Hellknight Hill: Bumblebrashers! (Inactive)

Game Master Joana

Thanks, Joana. I used guidance but not inspire courage. I’m not sure how best to handle Crit damage - I’ve rolled deadly die in the thread (and just doubled the regular damage, right?) but maybe I should just tell you what the die is and leave it to you (?)

Also, fwiw, I’m in something of a bleak place just now irl. I’m afraid that’s manifesting a bit as “you suck creatively, what are you even doing trying to roleplay?” so I’m finding it hard to post on paizo. I’m sure it’ll pass in a week or so and I’m very much enjoying the game but it may appear that I’m losing interest/focus/commitment which isn’t the case at all!

I’m trying to force myself to visit and post at least daily, so hopefully none of you will notice, but yeah - not having a great time just at the moment. Please bear with me.. :/

I'm sorry to hear that, Steve. Hang in there!

Hang tough, Steve. Hope things turn around for you sooner rather than later.

May I ask which one I hit (and whether it was a critical?)

The first one in initiative was Sckreep so I applied the AoO to him. It was close, but not a critical hit.

Hang in there, Steve! I'm sure we've all had patches when we've posted because it was our turn and not because we were bursting with creative energy. I know I do....

Iff, by my reading, Revka's daze should do 4 damage total, 3 for her Wisdom modifier plus 1 for inspire courage. Is that correct?

Oops, you're absolutely correct. I even had the spell open to check, but misread in my haste and added in the 1d4 from memory. Thanks for catching that. Concerning the inspire courage bonus: I was doubting myself for a bit, whether damage equal to my Wis modifier without any variable dice component would constitute a "damage roll", but I think it might.

Also, for future reference for myself: it's better to Demoralize first and then cast a spell, to take advantage of the -1 to saves immediately.

Concerning the inspire courage bonus: I was doubting myself for a bit, whether damage equal to my Wis modifier without any variable dice component would constitute a "damage roll", but I think it might.

It does say "damage roll" and not just "damage," doesn't it? It probably maybe shouldn't, but I already said it did this time so I'll stick with it. Odds are the one point won't end up mattering anyway in the long run.

I went ahead and rolled the AoO for Gellius, as I figured it would make a difference to Darla and Aronida's actions if they had a live enemy in line of sight or not.

Aronida, are you still with us?

I'm very sorry, the past couple weeks have been a mess. I am back and will try to stay more on top of things.

Hi Joana. Can I strike the Boggard from where I am?

It has cover from you where you are due to the intervening wall. A Step to J17 will give you a clear line of effect.

Glad you're still with us, Ever_Anon, and I hope you're feeling better.

I neglected to recap Darla's last turn which led to me forgetting to include inspire courage in the active effects. It hasn't made a difference to anyone's Will save so far, but I subtracted an additional 2 points of damage from Mroapp (for Gellius's hits) and 1 from Grettch, for Gethric's.

EDIT: Actually, make that 2 from Grettch. It looks like you applied the -1 penalty from Frightened to the damage roll, Mark, which I believe is neither a check nor a DC.

Indeed - I did throw the penalty on damage. I think PRD was having conniptions when I put through the roll and I couldn't do a quick cross check so erred on the side of caution. Appreciate the correction :)

Gellius (Will save 1d20 + 5 + 1 ⇒ (13) + 5 + 1 = 19: success)

Thanks, Joana. I forgot that while looking up how to escape. Sorry.

I know that it's probably not in the rule book

Actually, it is! But it requires a slashing weapon.

The second Strike hits the boggard's AC though, so no reason it can't damage him.

Because bards' contributions to the battle sometimes disappear into the math, I'm going to point out that Revka's ray of enfeeblement would have missed without the +1 from inspire courage and her crit success vs. Terrifying Croak would have been only a success, so way to go, Darla!

All of the +1 to damages (+2 on a crit) are probably adding up to the occasional one-round earlier victories too.

I almost missed that Aronida's last two attack rolls were natural 20s. :)

Profession Smith, I'm at least three Terrifying Croaks late to noticing this, but Darla can cast counter performance as a reaction to an auditory or visual effect that the party has to save against and everyone can take the better of her Performance roll or their own save roll. It costs a focus point, but I believe you have two in your pool and can Refocus for 10 minutes after an encounter to get one focus point back. It's a tool in your toolbox, and I don't want you not to use it just because it's slipped your mind (as it has mine).

