WHAT IS GOING ON?!
Smurf
Welp, Guess that kind of explains it. Someone hid an easter egg in the coding.
Oh children... do you not know? Much like if I post in a public channel and not a gaming one, my secret identity gets exposed.
Sorry about the bow thing, ignore it. I missed that line entirely.
I'll pick out my pre fight buffs when I get home in a couple hours. I'm not sure what manner of shenanigans we'll encounter in the fight after this, or even if there is one after this. My gut says "no" to the idea of more encounters without a rest, but then I remember that we got ambushed by cheating archers and two iron golems in close quarters and I just don't know how bad the meat grinder is. I'd say either the shield or the mirror image, but not both, and monstrous physique if you feel it would be valuable enough to go in with instead of breaking engagement to cast it later.
(They were stone golems)
I was tired and my point stands: any golem is bad when it appears out of nowhere in your face. Whoever wrote that we had to fight two of them in a killbox was evil.
And purple scarlet worms! Don’t forget about those!
Also, something that gave me a chuckle. A Venture Captain let all those people and two stone golems, who are not subtle at all infiltrate the lodge... and we're the suspected traitors.
It's not like you can turn golems invisible! They're Spell Immune! You can't teleport them, you can't turn them invisible, you can't do anything but make them walk.
In Eliza’s defense, most of the things that go into the maze when they’re not supposed to don’t come back out (because of Condria), and the golems were inside of worms burrowing underground until they were needed, so she couldn’t necessarily detect those guys easily. Plus the Raven’s crew has been planning this for a while, so they were able to figure out the Lodge’s weaknesses before swooping in at its most vulnerable. PLUS Eliza is trying to bring up the Woodsedge Lodge from its practical abandonment years ago as well as keeping a low enough profile to not be a target of the Revolution while still being a prominent member of an organization that does not necessarily have a good standing with the Red Revolution; Eliza can’t constantly be watching every square inch of a 90,000 square foot hedge maze (the scenario never actually says whether the hedge maze itself has more than one entryway in the hedge).
I know I’m playing devil’s advocate here—very poorly—but this is one of those things about this series that didn’t age well: it assumes that you all are on very good standing with Adril Hestram, whom they suspect of traitorous actions, and suspect you all of being his accomplices. Because it’s Adril, a guy none of you have heard of, then the effect really doesn’t hit home. Back when it was released, Adril was a prominent figure who acted as a mentor and friend to many up-and-coming Pathfinders whom he’s known since their Confirmation—and has had that same amount of time to corrupt and persuade into joining him as an agent in his traitorous actions. Imagine if, instead of Hestram, it was Marcos Farabellus or Ambrus Valsin—mentors that have known your characters in-game for years, years to mold you into the perfect agents for their nefarious plots. The fact that Hestram faded into obscurity following Eyes of the Ten just made the emotional connections players have to these NPCs become less and less as the years went on.
I’m not saying it’s explained well or written well, I’m just saying that there’s another side to these events that you guys are just kinda glossing over.
Sorry, went off on a weird rant there.
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I mean, it would be extremely awkward if Adril didn't fade into obscurity following his death here. Worst case, everyone would know his name (like a certain Grandmaster Torch) in infamy, which would do even worse things for the emotional impact of this scenario.
In other news, pretty much out of buffs at this point. 1 2nd lvl spell and 1 4th lvl spell left - so be prepared for lots of grease or other 1st lvl fun stuff.
Alternatively, would we like to try out Arnaut's Fascinating performance (DC 25)?
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Sahess, would you like to come with Arnaut to have an up-close and personal introduction to our fireball-happy friend? He's got a scroll of dimension door that could put the two of them next to her, but he can't pull it out, move to Sahess, and cast it in the same round. If she can take a 5 ft step towards him though, he can also take a 5 ft step and use his standard action to cast the spell this round.
Zhu is welcome to come along as well, though she might not wish to be so close to Cale at this time (she'd have to use a move action to get next to Arnaut and then ready an action to attack someone on the other side of the teleport).
Thoughts?
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Hm... I need to throw up a shield or he's just gonna magic missile me down, but otherwise, I can handle that.
Kicking myself for not bringing Cale's body now. I could just snap my fingers and poof, no more sorcerer.
EDIT: WAIT! DISPEL MAGIC!
You automatically succeed on the dispel check versus yourself!
Would that work?
I’ll allow it; I couldn’t exactly give you the chance because of how I was doing the saves, and the option should always be there.
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If anyone has a graceful solution to such situations (or Misfortune revelation, Adaptable luck, etc) please share! I like having GMs roll saving throws to keep things moving, but don’t quite know how to work “extra” things like that in. But waiting for players to roll their own saves can be frustrating in both sides of the GM screen and kills momentum.
Honestly, the smoothest gameplay is to allow the resolution of immediate and other out of turn actions like this, but there is a (completely valid) complaint to be had in that it makes things like Inspiration, Opportune Parry and Riposte, Saving Finale, and Bestow Luck far more potent because of how much easier it is to pick and choose when to use them.
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My parents will be in town this weekend, so a lot of my time will be spent with them. On top of that, I'll be GMing the entirety of the Ruby Phoenix Tournament from 8am to 10pm Friday at a local con, so I will very likely be unable to post Friday, and the possibility of posting Saturday, Sunday, and Monday are still up in the air. In my Player games, please bot where necessary. In my GM games, thank you for your continued patience. I REALLY hope everything goes back to normal come Tuesday.
I am going to be at an IRL con tomorrow all day (Same one that Jordan was talking about, funnily enough), so I may not get around to posting for a while.
Yes. That would be immensely helpful, especially since... bloody faction missions.
And now I need to recover mentally from that all-day Con; I will be back to posting tomorrow.
The only thing I will say is this: do what your character would do in this situation.
And remember, that wasn’t an evil act because....the scenario expected you to do it and evil acts aren’t allowed in PFS? Honestly, if this were my home group that would 100% be an evil act, but shrug.
I’m going to be at a local con today and tomorrow, so my posting will be a bit spotty.
I will post again in a few hours to get Part 2 underway
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So, faction missions.
In light of the absolutely massive fustercluck that was Beliac showing up, what do we think of comparing notes on them in the future?
Even if we don't, my local group used to treat these things like a game of Everyone is John and flip them over at the end of the game. Mine being "you'll know when to read this scroll. Read it."
...what do we think of comparing notes on them in the future?
All I'm going to say is this: good luck with that.
I'm unfortunately not going to be able to post today, owing to having passed the hell out up until it was time to get ready for work. I'll try to have something up early tomorrow, but definitely tomorrow afternoon at latest.
I suppose I was a bit vague, so I’ll say it now: since this is a series of scenarios, I expect you all to list what you bought “between scenarios” at least somewhere so that I am aware of what it is you bought. I’m not normally like this when it comes to buying stuff during the time between scenarios, but in when it comes to a series gone through consecutively then I expect to know what new stuff y’all have. That’s why I’ve been shoving the “time to buy gear” thing down your throats.