OK, that's helpful, Zay. Thank you! I was planning to bluff if there's not any code that we've come across, so we'll go that direction.
EDIT: Sadly, Taty's got no ranks in bluff. She's more a diplomacy/intimidate kind of girl, but Archaeologist's Luck helps a bit.
As an initial matter, it'd be pretty embarrassing to have to ban the Saltspray Ring since the source for it is the first part of this AP.
Looking at the price of the ring and its effect though, I'm not really certain that it should be creating the kind of opaque mist that would cause concerns.
My default reading for
Upon command, the ring causes a thick vapor to continuously surround its owner as per obscuring mistdefinitely includes the idea of an opaque mist that blocks line of sight. If I look at the price of the ring, though, its 4500g tag is completely inconsistent with the idea that the wearer would have total concealment from anyone not adjacent to them. That's a pretty crazy ability at a super cheap rate.
The concern with 'see through mist' overall is mostly around the idea of shooting out of a cloud while the enemy is unable to respond. The much shorter radius of the cloud provided by Saltspray somewhat negates that concern. I think. It'd depend how we centered the cloud and so forth. My typical drawing for a 10' burst centered on a corner wouldn't allow any of the squares to be in total concealment, depending on the angle being viewed from.
We could also read the ring's powers as not providing an opaque cloud (despite the fact that it is still my best reading of it). It would provide the fire dousing and skin-wettening functions still, and possibly 20% concealment if we decide to split the difference. If I look back at the source AP entry, it is focusing on the skin-wettening part of the ring's powers (the original bearer needed it). That shouldn't completely cramp how we read the ring's functions, but something like no one being able to see the bearer seems like it would merit a mention.
As far as overall AP difficulty, we've hit some rough patches in recent times. I wouldn't say the AP has been crazy difficult overall though. A lot of the AP we were just blazing through except for areas where we skipped available XP, perhaps. Book III might...
Having 20% concealment seems reasonable enough, I was getting it mostly to justify the octopus being able to stay wet a lot. You could also fairly reduce the radius and make it on a vertex too, which makes it shaped like an actual spell afaik.
Regarding the code, I wouldn’t know where to start, though in my headspace I read Houghton as having wandered around on the floor of the ocean for a while poking at soggy ruins. Maybe he would’ve found something, but I doubt it :).
Regarding the passcode being in another area, I've offered the note-taker/historian's penchant for drawings/notes as a means to possibly help IC.
Not that I, the player, have any clues... but I believe in the short amount of time I've portrayed Invandi's incessant note-taking and sketching. So, if the code is in a place the players or Invandi could have been before being captured, perhaps he could have it in there.
I leave it to the DM as an option.
The large number of combatants here and my decision to split up the soldiers made a largenumber of PC action events & could crump our posting speed. I won't change it yet, but if people are confident that an intervening enemy action won't change theirs, just go ahead & declare your action out of order. I'll try to interpret things in your favor if the resolution becomes unclear.
Let me reconfigure my spells to memorize a barkskin and then I’ll outline everything in a bit.
So I read up on Wall of Ice given the talk about using it, and it is probably worth reviewing how the spell works. Any enemy adjacent to the wall when it is forming can make a Reflex save to smash the whole thing down. That...makes no sense but magic?
The wall will need to occupy squares, and I don't see how you can put it between blue and purple/pink without being adjacent to at least one of them. Overseer and yellow will go before that and may complicate the wall creation further.
The wall squares will have 21 hp and I'm not seeing a notation for any hardness, though I could be missing it.
It isn't a useless idea at all. Just be sure you know how the whole thing works before casting.
If either blue or purple/pink can interrupt, it's a lot less useful. Since it goes on the edges of squares (between vertexes) I thought there was a chance that it wouldn't, but if it does it's less useful.
Ice has typically has hardness 0 unless I'm mistaken.
I'll think of something else!
I did another search to see if I could find good wall rules and I can't. It's late though and my patience for the project wasn't very great.
If we can find rules for how this works, maybe the 'following square edges' wall can work. I was basing my earlier decision by looking at the diagrams on Core 215 for line spells. Admittedly, those aren't a perfect match.
