I'm thinking that Paizo must hate me for canceling some of my subscriptions and is taking things out on me with the dice rolling bot. I'm nervous to be the one that sets us up to fail ;)
I think we were destined to fail this skill challenge. Here were the rolls:
7, 7, 2, 3, 4, 4, 8, 4, 1, 2
Both the Mean and Median roll was 4 ;)
Welcome to my world.
You're right, it's meant to be. Having that many consecutive low rolls is nuts. It's still interesting though, at least with a pen-and-paper rpg (like Benaiah pointed out), as opposed to a video game, the story just keeps getting more interesting and engaging.
I'm excited to see where the story takes us from here, things will probably get a little more complicated, but, as always, still fun and exciting.
(My comment above assumes John's next post isn't simply 'Game Over')
So, just as a point of feedback: I enjoy the idea of the skill challenges (especially as a character that is at least somewhat skill focused) but I haven't really enjoyed the execution, particularly in how failure-prone the Failures / Successes threshold is. Shoving aside the napkin math that I did out of curiosity, with the thresholds and requirements we are more likely to fail the encounter than succeed at it, and that's even with a roughly 75% chance of success per attempt we had in our first two rounds (with the rerolls.) The odds likely go down the longer we go on (and use more risky skills.)
I'm not sure how this will scale with level or as we get access to more magical effects, and maybe we as a party need to think about preparing consumables to use for them. I'm also not sure if they're supposed to be "white-knuckle" encounters where we're hanging on every dice roll, but it's likely we'll be hanging at the 2 Failures when we've accumulated half the successes we need.
On the flip-side, I really do enjoy the scenarios that have been set up, the sandbox nature of the encounters, and the creativity of each attempt. I just wish I didn't have a twinge of dread that I was screwing us all with each roll.
Anyway, I debated sending this just to the GM or in the open discussion, but I figured we're all fairly experienced GMs and Players here and I'm always interested in people's thoughts on gaming nuts and bolts, especially from such an esteemed group :)
Perfect! Out in the open, especially in this group.
The Static DC was 19
Look at your two top skills that you used for this Challenge: +11 +15
That means you needed an 8 or better 13/20 or 65% success rate and 4 or better or 17/20 or 85% or an average success rate of 75%
The failure : success ratio is you need a threshold of 72% success.
Statistically, you should have done much better, you just had cold dice.
Feedback is always welcomed and appreciated with a group of players this great.
Thoughts everyone? Suggestions to improve? Feedback?
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Just throwing some more numbers out there -
My best skill is intimidate, which was +14, bumped to +17 when I buffed with my mutagen. +17 is pretty much an auto-success.
After that, I have a couple of skills at +9, so 50/50 shot of success.
It would be an interesting exercise to figure out probabilities when you combine all 4 of us, but I may have to save that for another time, when I have more time to play with excel.
Anecdotally, I do have that same sense that the margin for error is very slim.
Basically everyone needs to succeed twice, and only two people can fail once (meaning the other two must bat 1.000). Just about everyone has at least 1 skill that has a very high probability of success, and most of the secondary skills are in the range of 50/50. Even if everyone had a secondary skill at that 65/35 range, factoring in that as a group we can fail 2 times, I think the overall odds at reaching the 8 successes before the 3 failures is in the 20-25% range.
The more I think about it, the more I want to break it down.
/looks at long list of things that *MUST* be completed at work today
crap.
I care far less about success/failure in games than I used to. I still like making optimized characters who are very good at something, or multiple things. It would probably suck if we failed all the time or most of the time, but it would also be boring if we succeeded all the time. Such a fine line/difficult target to hit in order to balance all of that.
