The World of Eafphqu: Team "good." (Inactive)

Game Master Hoary and Wizened

Good morning everybody!

I have to start a discussion here of some import. You all remember that during the recruitment process I decided to just do two groups, realizing that player attrition is a real entity here on the Paizo boards. Well, it appears, that that player attrition has taken place a LOT sooner than I thought it would. The other group has almost certainly lost two of the players, and a third might be done as well (if recent posting history is an indication). Which means that there are really only four players left in that campaign that post regularly.

What I'd like to do, obviously with the agreement of a quorum of this current group, is to just have them come and join us here, increasing the size of this group, but, more than likely, attrition will eventually shrink that down as well, and probably, hopefully, when things shake out, we'll end up with a group of regular posters that enjoy this style of game. I'm going to wait until I hear from most everyone here before I even offer up the invitation to the other group, but I know there is at least one member of the other group that is already on board for such a switch, owing to a pretty sporadic posting regularity of the other group.

Interestingly, it just so happens that, where the other group is at in the game provides a perfect opportunity for me to narrate the two groups coming together. Not that that should influence your decision. So, please holler out your opinion on allowing the active members of the other group to join this group. :)

All for it!

I see no reason not to. This assumes that the good group and shady group division was not so abrupt as to spoil the fun of either group.

I'm fine with merging the groups. We'll be too large for awhile but, as you say, attrition is likely to "handle" that. And large groups work reasonably well in PBP anyway.

Fine by me. Though I shudder to think how the difficulty of our encounters will increase. ;)

Okay, well, by my reckoning, that's a quorum. I'll be posting something in the other campaign's discussion thread immediately. Look for them to show up in-game in no time...

Too late for it to matter I guess, but I'm fine with that, too.

Heyo folks. I'm emigrating in to join you all.

So, what have you folks found out on this job? I'm going to read through the thread as I get a chance, but I was hoping for some cliff notes.

We haven't worked out how exactly things are dying, but we discovered the sinkholes and tunnels and spotted the weird Sleep Worm. How have you guys done?

I haven't updated recent findings but my profile has notes and people we have met.

Looks like you guys were a lot more social than we were. Or at least met a lot of other people. We mostly met a bartender, the family of the departed girls and the Mayor.

We did manage to get a good look at the bodies though.

If only we hadn't rolled so bloody badly...

And...we saw the beast...

I apologize. I am not that way!

How dare you roleplay your character. ;) Gomdebo has kind of a weird story, and I wonder how her life experiences fit in the timeline of Luna's ancestors. Gom is thousands of years old, predating some of the gods I think...she was stone to fleshed recently by the Arcane Order.

This reminds me of the Kevin Bacon classic 'Tremors'. Too bad we don't all have 10 ft poles.

This reminds me of the Kevin Bacon classic 'Tremors'. Too bad we don't all have 10 ft poles.

Hahahaha! I really enjoyed the first movie! And I am ashamed to admit, I have watched all 5 of them. They really got sillier and sillier with each passing one. The 4th & 5th ones especially were really stupid.

But, yes, fully agree on the comparison here! :D

I think I've only seen the first four movies, but I also saw the TV show. Does that get my bonus points?

So we need some rope, some dynamite and an occupied hole...

The first one had kevin bacon and the dad from family ties on it.

I think I've only seen the first four movies, but I also saw the TV show. Does that get my bonus points?

So we need some rope, some dynamite and an occupied hole...

TV show? I didn't know there was a tv show! I'm guessing it wasn't any good?

I suppose we should come up with a new watch order? While we're dealing with the worms, I'd say we want an elf/half-elf on each watch. That means we need 3 3-hour watches. Just to throw something out there:

Watch 1:
Bellaluna (pp15)
Vralk (pp13)
Quint (pp13)

Watch 2:
Lindaer (pp14)
Hack (pp15)
Gombedo (pp12)

Watch 3:
Jun Valanthe (pp13)
Psalm (pp15)
Boddy (pp11)
Nikeisha (pp11)

This gives us an elf or half-elf in each watch, a 15 passive perception in each watch, and puts all of our casters in the last watch so that they can prepare spells after they sleep.

Unfortunately, it means that my character takes the bullet of sharing a watch with Bella (who, based on our limited interaction, is an insufferable character to be around), but any other arrangement would either be less balanced or would leave Vralk on a watch without a gnome who can talk to him.

I am find with your proposed watch order.

