Retrocon Stonelords GM thread (Inactive)

Game Master Redelia

Hey guys, I'm feeling much better but had to unexpectedly pull OT at work today. I will jump back in for my table when I get home this evening - thanks so much for the coverage!

No problem GM Ladile. Just started them on a second encounter for Act 4 F2. If they make it through the round before this evening, I'll make another post. Otherwise, I'll leave you to it.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Want to make sure i'm not short changing my players here. One of my player is using Enora in the 3-4 tier. Hardness 5 is basically making her useless. Magic Missile and most other spells, as well as crossbow, are completely negated.

Am I adjudicating this correctly?

Want to make sure i'm not short changing my players here. One of my player is using Enora in the 3-4 tier. Hardness 5 is basically making her useless. Magic Missile and most other spells, as well as crossbow, are completely negated.

Am I adjudicating this correctly?

Magic Missile should work on the medium animated object. It doesn't have the "magic immune" aspect of other constructs. It just has "construct traits".

Enora just needs to use spells that aren't death, disease, mind-affecting or requires fort saves.

I think the question is magic missile and hardness.

I've been playing it the same way - two characters who were pretty much relying on wands of magic missile can't do much in this fight against hardness 5. I did a search to double check and everything I found confirmed that magic missiles won't have any effect. Luckily the more martial characters have been rolling well and are carrying the fight.

Thanks, Elinnea. There was a PFS clarification for Iron Gods that was pretty clear that energy damage is subject to hardness but not halved for animated monsters like this.

Ah, my bad...

Yeah...the hardness on them would be problematic.

If someone has an aid token, my core 1-2 table is getting owned by a dretch.

If someone has an aid token, my core 1-2 table is getting owned by a dretch.

Sent.

GM Z..D.. wrote:

If someone has an aid token, my core 1-2 table is getting owned by a dretch.

Sent.

My table thanks you.

Hey everyone,

Update coming in an hour or so, so don't start a new encounter.

Do you want us to wrap up current encounters, or have whatever the PCs are fighting “drop dead” so everyone moves on to Encounter G right away?

The text I posted described all the existing clockwork creatures just falling over.

GMs, please make sure you are looking out for 'time altering events.' Also, remember that your players should be choosing whether they want a standard or challenging encounter for each encounter after the first.

Are we supposed to give the players any time to regroup after each encounter? Or just straight from one to the next?

Also, everyone note that paizo.com is supposed to be going down for scheduled maintenance in about half an hour.

The adventure does not specify. This is supposed to be a 'high point' to the adventure, so a brisk pacing makes sense. I would suggest a round or two between waves, a bit more if you think your players need it.

GMs, we are noticably behind at this point. We should have moved on to part 5 about 4 hours ago, but we only have 1 of the 8 needed successes. Starting part 5 late could have a significant impact on how many part 5 successes, which could cause your players to all get only 1 PP as well as lower other rewards.

Please try to push forward a bit more quickly. You can do this by more frequent GM posts, and also by botting your players a bit sooner than you normally would.

I don’t know what happened, but it looks like it submitted the successes twice this morning. I am seeing two successes for both my and GM ZD’s table, both with identical time stamps for the double success.

I only indicated a standard success.

It looks OK now. I don't know if you ran into a glitch, or if someone else fixed the extra successes. Thank you for letting me know I needed to look at it.

my table just basically missed the enemies for like 3 rounds. dragging it out a bit. should be reporting a success soon.

Got a success! I'm giving my table a round to recover before starting the next fight (assuming we don't move on before then)!

GMs, please remember that all d emons are shaken, even in new encounters.

My table should also be getting a success in a few hours.

My table is so close to a success. We'll be there soon.

I think my table should be getting a success today - hopefully before I have to head to work tonight. I'll do my best to get it reported ASAP if they do!

I am surprised that no tables cast Haste yet.

My table couldn’t cast it, but I would have expected the higher tier tables to have cast it.

Yep, if two tables had done that, it would have made the part we got stuck on go a lot faster. I think that most people who could cast haste used it up earlier.

