Valley of the Shrines (Inactive)

Game Master Grimmy

Oh I hadn't seen til just now that Priss took the shot.

Close!

Edit:
Let's say that you guys were able to keep weapons drawn while performing your ruse, otherwise the surprise round is pretty useless.

It makes sense to me, the perception checks up until the trap was sprung were based on listening, not sight.

OK sorry that execution was clunky guys, but the scene is finally set up with a legitimate, well-earned advantage to the party.

You will need it! You're at the mercy of the dice gods now.

Play smart, please don't all die 0_0

Priss, Lucia, I think you two are going to need to get in here fast to take clearer shots. I'm sure the boys will hold them in melee, but I think we'll for sure need your precision damage to end this quick.

Nice use of antagonize Tarv, well-played!

I wish I could be more help, I'm kind of weak at this level unfortunately. I probably shouldve taken weapon finesse.

Me too

I've been more transparent and meta-gamey then usual in discussing this encounter. Maybe it's an experiment or maybe just the mood I'm in, but I'm going to keep it up for a bit longer here.

So, here's the deal. I'm not a typical Killer GM but I am a Killer GM in a way. I have seen some of this FGG material run in game stores by GM's who were sort of adversarial, and it was exciting to a point that "the GM is trying to kill us", for players that wanted that challenge. My style is a little different. I really want you to succeed, but I don't fudge and I let the dice fall where they may. I guess that can be almost more dangerous in a way at times. I don't want to kill you, but these cultists sure do and I'm not going to stand in their way ;) I will let a campaign end before I retcon or fiat or deus ex machina a party to safety.

I have detailed regional encounter tables with all sorts of modifiers for terrain, time of day, distance from certain lairs or ruins, or distance from settlements or travelled roads or outposts like the Citadel of Griffons. Every decision you make about where you go has ramifications. My tables have a rhyme and reason to them, but with a really unlikely roll it is literally possible for you guys to run into a young adult black dragon or a beholder right now at level two while you are on this quest 0_0

This current encounter was maybe the second toughest thing that could have possibly come up on the dice in the hex you are in at this time of day.

That being said, it is by no means impossible for your party. In fact, depending how things go, you could end up walking away feeling like "what was all that fuss about". But it's going to be swingy. You have to fight smart. So talk to each other in the discussion thread like you have been.

Review the way your action points work if you're not sure, and choose wisely whether to use them at a critical point for an advantage or save them to stabilize when you would otherwise die.

Use teamwork!

I wish I could be more help, I'm kind of weak at this level unfortunately. I probably shouldve taken weapon finesse.

Me too

You've already contributed substantively. Priscilla heard the enemy early and set up the party to be able to perform the ruse that got them a surprise round. Even if the surprise round has had a few misses so far, you can think of those as bad dice rolls gotten out of the way if you're superstitious about dice (and what gamer isn't?). But also the positioning that's happening could end up being enormously important if the fight is as close as I think it's going to be.

The extra minute of preperation and the ruse Priscilla set in motion had an impact beyond what the PC's can know and see right now as well, because it altered the enemies choices about their pre-buffing spells. It's actually kind of a big deal.

Don't rest on those laurels though. The party will need you in this fight. You two don't need to do the heavy lifting in combat, but you have to make sure you don't throw away any actions. That's the key. Make every turn you have count, somehow some way.

I always say, a monster is still the same monster at 1 HP as it is at 100 HP. 1 point of damage could be the difference between the enemy being up for one more round, and a lot can happen in a round.

*There is always something you can do on your turn to make a difference, even if it's just an Aid Another action, or providing a flank for someone.

*As for tactics, take my advice with several grains of salt and consult your team (we have some good players) but off the top of my head I would say you two should look at setting up flanks together to get off sneak attack damage.

*Also consider using the terrain to stealth, though it is costly in action economy so be wary of that.

*Lucia your Vanish/Snowball combo went off well last fight.

--------------

Good luck!

This will probably be my last transparent/meta post before I don my evil DM guise and try to murder you all :D

Andrek will close on the scariest looking one, drawing his weapon as he closes. All I can do in the surprise round, scariest looking=unique icon

Andrek is it letting you move your token? I moved it for you which is totally cool, just wondering if I have the permissions set right.

