GM, can we talk a little rules stuff? I don't actually have an issue with being dropped, but I feel like there's some things I want to get straight about how you run a game so I know what to expect.
It is my understanding that if Odenkirk didn't beat his sense motive that my attack happened in the Surprise round. (and Soren's I suppose, though she probably should have had to make the sense motive to act as well)
Then, we should have all rolled initiative. Odenkirk should have only gotten a full attack off if he beat everyone else in initiative.
That's the rules as I understand them. How do you run things?
I thought standing up was a move action?
Soren Grumble did 56 damage his multiplier is x3 on his Greataxe so its 56 not 37. And Morana I think the falling over was more for emphasis because mechanically none of what we did would trip or cause an opponent to stumble. So normally yes but I think that was more flavor text for the battle.
Whew that is one hell of a health pool.
I can see it going either way. If the rest of the party wants to pile on it could be initiative, if not then it's a duel. Personally Nate was too shocked to react (his experience as a soldier has drilled into his brain that you don't attack the commander). And Aurex is kind of passively amused at it all.
I think I understand the angle the GM was going for. We all saw Grumble drop massive damage, and then he made a point of going "Not only is the captain alive but he's still ready to kick ass, here's your chance to back out of this fight before it happens". Remember, we still need him. Obviously I'm all for killing him later, but you don't kill your allies when you need them to do something for you over a squabble about food. That's CE territory (I know, pot calling the kettle black) which Asmodeus would not be happy with.
I'm down to fight, He can't have more than 50 hit points left after a blow like that. Honestly I don't think this is the kind of thing Grumble is ever going to back down from. I am also ready to make peace, either works for me at this point.
I am not sure that a Bluff creates a surprise round (at least I did not see it in the Bluff rules) against a foe ready to combat at the drop of a hat but I allowed it :-) Note that I am a 3.5 DM mainly so the rules for Pathfinder are relatively new to me.
I was thinking that his rise would be a shock to the group giving him a chance to retaliate prior to Initiative.
If you wish to roll Initiative sure but that will create a combat that will draw in the whole crew. Let me know if the group is ready for a full confrontation with the crew right now!
I would highly prefer not to.
Ah see, surprise round after surprise round!
I would highly prefer not to.
Ah see, surprise round after surprise round!
If you look at how the posting took place after the two attacks, the group focused on Intimidating the crew not so much what happened to the Captain... :-)
On one hand, I think we could pretty easily finish off the Captain now. Realistically, he can't have that many hit points left, and if we gang up on him quickly we can put him down and persuade the crew that dying isn't worth it in this scenario. That said, if everyone else is thinking of backing down, I'm fine with doing that as well. Soren already doesn't like the Captain, and the way I see it he's in a more vulnerable position now than he's likely to be later. The crew thinks we're all screwed, but if we can easily take down the Captain and frighten the crew into obedience (perhaps with the help of a dragon?) we can get where we need to be anyway.
Long story short, I vote we kill him now. If we don't do it now, I vote we at least coup de grace him in his sleep and inform the crew that we're in charge now. Assuming he doesn't immediately go and heal up from his injuries, we could easily kill him with a maximum damage critical; not to mention, I doubt he'd succeed at a DC 36 Fortitude Save.
I vote kill him now. My character does not like him either, and after that stunt I doubt he will be very friendly.
Both options can go very badly for us but I think killing him is preferable. Right know he controls the crew. Though I would have rather waited until the end of the boat ride
I don't think breaking Aurex's cover right now is a good idea. That's a one time nuke to use, and we haven't even reached Balentyne yet. Plus Aurex is actually decent in social situations and while he can't fight worth a damn in human form he can still get some stuff done.
I do agree about Aurex. We should save that bomb. Unfortunately things have turned very nasty and the captain would be far more likely to kill us now.
Nate is very loath to fight, but if that's what it's going to be he will back you up.
Well we can let the captain live and keep control of the crew. I doubt he is the forgiving type. Or we can try to kill him and hope to take control of the crew.
