Please check in for the table by providing the following:
Player Name:
Character Name:
PFS ID#:
Faction:
Progess (Standard or Slow):
Day Job Roll (if applicable):
We've got a while before we start but feel free to ask any questions here or talk about your characters in the meantime...
I'll be posting some guidelines for how I do things and whatnot in the next day or two.
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Thanks for the run!
Player: Pete H.
Character Name: Hamish the Bard
Character Level: 7th (Bard 6 / Fighter 1)
PFS #: 123584-2
Faction: Dark Archives
Day Job: Forego to check off another box of Seasoned Archivist boon
Progression (Slow/Standard): Standard
Notes: As the session starts, Hamish will purchase a Snapleaf for 2 Prestige Points. After the session Hamish will be retraining his level in Fighter and grabbing another level in Bard. Unless my calculations are off, that should cost 7 Prestige Points and 490 gold to do.
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Day Job Day Job Sleight of Hand: 1d20 + 20 ⇒ (8) + 20 = 28
Dayjob exceeded DC 19 so I will check off a box on my "Corporate Espionage" boon and will also make a Rebellion Leader: Smuggle Goods check to triple my gains for this scenario (Total: 50gp x 3 = 150gp for this scenario)
Skivven also has the Unparalleled Supplier boon which lets the table reroll a total of 7 dmg dice per day (i.e. if you roll a 5d6 fireball with five 1s, you can reroll all 5 dice, and later if you roll low an a 2d6dmg spell or weapon attack, you could reroll those 2 dice as well, i.e. 7 dmg dice total)
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A Shoanti man with broad shoulders and tribal tattoos stands motionless in the room and looks at you intently.
When he starts speaking with a thick Shoanti accent and deep voice the satisfaction to be able to compete is clearly evident.
"A test of blood and sweat awaits us and I am ready for it! I will enjoy this mission if the rage in my heart can meet the cunning of the plane of air. My name is Crowe! And you should be happy to have me with you - the gods blessed me with primal energies of air that no one can stop ... especially not the enemies of the Society!"
Hearing a Shoanti accent being used in the next banquet room over, a room reserved for a gnomish bar mitzvah party, Shonne peeks in to investigate, and sees Crowe standing amid forest of pointy red caps.
She shrugs, and closes the door again.
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I'm getting strong hints from the GM that a frontal assault is a big, bad idea! :)
Sounds like we must first sneak in and sever the connection the beast has to the artifacts to de-power the beast before we attempt to fight it. For those with sneaking problems a good old potion of invisibility for 300gp or a scroll of invisibility for 150gp should do the trick...
I would even add that we ought to seek out those orcs and destroy them as a second step, so that they don't dominate/charm/control the beast against us or the region.
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Tactics discussion: my character has a significant investment in the form of an Eversmoking Bottle (50-ft radius smoke cloud after 1 round and can reach 100-ft radius after 5 rounds; totally obscuring vision but with no other harmful effect) and a Goz Mask which allows him to see through that smoke.
I thought I'd run that by the group to discuss in which circumstances you'd be ok with Skivven using this tactic; he has several feats/abilities/items which enhances his sniping abilities, but I don't want to spoil anyone's enjoyment of the game as smoke can prevent your PCs from targeting enemies with spells and ranged weapons. This smoke tactic doesn't affect melee folks as much, and it advantages the party when they have lots of attacks against one strong foe which may have one or at least less attacks than the party.
I will let the GM decide what 'totally obscuring vision' means: some GMs treat it like a fog cloud (20% miss chance within 5-ft instead of the full 50% total concealment 'totally obscuring vision' would get). I'm fine with either interpretation, and personally think treating it like a fog cloud probably makes more sense (it's already 50-ft. radius instead of 20-ft. radius, so to me it's already good enough)
PS: you can assume Skivven has discussed this capability with the party before they set out for the mission; this way, if the majority doesn't want Skivven to use it in a way that will impact them, he won't, but the knowledge of these toys is in their mind in case they wish for Skivven to hit the big red button and provide blanket concealment for the party (let's say, if things go bad, or if stealth is required to.. infiltrate... yesssssssssssssss :P )
PS2: Skivven's magic bag also contains a variety of camouflage blankets for every terrain. They are large 10'x10' blankets that can provide concealment for the whole party, if they wish to use stealth in most environments.
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Other than hoping for a really, really big map, Shonne doesn't have any way to deal with an eversmoking bottle other than to move away from it, which is usually fine, as she can move really fast.
I had promised a post with some talk about how I like to run games.
