(#1-12) "Burden of Envy" (Inactive)

Game Master rainzax

I've added a default exploration tactic to my profile header. It feels a bit awkward to have to decide on something before we know the scene we're going to, but in the past I've picked Society when traveling through the city. Let's stick to that pattern.

Players,
It occurs to me the following players are missing out on their bonus Lore skills, granted by affiliation with their Pathfinder School and Training Networks. See the "Joining Pathfinder Society: Faction, Training, Network Items, and First Boons" resource above the Adventure Tabs. Any Lore skills selected now, and recorded in your Character Profiles, may be used in the Gameplay Post immediately.

Xue "Qīngwā" Kunsheng
Dr. Orris Duftwurtz

Let us know if you have any questions?

Hrm, not sure if you made that lovely overview document or not, but it looks like the 5th level bonus feats for the Scrolls and Spells got mixed up.

And if you did, would you mind if saved a copy and used it in PF2 games I run in the future?

There has been a request for clarification in the current scene - please let me know if this summary serves as such. There are currently 3 social interactions going on:

1) With Themolin, in his office
2) With the male clerk, front desk
3) With the female clerk, front desk

I am waiting for at least one response from each before pushing scene. Let me know if additional clarification is needed (PM or here in Discussion).

Cheers!

Players,
I am participating in PaizoCon this week, starting at midnight. I am anticipating my DM posts to be 25% to 50% slower through the weekend. That said, if I can, I will post at my usual rate - just posting this now to let you all know.

Cheers!

Going to try and sneak a big post in tomorrow.

So, how long are the College group planning on taking at the college? Irimiax and I could meet up after two hours readily, but are you planning on staying for that long or should we try meeting up at a third, different, location?

As a player, I'd prefer to stop splitting the party at some point. We should wait there for you both at the college.

Also sorry for the delayed post. Not sure if anyone was waiting on Zamp.

Will post in tomorrow.

Re: Splitting the Party

I feel this rule is useful 95% of the time. For this moment in the story, I'm going to let it ride, confident we can avoid a situation in which one side sits out while the other has all the fun. That said, as this is the second time, I'm going to honor the request above, and circumvent a potential third time here and now.

So let's enjoy it for now, and wrap it up before / at the next location.

Cheers.

Re: Pacing

Also, with some of my other PbP stuff winding down, and not taking on any new ones, my goal is to put more time into this one, and pick back up the pace a bit. I'd like to be done by the end of this month (at the earliest) or by halfway through next month (at the lastest).

In short, expect, and be prepared for, a pickup.

Cheers.

I'm happy to have the pace pick back up! I've gotten through most of the other things taking up pbp time.

I say we should look at meeting up at the guard house where Garrla is?

Garrla is a risky proposition. And we have only limited time until the 4 pm appointment with Themolin.

I propose we move the Rockfish Inn now. That's a natural point to meet up the two groups, and it has the added benefit that we can personally introduce the Chaverlys to Yuleg.

We'll have a few spare hours then. We can either use them on the Downtime activities we have at the Inn, or do some Gathering information.

That's a good point. We should get the ones we already have squared away before we move on to the riskier pickup.

Either that or go to the rendezvous point now and make sure it's secure. That way no concerns about navigation and being late.

It seems traveling always can always take a couple of hours, so we risk missing curfew if we make 3 stops (inn to drop off the family, meeting, and back to the innputs us past curfew).

However, the inn seems like the most likely place to link back up with the full party, so let's do that anyway, keeping in mind that we should try to cut travel time as short as possible with this extra stop.

When do we have to finish by? If we have one more day, we could go see the last one tomorrow morning after we get everyone else on their way.

Traveling back to the Inn, which is now a known quantity, will take 1 hour less time than usual (improve the outcome of the Navigation check by one step). Traveling to a new location, such as the rendezvous point in Themolin's note, will be a standard Navigation check.