Tarv are you counting on a melee attack? The priest ordered his acolytes to hold their position and not close with you.

Important: Yesterday I mistakenly read Andrek's crit as confirmed and recorded the additional damage. The adjustment has been made on the battle map, take note that the Lesser Priest of Orcus has only taken a total of 18 damage rather than 21. (7 Lucia, 11 Andrek).

*pouts* really hate Paizo dice

Agreed.

Want the lest purist still flat footed when i attacked? Would that make it a hit? He hadn't acted yet.

-Posted with Wayfinder

I mean wasn't the lesser priest flat footed. Damn auto correct!

-Posted with Wayfinder

Let me double check.

Ok yes, great catch Jeb thank you. I was not looking at flatfooted. His FF is 20, 22 versus ranged with partial cover. That means you hit and Ares too.

Thank you for paying attention.

Guys do the little header thing too, it helps me.

Like:

Round 2:

Do that only on the post where you take your turn, so I can easily see who has gone yet and I can tell it's not a free action post like just talking.

I only thought of it because I saw Lucia's snowball attack hit. Granted, it was a touch attack, but she mentioned that she was attacking vs. flat-footed opponent. Thanks, Lucia!

Anytime friend. Hopefully that helps us take down these guys.

I wish to feast on their delicious XP filled flesh! MWAHAHAHAHA

I mean yeah lets kill them so we don't die.

If only every fight could be in a wide open field!

*amendment* with lots of shadows for Ms. Priscilla

You have had a brutal time of it Jeb, I've been thinking that for a while. Cover everywhere in every fight.

It's okay. That's the tradeoff when you play an archer. Potentially higher attack bonus and more attacks than melee fighters at early levels. Run the risk of fighting enemies in cover.

If I was better with my sword I'd think about wading into the melee, but those guys would fell me pretty quick.

Lucia is just glad she'll be targeting flat-footed touch for most of her career. Hopefully I can find a decent way to build this, I'm just realizing the vast differences between this and the Ninja/Sorcerer counterpart.

I'd like to hear about those differences.

Also we have to talk about who you know in Bard's Gate.

I forget what we said, was Priscilla the thief and you were her fence?

This stuff might become relevant a little sooner than expected if you guys survive this fight because you will have a very illegal weapon.

But it was going to come up eventually anyway because the Temple is going to want to know what kind of collector buys the severed head of the statue of Muir from the Twin Shrines.

Yep Yep, I found it and was trying to sell it, It fell of a turnip cart I sware

So Lucia is the one with the high end buyers right? You fence stuff through her.

But, you are the one who knows the name of who was selling it.

As for the backstory questions, I'll be back to post in about 20 minutes.

Oh, yeah. On the upswing you can cast greater invisibility sooner right?

BTW, I think I told you this but SLA's are good for pre-req's so you can enter AT at 5 if you want. Also I'm ok with assassin.

We should not be talking about this in front of the Andrek and Ares.

Can you two join the wiki? email me and I'll send link
gmail mooredm80

I just realized I never ASKED about SLAs as pre-reqs, I planned on doing that so I'm glad you agree lol

Now, as far as background goes:

Ok that's cool but can you guys please join the wiki page? I really want to get it poppin' over there. The different interface has some real advantages that would help with the challenges of running a sandbox in PbP. See, if I put up information the party has learned, it stays out front and center instead of getting buried under a pile of posts in a thread.

Plus I can keep my stuff organized and easily click on things to make them visible to particular players.

It's not like I need every player to visit it actively, but I need a couple from each group to engage with it to help drive and grow the story.

It can't hurt you to join at least, I don't think they send spam or anything.

Jeb and Andrek are already in there.

On a similar topic, is there anyone in this group I can bribe with XP to keep campaign journals?

I'm your man. I'll start writing some today and tomorrow since I'm off.

Sweet, that's good news.

I just emailed for the link. I would vonlunteer to do campaign journals but for some reason I feel like I'd fail terribly, I'm pretty bad at writing

No. You can't fail. There was no journal, now there's a journal. That by definition is win not fail.

The barbarian does the journalling in MoD.

Here is a journal I awarded 90 XP for.

