(#1-06) "Lost on Spirit Road" (Inactive)

Game Master rainzax

Greetings Company!
Amara Li has hand-picked you to come explore Spirit Road through the Forest of Spirits!

I'll request your Phase One choices right away in your first post here:

After some exposition, a chance to meet one another, Recall Knowledge checks, and mission prep with the Venture-Captain, giving you more info to work with about this scenario, I'll request your Phase Two choices:

Gameplay opens Thursday.
If you have any questions about the above, please PM me.
I will be contacting some of you with some finishing touches on your character - hence the extra day.

Hello team! With 4 level 1 PCs, I am unsure if I should bring in my 4th level PC or my 1st level PC. Challenge points = 12 puts us nicely into the low tier. Challenge points = 16 puts us on the top end of the low tier I believe but not into Tier 3-4 since there are 5 of us.

Does anyone have a preference on which? I am leaning towards my druid since my changes of playing this adventure with this PC are getting slim.

Player Name > Chaos Monk
Character Name > Arlen Bales
Society ID > 193338-2002
Faction > Vigilent Seal
Downtime > Lore Demons 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (1) + 6 = 7 This is the third time I've crit failed a dayjob in 2e out of like 5 rolls.

Player Name > pippinTook
Character Name > Lucian Zinnelis
Society ID > 139218-2003
Faction > Horizon Hunters
Downtime >Lore Academia 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (5) + 7 = 12

Kalderaan, I always encourage players to go with the characters they most want to play, so I would say you should play your druid.

Player Name > Kalderaan
Character Name > Raini Riversong
Society ID > #11954-2001
Faction > Envoy's Alliance
Downtime > Bargain Hunter Diplomacy: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (18) + 10 = 28

Player Name > Crunch
Character Name > Keemul Nogginsmasher
Society ID > 150618-2011
Faction > Horizon Hunters
Downtime > Performance: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (4) + 5 = 9

Looks as if you've decided, but I agree with Lucian. Besides, I doubt it'll cause any issues, and if it does, you can save us...right?

Thanks folks. Raini is built as a healer with healing spells, potions, scrolls and a staff of healing.

We should be good to go. :D

Player Name > DomHeroEllis
Character Name > Donavin Tambe'thala
Society ID > 2384926-2001
Faction > Horizon Hunters
Downtime > Earn Income Lore Forest: 1d30 + 3 ⇒ (6) + 3 = 9

Don't think I can use Athletics or Survival for Earning Income or I'd use one of them. Not that it'd make a difference

With the level 4 and my level 3 are we definitely high tier? If so, I might as well switch to my level 4 as well.

Oh wow just noticed I rolled 1d30 by accident and still got a 6

Arlen,
I'm going to ask that you stick with this character - it's the one you applied with, and you have rolled your Earn Income check, which I would consider binding.

...

Donavin,
Go ahead and re-roll that d30 > d20 for your Earn Income check. To answer your question, the following skills may be used to Earn Income:

-Crafting
-Lore (any)
-Performance

That said, there are ways of opening up other skills (ex. Bargain Hunter skill feat), if those are character options that become available to you and that you have taken.

...

Players,
With that, we have the following level spread: 1st, 1st, 1st, 3rd, 4th.

Meaning we are playing @ 5 PCs x 16 Challenge Points = Low-Tier.

Gameplay opens Thursday - I am still working with some of you to be fully ready, and appreciate everyone's patience with Newcomers and Veterans alike!

Earn Income Forest Lore: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (10) + 3 = 13

*crosses fingers*

Well, looks like a fail for 8cp

Since downtime isn’t paying so well, drinks are on me!

At which point the slender, blonde Elf in a long, leather coat smiles at the Gnome, then turns to the barkeep and says (in what we might call a rough British accent), "Roit, mate, Ah'll 'ave two uv whatever 'e's buyin'."

Side Note on my Icon: This was the most fitting one I could find, but I do not follow Irori, or any deity for that matter, I actually look more like this which you can feel free to change my icon to with the Paizo campaign tools addon if you want to.

Just a heads up before we need to and can't: I was going to add my icon to slide 1 but its currently view only.

Players,
If someone needs assistance putting their Character Token on slides #1, #3, and #5, I'd ask that you all to help eachother out. If you don't know how to do so, ask here. If you see that someone else may not know how to do so, or forgot, consider reaching out to that person.

Cheers!

Just added mine, thanks for the reminder

Players,
Over the next several Posts, I think it's a good time for one or two players to consider awarding themselves their second Hero Point, narrating a little script to justify it's connection to the Teapot of the Elements and corresponding horoscope.

Just popping in to put that back at the top of your heads!

@GM - Sasha indeed did well on the first attack.

I opted not to change it since it would take her out of my line of sight. I would rather she sit tight instead of moving further on.

