GM Xavier Kahlvet's Strange Aeons 2e

Game Master KingTreyIII

As a self-identified Rules Lawyer I don’t always like to do this, but this was just too ridiculous for me to not intervene. House rule time:

Daze’s heightening is “+1,” not “+2.”

That is all.

Updated the sanity living document:

Clarified that the confidante/therapist/etc. also needs to spend a week of downtime to assist the "patient."

Added some wording so that Cha.-Dumpers aren't screwed.

Clarified wording that a creature can benefit from both resting and help from a confidant/therapist/etc. during the same week of downtime.

Added the following sentence to restoration for this campaign:

A creature can benefit from only one restoration spell each week to reduce the DC of the same exposure to a given madness.

Changed the therapist benefits for reducing a madness's DC to be more beneficial to the patient.

Past sanity threshold from starting this fight, no further from spoiler, correct (or is it half)?. Raise Shield, Strike, Step. As much as I want to rage, not having armor and using Red Destiny (more painful penalties and only half the bonuses) gives me pause.

A basic save means that on a crit Success (which you got), you take nothing. Also, here’s an obligatory reminder that AoOs aren’t universal, so you didn’t necessarily NEED to Step.

I thought about striding, but in this small room there is nowhere to go. I doubt there is anywhere Urzok could stride to that the foe couldn't just follow with a single stride. Stepping and striding both take one action, without armor I'd rather spend the actions for taking fewer attacks.

Hero Points reset in a week.

Also, tomorrow is the start of PaizoCon Online and today is actually my birthday, so…I make no promises about posting consistently this week.

Happy birthday! Enjoy!

Happy Birthday!

Seems I was looking in all the wrong places! Thanks for the link.

That little mirror came all the way from briarstone, in some random loot pile.

Wow. Apparently flaming sphere is a lot worse than I thought; the very last sentence of the spell is that if the creature succeeds at the Reflex save then it takes no damage, not half.

Right. I like it for the ability to keep having it (potentially) pester an enemy while I do other things. Tradeoffs.

Right. I like it for the ability to keep having it (potentially) pester an enemy while I do other things. Tradeoffs.

Yeah, but I just didn't notice that and have been rolling regular basic saves for the revenant. Welp, you guys reap the rewards of my lack of knowledge on that one.

So, since it matters this round I looked more closely at my movement options for the flaming sphere...

Flaming Sphere wrote:

On subsequent rounds, you can Sustain this Spell, leaving the sphere in its square or rolling it to another square within range and dealing 3d6 fire damage; each creature in its square must attempt a basic Reflex save.

I'm taking "within range" to mean 30' from Jevar's self, similar to the original casting of the spell. Meaning, that if Jevar moves first, he can move the ball further. This is interesting because I never see any verbiage about the fireball needing to always remain within 30' (e.g., or it ends or he can't control it until the proximity is restored). Stop me if you take issue with this interpretation. I'm not sure how else one could, except maybe 30' range from the ball's starting position any round (e.g., that it has a "speed" instead... except it really doesn't read this way).

Related discussion: Flaming Sphere travel distance Question -Reddit

Separately, it hadn't occurred to me that there's not actually a limit on the Sustain a Spell action, so one could perform it up to three times per round, causing damage (e.g., with a flaming sphere) each time:
* You can use the Sustain a Spell action multiple times per turn -Reddit
* Still no word on sustaining flaming sphere multiple times a round? -Reddit

I agree with link #1, as long as it’s within 30’ of the caster then it’s fine. EDIT: To put it another way: if at any point the sphere is NOT within 30’ of the caster, the sphere disappears.

As for links #2 and #3, until that gets officially clarified, I’m going to go on a case-by-case basis. In the case of flaming sphere: you can only Sustain that particular casting of the spell once per round.

I agree with link #1, as long as it’s within 30’ of the caster then it’s fine. EDIT: To put it another way: if at any point the sphere is NOT within 30’ of the caster, the sphere disappears.

That second part is not as clear to me. Is there some other rule basis (about ranges in general) that causes this? I don't actually see a statement of a range needing to be "fine" in the spell. (I'm not finding anything). You cast it up to 30' away, and then at any point you sustain to move it ending 30 or less away.

GM Xavier Kahlvet wrote:

I agree with link #1, as long as it’s within 30’ of the caster then it’s fine. EDIT: To put it another way: if at any point the sphere is NOT within 30’ of the caster, the sphere disappears.