Is everybody okay with Quint's watch order? I need to know before I fast forward things to the night worm trap narrative. Also, I had never thought of the connection before Gomdebo, but you are right, this is very much akin to the Tremors movie (only ever saw the first one), except for the fact that the tremors worms couldn't put you to sleep, and had nasty mouths full of teeth. :) Everybody please give me a yea or nay on Quint's proposed watch order. If I get a quorum I'll get things moving.

Yes Quint's order was brilliant.

Yea for Quint's order

Yea on Quint's order. However, do we need to be more specific on plans, traps, locations, etc.?

Luna for one would like to try again to 'pretend to be asleep' hoping for a better roll this time! Was that an Acrobatics check you had me make last time right? Just in case:

Acrobatics: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (15) + 6 = 21 Yay!!!

Yep on Quint's order.

No issues here.

Plan's a good 'un.

And the TV show was weird. It was mostly about a particular large old graboid and protecting the area from being commercialised. It was fun, though.

We're also using Quint's alarm system, right? For the new people, it's basically a system of ropes tied to everyone so that they can use an object interaction to wake everybody up at once, since it turns out that Mended's interpretation of the sleep rules makes it impossible to wake people up by shouting. The system also has the advantage that it can be activated by a watcher falling prone, but that's less of an issue if we have enough elves to cover all watches.

This order is fine. I will make sure that the elf doesn't misbehave

Oh wait, you mean I'm to be on watch with the mean bird? Hmmm ... I'll spend some time when we first settle down tonight making sure my bow & arrows are all in good shape ... ;)

Seriously speaking, who does the bird belong to?

We're also using Quint's alarm system, right? For the new people, it's basically a system of ropes tied to everyone so that they can use an object interaction to wake everybody up at once, since it turns out that Mended's interpretation of the sleep rules makes it impossible to wake people up by shouting. The system also has the advantage that it can be activated by a watcher falling prone, but that's less of an issue if we have enough elves to cover all watches.

Well actually, after discussion, we agreed that there is a difference between magical and nonmagical sleep. You can be woken from nonmagical sleep with a shout, but you can only be woken from magical sleep with an object interaction. Also, being nonmagically asleep does not prevent one from being put into a magical sleep. At least that's where things ended the last time we talked about it. :)

Even so, it would be nice to be able to wake everyone from magical sleep with one action, so I think it's still worth using.

Edit: Of course, keep in mind that it will also take an object interaction to free oneself from the device. I still think it's worth it.

Did any of you have trouble getting onto Paizo this afternoon? (2/13) For me it was down at work for about 4 & 1/2 hrs again today!

Yeah I had trouble for a bit.

Paizo is mildly broken. Even now it's very slow for me.

Boddy belongs to Vralk (at least, that is the way that he sees it :-))

Note - I had an entry for a different other Vralk from a different other PBP game. A Pathfinder game. So the stats are completely wrong for this Vralk :-(. But it was convenient to have an alias for when I feel like being particularly silly and post as the Raven :-)

It's clear that I'm failing as DM here... I should have probably made it more clear that all those asleep were skipped in the initiative because they were unconscious, even the half-elves, only full-blooded elves have the Trance mechanic. So half-elves sleep the same as humans, they just can't be put to sleep with magic. So, in order to make this as fluid as possible, I'm going to reiterate what has already happened, then I'm going to adjudicate the actions of those people that were up in the initiative before the worm, then adjudicate the worm's actions, and if the actions declared by those that are after the worm, still make sense, I'll adjudicate those as well, otherwise I'll have you retcon your choices to fit with the flow of combat.

So, to recap. Quint, Bellaluna and Vralk were the first watch of the night. Both Luna and Quint were pretending to be asleep, in order to try and lull any worms that showed up into a false sense of safety, and in order to allow Luna the chance to gather more information about the way it "attacks." She allowed the creature to slide right up and grasp her ear with it's inner mouth, and shortly thereafter she felt an attempt by the creature to draw on her psychic energy. At that moment she yelled the alarm to wake everyone up, and made a grab for the creature which failed. This put us with Lindaer, Quint, and Gomdebo, up in the initiative. Lindaer popped awake, jumped down out of the wagon (he had just enough movement to do this) and made an attempt to grab the worm himself. Grappling in 5e is one action and is also a skill contest,
so the worm gets an athletics roll to attempt to beat Lindaer's roll of 12.

[dice=Worm Athletics check]1d20+5

That brings us to Quint, who is trying to hide, but unfortunately made mention of a tree that does not exist. The circle image on the Battle Grid is actually there to represent a ring of...

I thought we were awake after Quint pulled the rope. He had set up a system to tie string or rope to us so he could jostle everyone on his turn. I assumed the rope was going to be enough.

Hack is asking a good question in character.