I will post at least once a day, and expect the same of you. During RP/social times I will try to give at least a day for everyone to have their chance to have input before moving forward. During combat, I will post as frequently as I can as it is necessary. I run combat in block initiative (ie all the good guys that go before any bad guys go at the same time, and same for enemies). I will resolve things in the order they are posted, unless otherwise stated you are waiting for another characters actions. I'll put up the next post moving things forward around lunchtime.
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Other than hoping for a really, really big map, Shonne doesn't have any way to deal with an eversmoking bottle other than to move away from it, which is usually fine, as she can move really fast.
Ok then: if I use it I'll try to be away from the group or do so from an elevated location.
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Other than hoping for a really, really big map, Shonne doesn't have any way to deal with an eversmoking bottle other than to move away from it, which is usually fine, as she can move really fast.Ok then: if I use it I'll try to be away from the group or do so from an elevated location.
I concur with this, it looks like most of the group is ranged. Only Crowe and Hamish appear to be melee, which is a bit of a pleasant surprise unless we get into really tight quarters.
Sounds good GM.
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Feel free to ask any more questions.
Shonne walks up to a woman who plainly smells of cat urine and....
;)
You have time to do some more shopping if you'd like, and discuss your plan for approaching the bastion.
Do we have a map (even a rough one) of the Bastion of Light, possibly in town or temple records?
We should probably find, and scout the orcs' encampment to see what we will be up against. We might use them to run interference against the monster and vice versa.
If we have the time, and the town is large enough, Shonne might purchase a useful scroll, or two and transcribe them.
Gorm gave you an old map, which can be found in the slides linked where stat lines usually are for PCs.
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Player: miteke
Character Name: Solstice Rain
Character Level: 8th
PFS #: 141936-8
Faction: Sovereign Court
Day Job: [dice=perform sing]1d20+15
Progression (Slow/Standard): Standard
Solstice is actually level 9. I had it misprinted in one section of my character sheet. Hope that does not mess up any math.
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If you feel like you want to save the spell-like ability, Shonne has message (CL 8) as one of her wizard cantrips.lolIn response, Shonne nods once.
Wayfinder does it at will, and lasts 50min. But I think it's a good idea if you do it too, as you could initiate your own messages and enable full 2-way communication (right now, you can only reply to Skivven's messages)
Sorry - yesterday was busy at work for me. Will have an update up in the next hour or two.
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Moving the discussion to Discussion
Solstice is staying away from burning the higher level spells if a lower level one will do. I think Monkeyfish would do the trick and be a bit more cinematic too.
But speaking of haste and invisibility, Solstice cast both before the chase started. Then again maybe she never got her haste spell off or maybe it ran out before the chase scene started. Are they active and do they have any effect and how many chase scenes would they last? Is each scene a round? In a chase you can do anything that takes a standard action and that applies, right? No full round actions?
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Can't speak for the GM here but you know that haste will give you a speed of 90ft. so quarter mile being 1,320 ft, and since you can't run while flying, you will cover the following ground while invisible (assuming you got both spell off at the beginning, which is a fair assumption since the beast was busy with arrows and smoke):
8 hasted rounds at 90ft speed, double moving: 90ft x 2 x 8 = 1,440 ft.
...which is enough for you to avoid the entire chase and leave us behind.
I have no idea if the monster can see you while invisible, but even if it can, all it will see is the back of you zooming out at warp speed while the rest of us flee using smoke, crates and other fun things.
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Not to speak for the GM but...
All of the hasted creature’s modes of movement (including land movement, burrow, climb, fly, and swim) increase by 30 feet, to a maximum of twice the subject’s normal speed using that form of movement. This increase counts as an enhancement bonus, and it affects the creature’s jumping distance as normal for increased speed.
So it makes her as swift as Shonne who is using:
This spell increases your base land speed by 30 feet.
Typically in a chase this would give you a +6 to every check you make directly related to overcoming an obstacle in a chase because...
... For every 10 feet faster than the baseline speed [30'] he moves, he gains a cumulative +2 bonus on these checks.
Most chases have a set path or paths so usually you can't avoid the obstacles completely even in the case of a bunch of boxes blocking a road. Saying "I just go around them" usually get you a "There are a lot of boxes." in response. So the bonus it there to explain that with great speed you can make it though the room full of poison gas (+6 to your Fort save because of haste) because of your speed.
