the loot we gain for that to fund us branching out on our own.
I say take one decent sized ruin/dungeon in this AP, toss a bunch of treasure and monsters for us to try and kill and let us have at it.
Then we can travel elsewhere, Doc can set up his shop someplace, and we can just have awesome fun.
I'll think up something for Blaze as far as a personal goal, beyond going to Qadira.
As soon as I get a Portable Hole my shop will be wherever I happen to be.
Once I get Leadership and a Ring Gate I'll have a company headquarters somewhere that can crank out basic stuff and resupply me where ever we are.
Sentis clearly has a nose for Ankheg... averaging 30+ over the last three survival checks :)
Wow! Just went back and checked them and he has been spot on. Might have to think about Vermin Heart feat.
Just to make it clear for options moving forward. The tub-thumping on the ground will attract bugs if they are close, but if they aren't then Grusk will just get sore feet :P
The further you move into the tunnel system, the more likely you are to draw attention - and the greater magnitude that attention might be. And eventually you'll probably come upon the nest.
Is it just me or if you stare at DM Voiceless' avatar while reading that it seems to get happier?
Just a quick FYI - I'll be out of town and away from the internet for about 48 hours from the time of this post. Disappearing into the suburbs for the weekend.
I'll throw up a final post in game thread before I go to sleep, but otherwise it will be a lean weekend.
Enjoy the weekend off and I'll be back in action Sunday evening my time.
SHAMELESS SELF-PLUG!!
Since I can't seem to get anyone interested otherwise.
I am having some slight issues with my internet. I am hoping to have them cleared up by the end of the week but until I get my net back I'll be on hiatus. No need to worry.
I'm back!
Just telling everyone.
Welcome back Cort.
Looks like the marching order looks something like this?
The tunnels are at least 10 feet wide, so...
.
.
.
.
.G.
...
...
KS
...
CB
.D.
...
...
Unless Kaavel wants to be up front with Grusk?
Yep - tunnels are 10ft wide in general. IC post will be up shortly.
This is the first time this has come up, so I wanted to discuss it before I made my rolls.
There's a bit of a rules hiccup with splash weapons. Specifically, it lists splash damage hitting squares adjacent the the target, and makes no mention of size. That means the bigger the target is, the larger the splash radius is.
In this case, if I aimed at the middle bug, by RAW I'd get splash on both the others.
A lot of people house rule this so that splash weapons effect a 5 foot square with main damage and splash to the 8 squares around it, dealing damage to those squares only. Unfortunately there's also a problem with this, in that if it would hit two characters who were standing next to each other with splash damage, it would hit a larger creature more than once (hitting them with more of the splash)
Either interpretation seems a bit wonky. Any thoughts?
My thoughts are basically:
- You target a square with the toss
- Splash goes to each square surrounding that target square
- Creatures are damaged only once by a given splash / hit.
- So the actual target (if hit) suffers full damage, then those in the splash radius suffer splash damage.
Essentially that's the second interpretation you put up, with a rider that splash damage only applies once despite the number of squares of the creature affected. Similarly it a large creature gets hit directly, it doesn't also suffer splash on top of that.
Does that make sense and is it amenable?
That seems like the sane approach.
While we're on the subject, what's your take on bigger splash weapons? I think we've already established that if I Enlarge myself that my bombs and alchemist fire effectively don't get a benefit from it.
I understand the balance reasons for it, but it seems odd that a jar sized bomb does the same damage and effects the same area as a bomb the size of a keg.
My question is, if I were to expend additional resources (additional bomb uses, adding flasks of alchemist fire to a bomb, etc.), could I make bombs that effected a larger radius in the main damage or splash area (or both)?
I'm open to consideration of making size difference affect the explosive load of bombs...
I'm happy for an enlarged bomb (as in thrown while Doc is large size) to have a 10ft splash radius as a given - thats easy.
As to multiple targets, how about this as a freebie discovery:
Big Bertha: by expending two uses of the bomb ability, Doc can throw an over-charged ordnance that has a chance of dealing direct bomb damage to two adjacent targets.
You'd make a single attack roll which would be compared to both to determine if they get hit by direct damage or splash.
That sounds great. More in line with my original idea of Doc as a mortarman. I've discovered that while I really enjoy playing Doc, he's a bit tricky to handle mechanics-wise. It's difficult to make him do the things I want him to be able to do with the existing alchemist mechanics. I appreciate you working with me.
Basically the discovery you've given me is a lot like Vital Strike for bombs.
I can see some potential for abuse with Doc's new Two-seapon fighting build. To reign it in a bit, do you think that discovery should take a standard action instead of a normal attack roll?
Also, since the Two-weapon fighting feat was my compromise to the mechanics not letting me get more bang for my buck, would you mind if I took that discovery and tossed two weapon fighting (since I don't think I've used it since I took it)?
Aye - ditch the two-weapon fighting and choose another feat if you like.
I'd intended the Big Bertha discovery as a direct freebie; as it really isn't going to break anything.
RAW - chucking a bomb is already a standard action, so there's no issues there with Two-Weapon Fighting. Even if you took Fast Bombs as a discovery, you'd Nova through your bombs per day quick smart throwing Big Berthas.
I don't really see that happening. Doc's pretty frugal with his bombs. They pretty much only get used before the melee crew closes range, after that they're a bit of a liability.
Here we go again with Doc's feat selection. Maybe I'll just take Toughness and save myself some headache...