Welcome!
My goal is for you to have fun while playing a balanced Pathfinder Society game.
Expectations
Be ready to post at least once a day. I am more active than many other PbP GMs and like to to keep things moving at a good clip.
Maturity and communicativeness go a long way: 2E is a brand new system, so let's be willing to have a good time while learning together. If you have any sort of issue please PM me and I will do my best to work it out.
New Players
Please check out these resources — while they are geared towards 1E, the fundamentals are still relevant for 2E:
The Flaxseed Pathfinder Lodge
Painlord's Advanced PbP Play
Doomed Hero's Guide to PbP Gaming
Character Taglines & Profiles
Put your character's gender (so we know which pronouns to use), race (optional), class (optional) and their status in the tagline area of your profile that is labeled "Race". Status usually means current/maximum hit points, AC, TAC, Saving Throws, Spells, and Spell Points. The raw status tagline might look like this:
Female goblin bard | HP: 14/16 | AC: 14 TAC: 12 | F: +2 R: +4 W: +0 | Spells: 1: 2/3 2: 2/2 | SP: 6/10
When you use these resources, update the tagline.
In your character profile, please include the complete stat block as well, so the GM can audit your character.
Botting
Include botting instructions in your profile. If you have a preference for who runs your character, write that down too. If you or your preferred botter have not posted in more than 24 hours, I will bot your character to keep the game moving.
Marching Order & Maps
To speed things up I ask the group for a marching order at the beginning of the adventure, and the tactics each PCs typically uses when in Exploration Mode. Unless you let me know that you're doing something else ahead of time, I will use this info when rolling initiative.
Initiative
I will roll all Initiative checks for PCs and NPCs, sort them, and organize them into blocks. I will bold the names of characters whose turn it is to act.
When it is your turn to act, post. Do not wait for someone else to post just because they had a higher Initiative in your initiative block. If you know what you want to do but want to wait for someone else’s action first, just say that. For example,
Mete Sheeld knows to stay out of Brock Enrol's way, so he'll attack after her. He strides up to Dee Monic and strikes twice!
To encourage timely posting and avoid unnecessary delays, I will include bonuses for allies who are in the same initiative block, even if one player posts before getting that bonus. For example, if a fighter posts right before the bard, and the bard uses the Inspire Courage cantrip, I will include the inspire bonus in the fighter's attack rolls even though the player didn't do so. Where possible, I will update initiatives and note the bonuses each player is receiving.
That said, if you want to change your initiative to another block (for example, going after a monster or after an ally whose in a different initiative block), you will need to tell me your are Delaying. You can then come in as a free action wherever you want. Remember, too, that Readying costs two actions and gives you a single reaction, so we move around a bit less often in initiative in 2E!
Formatting Dice Rolls
Let's look again at the post above. Perhaps Brock Enrol is a bard, and casts the Inspire Courage cantrip before Mete Sheeld strikes Dee Monic. Mete Shield knows the best way to format this — by noting the buff separately in both the roll description and the modifiers:
Mete Sheeld strikes with even more enthusiasm than normal!
Mete Shield wrote Inspire Courage in both his attack and damage roll descriptions. He also included Inspire Courage's +1 bonus in the attack and damage rolls separately from his normal bonus of +2. In his second Strike's attack roll, he even included the -5 for the Multiple Attack Penalty. This is excellent! Every bonus and penalty to the d20 roll is clear, and we can understand how each total was achieved. Mete shield thought of all the details, and even included the damage type in his damage roll, earning maximum style points!
Rolling Saves
When asked to roll a save, it must always be the first dice roll on your next post.
Rules Questions and OOC Information
Please post rules questions in the discussion thread. Try not to interrupt the flow of gameplay. I am also happy to converse on google hangouts, Slack, or Discord for ooc conversation.
Clarity is important, but so is flavor and roleplay! You can use OOC text to highlight game mechanics while keeping things flavorful in narrative text. This is subjective, but my preferred way to read the action is something like this:
Brock Enrol warbles an arcane word and flicks dollop of butter at the aberration. The floor below its tentacles suddenly becomes slippery!