My overall opinion of the skill challenges is that they are fun. I enjoy finding creative ways to use different skills, though I think over the long haul it is going to get harder and harder to think of different ways to use intimidate and linguistics. (Craft-Alchemy has me completely stumped...) The one thing that I think could make them better is if you, the GM, joined us more in the random creation of the world around us. It was fun making up the perverted shopkeeper and intimidating my way through his shop. I think there is opportunity there for you to create some of that stuff around us as we go through the challenge as well, helping to give us some context and structure for the picture we are trying to paint.
I get that is also much easier said than done, since you don't want to shoehorn us into a situation where we think one or more of our skills wouldn't make sense.
Ok, I wrote way more than I expected. (seriously, that never happens, right?) I've missed a meeting and I am behind on some of my other tasks... better get to work! :)
Thanks for the feedback Benaiah, and the more I think about it the more grateful I am to Malgrim for bringing it up.
It is no surprise that the one mechanic that doesn't seem to be working is the one I adapted :/
I too looked at those numbers after I posted and I wanted to crunch them, but something happened last night that hadn't happened in 108 years, and there were fireworks ...
So I would really like the success rate of skill challenges to be about 75% of the time. So maybe I need to tweak to 6 successes and 4 failures?
And there are difference ways I could apply a Failure. I thought about having a Hellknight Encounter. I didn't know how the first one would go. It was meant to further the mircoplots, and make Magnimar more interesting.
I also feel that at times I railroad a bit much so I wanted to give you all an opportunity to free-form roleplay, but I understand your side Benaiah. I was too complacent in this case - my bad.
Quick posting note - I will be light (for me) posting today and tomorrow, and then AFK until the 8th.
Sorry to kill the momentum a bit.
Don't worry though, when I am back I will be back with a vengeance ;)
We do need to gear up a bit though. Equipment and funds have been few and far between. As an 'advance' for restoring the fountain, give yourselves 2,000 gp each with some more to come after <redacted>.
... aaaaaand.... I'm back online!
So, the small country town where we are staying had a massive outage of all things Telstra. Telstra in Australia is like Verizon and AT&T rolled into one for the USA. For a long time, they were our only choice for phone, internet and cable TV - for the entire country.
Needless to say, when Telstra goes down for a region, it makes it hard to post. ;-) So, after having no internet or cell reception for about 2 days, I'm back! I'll try to catch up.
Mathematically speaking...
Assuming an average of 0.75 chance of success... will be resolved in 10 rolls.
The only way to succeed with 8 successes vs 3 failures:
10 v 0: 0.75 ^ 10 * 1 = 0.0563
9 v 1: 0.75 ^ 9 * 0.25 * 10 = 0.1877
8 v 2 : 0.75 ^ 8 * 0.25 ^ 2 * (9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1) = 0.2816
52.56% chance of success.
For 6 vs 4:
10 v 0: 0.75 ^ 10 * 1 = 0.0563
9 v 1: 0.75 ^ 9 * 0.25 * 10 = 0.1877
8 v 2 : 0.75 ^ 8 * 0.25 ^ 2 * (9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1) = 0.2816
7 v 3 : 0.75 ^ 7 * 0.25 ^ 3 * (8+7*2+6*3+5*4+4*5+3*6+2*7+1*8) = 0.2502
77.58% chance of success
... and to check my maths, this should add to 1...
6 v 4 : 0.75 ^ 6 * 0.25 ^ 4 * C(10, 4) = 0.1460
5 v 5 : 0.75 ^ 5 * 0.25 ^ 5 * C(10, 5) = 0.0584
4 v 6 : 0.75 ^ 4 * 0.25 ^ 6 * C(10, 6) = 0.0162
3 v 7 : 0.75 ^ 3 * 0.25 ^ 7 * C(10, 7) = 0.0031
2 v 8 : 0.75 ^ 2 * 0.25 ^ 8 * C(10, 8) = 0.0004
1 v 9 : 0.75 ^ 1 * 0.25 ^ 9 * C(10, 9) = 0.0000
0 v 10 : 0.25 ^ 10 = 0.0000
= 0.9999
Okay, counting that as a win! Woo!