Both options suck and I would have rather waited as well but that is no longer an option.
I forgot that Aurex can't turn back into a human after he breaks the spell. My original line of thinking was that if we kill them all and burn the boat to cinders, no one will know he broke the spell anyway. That said, that doesn't work, so I agree.
I still think we ought to just kill him. We've lost the "element of surprise" we might have had if we hadn't attacked him at all, which means he knows we're against him now. He'll likely be watching his back when we make land. Grumble is still KO'd, but between the other six of us we should reasonably be able to take him down in a turn. Morana can cast Hold Person, Alice has Color Spray and Scorching Ray, and Soren can activate her Judgment and use Up Close and Deadly to deal some more damage. Nate and Vandour can probably deal with what's left of his hit points, and Lothryin can help with Burning Hands or he can get Grumble up off of the deck.
If we all take down the Captain, I think the crew will follow. Our previous rolls to frighten them will seem all the more pressing once we put down the Captain they thought would take us out.
From a GM/Storyteller perspective, its not good to retcon. Did something wrong? Made a wrong ruling? Roll with it and gently push it in the right direction again. Flow is more important after all.
But this is getting a right mess. From my own point, as a GM, I would either say that the posts after grumble attacked and the captain retaliating dont happen, as its very, very different as what we expected and reacted to. We all tried to keep the game flowing, but what actually happened and what we tought that happened, differ like night and day.
From a character perspective I am sure we would have all reacted very differently if we saw Gruble hit the captain, and the captain then take out grumble.
But, if there are no take-backsies, rolling with what we did is best, and that would most likely mean combat.
Did you forget out entire mission? We have hundreds of pounds of weapons to deliver. We can't just burn the boat right now.
I disagree that there's no backing out of this. Grumble is the brute and with our crazy bluff checks we can totally play it off as the unhinged monster losing his temper.
Well, my original line of reasoning was that we convince the crew that we know what we're doing and get them to take us to the rendezvous point, then we could torch the boat and it wouldn't have mattered that we made Aurex transform into a dragon, as everyone is dead. Again, I forgot that we can't turn him back again, so that plan's null anyway.
I agree this is kind of a mess. I completely expected that Odenkirk would go down from Grumble's blow, but obviously that didn't happen. After the spiel we went on trying to convince the crew to work for us, I'm not sure how easily we could convince the Captain that it was all a misunderstanding. Granted, as Alice said, we also made that call assuming that the Captain was already dead. I think at this point it's probably a better call to just kill him and convince the crew. If we *can* go back and change how that went, I might agree with you, but at this point I think it's unreasonable to assume we can bluff our way out of this, even with our ridiculous rolls.
The only way I see this working is us Intimidating the captain, but even then we shouldn't wait to try and kill the guy; he'd probably try and gut us while we slept.
That's the thing. Like Soren said, if we had seen the exchange of blows, most of us would most likely have said something along the line of, 'oops sorry, mad giant thing got loose, nothing to so with me!'.
Most of us are Practical Evil.
I did mention in my post to ignore it if the captain was still up, actually. I had just, you know, assumed he was dead? It was a lot of damage, after all.
The captain does not seem like the kind of person to let an attack like this go without punishment. And he just dropped one of our buddies, I say we nuke him then convince the crew to take us where we need. Soren also already shot him as well, so how do you spin off her betrayal.
I had Morana show up after the blows were stuck. So that is why I had her join in on the intimidation fun. If the others were talking then she likewise assumed that he was dead. She would never want to start a fight over the water but I agree that the captain is probably not the forgiving type and I doubt she wants to be whipped or keelhauled.
Seems like everyone started talking due to Soren beginning to talk which only happened if it seemed that he was dead and very clearly he was not. So it is kind of up to the GM at this point. Though the majority seem to want to kill him out of fear of his retaliation.