Remember you can use the "favorite button" to show support for an idea expressed here - there still seems to be a little disagreement about which location to head to next on my end...

Okay, let's regroup at the inn and then head right over to the rendezvous point.

Agreed. I'd rather just keep moving. It's not a big deal to me where we go next.

Yeah, I'm just concerned that the last one is going to be a trap, and I'd rather the ones we've already rescued were on their way and out of reach.

Okay, I understand. Garrla was always going to be a risky prospect and having everyone else squared away first makes sense. Let's go to the inn then.

A DC 24 Perception check is a pretty tough one to make at this level.

Fixed Apollon's East/West via edit - sorry/thanks!

Kunsheng - result aligned with your clear intent.

That was why I said Kunsheng was looking east, and not looking around himself. Going forward, should I specify burst vs. cone in an ooc comment? Also, in the absence of a compass rose I assume East=right,

which would put Apollon on the west side of the warehouse. You just said he was going east, though. Which direction has he gone?

Helene and Kunsheng, upon further reading upthread, I am now realizing I posted the wrong direction in your Spoilers: The "Help" screams came from the West.

As the mistake is mine, you - and anyone who based their turns on my misinformation - are free to Retcon your actions. Sorry for the confusion! Also, adding a compass now...

The only difference is that Kunsheng would Seek west, not east. Also, thanks for adding the compass rose.

Orris imbibes (i.e., Interact action) one of his bestial mutagens, strides to join the party, and commands (at a whisper) Marcel to Seek near the cries for help and report anything of interest.

One stride action is 3 squares, right? I tried to move the token about that amount. My intent is to get ahead of the pack if possible, but that doesn't seem doable just yet.

Orris, you are going the wrong way - the party is chasing noises to the South - I put you back into your original position, having moved ("botted") you there on Round One.

What do you want to do during Round Two?

Orris, AIUI taking a Stride action moves you up to your movement rate. In this case, as a human your movement rate is 25' (unless you're in heavy armor), so you can Stride up to 5 5' squares.

For this encounter, I am activating the Bot Tree, reposted below:

The final assassin is already down, I think.

That's fine. Then I'll just arc the accountant. I think we have this in hand. Please carry on.

Unsure if Rose's and Orris's plans are mutually exclusive?

Broad support for the False Death concept in either case!
Still waiting to hear more specifics about what that means the next three hours (until Curfew)...

More just a suggestion of what to do with the assassin's after the fact of holding them. Mayhaps even give an anonymous tip to the guards before leaving.

Though if we can't get ahold of any False Death then it might be a different way forward. The psychedelics comment was mostly just tossing ideas around.

Also I don't think there's any set meanings to the rapier or anything like that, the question was an open-ended improvasation opportunity. Feel free to respond with whatever seems fitting.

Taking the discussion to OOC for a bit, on a couple points:

- Helène did (only) nonlethal damage on two of the assassins. They were not at risk of dying.

- Bardok notes that the "first ship comes tomorrow". This is not the case, from how I read it. We're currently on Day 2, and the first ship comes on day 4.

- Leaving the assassins in the warehouse seems too risky, considering it'll be two days before Themolin leaves. Finding False Death seems a risky venture - low chance that we'll find it. How about we bring them and Themolin into the sewers, and both of our passengers take care of them until they depart?

- Leaving the assassins in the warehouse seems too risky, considering it'll be two days before Themolin leaves. Finding False Death seems a risky venture - low chance that we'll find it. How about we bring them and Themolin into the sewers, and both of our passengers take care of them until they depart?

Actually as we don't have any doses of it currently, and that it's a level 5 uncommon item that costs 25 gp I think it would be a good idea to assume we probably won't find any and I'm fairly sure we would not have enough cash to get three doses of it to begin with.

EDIT: Given that it's not legal for PFS play this is a moot point. We can't buy, use or produce any. (Unless it was legalized as an option in the most recent Age of Ashes sanctioning, but probably requires a copy of the chronicle sheet that none of our characters has access to...)