Anyway... 6 v 4 sounds much more reasonable. By the way, thanks for making #success + #failure add up to 10 again. Made my maths much easier.
I'd actually like some kind of system where we get to, say, 3 failures and we can choose to either push it or leave it at that point. Leave it is neither a win nor a significant loss (as happened)... but we can push it to try to win, but at the risk of a losing (and we suffer more the more losses we get after we try to push it). Or something like that.
Up to you. I 100% agree that failure in an RPG setting is fine and fun. 52.56% is okay (even though it does assume a 75% win chance per roll), but it depends on the narrative you want as a GM.
Also, cheers for the 2,000gp. Now for the dilemma: spend it now, or save up for something cool?
Thanks for mathing that up!
So you are fully aware of what is happening - the dwarf was lying about not knowing you. He is purposely stone-walling you sorry I'm not sorry for the pun but you don't know why. In the banter, Malgrim uttered a trigger - no honor. If the good captain was here he could let you know how much pride Balastar et Mindurian has in the Mindurian Family. Arimar can tell you later. He mentions his pride in his house even speaking with you all earlier. It has nothing to do with Malgrim being a hobgoblin. He even clarifies it. I believe, and correct me if I am wrong, Malgrim was just equating this situation to the other times he has been singled out for his race.
Balastar et Mindurian even let slip he knows you and the fountain project in his anger.
So choices
- fight the Quarrier's Guild
- Leave and try to figure out why this is happening
- try to find another way to get stone.
Other questions?
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One thing for clarification - I know the blowup didn't have anything to do with Malgrim's race. Benaiah, however, is probably almost as much a hot head as Balastar, and doesn't care. He thinks the race issue and the offhanded comment about honor are both ridiculous things to have this much of a reaction over.
Second - I don't want to fight the Quarrier's guild, nor do I want to find another way to get the stone. Full stop.
Benaiah is not going to just stand by and do nothing while his friend gets assaulted (matter of perspective, I know). Since I can't bend my mind around a post that combines both of those things, (leaving peaceably and defending his friend) and I don't want to sabotage the party or what I hope to accomplish, I left my post where it was, and I am hoping Gwen and/or Arimar can extricate us from this.
Definitely an unexpected twist!!!
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A few things:
OOC I'm relatively sure that another House has leaned on the guild not to provide aid. However, Malgrim failed his Sense Motive pretty abysmally, and made an off-hand comment to try and jar the dwarf into following his promise. Going from "appeal to honor" to "leap over the table violence" by the dwarf did seem a bit abrupt, almost unhinged, as if there was some kind of mental compulsion. We'll see how it goes. I'm strongly opposed to fighting the guild, and while I doubt we'll be singing Kumbaya, I'd hope somehow to resolve things with the guild. Also, for some reason, I don't think Benaiah and Malgrim make the most high-functioning duo when bereft of Arimar or Gwen ;)
For my own side, pulling back the curtain a bit:
I know I've mentioned it before, but I've had a bit of trouble finding Malgrim's place in social situations other than keeping to the sidelines and letting the others do most of the talking. He's been a pretty withdrawn and "reactive" character which matches his stats and background, but doesn't really make for interesting social RP in a lot of situations. Prior to this particular circumstance I'd been toying with what make Malgrim "tick" and how to assert himself a bit more. I'm going to continue working on it, and it makes sense that the character with a -2 Diplomacy modifier is a bit rusty on social pleasantries. It's fun in concept, rough in practice (especially long term in this medium.)
Character thoughts: I don't see Malgrim as in a particularly "good" place right now. He's been way out of his element (figuratively and literally) and at least partially blames himself for the last few outings that haven't turned out nearly as well as planned. Maybe he hasn't hit rock bottom yet, but he's definitely had his foundation shaken. Being stonewalled and insulted in a place where he previously found a measure of acceptance brought seemed like a good place to draw out a response from him (especially given the above attempt to assert himself) and maybe cause some character development.