That second part is not as clear to me. Is there some other rule basis (about ranges in general) that causes this? I don't actually see a statement of a range needing to be "fine" in the spell. (I'm not finding anything). You cast it up to 30' away, and then at any point you sustain to move it ending 30 or less away.

If I'm being honest, that was more just me making a GM interpretation so I didn't have to go down rabbit holes. Because contemplating the implications of being 500 feet away from a flaming sphere and in one action just saying "and now it moves faster than the speed of sound to get to right next to me" starts us down a baaaaad path. The moment we go down rabbit holes is the moment that we no longer see the sun and say that 999 coins weigh nothing but one more and you collapse.

That was basically a really long-winded way of saying that I'm an engineer and the mathematical implications of the physics of spells make my head hurt, so....let's just call out rule zero and not even deal with it to the logical extreme.

Lol, it could be abused yes. That's not where I was headed. In my case it's as simple as having to believe that the sphere and Jevar moved in parallel so that the distance remained within 30' (if we're holding to that). RAW can't always avoid the implausible but it's honestly not horrible here at small scales (say Jevar's move and the sphere had been on different turns).

Jevar visibly huffs and puffs as he jogs to keep up.

Wow, I hope that nobody I've killed comes back at me like this. Vicious!

[[A]] Stride 25'
[[A]] Stride 25'

He finally gets just to the far corner of the building where he sees the revenant standing over Urzok, and lobs his alchemical bomb at it.

[[A]] Ranged strike: bottled lightning
[dice=Bomb attack, electricity damage, electricity splash damage]1d20+9;1d6; 1
On hit: flat-footed until start of Jevar's next turn.

nomo flaming sphere. Nine rounds of use isn't bad for one casting.

I’m just going to say this: if you would’ve hit with that bomb, the splash damage Urzok would take would kill him (any damage done to a dying creature increases their dying value), and you do zero damage if you crit-fail the attack roll, so...putting aside the metagame knowledge that you just rolled a nat 5, I’m going to ask that you rethink your turn, Jevar.

Hrm, yeah I didn't consider that. One problem I had with another round of flaming sphere is that it *could* get to the revenant again, but just barely and out of Jevar's sight. Is that okay?

Hrm, yeah I didn't consider that. One problem I had with another round of flaming sphere is that it *could* get to the revenant again, but just barely and out of Jevar's sight. Is that okay?

Well, the fight’s over, so it really doesn’t matter. But for the record if you just switched the Strike with a Sustain then it would’ve been fine.

Jevar Shadowmantle wrote:

[[A]] Ranged strike: bottled lightning

Apologies, I hadn't realized that the splash would advance urzok a whole stage. So instead...

Jevar's arm is about to let the bottled lightning lose when Shakur and his dagger fly by.

The wizard quickly stows it away and rushes over to urzok to help with the healing.

Applying three minor elixirs of life to Urzok.
[dice=Elixir of life (minor)]1d6
[dice=Elixir of life (minor)]1d6
[dice=Elixir of life (minor)]1d6

As he's pouring the vials down Urzoks throat he frowns and softly appeals to Shakur. I'm quite certain he didn't intend for this outcome.

I presume those elixirs are from your alchemist Advanced Alchemy stuff and not something actually in the inventory?

I presume those elixirs are from your alchemist Advanced Alchemy stuff and not something actually in the inventory?

Correct, I try to make that clear both:

1. in my profile where I show how my reagent batches are used for the day
2. in my status line where you can see them being used up (and a usage marker for the remaining batch that I can use with Quick Alchemy).

Fair enough. For clarity's sake, could you just include "infused" with those die rolls that say "elixir of life healing" or whatever so that I know that I don't have to mark something off of the sheet? The word "infused" means that it's from your alchemist shenanigans.

Yes, will do. and it would be particularly important if I were to hand one to a party member who was going to walk away with it and use it hours later (before next day prep).

GM, now that a Revenant isn't trying to kill him, can Urzok try to use his knowledge religion to know if we need to do something about the corpse? Also, he'd want to know if this Revenant rising is because he is cursed or something (and therefore should be expecting more Revenants to jump us in the middle of the night) or if this is more of a one time incident (not that I'd take it as a promise that we'll never fight one again, of course). Finally, he'd want to know more about how these things are formed. Iirc, the only information Urzok actually knows (based on what was shared) is that it is because he killed some guy and the guy was mad about it (which doesn't make any sense to him since he's pretty sure nothing he's killed was happy about it).