EDIT EDIT: Okay it is listed on the chronicle for that, but still the fact that every character here has been in a scenario since before the sanctioning was enacted then there is no way our characters have access to it.

Bardok notes that the "first ship comes tomorrow". This is not the case, from how I read it. We're currently on Day 2, and the first ship comes on day 4.

- Leaving the assassins in the warehouse seems too risky, considering it'll be two days before Themolin leaves. Finding False Death seems a risky venture - low chance that we'll find it. How about we bring them and Themolin into the sewers, and both of our passengers take care of them until they depart?

My bad, I had my timeline mixed up. Dropping Themolin in the sewers sounds fine to me.

Feel free to continue to discuss.

But Favorite this Post in support of Rose's Plan to Frame the Assassins for Barralbus' Murder at his own House!

(Or, see below)

Feel free to continue to discuss.

But Favorite this Post in support of Helène's Plan to Drop the Assassins in the Sewer and Leave Barralbus' body at the Warehouse!

(First to Three votes...)

Crazy weekend and having a hard time catching up. Put in my vote and Zamp will follow the lead here.

Looks like Hèlene's plan gets the nod.

Rules for sharing Formulas (between Alchemists).

Unclear on whether, upon sharing formula books, assuming you can put in the time, if there is a cost and skill check. Looks like 1 hour per formula.

If someone knows the answer to the above questions, please weigh in. Otherwise I am asking the forums...

There doesn't appear to be a cost, nor a skill check. I didn't look at the errata, though.

The discussion re formula sharing has been interesting.

Re the use of Crafting to copy formulas, what happens if I roll a critical failure? Can I not try again to copy the formula until I go up a level, as with a spell? And what does the cost go to, when it's possible to buy an entire writing set for 1 gold piece? Extra ink and paper is only a silver piece, and is only needed "If you've written a large amount...." Presumably enough ink to write "a large amount" costs less than that.

The way that I think of the cost for buying a formula is like a couple of old jokes.

Basically, the cost of the formula is not inherent to the materials from which it's made, but arises only because of the skill of the person who provided it.

For now, yes, I'd like to assume it follows the same rules as for swapping spells between wizards.

The rules are unclear as to their intent, and I hesitate to just say "free unlimited exchange" as a PFS GM until I hear otherwise.

(Anyone welcome to chime in!?)

I'll skip trying to copy any formulas until we get a clarification on that, but Orris is welcome to copy any of Kunsheng's.

For now, yes, I'd like to assume it follows the same rules as for swapping spells between wizards.

The rules are unclear as to their intent, and I hesitate to just say "free unlimited exchange" as a PFS GM until I hear otherwise.

(Anyone welcome to chime in!?)

rainzax,

It might be better to ask Society-specific questions in the Society forums (or designate that it's for a Society game), not the general forums where people typically assume you're in a home game.

You can buy common formulas at the Price listed on Table 6–13, or you can hire an NPC to let you copy their formula for the same Price.

As written there is no way to copy a formula from PC to PC. You can buy OR hire to get the formula. There is no third option. There is nothing that I can find in the Guide to Org Play about copying formulas, either.

So, it seems that copying formulas from another PC isn't possible in PFS. (It's a bummer, but it also makes sense when you think about game balance in a worldwide campaign and how crafting might be abused).

Asked in PFS forums.

Just wanted to make a mention here for everyone: Don't forget your hero points. So far, this has been a skills and interaction based scenario. That means your hero points might be best spent to make sure we succeed those tests and make the mission run as smooth as possible. It'd be a shame to let those points go to waste!

FWIW Rob has convinced me in your PFS thread that it's free to copy and only takes an hour. I think I was reading the rules in a too-restrictive way. Not the first time I've been wrong, and not the last.

There still seems to be some debate / opinion and may ultimately be a victim of table variation.