GM Deneve's The Fall of Plaguestone (PFS 2e) (Inactive)

Game Master redeux

I don't mind tracking XP. I like to know how close we are to leveling.

I don't mind milestone leveling or tracking XP.

I've moved to milestones for the APs I run, but I'm flexible as a player.

I'm okay either way, so long as expectations are clear.

I don't know how many XP to the next level so even knowing how many XP I have will make level ups a surprise.

The last time I tracked XP was in the 1980s ... only the final strike earned XP and all the different classes needed different XP to level. I assume there have been changes to that system in the past 30 years? :)

(If not, watch out, because Selfish Simon's gonna kill hog!)

Yes, it most definitely changed.

Everyone levels up on reaching 1,000 xp. The counter resets to 0 with each level up. All participants gain the same amount of xp even if you didn't attack an enemy. This means all of you gained 190xp each. I'll find the CRB page regarding this later.

I'll just hide behind a spoiler tag how much xp you've gained for those who want to know.

I am fine with levelling up at @ Milestone or tallying XP, both okay for me.

And here I go, blabbering on about rules again, but I think these questions can be important (sorry if not).
Casting Wall of Text:

• re. Sinan's three action Heal and but I didn't have my holy symbol in my hand.
I imagine your class can substitute your Holy Symbol for the material component (?).
If so, my understanding is that you do not need an extra Interact to retrieve your symbol, or any components.
A material component is a bit of physical matter consumed in the casting of the spell. The spell gains the manipulate trait and requires you to have a free hand to retrieve and manipulate a material component.
That the Material trait takes up an action (you move from 2 to 3 actions for the spell) which is what you use to get something out of your spell component pouch or touch your symbol (and not needing a 4th action to be able to spend this 3rd action).
(this is if you have your symbol somewhere visible and do not have it in your backpack etc.)
But maybe it does not work like that?
I think we should see how our GM rules on this, since it is important to be able to Heal in one round.
(for Pepper, I had the impression that she could heal in one round, by spending 3 actions, one of them being the action to "retrieve & manipulate" the stuff from her spell component pouch).

• re. Simon & Battle Medicine.
Battle Medicine requires no tools (so you do not even need to own healer's tools to use it) and it requires no hands to use (thus you can use it with a sword in one hand a shield in the other, for example).
There has been discussion re. this on the boards, people thinking it needs to be amended to having at least one hand, some two hands etc.. Others saying they RP Battle Medicine as giving your target a kick in the butt: "Shape up, you worm!"
So, of course it's up to the GM to decide how it works here, but the Feat is very simple (it is LIKE Treat Wounds, it is not Treat Wounds).

Also, re. using Battle Medicine, remember that The target is then temporarily immune to your Battle Medicine for 1 day, so, in general, I imagine it is best to keep it for healing in combat vs. out of combat (out of combat you can switch to Treat Wounds etc.).
(and note that it is immune to your Battle Medicine, so one person can received multiple healing from Battle Medicine from different healers, just one from each healer per day).

re. A bandolier can be dedicated to a full set of tools, such as healer’s tools, allowing you to draw the tools as part of the action that requires them.
That means you "draw" the tools for free, as stated here, meaning, that you do your action w/o having to use another action to draw the tools.
It is good for thieves tools for example (action to pick lock w/o an extra action to get the tools out).

For Medicine, the bandolier does not help for Treat Wounds or Treat Disease (seeing how long they take) but can help for Administer First Aid & Treat Poison (which both take 1 Action).

In my head, I've pictured it as retrieving material components like you said, but for a holy symbol it was something more of a pose, so my clerics usually needed to have it in hand (which I usually do anyway).

Battle Medicine will always require one hand free at least in my games.

Edit. @Eric, if you're a fungus leshy, you can't have leaves, branches or even look like a small tree. I had the idea you were a leaf leshy because of your pawn and what we discussed about goodberries. So just to clarify, are you a leaf leshy or a fungus leshy?

Zero hands is unreasonable, although that would certainly be a convenient way for Simon to pretend to be a cleric!

I'm fine with one hand or two.

I had gone with Fungus Leshy to have at least something useful.
But they are too ugly (in my eyes, not wanting to bash any Fungus Leshy players!)
So I'll totally convert to Leaf Leshy (changing my character sheet now - just a couple words to change and Darkvision to remove).

