Hellknight Hill: Bumblebrashers! (Inactive)

Game Master Joana

Quick question since Aronida's turn is coming up. I'm probably going to have her head upstairs to help the people there. Will there be a separate map for that? The current map only seems to cover the ground floor.

Quick question since Aronida's turn is coming up. I'm probably going to have her head upstairs to help the people there. Will there be a separate map for that? The current map only seems to cover the ground floor.

There is a separate map. There's not a lot to it, but I'll grab it and get it uploaded.

I think it's my turn now. The site was acting up when I tried to check in this weekend. Gameplay post up later today.

Ugh, sorry. I updated both games before going to bed last night, and in both of them, I managed to forget to advance the initiative tracker. :P

Joana wrote:

Aronida wrote:

My reasoning is that it's a language 'prevalent in your region', aka Cheliax, (which has Infernal listed as one of its two regional languages).

Are you getting that from Pathfinder Wiki?

*smacks forehead* Yep, I got it from the Wiki and it didn't even occur to me that might not be canon anymore. Thanks for letting me take it anyway!

We have still-unofficial confirmation on this now:

Ed Reppert wrote:

Is Chelaxian a dialect of Taldane, or a distinct language?

There is no such thing as a language called "Chelaxian."

In Cheliax, the two main languages are Common (aka Taldane) and Infernal.

Gethric is considering grabbing the brazier that's become lit and tipping it over away from the raised stage to buy some time - either that or hefting back some of the floor coverings.

Is that an action that's likely to impact on the fire spread? - if (in his opinion) it won't then he'll focus on panic mongers instead.

Moving the rugs and/or council's furniture away from the stage would prevent the fire from spreading any further into the rotunda -- at least until it has climbed the wall to the ceiling -- since the floor is stone. I'm not envisioning what you mean by tipping the brazier: do you mean onto the stage or away from it onto the rotunda floor? If the latter, you'd definitely want to move the rugs, chairs, and table away first.

Tipping away from the stage - so he'll work on moving some flammables first.

In general, you can't start an activity in one turn and complete it in the next:

If you begin a 2-action or 3-action activity on your turn, you must be able to complete it on your turn. You can’t, for example, begin to High Jump using your final action on one turn and then complete it as your first action on your next turn.

However, the encounter doesn't actually say that Rescuing Spectators is a short Activity, just that it takes more than 1 action to do it, so I'll go ahead and allow "get attention" at the end of last turn and "persuade to evacuate" at the beginning of this turn.

The rules for this encounter feel pretty customized-for-this-encounter anyway, so it's unlikely to come up again in the future.

I’ve kind of assumed I can help the child down and then move, even though they haven’t had their action yet. As an alternative if you’d rather I stay there, I’ll help Gethric move fuel away from the stage throwing the chair in H9 over the council table instead.

The issue is that the panicking spectators count as difficult terrain themselves (they're not "willing" to let you pass easily), so with a 25-foot stride, you can't get to an unoccupied square on that side of the stage.

Gellius has picked up the chair in H9; throwing it will require an action, or he can simply take it with him when he moves next round and Release it as a free action.

Is holding one's breath a feasible option for dealing with the smoke?

If so, would that affect our ability to hustle panicked persons upon their way?

Is holding one's breath a feasible option for dealing with the smoke?

If so, would that affect our ability to hustle panicked persons upon their way?

The encounter specifically encourages "other creative solutions," so absolutely!

According to the drowning and suffocation rules, "[y]ou can hold your breath for a number of rounds equal to 5 + your Constitution modifier. Reduce your remaining air by 1 round at the end of each of your turns, or by 2 if you attacked or cast any spells that turn. You also lose 1 round worth of air each time you are critically hit or critically fail a save against a damaging effect. If you speak (including casting spells with verbal components or activating items with command components) you lose all remaining air."

Since you can't shout to get a spectator's attention, you will have to be adjacent to them to get their attention and point them to evacuate. As far as I know, holding your breath doesn't take an action.

Joana, could you clarify which squares are on fire? I think I misread the map and I'm wondering about whether I11 has actually caught yet.

(ie if I douse G11,G12, H11, H12 would that have contained the fire to the stage once more?)

The chairs were kind of on the line between H and I, but the fire hadn't technically spread to I yet. I went ahead and nudged the remaining burning chair so it's all the way in H11.

So G & H 11 are burning, as are F 10-11, E 5-11, and D 6-10.

It would have been clearer, I suppose, if I just dropped a little flame icon in the middle of every burning square ... but pretty fire effects!

I'm away on yet another holiday for the next week. This one has more reliable internet and we've planned much more lounging around doing nothing, so it shouldn't really impact that much. I might post at different times of the day than usual though.

Enjoy. :)

*bump* for Steve. If he hasn't posted by the morning my time, I'll post for Gellius.

Just finding my feet! (Landed to some unexpected work crises but they are receding now. I literally just logged on to see if it was my turn yet).