The various characters arrived by gate or Ferry to Zelkor's Ferry and of course promptly met at the inn. A fop and his group entered along with some followers of Hecate and insults flew before arms were drawn. Hound was put to sleep(non fatal kind) by a wizard and one of the Hecates was struck down, making a half-orc named Krull to both feel joy and worry that he has a chance to free his captive friend/love interest.
The paladin almost did a whoopsy by striking down a helpless foe but fortunately, things turned out ok.

I deducted 10 XP because it was a Keelboat not a Ferry :D

That's awesome!

We had our Alchemist do our note taking in my home campaign, or rather she volunteered, and all of it is done in first person from her character's point of view. Practically every minute of our adventure is in there, including combats, with things like "and then the hobgoblin hit me in the face, that hurt man!" and "I wish this stupid paladin would shut up about whatever this 'light' thing is he's talking about!". She hasn't been able to play for the last month or so due to rl problems so we've been skimming through it attempting to pull out important information, it's pretty funny stuff.

Yeah it doesn't have to be a masterpiece.

It could be funny or really epic, either way's fine. But the nice thing is, it will help you make connections between things you would have forgotten.

It's hard to explain, just trust me it will help your success.

Question time. Can I make a a Spellcraft check or something to recognize the spell the acolyte is casting, thereby knowing why Tarv is running? I'm not familiar with the spellcraft rules. Second, if I do so, where would tarv be when I take my turn? I'm thinking about casting sleep through my Arcane Bond to stop him from running and waking him when the fear ends. Is anyone opposed to that plan? I'd rather not have Tarv out of the fight for 8+ rounds.

That's exactly what you would use, spellcraft to ID the spell.

Okay so if I move behind the one that was infront of Trav, Stealthily doing so to stab him and than crouch behind the terrian for cover could that work? Wanna optimize my attack potential

I'll just roll it here
Spellcraft: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (10) + 8 = 18

Is anyone opposed to this plan? Specifically Tarv.

Hey Grimmy, quick couple of questions. What is the -1 on my will save for? Also, what spell did they use that I'm affected on a save roll of 21? Not trying to challenge you, just wondering. That seems a little high to be affected, but if I am that's fine. I've never encountered that before, so I'm just a little curious.

The -1 is from bane. The follow up spell that gave you shakened on a succesful save was cause fear.

Unless Grimmy has addendums:

Act Out of Turn: 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.
Bonus: If used before a roll is made, a hero point grants you a +8 luck bonus to any one d20 roll. If used after a roll is made, this bonus is reduced to +4. You can use a hero point to grant this bonus to another character, as long as you are in the same location and your character can reasonably affect the outcome of the roll (such as distracting a monster, shouting words of encouragement, or otherwise aiding another with the check). Hero points spent to aid another character grant only half the listed bonus (+4 before the roll, +2 after the roll).
Extra Action: You can spend a hero point on your turn to gain an additional standard or move action this turn.
Inspiration: If you feel stuck at one point in the adventure, you can spend a hero point and petition the GM for a hint about what to do next. If the GM feels that there is no information to be gained, the hero point is not spent.
Recall: You can spend a hero point to recall a spell you have already cast or to gain another use of a special ability that is otherwise limited. This should only be used on spells and abilities possessed by your character that recharge on a daily basis.
Reroll: You may spend a hero point to reroll any one d20 roll you just made. You must take the results of the second roll, even if it is worse.
Special: You can petition the GM to allow a hero point to be used to attempt nearly anything that would normally be almost impossible. Such uses are not guaranteed and should be considered carefully by the GM. Possibilities include casting a single spell that is one level higher than you could normally cast (or a 1st-level spell if you are not a spellcaster), making an attack that blinds a foe or bypasses its damage reduction entirely, or attempting to use Diplomacy to convince a raging dragon to give up its attack. Regardless of the desired action, the attempt should be accompanied by a difficult check or penalty on the attack roll. No additional hero points may be spent on
such an attempt, either by the character or her allies.
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.

b@Lucia: also you notice that the prone acolyte at Tarv's feet has that green aura around his hand... he is still holding the charge for a ghoul touch spel he cast before he came at Tarv.

Oh, okay. I thought I had saved vs. Bane with my awesome Will saves. Well, okay. I'll just have to make my shots count.

EDIT* That cause fear is a great spell. I'll have to keep it in mind when I start running my home game this summer.