N13 is fine. O13 doesn't flank anyway, which was really the only reason to aim for moving there.
In general, I prefer to stick to initiative order. Sometimes the battlefield changes unexpectedly, and I've been in a few games where players posted early and then got upset if players ahead of them in initiative did something that invalidated their posted action ("You knew I was going to do X! I already posted my intentions!").
If you're available for posting, however, and know you may not be when your turn comes up, that's fine. In this case, in particular, I doubt Marikel will do anything that keeps Banny from attacking, unless he kills the spider himself before she gets the chance. :)
Yeah, I assumed in this particular instance there was nothing Marikel could do, short of, I dunno, throwing himself on top of Banny in passionate embrace, that would have changed her action. But I'll gladly let him have the kill if he does it before me. :P
I won't get upset if you get in first. I think it's better to keep things moving. Besides- was it you I jumped in front of the other day? I'd be a hypocrite if I objected. :-)
Irrelevant in this case with my dice rolls.
For some reason, I thought it'd be a DC20 escape artist check to get free of that, like with a net or entangle spell. Definitely not going to argue it though!
Yeah, the DCs to escape from the web scale with the creature's HD, so nets are definitely harder to get out of than spider webs at low levels.
For verisimilitude reasons, I'd say they should be easier to burst than a weaponized net but harder to wiggle out of, being sticky, but meh.
I'll be AWOL over the weekend-- we're having a local gaming con and I'm somehow in charge of coordinating the PFS this year. :P I'll try and check the boards at night, but no promises of posting. GMPC if needed!
Okay, party options at this point:
Vote!
Ali's in favor of finishing exploring the ground floor (I didn't realize there wasn't a functional second floor that wasn't the roof)--if only because she's still hoping that Marikel goes into the sanctuary.
I don't mind checking the rest of the ground floor out, but yeah, it's hard to justify Banny wanting to spend time clearing out cellars when she's more concerned about the murderer of her friend walking around freely.
As a small FYI - I'm off on a short trip tonight and tomorrow to a rugby tournament for my son (well... depending on whether there is breathable air or not...). Thusly I'll be a less wordy / potentially silent for a couple of days.
Looks like 'finish exploring the ground floor' has the majority. Which way first? There's the collapsed staircase at G12, a door in the back wall at G15, the sanctuary, and the corridor behind the door Marikel at H11 opened with light visible at the end (probably the room open to the elements at the crumbled front corner of the church).
The direction of the spider?
Marikel says that GM's like it better when entire sections are cleared.
:-)
Hey, if you guys don't want to explore the Room of Exorbitant Treasure and Free Magic Items, it's no skin off my nose. ;)
(Nearest thing to following the spider would be climbing the half-collapsed staircase.)
Ali votes the sanctuary first, but she is NOT going in first. ;P
Whoops, sorry.
I hadn't quite clicked that we'd agreed to finish the first floor.
I figured I'd hurry things up and have Marikel be bossy and make a decision.
So, sorry I pushed things in the wrong direction. If people want that overturned, let me know.
Also, Marikel will back down quickly if challenged in character, though he won't be nice about it. :-)
Enh, let's just roll with what we have. OOCly I don't mind exploring the cellar at all-- I'm aware, as a player, that the AP proooobably means for us to pick up XP and maybe some goodies here.
But ICly, Banny doesn't know that, and as far as she's concerned, the fact that we have a still-unexplored tunnel that leads to the path that goes right up to the watchtower is a lot more pressing than vermin in the cellar of an abandoned building, and she so far sees no evidence to suggest that this place has even been used recently (we saw no tracks, the spiderweb was covering things, etc), so she is not convinced that anything in the church has much to do with the issue of Kerst's death. (She could certainly be wrong.) So my objection stems from IC rationale, not OOC refusal to explore.
Sorry, guys, I've been sick today and barely got out of bed. I'll hope to get back on track tomorrow.
Take your time. Get well. GMs who are well run games for longer. :-)
Yep, your health comes first.
Indeed - wot they said.
Rugby tournament was good... except for the haze... which was bad... and is why my lungs now feel like they're coated with a half-inch of sludge.
As a heads-up, from Tuesday the 3rd to Wednesday the 11th, I'm gonna be in HAWAII. *does a little dance* I'm told there will be reliable Internet, so I still intend to post if that turns out to be true, but, y'know... I'm gonna be in Hawaii, so... don't expect full focus from me. ;)
I'll try to stay on top of things in that period, but if you're waiting for Banny and I'm slow to post, feel free to GMPC her.
Nice Banny - enjoy!
You just doing Oahu, or heading out to another island?
I'll be on Oahu the whole time, ayup. I wanted to get over to Hawai'i and see the active volcanoes, but flying seems the only practical way to get between the islands, and that's another chunk of change I probably shouldn't spend. Maybe next time. :P
Don't be sad... Oahu rocks ;)
And aye - flying is the only 'cheap' way to get betwixt the islands (though we only did Kauai, leaving the big island till our lads are a bit bigger)... you could always charter a yacht... but that'd be more expensive.