As a final thought: I do know yesterday I was in a bit of a raw emotional state OOC, so that may have unintentionally influenced the RP to be a bit more explosive. Given the above it still makes sense, I just hope I didn't derail things too far, inadvertently or otherwise :) I'm enjoying it, at least.
Malgrim buck up little camper :).
This was the next post I had prewritten before the Honor/House comments:
"Have yourselves a blessed day." comes Balastar et Mindurian dismissal as he moves off.
This is tremendous fun (for me at least). I always have ways you can accomplish what you need to accomplish. As a matter of fact, it is already prewritten. How you get there is what makes it interesting.
And blame yourself? Come on, you are in the process of restoring an ancient ruin. This should be quite challenging, but know that you are heroes in your heroic journey. You will succeed. You will get an errant punch to the face here and there.
I like Malgrim, always have. I think you are doing great. But if you are not having fun, shoot me and email and we can work it out.
Lastly, I love the speculation. You may or not be right. 100%
Sorry, meant to break that a bit more clearly into different parts. There's the difficulty I have writing for the character in social situations, which I'm working to amend. There is also that the "character" Malgrim isn't in a good place internally, *he* blames himself for the failures (not me the player, cold dice nontheless ;))
Also, I'm pretty much positive that someone is influencing the dwarf, either by mundane or magical means. What remains is the how.
Wow.
First up, sorry for not letting you know in advance that I'd be flying on Wednesday. Jet-lagged as hell and figuring out why all my automatic s+!@ didn't work (massive power outage the day I left killed my AC - which created an awful funky smell in the house - destroyed the battery on my lawn mower - which unlike northern lawns, needed water during the 80º October / November and is now brown - what the f$*$ happened to my ground cover flowers - my gardeners pruned savagely and seemed to believe they were weeds... they are one 'no I won't replace those' away from being f@~*ing fired - and, most distressingly... my f##~ing DVR loaded after my modem did and was stuck in the 'can't find TV, restart?' question dialog. 3 weeks of TV, lost. Grrr.
Anyway... Wednesday was the action day.
Oh, and now I'm jet-lagged and unable to sleep, but free to post! Yay?
Malgrim, you did awesomely. Love the angst and misunderstandings. Keep it up, I say.
GM, totally get where you're coming from. Failing in situations like these can be great fun. Sorry I missed it.
Wow.
First up...
Wow. I just re-read the above post. There is probably a reason one shouldn't post when jet-lagged at 3am. ;-)
In any case, my house is gradually getting back in order, and very happy to be back to my regular posting schedule! I hopefully didn't overlook anything, but please do feel free to point out anything that still requires roleplay or a response (eg. golem fights - I was sure they were still to come... but decided not to respond to that person about gladiatorial fights and just let things move along).
You are all good. I hate coming home to chaos. Hope things settled down.
Thanks for the warm welcome. The election actually happened during our flight. Due to the wacky polls, we thought that Clinton was a shoe-in (on Sportsbet.com.au, you could actually place a bet where Clinton paid 17c to the dollar for a win, and Trump paid $5 to the dollar for a win). With no intervening numbers, we woke up mid-flight to the Trump announcement. Very surreal.
Anyway, Australia is a great place to visit - but there are so many great places to visit that aren't 24 hours+ of flying away from the States, it makes me wonder why we see any Americans over there at all. Seriously, with your standard of taking 2 weeks' vacation max, it's hardly worth it by the time you factor in almost a week of jet lag!
If you ever can take 3-4 weeks off, though, I'd love to show you around.
Seems like you have a good plan forming. Please feel free to continue and I will move you to whatever location you choose sometime tomorrow.
Need to know how Khania feels about using one of those hits.
FYI, it appears that I can't post from work at the moment (lunch time and after work are my most available times. Not sure if it's permanent, but it messed up my plans for today at least :-/
I know all too well the perils of work issues. For the last 2 years I have had to post on my phone at work. Really stinks.