If we can't find rules, I might be inclined toward a rule of lenity on the question and give it to you, but see the next paragraph.
When I was looking at the map last it looked like the wall would need to bend even in a 'following square edges' case, so there would be a second hurdle to cover. I don't think the plane function of Wall of Ice can bend.
I looked into wall rules more over the weekend and the best argument I saw suggested that if the spell had an Area entry the walls should be centered on a grid square and travel along lines while Effect entry walls should occupy squares. The Core rules don't seem to handle wall spells with precision though. It leaves a ton of questions like "if walls are lines, can I put the line through the center of a square so it hits enemies in those squares?" and so forth.
In our present case at a minimum, I think that Wall of Fire makes more sense if it occupies a square. The grid drawing currently on the board can stand but if it ever matters, the wall exists in the squares outside that wall. The wall is opaque, so it is providing total concealment to creatures on either side.
Zay's spoilered question in the gameplay thread is about whether halberds actually have reach. They don't, and that's my mistake. (They do have the trip quality which could be really bad though)
Anyway, these halberds aren't supposed to be special. It's probably best if the critters 'magically' lose their reach at this point and gain trip/brace. GM error is fun sometimes.
Minor note about the same post: the owlbear grab fails.
Eh, mistakes happen! all the time if it's me GMing. Sad owlbear, though.
I looked into wall rules more over the weekend and the best argument I saw suggested that if the spell had an Area entry the walls should be centered on a grid square and travel along lines while Effect entry walls should occupy squares. The Core rules don't seem to handle wall spells with precision though. It leaves a ton of questions like "if walls are lines, can I put the line through the center of a square so it hits enemies in those squares?" and so forth.
In our present case at a minimum, I think that Wall of Fire makes more sense if it occupies a square. The grid drawing currently on the board can stand but if it ever matters, the wall exists in the squares outside that wall. The wall is opaque, so it is providing total concealment to creatures on either side.
Yeah, I'm not sure how it would work then. Some walls have depth that's specified, and others don't. One can travel through this one for example.
Don't forget that I pre-rolled damage for my turn - you can have it apply to things that newly run through it, or things that are there at the start of my turn - or roll it yourself!
Houghton can cast a divine power on himself. I think that's probably best, right?
It looks like Aurelian hasn't been including Good Hope in his attacks? I think Tatienne cast it on him pre-battle & I owe him some damage if that's correct.
Whoops, sorry, yeah, I missed that. Damn buffs (so much less to track in 2e).
Yep, good hope is up! Haste can come online next round now that Taty is out of reach if ya'll think we need it!
Ohhh I think we'll need it. Don't worry about trying to get me in it, though, since I'm not likely to melee for this fight.
Houghton-- do whatever seems best to you! I'm not SUPER familiar with shaman, so your choices are better than mine :D
Waiting on an action from Invandi. I'll bot him tomorrow if we don't hear from him to keep moving. Pretty sure his action will be a full attack.
I'll be unable to post tomorrow. Tatienne will cast haste and otherwise stay put.
Oops. That's what I get for checking in at a time when I can't post.
Post incoming.
Was doing a bit of reading on Shield Champion to make sure I understood how the shield throwing thing works. One thing I'm pretty sure on is that the second attack you made should have had a -2 penalty from range increment (it hits regardless). This assumes a 10' range increment on the shield.
The distance to each additional target counts toward the total range of the shield, and range penalties apply, but there are no additional penalties for attacking in this manner.
I hate the "no additional penalties" wording. What if you are taking on penalties from Deadly Aim? I'm not sure what penalties they have in mind that don't apply. Unless I get some idea of that, other penalties will apply just fine.
I could see a reading of Returning Shield such that you don't get extra attacks on a throw due to effects like Haste but I don't see this ability ever becoming crazy powerful and I don't see a reason to use a cramped reading like that.
Returning Shield also doesn't specify that you need to use a full-round action to attack multiple targets with your iterative & so forth, at least that I saw. Can I assume that we're all fine with saying that would be a full-round throw? This reading would allow you to, for instance, punch an enemy in melee & then throw the shield for your hasted and/or iterative attacks just fine (possibly provoking, but you could also 5' step inside that sequence).