Sorry for the holdup. Hope it hasn't been too long. :/

I'm suspicious that whoever made this map dislikes halflings... the amount of times I've been 5 feet short of distance :P

It's Halloween week, which means that we have begun the unstoppable landslide through the holidays to the new year. For the duration, I will be less likely to post on the weekends, and I may be a bit slower during the week as well, though I will give notice if I'm going to miss any time entirely.

I'm suspicious that whoever made this map dislikes halflings... the amount of times I've been 5 feet short of distance :P

You're thinking P1e. In P2e, halflings aren't slower than anyone except elves! :)

I've been thinking that the three-action system makes this encounter bearable. If we were stuck with one Move and one Standard every round, this whole place would have burned down already.

Right you are as well Joana... hadn't noticed that the speed disparity had been ironed flat.

Just used to being outpaced as a short one... might have something to do with one of my long term characters being a Halfling Oracle with the Lame curse... When the DM starts a chase scene I just pull up a seat and watch :P

Couldn't Darla douse the fire from where she's standing? It looks like she could douse D10, D11, E10, and E11 without getting on stage at all. Just Interact to grab the bucket and another Interact to douse.

It's not clear from the map, but the stage is actually ten feet above the floor. She had to get on her toes to inch the bucket onto the edge of the stage, and she can't get a good toss at something so high up.

It's beginning to look like Darla's one of those characters--the ones who can't roll double digits on the dice bot. And I had such high hopes for her.

Ugh. I sympathize. I've had those PCs. :\

That said, this is the first encounter, and level-one encounters notoriously tend to descend into a bit of slapstick when the bonuses are so low.* Let's hope it turns around.

The first Climb roll is just a failure, not a critical failure, which means only that she fails to make progress. The second roll is a critical failure, but everyone has access to the Grab an Edge reaction which keeps her from falling prone, since the chair made her high enough to reach the edge of the stage. Aronida can roll the ladder under her, or someone can Aid her, or she can just succeed on the Climb check next round; all isn't yet lost.

BTW, if anyone hasn't seen it, the first round of errata is out. I don't know that there's anything in there that's immediately relevant to anyone.

This was my worst run online with dicebot... Caldazar didn't do a great deal in that encounter.

Though with every breath that the great dicebot taketh... so also he can giveth...

Aronida wrote:

Couldn't Darla douse the fire from where she's standing? It looks like she could douse D10, D11, E10, and E11 without getting on stage at all. Just Interact to grab the bucket and another Interact to douse.

It's not clear from the map, but the stage is actually ten feet above the floor. She had to get on her toes to inch the bucket onto the edge of the stage, and she can't get a good toss at something so high up.

After I went to bed last night, I lay awake a moment thinking, "Wait, it can't be ten feet up, or you couldn't even reach the edge on tiptoes," so I checked the adventure text. This encounter is a bit loosely-defined for my tastes (which, frankly, may be intentional to get everyone into the paradigm of 'come up with your own tactics rather than letting the adventure text give you a list of approved actions'), and it just says that the stage area is "raised." Figuring that it must be high enough that there's a good reason people need rescuing rather than being able to get out on their own, I decided it must be about the same height as the stage in my school theater which was a foot or two taller than an average person. So we'll say 7-8 feet tall.

With this encounter over, I'd like to suggest that we switch to block initiative. GM, I know you said you prefer posting in initiative order, but it seems to really slow down the game. It took us seven weeks to get through a single encounter.

To be clear, I'm enjoying the game and if you want to continue posting in initiative order that's fine. I just think block initiative would help speed things up.

I've been thinking the same and would like to second Aronida's post, in all aspects.

In fairness, I think it's unlikely for more-standard encounters to go 11 rounds.

If the majority of the players want to (which would be one more, as Ever_Anon and Iff are already in favor), we can try block initiative for the next encounter. I'm a bit dubious, as I've found it to limit tactical play in P1e, and the three-action-system and critical effects rules of P2e seem to provide even more opportunities for the battlefield to shift mid-round. It's possible that much of that may only come into play at higher levels, though.

I'm something of a PBP newb, so to clarify for me:

Is block initiative: "The party goes then the monsters"? Or is it "These three people are next and can post in any order, then a monster, then these two...."

The latter. Everyone rolls initiative as usual, then they're grouped into blocks based on where they fall. So for our previous encounter the blocks would have been:

Block 1: Gethric, Darla
Block 2: Deckard
Block 3: Aronida, Gellius, Revka
Block 4: Civilians, Fire

So if Revka happened to check the forums after the GM posted for Deckard but before Gellius or Aronida, she could still go ahead and post instead of having to wait.

Ah, thanks.

I'm afraid I'm a little torn - on the one hand I'm keen to play PF2 "as intended" to get a better feel for it. On the other, PBP is PBP and doing what we can to speed things up is generally good.

I don't have a strong preference either way. Can I abstain for now and place a casting vote based on Mark and Profession Smith's preferences?

Block initiative is indeed quicker - though I can understand Joana's reservations given the amount of interactivity in PF2 where crit successes / failures can have a more tangible impact on options.

A half-measure might be to permit posting in block initiative out of sequence... and then seeking clarification if actions become invalidated or options fundamentally change. Each of us can be a bit more open to alternative actions when relevant as well.