I know all too well the perils of work issues. For the last 2 years I have had to post on my phone at work. Really stinks.
We'll see. It looks like all https traffic was having issues for a while, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised tomorrow. Just annoying, heh.
Working on a MAP right now.
So the ambush will be divided as such:
Some logistics: His hidey hole is approximately 3 blocks (5 minutes or 60 rounds) in the Capital District (so semi-busy streets) from the Frumpy Duchess. I am going to wave the handoff and know that he has the ledger on him when you get him. I need to know the following:
- What time of day you are moving him?
- Who is going to carry the ledger
- Buffs and Prebuffs
- Stealth Rolls
- Anything you need from Khania/Lanvi
- Misc
Some logistics: The Frumpy Duchess is a moderate sized tavern, first floor patrons/kitchen, second floor room. Working on that MAP after this. I need to know the following:
- What time of day? The clientele will be vastly different at different times of the day
- Buffs and Prebuffs
- Stealth Rolls (if needed)
- Anything you need from Khania/Lanvi
- Misc
Some logistics: The Frumpy Duchess is a moderate sized tavern, first floor patron/kitchens, second floor rooms. It will take Oscar days to decipher the ledgers. I need to know the following:
- What will your SOP be during this time?
- Buffs and Prebuffs
- Guard shifts
- Anything you need from Khania/Lanvi
- Misc
I hoped I covered it all. I can push off starting to Friday if needed. Let me know.
Man, this is the kind of stuff that makes PbP suck a little. 10 minutes' discussion around the table could take us 2 days, depending upon posting speed.
I have very few buffs (mostly protection from evil & paladin abilities). Most of those are use as you need them, and not constantly active.
The biggest buff we'll need / want (I think) is nondetection but no-one else has weighed in on that yet. It's important to give your opinion because it costs money (ie. party resources). According to the above timeline, at least 4 x scrolls will be needed.
I think I covered the guard shifts in Arimar's post, but the make-up of said shifts may vary. It gets maximum coverage with the 8 hour day.
Can I leave it to Benaiah and Gwen to discuss what buffs they have / want available first, and then weigh-in on the other strategy? Much of what we can/will do tactically hinges upon what magic we can cast.
Hand wave the nondetection. Khania/Lanvi will take care of it.
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Ok...
So if we move him invisibly and with the non-detection spell on the book, I think we should move him during a non-descript, normal time of the evening. Like, right before it starts to get busy in the tavern. Dinnertime lets say. Arimar and Gwen will be the only visible ones of the 5 of us, so it should look pretty innocuous.
Love the nightshift watch idea.
Since I will be invisible, I will take the ledger while we are moving it.
As far as during the downtime of guard duty, Benaiah won't have any buffs active, since it would be impossible to guess when he would need them, and the long ones only last just under an hour.
SOP should definitely not split the group up. So if we are hanging around the rooms, Benaiah will acquire the company of a few ladies for a few days and just hole up until he cracks the code.
Glad I typed that out. Made me rethink a few things. Time to go add another post to the gameplay thread.
So MAP is updated, and super detailed. More so that you or I probably want, but have fun with it.
So far I have Benaiah & Arimar's buffs, guard shifts, Time of Day, and SOP, plus the Nondetection which I have to read right now.
I am pretty sure Malgrim's buffs are as needed and swift actions, which leaves us with our Super Buffer.
On a side note, you will be able to cast your buffs in the hidey hole, and then progress the 5 minutes to the Frumpy. Lesser Rod of Extend might be nice ....
Re: PbP sucking for planning Couldn't agree more.