As a self-identified Rules Lawyer I don’t always like to do this, but this was just too ridiculous for me to not intervene. House rule time:

Daze’s heightening is “+1,” not “+2.”

That is all.

I've thought this over significantly—including some forum searching and mathematical analyses—and I’d like to rescind this house rule. It may seem really crappy, but mathematically speaking it's actually really balanced.

Ok, I took a crack at Urzok's downtime! Hopefully that therapist gets him to where he no longer has it, but based on the rolls... I doubt it -_- When we get to increase our ability scores, DEFINITELY investing into charisma!

Okay, so now it's truly downtime time. Interesting, you stated the number of days, is that something we should know vs. a planned activity being interrupted? (I know that's asking for the opposite of a favor, but curious).

You all have 28 days (4 weeks) of downtime. The same downtime activities from before are available as well as spending a week resting to reduce a madness’s DC and meeting with a confidante, therapist, etc. to also reduce your madness’s DC (both of which can be done during the same week of downtime, by the way). For simplicity’s sake, you all can hire a professional therapist that’s level 5 for one week for 18 gp (paid at the end of the week); this therapist’s Medicine bonus is +13 (if you want to hire a lower-leveled therapist, I’ll have to ad hoc something together, but this is the highest level therapist that you can find in town, so I thought I’d give you that number). And because you all have Shakur and it’s going to be 28 days, for simplicity’s sake I’m just going to say that the DCs of everyone’s madnesses are reduced by 8 due to weekly castings of restoration, and everyone’s sanity returns to max from the way-too-many daily castings of restoration.

Jevar After 4 days of downtime, Jevar develops the Dissociated Identity madness, which imposes a -3 status penalty on Wis.-based checks and DCs (including Will saves). The madness’s DC is 18 (10 after Shakur’s four weekly castings of restoration to reduce the DC), just so you have a number to plan around your downtime days of seeing a shrink for..

At a high-level, Jevar's goal is:

So starting at #1 and ensuring I comprehended the sanity system and your recovery explanation correctly...

Is Shakur's constant restoration castings getting us to healed sanity without spending all of those weeks resting and consulting with a therapist or is that separately required? The question is: does sanity healing knock out those days entirely for other downtime activities.

Separately, Jevar has a madness, does he get to roll immediately on day 4 to get rid of it (and which point I might just burn a hero point to make it more likely). Does *this* separately require downtime rest for those saves to even be possible?

Shakur's sanity will be fully healed from Shakur's daily restorations. Don't bother spending downtime days healing sanity; worry about the madnesses. The therapist for sanity damage is if you don't want to use magic. Simply put: don't worry about it.

You also already rolled a save (when you encountered the Tatterman) and failed, so you contracted the madness (it just had an onset period). If you spend downtime resting (with or without a therapist), then you make a save against the madness to try and reduce the DC.

And about the interrupted thing: yeah, you are technically interrupted by the next event after 28 days, but through the power of convenience and suspension of disbelief, use the metagame knowledge that you have 28 days to plan around.

Okay, so then I did understand that right. Just wanted to be sure I wasn't making a convenient assumption about the sanity recovery.

On madness, the DC reduction appears to be CHA based, which for Jevar isn't that great, so it seems it's best for him to moreso rely on the DC reduction from Shakur's continuous treatment (much more substantial: -8 rather than the -4 Jevar would get spending his entire four weeks -- bleh).

So with that, onto #'s 2 (if Jevar is being helpful to the team :P) and #3.

Urzok What weapon did you want that rune transferred to? And I presume you're footing the 3.5gp up-front cost, and any leftover after the successful craft check.

GM It looks like per typical crafting process, the first check after 1 day doesn't *complete* the process, but gets you to the point where you can pay down the rest or the crafter spends time to reduce or eliminate that cost. So, 3.5gp is the up-front, and that much more would be required after (or else days of crafting). is that correct?

This becomes interesting because it is then a question of Urzok's gold vs. Jevar's time (wherein we'll figure out what's reasonable).

On madness, the DC reduction appears to be CHA based, which for Jevar isn't that great, so it seems it's best for him to moreso rely on the DC reduction from Shakur's continuous treatment (much more substantial: -8 rather than the -4 Jevar would get spending his entire four weeks -- bleh).

Note: You can (and should) do both during the same week of downtime like what Urzok did in his post. It may not be much in the long run, but an extra -1 can go quite a ways.