This is both flavorful from a story perspective, and clear from a mechanical perspective.
Chronicle information
In order to be able to generate a PFS chronicle, I ask that each character please provide me the following information:
Please post in the discussion with the following information about your character:
Player Name:
Character Number:*
Earn Income or Crafting Roll (please designate which you are doing):**
Faction Boon Slotted:***
Free item(s) given by from schools, or Field Agent:****
Other Boons Slotted:
* Character Number: A character number is your PFS ID followed by your character number, which starts at -2001. For example, my PFS ID is 232159, and my second PFS 2E character number is 2002, so I sign in with "232159-2002."
** Earning Income: You can use a trained Crafting skill to Craft Goods for the Market, trained Lore skill to Practice a Trade, or trained Perform to Stage a Performance. All characters should have a Lore from their background, so everyone should be able to earn a few extra coins. If you want to Craft and are trained, you can craft Common items, and rare items if you have the formula; in either case, they must be your level or lower. You must spend the first 4 days of your downtime prepping. You can choose to spend the additional days reducing the cost of the item further (this will be determined by how well you succeed at crafting). You can read more about these checks in the Roleplaying Guide.
*** Faction Boons can be slotted by every character. You get a free one at character creation, so choose a faction! You can read all about boons here, and factions here.
**** Schools are now a new part of Pathfinder Society. Basically, every agent has graduated from "Pathfinder college," and receives gifts from their mentors before every adventure (these gifts must be returned if not used). At character creation, you receive 3 "Networking points" that represent how much (or how little) you focused on each major that's offered by the Pathfinder Society (Swords, Scrolls, or Spells).
Think of this like a college major: a "Renaissance person" has studied a large variety of subjects and has forged connections with a larger variety of teachers… but those connections might be rather shallow. On the other hand, a student wholly committed to a single subject will forge much deeper connections with their mentors — however, their options will be much more specialized. If you spend all three networking points on one school, you get two free items — but only from that school's list! If you choose to spread your points around a little more, you get one item, but access to a much larger variety of options.
Finally, you can choose to skip school and enter the Pathfinder workforce directly. While you have no connections (and do not get free items) at the start of every adventure, you do get extra downtime to use as you see fit!
You can read more about this in the Pathfinder Society Training section, and view the tables of items and the rules for assigning points under Assigning Points.
Please let me know if you have any questions or if I got something wrong here (everyone is still learning); we get started on August 26, a week from today! Exciting!
For my own practice on this, that's a success vs DC 14, so 5cp a day for 4sp?
You don't have to spend the full 8 days, but most often you will. So yep: 4sp! A crit bumps it up to the next task level so if you crit you get 2sp a day, or 1.6 gp over 8 days.
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looks like my whopping 10 on the roll means I earn 0. lol.
Minimum DC is 14, right?
A critical fail gets you 0 income, but you did not actually critically fail — you just failed! Page 237 of the CRB (or Archives of Nethys), specifies the rules when it comes to Earning Income and degrees of success:
Failure You do shoddy work and get paid the bare minimum for your time. Gain the amount of currency listed in the failure column for the task level.
A 0-level task gets 1 CP / day in the Failure column, so you get 8 CP for 8 days of work. Better than nothing.
Slides are up!
Please see the link at the top of the threads here, or the links in my profile byline. I need each player to review slides 1 and 2.
In slide 1, please move your avatar to where you want to be in the marching orders, using the arrow as the direction of travel.
In slide 2, please update your initiative modifiers for both exploration mode and social combat.
There are also reactions in slide 2. If your character uses a reaction, please fill that out. Since reactions can change the outcome of an enemy's action, I am worried they will slow down gameplay. Botting reactions seems like the simplest solution for now, however if you have a suggestion — or do it another way in your own PbP game — I'm all ears! If there are circumstances under which you would not use a reaction, let me know.
Please try to fill out the slide info by Monday morning; if you have not posted with your avatar yet please do so no later than Monday night, and make sure to fill out everything on the slides.