So, without the bard buffs we may / may not have from Gwen:
Encounter A - Move Oscar Wallace from hiding to the Frumpy Duchess
- What time of day you are moving him? => Early evening
- Who is going to carry the ledger => Benaiah, while invisible, handy haversack
- Buffs and Prebuffs => Protection from Evil (lasts long enough) on Arimar and Gwen. Arimar will also go disguised (mundane). Suggest Gwen does the same (perhaps using alter self or disguise self).
- Stealth Rolls => Not stealthing for Arimar, but -4 if you need it.
- Anything you need from Khania/Lanvi => Nothing?
Encounter B1 - Arrive at the Frumpy Duchess and move Oscar to a room
- What time of day? The clientele will be vastly different at different times of the day => Early evening.
- Buffs and Prebuffs => Nothing that lasts long enough to still be active. Might as well stay disguised, though.
- Stealth Rolls (if needed) => -4
- Anything you need from Khania/Lanvi => Nothing?
- Room should be booked and prepared in advance. We should already have the key and be able to head straight up.
Encounter B2 - Guard Duty at Frumpy Duchess
- What will your SOP be during this time? => 2-3 on guard, 1-2 asleep. Since night time is the likeliest time for an attack, we'll only have 1 asleep then (and the bookkeeper).
- Buffs and Prebuffs => Nothing that lasts hours/level.
- Guard shifts =>Sleepers (got Gwen sleeping alone because she has the best perception, best to have everyone else awake to increase our chances of spotting something when she's sleeping):
- 6am-2pm: Gwen
- 2pm-10pm: Arimar, Malgrim
- 10pm-6am: Benaiah, Bookkeeper
- Anything you need from Khania/Lanvi => Nothing?
How's all that sound? Gwen, we need your buffs here.
Suggest the north-eastern room to hole-up in (reasons on the map).
So I added some skills to the bottom of the Dice Rolls doc.
Please scroll the whole way down and add in Disguise and Stealth.
Since that is what you are doing.
Not for any other reason.
Move along, move along ....
Malgrim has Darkvision, so he should probably take the Night Shift over Benaiah. No need for Buffs, although I think I'll buy some consumables (Potion of Invisibility.)
How much gold / wealth should we have total at this point? Malgrim will probably stealth ahead of the group (at least using Stealth to trying to look nondescript / blend into the crowd) to find trouble points along the way in transit. Other than that, looks good.
Up-to-date (some cheeky monkey had done most of the work already).
Malgrim I believe that you are under-wealthed for your level. If there is something you have been eyeing, let me know. You will start to get periodic payouts from your business.
We can start with the narrative until Gwen is ready to post mechanics.
Feel free to RP your preparations or not.
Re Nondectition
So the only one of you that can cast it is Benaiah.
School abjuration; Level alchemist 3, antipaladin 3, inquisitor 3, ranger 4, sorcerer/wizard 3, summoner/unchained summoner 3; Domain trickery 3; Elemental School void 3Also
Although the alchemist doesn't actually cast spells, he does have a formulae list that determines what extracts he can create. An alchemist can utilize spell-trigger items if the spell appears on his formulae list, but not spell-completion items (unless he uses Use Magic Device to do so).
So I am trying to figure out the DC for Benaiah,
Is it
If the user meets all the requirements noted above, and her caster level is at least equal to the spell's caster level, she can automatically activate the spell without a check. If she meets all three requirements but her own caster level is lower than the scroll spell's caster level, then she has to make a caster level check (DC = scroll's caster level + 1) to cast the spell successfully.
or
Use a Scroll: Normally, to cast a spell from a scroll, you must have the scroll's spell on your class spell list. Use Magic Device allows you to use a scroll as if you had a particular spell on your class spell list. The DC is equal to 20 + the caster level of the spell you are trying to cast from the scroll. In addition, casting a spell from a scroll requires a minimum score (10 + spell level) in the appropriate ability. If you don't have a sufficient score in that ability, you must emulate the ability score with a separate Use Magic Device check. This use of the skill also applies to other spell completion magic items.
or
Emulate a Class Feature: Sometimes you need to use a class feature to activate a magic item. In this case, your effective level in the emulated class equals your Use Magic Device check result minus 20. This skill does not let you actually use the class feature of another class. It just lets you activate items as if you had that class feature. If the class whose feature you are emulating has an alignment requirement, you must meet it, either honestly or by emulating an appropriate alignment with a separate Use Magic Device check (see above).