Have fun, I'll sit here jealous! :)
Enjoy your time away, dien!
To be fair, you also narrated her sitting "in the corner," and I wasn't sure where you meant. :)
If you'd like to designate a different starting square, like M9, which could fit the description, you may, and I'll give you a five-foot-step along with standing up. "Sitting down" isn't exactly prone.
Yeah, M-9 would be fine for me as my corner! Sorry, I should have been clearer in my original. So the stand and 5-ft works for me.
Sorry, I should have been clearer in my original.
No reason you should have been. You weren't expecting combat to break out.
Eh, what do you think cats are doing when they're lying still in the tall grass waiting for the mouse or bug or bird they're watching to get close enough for them to grab? ;)
Post post I remembered that he could have haunted fey aspected instead... but was too late so cest la vie.
Bad luck on the Will save. :P Alicia had two chances to hit it, and that 13 would have got it done.
When you're readying an attack, if you want to roll your own dice, please put your attack in a spoiler, like this. Otherwise, I'll roll the attack for you when/if it's triggered.
I'll head for L10 thanks.
Sorry for the confusion.
The map isn't working for me, I missed Vhailor's 5' step and thought L10 was the only option and Marikel wants to draw attacks from the others rather than hem the creature in.
The map isn't working for me
Really? Is this a new development? It's the same hosting site I use for the Riddleport game. You've been seeing the maps there, haven't you?
I thought the work PC was shutting me out, but I can see both the most recent map link, and the map link before the one immediatly before Marikel's post. So... just that one is causng trouble. :-)
He is taken aback as Alicia snatches the torch from his hands....
Man, that's a delayed reaction. ;P
Alicia commandeers the torch to make a closer inspection of the room beyond the portcullis. Embedded in the floor is a faded ten-foot-diameter mosaic of a gold longsword in the middle of a white medallion. There appears to be a decrepit bookshelf on the opposite wall, next to the corridor leading away to the northwest, which stretches approximately ten feet before ending in a closed iron door. She sees another door in the middle of the wall to her left at L9. There appears to be a rusty lever on the wall directly to her left on the other side of the bars.
Alicia puts the torch in a handy sconce on the wall and gives the chest a quick once-over. Noticing nothing that looks dangerous, she turns her attention to opening it.
Alicia frowns when her search turns up empty. She stands and retrieves the torch from its wall sconce.
There's an option in MapTool to show light sources; that would make it easier to keep up with who has the torch. The problem is it sticks a light bulb right in the middle of the PC's face. Which I guess isn't really a problem but bothers me aesthetically.
Kind of eerie that I'm interrogating two different prisoners in Joana's games at the same time... we'll see if the gnome or the halfling has better luck though!
A DC 10 Sleight of Hand check lets you palm a coin-sized, unattended object.
The bag Alicia found, like Vhailor's jeweled book cover, is too large to be Sleight of Handed.
Alicia did get a DC23- beating Marikel's perception by 17. I'm fine with not seeing that and had already assumed so.
This seems like a decent point to bring it up, actually, so, let me just get it out there:
I'm a big fan of people getting to play their character however they perceive them, and I actually really like deeply flawed characters who are not perfect-shiny heroes. It's part of why Banny's an alcoholic, etc; I want her to have to deal with that and hopefully overcome it. At the same time, however, I try and play that flaw mildly enough that it's not going to actively hurt the party collectively. RP's a team sport for me first and foremost, and I'm also a big fan of 'in-character decisions = in-character consequences.'
Right now, Banny has no idea that Alicia is/was trying to take whatever's in the bag, of course, and she may never even find out. However, if she DOES find out, that's going to be a little bit of a dilemma for me RP-wise. Banny's already seen Alicia likes to basically do her own thing and seems to have issues with authority (well, at least with Cham!), and Banny would be, well, super-disappointed with the idea of one person in this group trying to take a disproportionate share of profit for the risks that are shared by all. See: her reaction to Vhailor trying to pocket the book, not so long ago.
Part of why Banny feels at home in Trunau is because she deeply believes it's a place where everybody has everyone else's back, or that they should, anyway. Even though she's a usually penniless drunk at the bottom of the social scale, she believes that when push comes to shove, the difference between her and even Halgra Blackblade is insignificant-- that everyone bands together against the outside threat, because that's what Trunau means. So, for Banny, loyalty to the people around you is a huge, huge deal.
Sorry, I know I'm long-winded; I'm just trying to explain why it's going to really negatively inform Banny's opinion if other PCs are doing things that she views as breaking that informal compact of loyalty to one another. You (Alicia, Vhailor, Marikel, anybody) all have the right to play however you want! I'm just pointing out that it's going to be really hard to build that team dynamic for Banny if she feels that other people are not reciprocating on that scale, so to speak.
TL;DR: if party theft becomes a regular thing, Banny's probably not going to tolerate it well, I suppose.
Alicia did get a DC23- beating Marikel's perception by 17. I'm fine with not seeing that and had already assumed so.