Are there plans not to kill the worm???

Thanks, Psalm...my thoughts exactly. Not sure what you plan to learn that we already have not learned. Are you planning to conduct tests on the worm?

Clearly at this point I think study is something most everyone wants.

But it might be time to get more thoughts in character.

I know it doesn't matter now but I'm still confused about the initiative. Probably a 5th ed vs Pathfinder thing which is why I want to clear it up

What confuses me is that Boddy was AHEAD of Nikisha in initiative but she got to act and he didn't. That just seems wrong. I lose because my initiative is higher than Luna's?

I hear ya, I was 1st in Initiative Order...could we just not have said we were essentally holding prepared actions as soon as awoken with a threat we knew was likely to occur. Under 5e, that would of had us going in initiative order.

I'm fairly certain that most of the confusion from this particular encounter came from the fact that I absolutely butchered making it clear that no one could act (they were all unconscious) until they were woken up, and then both Luna and Quint made different actions to wake everyone up on their turn. It would have been a lot easier if I had just rearranged the actual initiative with Luna at the top. Then everything else would have made A LOT more sense. Like I said, my failing as a DM in that instance. I put the initiative as rolled in order, instead of realizing that the actual usability of the initiative because of what was happening started with Luna. I apologize most profusely for making what should have been terribly simple into an advanced organizational logic class. :P I'll remember that moving forward.

Psalm, about your question about deciphering whether the worm's sleep ability acts like the spell. I would think Jun could very much say that with absolute certainty, as he was targeted by the worm's magic at the Sehtoru farm, and being bard has decent knowledge of arcane magic. :)

I'm fairly certain that most of the confusion from this particular encounter came from the fact that I absolutely butchered making it clear that no one could act (they were all unconscious) until they were woken up, and then both Luna and Quint made different actions to wake everyone up on their turn. It would have been a lot easier if I had just rearranged the actual initiative with Luna at the top. Then everything else would have made A LOT more sense. Like I said, my failing as a DM in that instance. I put the initiative as rolled in order, instead of realizing that the actual usability of the initiative because of what was happening started with Luna. I apologize most profusely for making what should have been terribly simple into an advanced organizational logic class. :P I'll remember that moving forward.

I thought I understood you. After Quint went I assumed we were all awake because of his rope string contraption. Because in or previous encounter he thought of the idea because it was ruled that people need to be shaken awake.

Quint had spoken about setting that up. On his turn he mentioned pulling the rope. After that I assumed we were free to act on our initiative.

Will that system work going forward?

That happened AFTER Luna yelled to wake everyone, so by the time Quint yanked the string, everyone was already awake. Which, I think was part of the confusion. It would have made more sense if I had just listed the initiative like this: Luna, Lindaer, Quint, Gomdebo, Worm-enemy, Nikeisha, Psalm, Jun, Shenkt, Boddynuck and Vralk. It would have been even better if I had declared a surprise round and said that only Luna and Quint got to act in it, because that's really what happened.

In reality the combat went like this: Round 1 Luna (ready action), Quint (ready action), Worm (move, attach and attempt psychic drain - fails), skip over everyone else because no one is awake.

Round 2: Luna (yells, everyone wakes up, she attempts a grapple - fails), Quint (pulls string to make sure everyone is awake even if they might have been smacked by magical sleep, moves trying to hide), Gomdebo (gets up, jumps down, and attempts grapple - success), Worm (attempts to break grapple - fails, therefore can't move), Nikeisha (stands up, casts sleep - worm falls asleep), End Initiative.

Does that make more sense? Also, yes, of course, moving forward the twine alarm system is a perfectly viable way to use the object interaction action to be woken up, even if a character has been placed into a magical slumber.

I doubt we are going to be able to learn much more by studying it, but I would like to see if we can figure some way to track it or follow it back to its lair.

So, we are going to let it go when it gains consciousness, to track it?

It would require either a pretty powerful magic item or, a spell to track the thing underground. The druid spell Animal Friendship comes to mind. If one could find an animal with a burrowing speed, they could cast the spell, and if it succeeded, tell the animal to follow the worm, and then come report back. Of course, the information you got from the animal would still be vague, and probably not terribly specific... Still an idea worth merit. There's a druid in the party, right...? :P

Maybe a farmhouse has an old style brick or stone oven we could put it in. Not for meat tasting, but for testing burrowing capability. Why that matters who knows, maybe we just feel like being scientists. Or kill it, make a kewl rainbow cat in the hat style hat.

"Or kill it, make a kewl rainbow cat in the hat style hat." I fully endorse this activity. XD