I would assume no further penalties mean nothing for bouncing, etc. I would think Deadly Aim would certainly still be covered.
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I'm not quite sure what you mean on the returning shield aspect? I think throwing it is a standard action as normal (and could be done as part of a full attack). However, it doesn't come back until the start of your next turn. So you could only do thrown shield once as part of a full attack (but could do a shield bash with a first attack and then throw with the second, or do the sequence you laid out, which is very Captain America).
I think it’s nice if read it more generously, so I agree.
I wish I had a reliable way to push them out of the wall and do another round of damage.
Adistan should at least be inactive now. I'm not sure if I can remove them more than that.
I also think Aurelian forgot his hasted attack.
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On Returning Shield, the question is whether you get the multiple bounce attacks if you throw it as a standard action. I'm assuming no. The archtype doesn't really say so specifically.
So many archtypes are badly written....
Quick notes on the current combat:
First, in an effect that might not be obvious unless I say so, the overseer is supposed to be allowing the other clockwork soldiers to use better tactics than they normally would, including flanking & so forth. They just barely got some payoff from that with the flank vs Houghton that was set up during the red/purple action. It should be fairly obvious to the party that the other clockworks aren't just slugging forward hitting whatever is in front of them and that the overseer is why.
Second, I moved on although I think Aurelian should still be getting a hasted attack for his last round. I'm fairly confident that can't change the outcome of the most recent construct actions so it's probably fine. He can post the attack late & we'll just roll it in.
Third, I've been holding my breath the whole way through but none of the soldiers have rolled a natural 20 for a critical threat yet. The x3 critical on the halberds could be super bad. Good luck guys! If the worst does happen, remember that you have hero points.
More, but not about the current combat:
I ran through Book 3 adding up the experience remaining in the module (without adding in random encounters) and there simply isn't enough to get this party to level breaks the book anticipates. I believe the xp pacing is for a party of four, which works a lot better but still mostly assumes that the party gets everything.
I think that's probably fine. If the book is paced for four characters, having a fifth character is a big advantage and the party should be able to handle being one level down at times here & there. I do intend to do two things to help keep your leveling on pace a bit more closely though.
1. Introduce additional encounters to feed the party more xp roughly once per level, so 2-3 per book. That isn't nearly enough to close the gap but should help around the edges. I'll be sure not to pick encounters that are clearly bad for the party like the oozes & elementals were. If I can plan ahead, hopefully the encounters will be interesting and seem like they belong.
2. Occasionally just ignore the xp tallies and even up the party to their expected levels.
If that sounds good to you guys as a general methodology, let me know.
Whoops, sorry, can't believe I forgot the haste attack (duh!). Will add that in a minute.
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Honestly, I'd much rather just go to milestone leveling. I think PBP combat is time-consuming and can be a slog. In my games, I actually eliminate combats that don't have a real storytelling point, so I think adding in "random" encounters seems like it's going to slow things down unncessarily.
Houghton mentioned in Gameplay that they were hoping to use hero points to stay in the fight. They don't need them to not die after the attack clarification.
There isn't a function I see under hero points (APG) that does something like that directly. No "hero point to negate one attack vs you" sort of thing. The "Special" function of hero points is very open ended though. I think it would need to fall under that.
I will throw in that anything like making the clockwork reroll its attack would be a low percentage shot. With the flank its attack roll is quite high. I don't see a hero point usage for that specific effect anyway, though.
I also prefer milestone leveling. As Aurelian points out, it allows the GM to streamline APs by eliminating encounters that are redundant and only in place to increase XP.
I'm finishing a Dead Suns game here on the boards, and it was done in about 4k posts. The GM used milestones and removed unnecessary encounters and I don't feel like we missed anything.