Confused.
Also it will only last 7 hours so you will have to use 14 scrolls.
Sorry for the delay everyone. All of the planning laid out above sounds great. Awesome job on the planning, dudes. Gwen will definitely grab a scroll or two of alter self to help disguise her person (I like that idea, Arimar). Then she'll be ready to charm some people if the need arises.
About the only thing I can add would be this:
There is a bard spell, Obscure Object. Gwen could get a scroll of this, if we think this would help with keeping prying eyes from locating the ledger.
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Obscure object is good and might be much easier to deal with than the umd checks. I'm pretty sure the DC would be 26 for me to roll a umd check
-Posted with Wayfinder
Yay! Obscure object is f*~&ing perfect. Cheaper, too! 1st level for a bard, and lasts 8 hours regardless. We'll need 12 of them... and Khania and Lanvi are covering the cost anyway.
When I mentioned nondetection before, I was talking about having it cast - as in, using one of Lanvi's hirelings. Given our current class make up, there will be many times that we won't be able to cast a needed divine or arcane spell (with or without a scroll / potion) and require spellcasting services instead. Might be worth figuring out a regular wizard we can go to. Not sure if it's appropriate, but I think the Sarenites could be our go-to divine spellcasting services.
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I don't want to critisize how you are GMing this or running the PCs at all, because you are doing an amazing job. I just want to make sure I'm on the same page as you about the characters. It just seemed weird to me that a crime lord who runs a massive prostitution ring for the purpose of gathering information would be so adverse to the actual prostitution part.
Now the real life reaction to that kind of thing... Totally get it. :)
A few things:
- Missing an 'In Character' post from Gwen ...
- Also, Arimar when making a Disguise for Malgrim, do we use your modifier, his modifier, or is it considered an Aid Another?
- So we have Arimar & Malgrim disguised; Gwen Alter Self, and Benaiah & bookkeeper invisible.
- We also have the guards as decoys.
Re: Routes
At times, he runs down alleyways when no-one much is observing just to throw pursuers off the duo's pace. He makes sure, however, to always add his location via message if he thinks the others might get lost.
Through the back alleys he slowly winds, occasionally making his way to an accommodating roof for a better vantage point
Just so you are clear, this would add some time, a minute or two, to the route.
Re: Disguise
This one's tricky, and you have ruled in the past that you can disguise someone else. I'd think about it like being a Hollywood makeup artist, rather than playing dress-up on your own.
However, the skill itself says 'yourself' and makes no reference to 'others'. It is also charisma-based.
I've always just allowed someone to disguise other people. I think you'd be well within reason to make the check use the other person's charisma modifier (actually what I will be doing as GM from here on), or to disallow the skill for use on someone else entirely - perhaps ruling that the Hollywood style of disguise is covered under the 'Profession (makeup artist)' skill.
Either way, aid another should work, though and I can give Malgrim a use of my disguise kit for a further +2.
We should also be able to take 20, but that would take 1d3 x 100 minutes (potentially up to 5 hours).
This is the best discussion I've found for this topic online (much disagreement, but goes over the salient points): http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?124732-Disguise-and-taking-20
You're the GM and I'm happy with whatever you rule.
Thanks for the link.
So yes I have ruled that you can Disguise another, and I think that is appropriate. No need to take additional skills in Profession.
What I am going to do is keep Malgrim's Disguise, add in aid another, and the bonus from the kit, plus a GM fiat bonus as this is a 'thing' this party does.
So +2, +2, & +4, for a +8 to Malgrim's Disguise check.