Anyway, we've moved on, and were 3 days late to do so. Please try to keep the pace up, because we now have 3 days fewer to do act 5, and the number of successes in act 5 determines rewards, including how many prestige points your players get.

Getting the Diplomacy check with the Dwarven king doesn't count as a success, does it?

No, it doesn't, unfortunately. It just needs to be done before you can go work on successes.

That's what I figured but just wanted to be sure.

I'm a little confused, since the pdf says "Player Handouts 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7". Do we give them all of the pages or just one or two? @_@ I'm feeling like the answer is super straightforward, but if someone would spell it out for me, that'd be great. ;A;

Note: I've given 'em them Monument District stuff to start.

I gave the ones where they have already been.

Give them the handouts for the districts they explored on the way in. I let my players know that they can go to the other ones, but won't give them those handouts unless they ask for them.

As an aside, I'm really enjoying this part, since I have several characters who were frustrated by the nagging feeling that they didn't figure everything out before. Now they're excited to go back and set things right. :)

Yeah, the scenario says to give the group the handouts for the districts they visited on their way in :)

Okay, that's what I thought it said, but that "or" was messing with me. @_@

Thank you, guys!

How do we indicate an exceptional success on the reporting?

I am hoping my group will get one soon.

^I actually was wondering about that too; my group achieved one but since I didn't see a way to report it I went ahead and reported a regular success.

Since an exceptional success counts as two successes, I just reported a two successes.

Reporting two successes then.

Alright, I think I have something for the tile puzzle - but I am unable to test it on my own. Would someone be willing to PM me an email address I can send an Edit invitation to? Everyone else can check out this link and leave a comment on the slide.

Should this splitting of permissions work as intended, I'll break down the puzzle and add a grid for people to place tiles into. Other GMs can then make a copy of the presentation for each table. Or at least that's the hope!

What is the status on the puzzle?

The link just brings up a slide with no puzzle pieces.

In case there is no status, I have put together this slide with all the puzzle pieces mixed up. People can copy it for their group if there isn’t a better answer.

Apologies - I wasn’t certain if folks wanted to use it. I’ll fix it up and post it here after I get done with rehearsal (approx. 3 hours).

Apologies - I wasn’t certain if folks wanted to use it. I’ll fix it up and post it here after I get done with rehearsal (approx. 3 hours).

I was never sure what you had. Unfortunately I had a lot of things asking for my time when you asked for input and didn’t do anything then.

If you have something complete that would work well, great! If not, I will get by with the slide I put together.

Alright, here we are!

Be sure to make your own copy so we don't have multiple people solving the same puzzle! These instructions are also written on the first slide, so be sure to delete that slide before sending your copy out into the world for your players to see.

For the player that is the Puzzle Solver, you'll need to get their email via PM and send them an invitation to Edit.

For the rest of the party, post a link with only "Comment" permissions in your Gameplay thread.

(Unfortunately, you can't just send a link with "Edit" permissions and another link with "Comment" permissions. Google Slides just has one setting for "Link Permissions" per document. The "Invite via Email" trick should get around that though!)

I really appreciate your efforts pulling together the slides for the puzzle! This is a huge help.

One question: how are people handling the 4 minute hour glass in the constraints of PbP?

For the player that is the Puzzle Solver, you'll need to get their email via PM and send them an invitation to Edit.

Or they can follow the link that allows comment and ask for Edit permisssions. Some find that easier and then you know when they looked at it.

@GM Abraham, I was going to give one day, although 12 hours is probably more fair.

Sorry for the silence from me, everyone; I'm having some ugly computer issues. I've been still keeping and eye on things, and have a backup overseer lined up if needed.

I agree with the conclusions all of you have worked out; the only thing I would insist on is that for the seers' district puzzle, the timer does not start until you give the designated player write access to the puzzle.

Alright, my table is live-testing the puzzle! Anyone run into permission problems yet?

The person at my table was able to rearrange the tiles

Unfortunately, I'm not sure they ever looked at the tiles when they first encountered them. They decided to try and make a picture of a hammer (which makes sense given Torag's symbols). I doubt they are going to get the success from this encounter. :(

My party completed it perfectly and got 2 successes. Thanks again for the slide - it helped so much.