Chases are meant to be theatrical and sometimes there's stuff that doesn't make sense (like how you can skip obstacles by rolling really well). Time is hard to judge as most of a person's movement might be taken up by dodging swinging bladed pendulums. Were this a nice flat track, Shonne at present could run a whole mile in under two minutes with her 55 lb. load out. The chase may not even be the whole quarter mile, and/or parts of it might just be just prolonged stretches of running (Fortitude saves and Con checks), or maybe it's real long and there's a part of it that takes place in a mine like in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom only the GM knows for sure. ;)
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Since we are discussing this I'll throw in my 2 cents.
Yeah, it's a lot to figure out especially since pathfinder writers love to take an existing set of rules (like a chase) and then completely change it for a scenario, creating special rules and negating normal chase things.
I think I've literally done more chase-adjacent activities than official chase activities in my time as a pathfinder.
A lot of those chase adjacent encounters present two options, require a certain number of successes from the group to pass and then move the entire group onto the next obstacle (recording it as a pass or fail). Then depending on how we do overall there can be consequences or benefits at the end.
A chase in the rule book has each player and the enemy attempting to move past the obstacles which are presented as tiles. Fail and you don't move. Succeed, move to the next. Try both and succeed on both attempts and jump forward three tiles.
Then you have modifiers from speed (which usually apply to most chase activities) and spells, which vary greatly in how useful they can be. Some negate an obstacle, some grant a bonus, some do nothing.
My personal thoughts are that chases are just frustrating for all involved. It's just a fancy and overly complicated way of doing a set of skill checks.
Running a Chase in the Game Mastery Guide if anyone wants to peruse that set of rules that involve the cards (which may not be what we are actually doing here, lol).
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Hamish pretty much nailed it on the head. I'm not a fan of unclear rules, so I'll just describe how this particular chase-adjacent event works.
There are a number of obstacles that you face as you make your way towards the bastion - for each one, I'll take the highest check and apply any other actions as assists - then it gets recorded as either a success or a fail. Once you make it to the bastion, the number of successes you get will affect some things later on in the scenario.
If you want to use your haste spell, I'll say it gives the +6 bonus to everyone for the first four obstacles. Feel free to retcon the casting and save for later if you want. For Shonne, your expeditious retreat will work for the entirety of this encounter.
During a normal chase, I'd just post the chase card for everyone to track, but since we aren't really tracking everyone's location it seems unnecessary.
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Almost to herself, Solstice mutters "Have you ever noticed how folks feel justified, even enthusiastic about killing orcs? I wonder if they might have been able to be convinced to help us in our mission. Oh well! They do tend to be a bit of a problem. Most of the time."
I think you are completely right! :-D
With any other character I would never have attacked. Maybe even intervened. But Crowe is Crowe... ;-)
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Thank you! your bloodrager ain't so bad himself! :)
For Skivven, the word is: hide. Let Crowe be the hero! :)
Built him for stealth and added range options after a few early low level melee close calls. He can do melee, but basically as a last resort, as I found out early that melee seems to always be bad for rogues! :P
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Earlier levels... maybe level 4 or 5 when I got "Major Magic: Vanish" -- I got all cocky like I had achieved some kind of capstone or something, turned invisible, GM gave me a surprise round, so I walked up to a really nasty monster, waited for Round 1 to unleash my full attack with sneak attack for each of my claw, claw, bite, tail attacks (I had a high initiative), unleashed, missed a bunch of attacks (only one went through I think... FF AC was high due to armor and natural bonuses to AC)...
...so here I was, alone with the APL+2 CR boss while the party was still in the hallway.
Round 2 was full withdraw at 1 hit point I think...
Learned my lesson! :)
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Zzorn is a jock, follower of Kurgess and obsessed with fame and nobility. He's basically how I'd envision a good-hearted super rich pro sports player that is constantly trying to improve, in a cartoony kind of way, his reputation and image for when the time comes to retire from sports to become some kind of public figure.
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My -1, Kramac, is an inquisitor of Kurgess!
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We should have Zzorn and Kramac do a classic Marvel Team-Up. That issue would sell bucket loads! ;)
PS: Zzorn has a bit of catching up to do before he can join the Justice League though... he's still kinda officially working with the Titans, despite his age, but when his level gets close to Kramac-type levels, he fully expects an invitation written on the Batcave's official letterhead. :)
Sorry - busy day today. Will get an update up tomorrow morning.
Reporting for the game needs to happen on Monday - please roll a d20 - on a 19 or 20 you get a boon! If you get one, please also roll a d3 to determine which one.
Monday morning, I will roll for anyone that has not rolled already in character name alphabetical order, with myself rolling last.