The issue isn't with the opposed rolls; it's that the bag in question a) is larger than coin-sized, and b) couldn't just be palmed but had to be dug out of the ground it was half-buried in. It's entirely plausible that Marikel doesn't know what Alicia took (even she doesn't know what's inside the bag, as it hasn't been opened), but it should have been obvious that she was finding something.
I have to agree with Banny's post, in that most of the treasure you guys are finding is merely playing the role of 'shiny stuff to get the party to wealth-by-level.' Hiding it from one another and/or hoarding it is counterproductive. I'd have the same objection to Marikel insisting that anything found on the premises is 'church property' and should be handed over to the proper authorities.* Both acquiring things for oneself and furthering the church of Iomedae are plausible in-character motivations, but from a metagame standpoint, it just makes my job as DM harder, as I have to find a way to equip everyone's PCs other than the way provided in the published adventure.
So, if Ansha wants to play Ali as a classic rogue out for herself, or Mark wants Vhailor to pick up items of interest for personal study, or Dave wants Marikel to show his first loyalty to Sanctuary, that's fine, but the goal, in the end, is for the players, out-of-game, to agree on a fair allocation of treasure.
Marikel does intend to offer our stuff to the church- I don't expect them to accept, and if they did he'd give up his share of stuff to reimburse the others. He's holding that Masterwork Longsword pretty tightly. It'd be amusing to watch him squirm if Tyari did ask for it back... :-)
But yeah, we're all adults here and, metagame, I'm sure we can find ways to balance things. But if Joana is going to flavour the loot... we're gonna RP it. :-P
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Hey, it's not my flavor; it's the adventure text's. I would have made it an abandoned church to a dead god, if I'd thought of it soon enough, and eliminated all these pesky moral quandaries. ;P
And while we're discussing logical problems...
"But what's botherin' me big-picture is this idea that there's creatures like this who can hide right under our noses in those tunnels beneath town, and can get down here to the church, without the town guard, or our patrols, seein' 'em moving around and raisin' warning."
... I would have made Bloodmarch Hill taller because it does raise the question of how a town that has guards with 60-foot darkvision can be unaware of things taking place forty feet below them. Believe you me, the Battle of Bloodmarch Hill GM thread is full of questions about the competence of Trunau's watchmen.
I do what I can to maintain suspension of disbelief without embarking on a rewrite of the whole adventure. :P
Ali isn't interested in keeping stuff for herself (no party theft, promise!) so much as she's just secretive about what she's doing, especially where Marikel is concerned. Think of her as a rebellious teen daughter who views Marikel something like a stepdad. She prefers doing things on her own terms, including volunteering what she's found.
I'm quite glad to hear that party theft won't be happening and that we're all on the same page in that regard. :P I'm just stating that in-character reactions to perceived behaviors are a thing, and that 'doing things on one's own terms' will sometimes run directly counter to the element of trust-building that (hopefully) happens in team situations.
... I would have made Bloodmarch Hill taller because it does raise the question of how a town that has guards with 60-foot darkvision can be unaware of things taking place forty feet below them. Believe you me, the Battle of Bloodmarch Hill GM thread is full of questions about the competence of Trunau's watchmen.
Oh, scenario logic!!!
I was playing in an AP a long while ago where we were deep within a ruined temple, whose only inhabitants were primitive vegepygmies. In the course of this we came to a locked door. Checked it for traps, clean; door was described as almost rusted shut, no traffic, etc. We unlocked it and...
...the other side was a small room that was literally just big enough to hold four giant apes. Once combat was over, we all looked at each other around the table and went "....how the f~*! did these apes get in here? How long have they been here?" And we then spent probably 30 minutes taking 20 on Perception checks, looking for secret doors, trying to figure out if someone had locked the apes in here, basically wracking our brains because we were sure that this was somehow deeply significant. Finally our GM had to throw up his hands and says, "GUYS, THERE'S NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT IT. IT'S JUST A CLOSET FULL OF APES. THAT'S WHAT WAS WRITTEN, I'M SORRY."
Closet-full-of-apes is now my go-to phrase for anytime a published scenario has some sort of gaping logical hole.
She prefers doing things on her own terms, including volunteering what she's found.
So long as on her own terms doesn't mean 'runs away with the only light source and leaves the poor gnome stumbling in the dark'... :P
Light. It's a cantrip/orison. It's invaluable. ;)
I never make a caster who doesn't keep light (or dancing lights) learned.
But, yeah, as Banny says, in character, if Alicia gets in the habit of running off by herself and leaving everyone else in the dark, the other PCs are unlikely to let her carry the light source. Counterbalanced by the fact that she was the one who provided the light sources this time around.
To be fair it's still day 1 and we didn't expect to be stumbling in the dark for most of the day.
Vhailor does have a single cast of dancing lights in his wheelhouse as well... but was saving that for a just in case occasion.
I was definitely going to give Marikel light on the second day. I just figured since he had no reason to leave town or explore the tunnels ever before he would have switched it out months ago and been unprepared today. :-)