GM It looks like per typical crafting process, the first check after 1 day doesn't *complete* the process, but gets you to the point where you can pay down the rest or the crafter spends time to reduce or eliminate that cost. So, 3.5gp is the up-front, and that much more would be required after (or else days of crafting). is that correct?

Yes, but as I said here, I ruled that you can’t spend additional days to further reduce the cost of transferring a rune (and specifically transferring a rune). Like I said there, there’s a lot of debate about it on the forums, so I just decided to make a ruling. BUT if we were doing it like that, then the “up-front” would actually be half of that (so 1.75 gp), then you could choose to spend the other half to finish it then and there, or use more downtime days to basically get a discount on it.

Also, something I’d like to mention to everyone: as it’s written both here and here, you cannot use fortune effects (such as Hero Points) to modify downtime rolls.

Note: You can (and should) do both during the same week of downtime like what Urzok did in his post. It may not be much in the long run, but an extra -1 can go quite a ways.

I see. Just wanted to be certain that doubling up with rest and another activity was okay.

Yes, but as I said here, I ruled that you can’t spend additional days to further reduce the cost of transferring a rune (and specifically transferring a rune). Like I said there, there’s a lot of debate about it on the forums, so I just decided to make a ruling. BUT if we were doing it like that, then the “up-front” would actually be half of that (so 1.75 gp), then you could choose to spend the other half to finish it then and there, or use more downtime days to basically get a discount on it.

Got it. So 1 day and 3.5gp it is. I'll try the check over in gameplay.

Thanks! After that I'll move onto the next crafting goal.

Jevar begins surprising the group from timing to time, speaking as somebody else. Someone more excitable, who doesn't know Oreb, it's quite disturbing.

After one week of rest during downtime...
[dice=Will, madness, DC18]1d20+9-3

Not...entirely sure what you're waiting on there, Jevar; you've still got another 15 days to go through; and you know what the DC that you're working with is, so you know that your 22 is a success.

Additionally, you can go to a therapist (or confidante or whatever) during that week of rest to increase the DC reduction; you can do both at the same time.

Not waiting on anyone else, just haven't had time to plan/post the rest of my days, and I'd planned for some crafting to coincide with the madness rest.

Are the others not doing downtime and we're just waiting on me?

Jevar, Urzok will pay for all the transferal costs! Just let me know what the bill is and I'll account for it. The runes from Red Destiny will be going onto his new Cold Iron Longsword.

GM, re your spoiler, that's really cool! I think that's a really useful system for running the game. Often I find when GM's have to do some napkin math for DC's, it ranges from easier than it should to essentially impossible. For the therapist, 18gp shelled out individually is a significant clarification (again, wasn't sure if it was something we could split if we all needed or not). Urzok can only afford the first week of it (I don't think there is a mechanical effect though since both were fails).

GM: Understanding that scrolls for common 2nd-level spells should be generally available, is there any access to wizards who Jevar could learn spells from at any less than the face value of scrolls?

After that (eligible sources to learn from), I'll be using magical shorthand:

You can use downtime to learn and inscribe new spells. This works as if you were using Earn Income with the tradition’s associated skill, but instead of gaining money, you choose a spell available to you to learn and gain a discount on learning it, learning it for free if your earned income equals or exceeds its cost.

Nah, I was just curious since you only posted two weeks.

I'd planned for some crafting to coincide with the madness rest.

If I’m understanding what you’re saying here correctly (doing Crafting in the same week as the rest), then I have to inform you that you can’t. “Downtime days” are essentially its own currency—you can either spend it on one thing or the other (the exception being the week of downtime resting [to lower a DC by half your Cha. mod] and the and the week of downtime seeing a therapist [as well as their equivalents for healing sanity damage]). Meaning you can’t do your Magical Shorthand stuff during your week of rest.

GM: Understanding that scrolls for common 2nd-level spells should be generally available, is there any access to wizards who Jevar could learn spells from at any less than the face value of scrolls?

After that (eligible sources to learn from), I'll be using magical shorthand:

Magical Shorthand wrote:

You can use downtime to learn and inscribe new spells. This works as if you were using Earn Income with the tradition’s associated skill, but instead of gaining money, you choose a spell available to you to learn and gain a discount on learning it, learning it for free if your earned income equals or exceeds its cost.