Regarding hero points, I'm glad we have them! So we each have 8 hero points, give or take? The d20 PFSRD offers this "cheat death" option:
"Cheat Death: A character can spend 2 hero points to cheat death. How this plays out is up to the GM, but generally the character is left alive, with negative hit points but stable. For example, a character is about to be slain by a critical hit from an arrow. If the character spends 2 hero points, the GM decides that the arrow pierced the character’s holy symbol, reducing the damage enough to prevent him from being killed, and that he made his stabilization roll at the end of his turn. Cheating death is the only way for a character to spend more than 1 hero point in a turn. The character can spend hero points in this way to prevent the death of a familiar, animal companion, eidolon, or special mount, but not another character or NPC."
Hero points are capped at 3 by default. The "Cheat Death" mode is the big reason I value them for a game like this, so an errant crit doesn't have to cause huge drama.
Expect to get new hero points at level up and not much else besides.
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I've had more thoughts about the xp vs milestone stuff with the continuing discussion on it, but I'm waiting to post again about it until I can find a good time to draft the message.
You’re right in that I can’t stop going unconscious, but one use stated is the following:
You can spend a hero point to take your turn immediately. Treat this as a readied action, moving your initiative to just before the currently acting creature. You may only take a move or a standard action on this turn.
Can Houghton do this before he drops unconscious?
If not, then I’ll just sit around - his last turn was kind of a mistake - because I misread the spell. I deserve to have paid the price for that mistake.
Houghton: yes, you can spend a hero point to take a readied action. My only concern is that if you're going to heal with it, make sure you heal enough so you won't be much at risk from dying vs one normal hit. We don't want you to need two more hero points too quickly.
The rest is curiosity. If you are referring to a misreading of Deadly Juggernaut, what did you think it did? I was kind of wondering why you cast it back then.
Back to the xp discussion & such.
I also prefer milestone leveling as a normative manner, which made me try to remember why I went with xp for this campaign. I think it is somewhat an artifact of how I came into GMing this particular campaign. Book 3 of this AP has milestone markers that are insanely close to one another spatially. A pure milestone strategy could have the party leveling up to 9 two encounters after they reached 8.
Anyway, that's why I started fixating on xp and how much was available and so forth. Now that I've thought about it more, I think I'll be kind of freeform for your next level up, which ought to be the last one for Book 3. I'll also try to be aware of times when a combat isn't adding anything & maybe take it out.
I'm not entirely certain how Book 4 will play out in practice, but it looks much more conducive to milestone leveling than Book 3 is.
Houghton: yes, you can spend a hero point to take a readied action. My only concern is that if you're going to heal with it, make sure you heal enough so you won't be much at risk from dying vs one normal hit. We don't want you to need two more hero points too quickly.
The rest is curiosity. If you are referring to a misreading of Deadly Juggernaut, what did you think it did? I was kind of wondering why you cast it back then.
Wasn't going to heal, just do a blast or something.
And for some reason I thought deadly juggernaut started with a minimum bonus as if you had one foe downed.
Edit: looks like all of the options I have don't really do anything for this fight, not even slowing mud. I think that the constructs are immune to it, as it for some reason is negated by a fort save. Will just stay down. Sorry all.
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Freeform XP sounds fine, and I am for removing needless combat.
Regarding the Shield Champion and his Shield Bounce: He can't attack multiple targets with a throw in a standard action (at least, not with the build/feats he currently has). The description is fairly specific in that he can take iterative attacks with his thrown shield, and iterative attacks are defined as a full round action. (again, assuming no spells/feats otherwise). (or as exampled earlier, bash/throw or throw/bash).
Additionally, the Shield Champion states that he can use the throw feature as part of a brawler's flurry, so (throw-shield/empty-hand/throw-shield) or (empty-hand/throw-shield/empty-hand). Again, the flurry is a full-round action by it's own definition.
The shield returns to the thrower at the end of their turn, so they can use it in defense.
Invandi has on his sheet a +1 Adamantine Heavy Throwing Shield (offense) with +1 Radiant (defense); his range increment is 20ft.
The shield thrower is also given a Far Shot equivalent, halving the penalty for range increments.
... and I did take the shield mostly for ranged combat maneuvers, especially bullrush, trip and reposition.
Now would be a good time to ask a clarification/permission question on the build, however.