As always, please let me know if you have any questions! Once we finalize this last bit of overhead, we can play the game. Whew!
Hi everyone,
Due to logistical challenges, the convention organizers have decided to delay the start of the Gameday VIII convention by two weeks.
This means we will be starting on Monday, September 9 and ending November 17.
I hope you can all stick around, but if this change means you have to drop please let me know.
Otherwise, please update your info on the slides so we're all ready to begin in a timely manner on the 9th.
I'm happy to hang out in these discussion threads to informally discuss rules, builds, and character concepts in the meantime!
— Doug
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Initially I was looking at focusing on using the heavy crossbow but there seems to be a lack of feats to improve such a build with it's 2 interactions to reload. GM would those interactions have to be together, or could they be separated?
I envision it as 1 interaction: Draw back firing mechanism with 2nd interaction being loading the bolt. With that idea, would it make sense to draw back and lock the firing mechanism into place. Do something else if needed. Then place the bolt later? I plan on keeping the crossbow loaded when not in combat so I can fire it without loading to start off.
I've changed my plans to be more of a switch hitter. Heavy crossbow when unable to get in range and Dwarven Axe when upclose. I plan on picking up an animal companion at level 2 to help in melee.
Re marching order, since we have a high AC monk, I think I'll take rear guard and let the monk lead if they'd like.
If an item takes 2 or more actions to reload, the GM determines whether they must be performed together as an activity, or you can spend some of those actions during one turn and the rest during your next turn.
Doing it over 2 turns in the way you mentioned sounds reasonable to me!
There's nothing RAW about whether you can or cannot walk around with a loaded crossbow, so it's allowed in PFS (although in my home games I tend not to allow it for long periods of time, as it would ruin the crossbow).
Thank you for checking ahead of time!
Hi everyone,
We'll be starting promptly on Monday; I will be posting the intro either late Sunday night or early (West Coast time) on Monday.
Please make sure to review the slides and place your avatar in marching order, and fill out your initiative modifier and any reactions! Please let me know if you have any questions.
I know the PbP con was delayed, so I want to make sure we all get off to a strong start here.
Sounds good — thanks for the update!
First post is up — we're underway! Please introduce your characters today.
Thanks for checking in on your friend, Medium Dave! I want to make sure to give everyone a chance to introduce their characters, but also keep the game moving at a good clip.
Secret knowledge checks
We just had a secret knowledge check! In PF2, there is a chance of critically failing on knowledge checks and possibly getting misinformation — this means the GM should roll the checks.
To keep things moving, I will roll checks automatically for players who have the relevant skill/lore trained.
That said, players are always free to attempt checks untrained! Simply let me know if you would like to try to recall knowledge about anything at any time, and I will roll for you. Just remember that there may be a consequence for critically failing.
Looks like we're ready to move on from the mission briefing. I'll be GMing after work, and will update later tonight (Pacific Daylight time).
You'll be traveling to your destination, so use this time to buy anything else you need!
Yeah, you can use the normal survival skill too.
Thanks for posting, Dargon Blackrock! If you need botting while you travel, please let me know. Happy travels!
No problem. Even if you succeeded it wouldn’t have changed the outcome this time, so I thought it best to move us along.
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GM Doug! I edited your slide a bit to note which body is which that we've found so far. I hope that's okay!
And Dargon, picking up a body doesn't actually take a check! If you could spend your turn making a craft or society check those would be very useful! Otherwise you could check the apothecary to get an automatic success. =)
Please feel free to make whatever notes you want on the slides! There’s a ton of info in this scenario and the slides are there for you. I can also create a player notes doc if it would be helpful.
And that’s correct. Picking up a body or a relic doesn’t take any time. There are a few different mechanics going on in this exploration phase, so let me know if you have any questions about what takes time/what doesn’t.
I will be out all day and GMing tonight. Players who haven't posted this round will be botted by late tonight, and then I will move you along to the college.