It doesn't matter now, but I am curious - I had wanted to spend an action to push Revka behind me and another to step into her space. Is it possible to exchange places with a willing person like that using two actions, do you think?

With rolls like that it's no wonder Gellius is so overconfident. ;)

(And fingers crossed Darla's +1 has caused another crit...maybe ?)

He always has the crit-fails on Recall Knowledge rolls to keep him humble. ;)

Ah yeah..those blue dragons. :(

Sorry for the delay, but I'm at a loss for what to do.

@Joana: Do those of us in the other room even know what befell Gellius?

From Darla's position in the main room, she couldn't see the end of the corridor. She'd be aware he must have gone into the room at the end of the hall because of the light going with him, and she'd know that Aronida and Revka are attacking an enemy in the corridor; but she probably couldn't know at this point that he was unconscious.

(I don't know; maybe there was a Wilhelm scream or something....)

And ... LEVEL UP! You are now 2nd level. :D

When you get around to updating your profiles, will you please add a section somewhere on the page with your Reactions? It can be just a list, or under a spoiler, but that's the thing I feel like I'm missing sometimes, and they can be hard to locate on a character sheet; I'd appreciate knowing where to look for them when I need them.

Oof, that was close. But yay, level 2! :D

I think I'll go for Reach spell as my class feat, and Continual Recovery as my skill feat. How does that sound, everyone?

I'm afraid I goofed and left me character sheet and CRB at home (I commute to work Mon-Thurs). I'm not terribly good at levelling up via computer, so I'll wait to do that until I get back.

It shouldn't be long though - two or three days. Hopefully nothing dramatic happens. Gellius is a little shook up anyhow. :p

(Joana - am I right that since I used my hero point to save myself from dying I don't gain the wounded condition?)

(Joana - am I right that since I used my hero point to save myself from dying I don't gain the wounded condition?)

You don’t gain the wounded condition or increase its value from losing the dying condition in this way

Oops, I made a mistake. While updating my profile, I checked Continual Recovery again. I had missed that it requires expert in Medicine, which I don't have. I'll have to pick something else, but that means that healing Gellius took a total of three hours. We've earned ourselves quite a break, it seems.

The good news is that Revka can heal other people in the meantime. Anyone else who I should (try to) patch up?

I'm typing with one hand because I have a pinched nerve in my neck and can't use my left arm without a lot of pain. Hoping it's better tomorrow. I'll try to advance the gameplay thread then.

Ouch! Hope you're feeling better soon.

Ouch! Revka would send a good Medicine check your way, if she could!

I'm a bit better. This morning I was miserable; now I'm only uncomfortable.

I see my doctor in the morning, and I'm hoping she'll give me a prescription pain killer. The OTC stuff wears out at least two hours before I can take another dose.

Sending you some distant get well vibes from down-under as well Joana - neck and back pain can be a... well... umm... pain?

Work has been slamming me of late, but I'll jump on the celebrating 2nd level party soon. I feel a bit like a fighter with all these Feats :P

Among them, they had 38 silver coins and 15 gold coins, all minted with unfamiliar devices in an unreadable language. One of the boggards is carrying a small but surprisingly sophisticated sculpted dog which looks to be carved out of onyx.

Have we got any kind of system for tracking loot? I haven't really been thinking about it. :o

Gellius has levelled up (32 hit points!)
I took sudden charge as my fighter feat and assurance (acrobatics) for his skill feat.

I've finished leveling Revka. As a skill feat, I took Recognize spell. Battle medicine was on the table as well, but it didn't really fit my vision of Revka. At least, not yet...

Revka's level-up looks good (except that you haven't edited the level number from 1 to 2), but I'm going to ask something I probably should have asked at 1st-level: How does she get access to the sleep spell? It's definitely Desna-thematic, but I don't see an ability that adds it to the divine spell list; AoN has it as only Arcane and Occult.

Have we got any kind of system for tracking loot? I haven't really been thinking about it. :o

I generally keep a list of found loot on the Campaign Info tab, but I haven't gotten one done yet. I'll pop one over there in a bit.

Steve, Gellius looks good, but you also need to change your level from 1 to 2.

I was kind of expecting level-up to be a bear, but it seems a lot simpler than P1e. I guess it's largely because you don't have to allocate skill points every level.

I was kind of expecting level-up to be a bear, but it seems a lot simpler than P1e. I guess it's largely because you don't have to allocate skill points every level.

Heh. I'm finding it to be somewhat bearish. Mainly from remembering to add a +1 to everything that has a proficiency.