The rules of Throw Shield say "The thrown shield deals the same damage as a shield bash." It doesn't explicitly say that it is a shield bash.
The Feat Shield Slam says "Any opponents hit by your shield bash are also hit with a free bull rush attack..."
So, a melee build shield slammer can do weapon damage and then get a free shove attempt on any successful strike.
Playing a ranged build, Invandi loses out on this extra damage possibility since it's not technically a shield slam.
I would like to request that we allow him to take advantage of that by counting the throw as a ranged shield bash... but then we would have to adjudicate the directions enemies move if a multi-throw shield-bash happened. It isn't until level 17 that the shield champion gets the ability to source his attacks from the shield's last position, so I would suggest that the bull rush attempt's direction is sourced in a line from Invandi's square?
That might be a bit of a reach, but it is the corner case that I am unsure of and am losing some damage output on going with a ranged build.
For example, Invandi could have critical'd the overseer for 2d6+6 and still got his bullrush off. (Though I was explicitly going for the CMB this round because fire push seemed fun.)
Hi GM - sorry - I need an alias made inactive as well. Talia Khavortorv. Also, Taty is for some reason permanent inactive so I have to select her each time. Is there a way for you to make her active, or is that a bug I need to contact Paizo about?
Try it now. I don't remember changing Tatienne to inactive, but she was marked that way. Talia should be inactive now.
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For the party: it's perfectly fine if you guys spend a few posting cycles recouping. For my part, I'm just waiting to hear if you want to continue or retreat back to the base camp.
Well poop, I did not pick up a CLW wand for Invandi...
That was an oversight...
He's currently down 40hp.
If you guys get super hard up for healing resources, let me know.
Will heal everyone up in a bit, once I get home.
Could all look over the shaman/cleric list and pick out things they’d like? I’m winging it at the moment - but I’d love to just be a buffing fiend for everyone if I can.
It would probably make sense to make a standard buffing list for the party so we can just say "Adventure Time" and know what everyone is running instead of having to check. I could add it as a spoiler to the campaign info.
The casters would have to track that they memorized all the standard spells that went along with it of course.
Maybe even a "Second Adventure Time" list if the casters have the spell power for it.
Which reminds me of the pacing discussion we had earlier: how much time the party could expect to expend for a dungeon encounter & expected exploration. I should put that in the Campaign Information as well when I get a chance. For now, interested parties can go back to March 24th, 2021 in Discussion (page 20).
That’s a good idea! More than a standard list, I’m just feeling out the shaman list now and I don’t know if anyone has any requests. I could definitely make a standard one once I knew what the deal was.
One example is Barkskin - between me and Zay I feel like everyone should have it up (as long as we are planning the adventure some).
My typical spell load got altered for today a fair bit because of the ooze fight. Normally it's got a few barkskins, and I self-buff, and generally get into melee... I just haven't for the last three fights, lol, because of the damn DR. :P
As for healing: Houghton and I both have wands but honestly even healing up just from this encounter alone is probably going to nearly knock them out. CLW goes FAST at mid-level. I'll burn down to half my wand charges remaining, and see how where that puts us, and how many Houghton has to use in turn. We are probably going to have to get more in the mindset of resting, and I'll have to prep more cure spells.
Taty can start taking some cure spells at level ups as well.
If you want to take an emergency CLW it's not a bad idea, but as a spontaneous caster you have more a commitment there with your choices. As a prepared caster, I CAN just load everything with cures for a day if we're really banged up, and we take a day to rest. Not the worst option.
I had a death in the family and will be leaving town, trying to tie up some loose ends at work, etc. over the next week. Posting may be slow going for a bit.
GM Netherpongo, sorry if I missed something - what items are you talking about here?
I would assume our GM means the objects at the top of the pillar? Could be wrong.
Oh, the ioun stone and the circle! Yes, that makes total sense. Thank you, Zay.
That sucks Tatienne, take care.
(Yes, I forgot to say my sympathies, as well. :( Hope things go as smoothly as possible.)
Sorry for your loss, Tatienne. We all either have those losses coming or they've already happened. Hang in there.