Having useful abilities is overrated. ;)

This is a random observation.

I just noticed that Deerslicer and Simon's names are green, and everyone else is red. Everyone who's green has a page that says "Organized Play character of ..." and everyone who's red says "Alias of ..." Have I got the causation correct - your names are red because they are aliases, while my name is green because it is a character?

When I GM, I post under an alias name "GM Watery Soup" to differentiate official posts from just me. Why are some of you posting under aliases rather than characters?

Correct re. Green and Red as Character and Alias.

I created an Alias because Pepper is not a PFS character.
She is not a PC with an Organized Play number.
When we finish this game, the credit we get will go to one of my PFS PCs.
And I probably will not play Pepper again (even if I re-create her one day if I can play a leshy or whatever).

So, to not mix things up, I keep my regular PFS PCs as characters (green).
And make aliases for other things (campaign characters such as this, NPCs when I GM, various GM aliases for various types of games - PF1, CORE PF1, SFS, PF2...).

A lot of times people create aliases for their animal companions or familiars too.
(I did not do one for Beltza, since the idea was that she was to be rooted on my shoulder thus not too useful).

Barbarians make aliases for when they rage.
That way they just post under that alias and get all their modified stats (and they can have a "calmer" avatar for their PC, and an "angrier" one for their raging self!).

Another "classic" are GMs who have a "BOTTING" avatar.
That they post under when botting characters.

I created an Alias because Pepper is not a PFS character.

She is not a PC with an Organized Play number.
When we finish this game, the credit we get will go to one of my PFS PCs.
And I probably will not play Pepper again (even if I re-create her one day if I can play a leshy or whatever).

Interesting. I didn't even know that was an option!

Interesting. I didn't even know that was an option!

Well, in this case, it is.

What Eric is saying is correct. Plaguestone is not meant to be played with a PFS character. You could, but not everything that you gain will transfer over to the PFS character you decide to apply this chronicle to. Same goes for death, if you die, you whip out a new character, finish the adventure and still get the chronicle sheet without it affecting a PFS character.

Current party health. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Sinan -9hp
Pepper -10hp
Simon
Kunsheng -4hp
Deerslicer
Gamble -5hp

Gracie -3hp

Yeah, Deerslicer is a character I created but haven't played with yet. So I figure I'll play through this with him and then apply credit to him, so I'll start playing with him in PFS as a level 2, with the boons and equipment from this available. Also gives me the opportunity to test out some of his abilities up through level 3 and effectively do a de facto rebuild before he is locked in for PFS.

Gamble should be -2 hp.

19 - 5 - 13 + 16 = 17

Sinan is correct

I have Pepper @6 hp (6/19)

I'm doing what Deerslicer is, but I created a new alias--I wanted to keep the networking benefits from my PFS character off of this one, and wanted to be able to track leveling and equipment separately.

I've also got Kunsheng down 4 HP.

Thank you, current party health is at:

Sinan -9hp
Pepper -6hp
Simon
Kunsheng -4hp
Deerslicer
Gamble -2hp

Gracie -3hp

@Dr. Mono, you asked if there was time for Medicine checks. Yes, there is. Plaguestone was about 30 minutes away from the ambush at the forest.

sweet!

I was struggling with thinking of a good way to put out healing in exploration mode.. spoiler tag is a great idea, Simon!

Also, is there a limit to how often you can use healer's tools? other than the 1/hour on a specific person thing?

There's no limit on the use of the healer's tools, although I will probably have you restock the things from it such as bandages. It's the Treat Wounds action which has the 1 hour cooldown.

So, during the trip:
• the 1st healing by Simon was to Sinan (who is thus healed up)
• the 2nd healing goes to Gamble, is that it? (who is thus also healed up?)
• and no one is taking the 3rd healing? I will have Pepper go for that one, then.

During the 30 minute ride, Pepper will then tend to herself (but cannot), and, if possible look around for some wild berries to use on Gracie and Kunsheng.

Yes, Pepper does find the berries to create goodberries.

Gracie & Kunsheng recover 10 HP each.

Gamble took the third (failed) Treat Wounds by Valor.

It didn't fail, you just didn't believe enough.