I hope I'm not being too heavy-handed with the botting, but there can be LOTS of investigation rounds in this scenario, and I'd like to keep the game from feeling bogged down.
As always, if there's anything I can do to here to help move the game along or clarify something for players, please let me know here!
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I’m going to be busy with a wedding most of the day tomorrow. I’m going to try to post in the morning if my turn is up. If I have not posted by noon central time tomorrow, feel free to bot for me if you need to move things along. Skorpa will probably focus on perception or medicine checks when available.
Excellent, thanks for letting me know and for giving directives as to the kind of check you want to do!
Luckily Dargon spotted that trap. It might not have been fun if the party was split across floors and someone got stuck alone up there alone, being attacked.
Medium Dave,
I think with 18 strength you do not take an armor check penalty on checks in hide armor. This means your stealth check should be net +1.
Check Penalty
While wearing your armor, you take this penalty to Strength‑ and Dexterity‑based skill checks, except for those that have the attack trait. If you meet the armor’s Strength threshold (see Strength below), you don’t take this penalty.
Strength
This entry indicates the Strength score at which you are strong enough to overcome some of the armor’s penalties. If your Strength is equal to or greater than this value, you no longer take the armor’s check penalty, and you decrease the Speed penalty by 5 feet (to no penalty if the penalty was –5 feet, or to a –5‑foot penalty if the penalty was –10 feet).
Hide armor's strength listing is only 14. So you don't take the armor check penalty because you have 18 strength. This is also true for acrobatics and thievery (acrobatics might actually be somewhat useful to you; the speed certainly is). So instead of rolling at -2 after 12 dex, you can actually roll at +1.
Just wanted to make a note of this, as this is how I understand check penalties in 2E and it might be useful to your character at some point.
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I would argue we don't really have anything left to do and should just leave. We've already grabbed the talisman, book, and body. There's no reason we can't make those checks later, safely back not in undead lands.
And everything else appears to be done. We should make a break for it with everything!
If we get a second vote to start heading back, then we will do that.
Done and done.
We crossposted; I edited my post, Dave! You're only down 9.
Please post combat questions here in the discussion tab to keep the gameplay clean!
Medium Dave,
I don't think you can rage since you're fatigued. Rage.
Requirements You aren’t fatigued or raging.
Since Medium Dave is fatigued he doesn't meet the requirements to Rage. Luckily, this wouldn't have made any difference in the battle so far (you still would have gotten hit because you take a -1 to AC from being fatigued, and you missed anyway).
Dargon unlimbers his axe with a grin and charges into skeleton 2.
Greataxe: 1d20 + 7 + 2 ⇒ (3) + 7 + 2 = 12 (+2 for charge?)
Dargon,
It doesn't look like you have the Sudden Charge feat like M. Dave does. There's no +2 for charging, unless I’m missing something.
You have 20 feet of movement, so you probably need to spend one action to draw your weapon, then two actions to Stride into melee range. If you want to attack (e.g. with a ranged weapon), we'll keep the roll you rolled, but your placement on the map will need to be updated.
Please revise your turn!
I missed it too! We’re all still learning the system; no worries.
Mandower, raging is an action as is drawing a weapon. That's two actions before you even move in.
So I don't think you could attack this turn (You'd need to Rage, Draw Weapon, and then Stride to enemy; you have Sudden Charge as an option, but that's 2-Action Activity, and you already raged and drew a weapon.) You could draw your weapon and Sudden Charge in, however.
Let me know if I'm off base here. As I told M. Dave, we're all new to the system.
Thanks, Dargon!
Make sure to review hero points if you haven't. They're part of game balance and everyone but Veyanna has two (V. has one right now).
This is supposed to be a tough encounter (they even gave you a NPC healer!)
Understandable, Jorgran! That's a lot of meeting time.
This is the last fight so I will probably be a bit less strict about botting turns with attacks, especially since everyone is now fully engaged with the enemy; we're WAY ahead of schedule and I want you all to enjoy this difficult encounter. With that in mind I hope we can keep things moving at an engaging pace that allows everyone to fully participate.