Which I suppose is a fancy way of shrugging my shoulders and saying I'll go with the majority :P

HERE is an example of how I tried block initiative in a shamefully short 2E Playtest adventure I attempted to run. It takes a lot of the mystery out of the game by presenting stuff like hp, AC, and DR at the encounter's start so the PCs will be able to recognize critical successes and failure, as well as important stuff like "Did the damage from my Action 1 attack drop my foe so I can move on or do I need to use at least one more Strike to drop him?"

This method requires each poster to post changes to the enemies' statlines so the next person to post can see that Bandit 2 was reduced to 8 hp by the previous poster's actions and can choose his next actions accordingly. In my short playtest adventure, however, no one actually bothered to post updated stats for the other players; that may be because only one person ever actually hit an enemy, though. :/

That method's far from perfect, however, especially if the opponent has a Reaction.

I'm not sure you'd need that must change to use block initiative. In the least invasive case, we'd still have one PC posting, then Joana giving an update, etc. However, in block initiative there's a higher chance that a PC gets to act sooner.

Example:
Block 1: Gethric, Darla
Block 2: Deckard
Block 3: Aronida, Gellius, Revka
Block 4: Civilians, Fire

After Deckard has had his turn, any of Aronida, Gellius and Revka could post under this version of block initiative. Say I get the opportunity to post first: Then we wait until Joana updates, and then either Aronida or Gellius is up. That should save a bit of time, while still giving us all the actual state of affairs.

--

A bit more lenient would be block initiative, couple with process-in-order. This means more people could post after each other in between GM posts, but their actions would be processed in the order that they were written (not in the actual initiative order). In effect, every PC delays until their player has a chance post post.

Example:
Block 1: Gethric, Darla
Block 2: Deckard
Block 3: Aronida, Gellius, Revka
Block 4: Civilians, Fire

Fist turn, both Gethric and Darla are up. Darla is first, and posts her actions. Then, before the GM update, Gethric checks the forums. He can posts his actions, taking into account what Darla has already posted. When Joana updates, they process the actions in the order they were written in.
If things turn too complicated, a player could always hold off on posting until previous PC posts have been processed.

The GM who's running the PFS 2E scenarios I'm currently in uses the last method, (block initiative, actions resolved in order of post). Here's an example from a recent combat encounter.

On the one hand, Gellius is finding it hard not to sound like a patronising git when he's talking to Revka. On the other, he's a sheltered noble with no real world experience but the best education money can buy, so I figure he probably is a patronising git. :)

Given that we have two players that feel strongly that block initiative will speed up the game and the rest abstain courteously, I'm okay with giving it a try in the next encounter.

I don't care for revealing stats. Clearly, over the course of an encounter, the players will get an increasingly accurate feel for what a creature's AC is, but playing with an naked statblock feels like playing solo with a Bestiary open. (I once played in a game where the GM had open statblocks and relegated all rolls to the players. Unless you've done it, you have no idea how much it sucks to blow a natural 20 on the BBEG's save vs your own spell.) Without going that far, issues with critical effects are as likely to arise during individual players' turns as between them. (I.e., it's more disruptive for Aronida not to know if she succeeded at the Climb check she spent her first action on, than for Gellius to know if she did.)

Thanks for being willing to give it a try. If it doesn't work out we can always switch back.

For reference, common exploration activities are here, and skill-based ones are listed here. As I understand it, exploration activities are limited only by what you can convince the GM is relevant, so make your case if there's something else you want to be doing as you travel.

Hi folks, I've been a lot busier the last few days then I expected. Should slow down a bit over the weekend, next week should be OK too. Advance warning that I'll be on a work trip during the last week of November, my posting my slow down a bit at that time.

That's Thanksgiving week here in the US, so I doubt you'll be the only one traveling and/or posting less often than usual. :)

Apologies for the radio silence. My wife has a new job and we are looking to move (or she is, anyhow - I’m going to be straddling two cities). There’s been a sudden flurry of jobs, meetings and cat-related admin...

Really sorry about that. I promise I didn't log on last night to JUST apologise. I posted something and didn't get an error message or anything, but it obviously didn't 'stick'.

It's there now, I think.

Would tossing a rock at the corpse be a ranged attack with an improvised weapon?

We'll just say a ranged Strike. I don't see any reason to take a -2 penalty on the attack roll; why would a rock necessarily be any harder to throw than an alchemical bomb? We'll call it 1d4 B, 20 ft range, with the Thrown weapon trait.

I hope all American players had a happy Thanksgiving!

Darla, are you wading into the puddle or staying at the edge?

If Gellius is willing to enter square N27, Darla will enter N29...though I don't like how things have gone from the water being merely a puddle to talk of 'wading.' :)

Gellius has only committed to M27 so far, so we'll leave leave Darla dry-footed as well for the moment.

"Wade," "enter a water square," whatever. ;)

Gellius has only committed to M27 so far...

He's such a wimp ;)

Just to clarify - are we in encounter, three-action mode now? Or still exploration? (Bringing out a map always makes me change gears even though it really shouldn't).