@azjauthor, so I double checked and yes, using arrows or any kind of ammunition makes it unrecoverable as it destroys it per CRB. So you wouldn't get those arrows back. Plus they're cheap to buy and easy to craft.

That said, given your class, it makes sense to recover arrows that missed the mark, even if they would be unusable if they struck the ground, trees, etc. So how about we roll a percentile. 45% and under and you salvage the arrow.

If they're unusable, I wouldn't go after them, so no big deal.

Scope
There are about a dozen farmers fighting at the inn. You'll only need to focus on the six of them on the map.

This fight will use an adapted Hazard from Port Peril Pub Crawl.

Difficult Terrain Reminder
Difficult terrain is any terrain that impedes your movement, ranging from particularly rough or unstable surfaces to thick ground cover and countless other impediments. Moving into a square of difficult terrain (or moving 5 feet into or within an area of difficult terrain, if you’re not using a grid) costs an extra 5 feet of movement. Moving into a square of greater difficult terrain instead costs 10 additional feet of movement. This additional cost is not increased when moving diagonally. You can’t Step into difficult terrain.

Movement you make while you are jumping ignores the terrain you’re jumping over. Some abilities (such as flight or being incorporeal) allow you to avoid the movement reduction from some types of difficult terrain. Certain other abilities let you ignore difficult terrain on foot; such an ability also allows you to move through greater difficult terrain at the normal movement cost as for difficult terrain, though it wouldn’t let you ignore greater difficult terrain unless the ability specifies otherwise.

Lethal Bar Fights
Bar fights are rarely to the death, with most combatants just looking to get a few good licks in or knock out their opponents rather than drive up a body count.

Feel free to use nonlethal damage (-2 to atk rolls), improvised weapons (-2 to atk rolls), improvised cover (bonus to AC), etc.

Why are these farmers so deadly!?

...I need GM's dice.

Farmers hit hard because they're strong from all that physical labour, I reckon. And this is a "Moderate" encounter. So you should be wiping the floor with them soon.

@Deerslicer, bar and area behind the bar is not difficult terrain. Hallod is not attacking any of you, he's out there having fun attacking NPCs, but if you want to attack him, go ahead.

@Everyone: Just remember that even though the farmers are hitting hard, they're doing non-lethal damage. So you'd drop unconscious at 0 but not gain the dying condition.

In this context, the only real impact of Hunt Prey is a +1 to my AC. Although if I have to trick him or anything before dawn, I get a bonus to that as well. ;)

@Blake, the only limit to how many times you can use Demoralize is having an action to perform it. There is the temporary immunity as a way to balance it, though.

I forgot to ask you, guys, but could you please fill out the table on the second slide of the combat map?

Filled out the table. I'll be posting now--was working from home today, and actually busier than I am most days I'm physically at work.

With COVID-19, I feel there's more work as of late when working remotely than when being at the office.

I am probably out of work till summer, so a lot more free time.

I worked from home for years, but just switched back to it for this time. You get used to it. The big problem is you have to have set start/end times for work, or else it can just kind of creep over and become never-ending continuous work. If you were at work you'd leave, but since you're at home, you think, "I can answer this one last e-mail" five or six times.

Currently, only Sinan knows its poison as he hasn't shared this with everyone yet.

Kunsheng, Pepper and Valor could also tell its poison if they examine the body, although it's quite obvious to them that it isn't the fault of a lodged turnip as Bort's skin colour has turned a violet purple and Pepper would also know something is amiss as her spell was working, but was being overwhelmed by something else.

Good to know. I'll amend my post

I will take this opportunity to say I'm really enjoying everyone's role play. This was pointed out to me by my wife when she asked me why I was smiling during the various scenes at the Feedmill.

Each of you brings something either in words or actions that make your characters come alive more authentically. Bonds and interactions aren't fully there yet, as you're all still strangers, but so far it's been really fun and interesting to watch you play.

As an FYI, I'm more distracted than I normally am. Aside from the general worry over my family, I'm on the front line of this pandemic locally, and it's taking a mental toll.

Stay safe.

Yes, please stay safe. The same goes for everyone.

Yes... be safe!

Crazy times.
Today I went with my wife to the doctor... and we were so happy she "only" has pneumonia.

I hope your wife recovers quickly. This is not a time to be sick with anything.