If it so happens that we can do what Alice suggested and go back to where Grumble attacks him, we can likely go with Nate's plan and convince him that Grumble is a monstrous ally and lost his temper. The problem is, if we CAN'T go back then I don't really expect that to work all that well.
Also, to lighten the mood: Lying on the deck, for all of this, is a partially eaten, likely still screaming fish person.
Morbidly lightening the mood but yeah it is still there isn't it.
GM, we have a question to get a lot more clarity on the situation:
What exactly happened? I believe everybody's posts following Grumblejack's surprise attack were contingent on Odenkirk dropping. Since he did not drop, what exactly occurred and what was said?
Surprise: Not every surprise round begins with an ambush from unseen assailants. If a character or several characters unexpectedly attack in the midst of a conversation or other normal activity, their victims might be surprised. To determine if a victim is surprised, he should attempt a Sense Motive check opposed by the assailant’s Bluff check rather than a Perception opposed by the assailant’s Stealth check.
Apparently there was a rule for using Bluff to kick off a surprise round in 3.5. It didn't make it into Pathfinder Core, but most people I've played with still continue to use it so i didn't realize it wasn't there.
Pathfinder reintroduced the rule in Ultimate Intrigue, pretty much verbatim to the 3.5 rule.
As for the situation itself, Grumble doesn't respond well to threats. He doesn't mind being knocked down. That's how the pecking order is established. What he minds is allowing a threat to go unanswered.
Rules-wise, I'm fine with what happened save for the lack of Initiative. It should have been rolled. If Odenkirk beat Grumble in initiative, things should have played out exactly the way they did in the thread. If Grumble beat Odenkirk, Grumble should have had a chance to act before eating a full attack.
I'm fine with just moving on rather than ret-conning. We can assume Odenkirk won initiative this time.
In the future I'd really like it if the normal initiative rules are followed. As we can see from this situation, they can change a situation dramatically.
I'm very much a fan of "Rule of Cool". Up to the GM IMHO. A game that strictly follows every rule to the letter is not fun from my experience.
Let me be perfectly clear: Yes, let's kill Odenkirk. But not now. We need him. If you stub your toe on a hammer that's no reason to throw it out. Curse and swear and punch a wall, but don't take it out on the hammer. Until the job is done anyways.
I'm down for moving on but if he attempts to punish Lothyrin in any way I will fight.
Rule of cool is important. You have to trust the GM to do some things that might not seem entirely clear to make a better story.
So the captain retaliating and dropping Grumble makes for a good 'oh s@~!' moment. Now that we know that he is powerfull, and we STILL need to take him out later. Its a good teaching moment for out characters.
I would just say we most likely would have done things differently after that. Alice would have tried to convince the captain not to outright kill grumble. Just bandage him up so he doesnt bleed out and let him recover hitpoints normally as a punishment. (so no magical healing).
Grumble isn't dead I thought? Isn't he just down?
No, but he is unconscious, so the captain could do a coup de grace if he wanted to.
Ah, it seems the captain was more in the mood of "Now I've showed my dominance, don't challenge me again". If he goes to execute grumble then we definitely have to kill him now.
I'm going to heal grumble, not going to sit by and let him be punished.
Rule of cool is important. You have to trust the GM to do some things that might not seem entirely clear to make a better story.
So the captain retaliating and dropping Grumble makes for a good 'oh s%&%' moment. Now that we know that he is powerfull, and we STILL need to take him out later. Its a good teaching moment for out characters.I would just say we most likely would have done things differently after that. Alice would have tried to convince the captain not to outright kill grumble. Just bandage him up so he doesnt bleed out and let him recover hitpoints normally as a punishment. (so no magical healing).
THIS.
The Captain it seems has no interest in killing Grumble.
Surprise: Not every surprise round begins with an ambush from unseen assailants. If a character or several characters unexpectedly attack in the midst of a conversation or other normal activity, their victims might be surprised. To determine if a victim is surprised, he should attempt a Sense Motive check opposed by the assailant’s Bluff check rather than a Perception opposed by the assailant’s Stealth check.Apparently there was a rule for using Bluff to kick off a surprise round in 3.5. It didn't make it into Pathfinder Core, but most people I've played with still continue to use it so i didn't realize it wasn't there.