Darla's partly updated. I was having a problem with the "You've backtracked too far" error message, which wiped out whatever I'd just updated. I think I've just got a skill feat to choose and updating skills that she's proficient in.

Still plugging away....

Joana wrote:

I was kind of expecting level-up to be a bear, but it seems a lot simpler than P1e. I guess it's largely because you don't have to allocate skill points every level.

Heh. I'm finding it to be somewhat bearish. Mainly from remembering to add a +1 to everything that has a proficiency.

Well, that's true. But at least everything goes up together vs. adding ranks to some skills and not others.

I was having a problem with the "You've backtracked too far" error message, which wiped out whatever I'd just updated.

Ugh, that has been bad lately. Every time I submit a post and then decide to change something, I've been getting that. If I leave the thread and come back, it's usually okay, but staying on the screen and trying to edit almost always kicks me out.

It doesn't matter now, but I am curious - I had wanted to spend an action to push Revka behind me and another to step into her space. Is it possible to exchange places with a willing person like that using two actions, do you think?

I was waiting to do a little research on this question and never got back to you. It sounded to me like something that might be a Champion schtick, but I didn't run across anything that did exactly this (although I wasn't exhaustive and could have missed it).

As written, I don't think there's an action that lets you do something like this against an enemy, since you can't move someone with Grab like you could with Grapple and there's no Reposition maneuver. Shove/Push limit you to pushing someone away from you.

Seems like it would have to be three actions: Interact (pick up), Interact (move item), and Stride/Step. Which isn't terribly satisfying either.

Revka's level-up looks good (except that you haven't edited the level number from 1 to 2), but I'm going to ask something I probably should have asked at 1st-level: How does she get access to the sleep spell? It's definitely Desna-thematic, but I don't see an ability that adds it to the divine spell list; AoN has it as only Arcane and Occult.

Thanks for catching that. I've fixed the level number.

As for the sleep spell. Desna grants the sleep spell as one of her deity benefits, as far as I could tell. https://2e.aonprd.com/Deities.aspx?ID=5

Your deity also adds spells to your spell list. You can prepare these just like you can any spell on the divine spell list, once you can prepare spells of their level as a cleric. Some of these spells aren’t normally on the divine list, but they’re divine spells if you prepare them this way.

Okay, thanks. I know you already had the spell when we started so I was sure there was someplace it was coming from that I was aware of before, but I wasn't finding it. I was looking under the domain rather than the deity.

Steve Geddes wrote:

It doesn't matter now, but I am curious - I had wanted to spend an action to push Revka behind me and another to step into her space. Is it possible to exchange places with a willing person like that using two actions, do you think?

I was waiting to do a little research on this question and never got back to you. It sounded to me like something that might be a Champion schtick, but I didn't run across anything that did exactly this (although I wasn't exhaustive and could have missed it).

As written, I don't think there's an action that lets you do something like this against an enemy, since you can't move someone with Grab like you could with Grapple and there's no Reposition maneuver. Shove/Push limit you to pushing someone away from you.

Seems like it would have to be three actions: Interact (pick up), Interact (move item), and Stride/Step. Which isn't terribly satisfying either.

Thanks. It’s a clunky part of any turn based system really.

I think (at our table, not for PBP) I might try something like requiring interact+step for the mover and the use of their reaction for the ‘movee”. I like the idea of leaving the mover a single action, plus modelling the consent/involvement of the movee in some small but meaningful way.

I think (at our table, not for PBP) I might try something like requiring interact+step for the mover and the use of their reaction for the ‘movee”. I like the idea of leaving the mover a single action, plus modelling the consent/involvement of the movee in some small but meaningful way.

Ooh, I like the idea of using the Reaction. I hadn't thought outside the 3-action paradigm.

As you say, turn-based mechanics make it hard for players to coordinate movement fluidly. That's one thing I still miss from AD&D: the 10-segment round and people's actions falling at different points within it.

At this point in the game, you have cleared out the Bumblebrashers' living areas so they can return to their home, which is what they asked you to do.

If you want to go ahead and explore the parts of the citadel vaults the goblins avoid as too dangerous, you may, of course, do so, or you can go back to the Bumblebrashers and let them know it's safe for them to move back in now.

I think we should go back up to the Bumblebashers to let them know of the progress, then head back down to investigate further about the Cinderclaws.

(I noticed Revka had already made the last ingame post, but I just wanted to weigh in on where to go next.)