At less than face value of scrolls? Hmm...My gut says to go with the 1e thing of “+50% to scribe,” because it definitely wouldn’t just be free, but you’d be taking it for days, so let’s go with half of the price on this table per day borrowed (so for a 1st level spell it would be 1 gp per day, 2nd would be 3 gp per day, etc.). Quick number crunch says that, assuming you succeed at the Magical Shorthand check (DC 19 since you’re level 4 and that’s the discount you’d be aiming for) you’d be spending slightly less money if you borrowed a wizard’s book than buying a scroll, Assuming you didn’t borrow the book for more than four days (four days is about where purchasing a scroll and borrowing a spellbook meet up). However, I would recommend purchasing a scroll and going with that because a) if you fail the check (a 30% chance with your bonus) then the price for borrowing the book would significantly outweigh the scroll’s cost, and b) Learning a Spell does not use up the scroll, so after your Magical Shorthand stuff you still have a scroll.

TL; DR: Buy a scroll and scribe it; the price is more stable and you’ll still have a scroll afterward.

Update to the living document: Clarified the critical success on healing sanity damage/treating madnesses mundanely so that it is, even at its bare minimum, better than a regular success by changing the wording from "(minimum 1)" to "(minimum 2)"; I will retroactively apply that to Urzok's previous critical success, so his Delirium is now currently at DC 3.

Got it. Fair and fair. That makes my process pretty clear. Give me one more day and I'll make a post exhausting the rest of my downtime days (15), essentially seeing how many spells and formulae I can get through.

Um...Jevar...Magical Shorthand uses YOUR level, not the city’s task level.

And you don’t need to make a check every single day; it’s one check per scroll, then you apply it as “-X per day.”

And you are aware that Jevar still has a really nasty madness, right?

Okay, so then it didn't take the extra days.

The week of rest had a save at the end for madness:

Jevar begins surprising the group from timing to time, speaking as somebody else. Someone more excitable, who doesn't know Oreb, it's quite disturbing.

After one week of rest during downtime...
Will, madness, DC18]1d20+9-3 ⇒ (16) + 9 - 3 = 22

Okay, so the thing that wasn't clear to me is that the DC of madness is sort of like it's "health" or "strength." I didn't think much of reducing the DC because I thought it was still a save you can "make" at some point to just beat the thing. Now knowing this, it appears I need to put in more effort to beat it.

Currently the DC should be at 13 after two weeks. (18 - 2 (shakur) -1 (Jevar one week of rest) -2 (shakur))

Depending on the rolls I'm likely rolling back either one or both of the learned spells.

Modified the mundane madness/sanity healing to do something on a failure by the therapist, because this made me realize that maybe spending a week of downtime with basically nothing to show for it kinda sucks.

Retroactively applying this to both Urzok and Jevar; Urzok is now cured of his delirium and Jevar’s madness is sitting at DC 1.

I've role-played a depressed Shakur for so long I honestly forgot I intended to have him be a bit aloof.

Are we assuming our sanity is all good? As if I used enough restorations to bring everybody back to full? I recall you mentioning something like that, GM. Just wanted to check if that's true.

Are we assuming our sanity is all good? As if I used enough restorations to bring everybody back to full? I recall you mentioning something like that, GM. Just wanted to check if that's true.

Yes. Everyone’s sanity is up to full due to 1d4 sanity healing per day during that month of downtime.

To confirm, Jevar's total downtime bill is:
2 weeks of therapy (level 5, same as urzok's): 36gp
Scroll of enlarge: 12gp
transcribe/learn a spell: 6gp

Total 54:gp

And yes, I love that idea that if the dissociative identity had stuck around that it's swapping personalities with Oreb :) Especially now that (after the retrain) she can't speak. It would have been like she's coming up for air, breaking the fourth wall and referencing her character death :P

Shakur orders the lightest ale available, and likely gets water from Dena anyways. "I've been coming and going for a month, Dena." Shakur says, flabbergasted. "Pharasma, you'd think a man could be forgiven here and there."

He then turns his attention to the game after getting dealt in. "Yeah birdbrain, tell him where we've been." Shakur says, obviously a bit jumpy. The Marriage AND The Twin? Not a bad hand at all.

Shakur plops a card down on the table before blinking for a moment, slowly taking the card back to his hand. "Uhh. Wait. Which....which ruleset are we using? Gathering the Magic or Stonehearth?"

Dang it, that one really got me! XD

Hero Point.

GM, was your post an invitation to ask questions right now, or some time in the future?

GM, was your post an invitation to ask questions right now, or some time in the future?

Yes to both.

Hero Points reset in a week.