Pathfinder reintroduced the rule in Ultimate Intrigue, pretty much verbatim to the 3.5 rule.
Thanks!
As for the situation itself, Grumble doesn't respond well to threats. He doesn't mind being knocked down. That's how the pecking order is established. What he minds is allowing a threat to go unanswered.
Rules-wise, I'm fine with what happened save for the lack of Initiative. It should have been rolled. If Odenkirk beat Grumble in initiative, things should have played out exactly the way they did in the thread. If Grumble beat Odenkirk, Grumble should have had a chance to act before eating a full attack.
I'm fine with just moving on rather than ret-conning. We can assume Odenkirk won initiative this time.
In the future I'd really like it if the normal initiative rules are followed. As we can see from this situation, they can change a situation dramatically.
Sure that's a fair point Grumble. I've been on very little sleep for weeks so my judgment (as well as posting frequency) have been hampered.
The Captain's actions followed the flow of the thread, I see no reason why the group would assume he survived that hit, I would have thought him dead, this his surprise round! Is it RAW? Naw, I'll grant that but it was a teachable moment, a sort of "huh, this guy is not going to go down as easy as we thought, when we are ready to kill him, we had better have a good plan!" sort of vibe is what I was going for.
Update tomorrow, running table top D&D tonight on 3 hours sleep so this should be an interesting session... I will assume you do NOT all bum rush the Captain and allow things to smooth over. You hit my guy, I hit your guy sort of deal.
Surprise: Not every surprise round begins with an ambush from unseen assailants. If a character or several characters unexpectedly attack in the midst of a conversation or other normal activity, their victims might be surprised. To determine if a victim is surprised, he should attempt a Sense Motive check opposed by the assailant’s Bluff check rather than a Perception opposed by the assailant’s Stealth check.
Re-reading this though I am not sure I would call that a normal conversation. It was in ther closing moments after a furious battle between two opponents who were both armed and talking smack as it were. Emphasis on the might be surprised above.
Remember, the Captain has dealt with Ogres and half-Ogres before so he knows them to be volatile. Either way, I think the way it went down is fine and I don't like ret-conning very much, especially in PbP.
Sounds good. I didn't want to derail the game so hard with all this. I just wanted to voice a concern. Thanks everyone for the discussion, and thanks GM for hearing me out.
Take it away folks. I'm unconcious so I don't get much of a say in what happens next.
Works for me and I completely understand the desire to not do a retcon.
Sounds good. I didn't want to derail the game so hard with all this. I just wanted to voice a concern. Thanks everyone for the discussion, and thanks GM for hearing me out.
Take it away folks. I'm unconcious so I don't get much of a say in what happens next.
We are going to poke you with sticks because you are unconscious and cant do anything about it :P
Due to my ridiculous schedule which will only get worse for the next few weeks, I am putting the game on hiatus until Monday October 3rd. Then I will be settled and work should ease up so I can post on the regular again thereafter.
Sounds good. I didn't want to derail the game so hard with all this. I just wanted to voice a concern. Thanks everyone for the discussion, and thanks GM for hearing me out.
Take it away folks. I'm unconcious so I don't get much of a say in what happens next.
No worries Grumble, it was a legitimate concern and now we are all clear on how to proceed the next time you try to kill him :-)
ALWAYS voice a concern if you have one with me whether by PM or via Discussion thread. A DM who will not hear a player out is a s*+$ DM as far as I am concerned.
Sorry for the cliff hanger here folks, work and moving have been kicking my ass lately. This is the most awake I have felt in two weeks + and I usually do most of my posting after 9 PM so.... that's why I am taking a break until things cool down!
Do not worry, I will run through to completion :-)
It is all good. Best of luck to you.
Alright sounds good to me, see you all then.
No problem. Real life always comes before games. Take care!