In the future, I will add additional instruction as it makes sense.

Thanks! :D

Sounds good.

Full transparency: This is my first PbP combat on GM side of screen, causing me to look up a lot of rules in this surprisingly complex fight in particular (Line of Effect, Cover, Sneak, Hide, Hidden, Undetected, Seek, Point Out...).

That said, I am open to any feedback in terms of increasing the clarity of my posts whose intent is to make it easy for you to make informed independent decisions on your turns while minimizing back-and-forth.

Cheers.

Long day - expect post tomorrow, hopefully early.

Players,
I am participating in PaizoCon this week, starting at midnight. I am anticipating my GM 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.

Waiting on Donavin's revision before I post next...

Cheers!

Oh, sorry I thought it was 60 foot movement and I could just make it. That's a bugger. Let me consider my options.

Going to try and sneak a big post in tomorrow.

To clarify...we have a creature that has...

+13 to hit on its first attack and +9 on its second
It is striking twice a round AND moving twice
It has +13 to sneak coupled with terrain/cover bonuses, making our attempts to spot it extremely difficult
It has an AC of 25 or higher (Sasha struck adjacent in melee at +22 while flanking and missed)
It fights to the death or has well over 65 hit points

Am I missing something here?

It's a single boss type enemy so that seems pretty standard. Single opponents tend to be about 3 levels higher than the PCs

I keep everything meticulously tracked in GM spoilers. Raini/Sasha add 6 challenge points to the party.

I keep everything meticulously tracked in GM spoilers. Raini/Sasha add 6 challenge points to the party.

Hey, not picking a fight. Just venting frustration. I get the sneaking and the terrain. Our team is full of melee prominent and spellcasters. Couple that with a huge advantage to his stealth and our perceptions and it makes readying an action quite tough.

The AC is the biggest factor that I have seen. We are missing terribly, even on somewhat high to-hit rolls.

I'm sure we'll get through it. No worries. Just hope my healing spells hold up. :-p

I want to point out that the seek action is versus the creatures stealth DC (stealth bonus +10) it is not based on what they roll when they choose to stealth (which is against perception DCs). I can't be sure if this is being done of course, but it's very easy to make a mistake on

Hmm... You are 100% correct... lemme check if this changes an outcome... thanks for bringing this up!

Ok, I went back and checked every single GM-rolled player Seek result hidden behind the GM spoilers, and the results are all the same, even as Chaos Monk points out, I had indeed been comparing your Seek results against Poracha's rolled Stealth results rather than to his Stealth DC.

So again, no narrative change here, but thanks for pointing out, and setting me straight. Carry on!

Boons - Besides the Infernal Detonation I used, I have Cryptid Scholar (rereoll knowledge check to identify a creature) and Experienced Mountaineer (treat steep mountainous terrain as difficult terrain).

Sorry, should have posted these when we started. :(

Please post your Phase Two decisions here. I will pause the action until this is complete for each of you.

...

Also, I am aiming to finish this Scenario in 2-3 weeks, and am upping the pace to daily posts towards that goal, with your help, but maybe faster if people check in correspondingly. That said, if we need to extend this timeline, I am flexible through the first half of July.

Network Items > Minor Healing Potion + Potency Crystal
Slotted Boons > Horizon Hunters Champion

Network Items>Minor Healing Potion, Lesser Bomb
Slotted Boon>Horizon Hunters Champion

Slotting: Vigilant Seal Champion and Vailais's Assurance.
Taking: a lesser healing potion and a minor healing potion as my school items.

Network Items > Potency Crystal
Boons Slotted > Horizon Hunters Champion

Boons Slotted - Boons - Besides the Infernal Detonation I used, I have Cryptid Scholar (rereoll knowledge check to identify a creature) and Experienced Mountaineer (treat steep mountainous terrain as difficult terrain). Also slotting Envoy's Alliance Champion.

Network Items - 1st level Heal scroll (used) and 2nd level Heal scroll (still available)

I have other gear, including magical expendables, listed in my character profile.

Realised I may need to wait on the second check, so ignore that roll if so!

Naw we good - gunna keep it moving!

Sorry that I'm not posting much. This is my second attempt to play 2e in PbP and in both cases, I'm just not a fan of the game in a PbP format and much prefer it in real-time it seems

I am confused on the current request. Do we need 3 total successes collectively or does each PC need to try to get 3 total successes?

Tell you what - going to "stay behind the curtain" for now, but after our game, if you have any particular questions about how any specific part of the game was adjudicated, I will be an open book. Deal?

Tell you what - going to "stay behind the curtain" for now, but after our game, if you have any particular questions about how any specific part of the game was adjudicated, I will be an open book. Deal?

Sorry, I wasn't looking for specific mechanics. I was just wondering if my PC needed to do more than he already did. :D

I think your last post in game cleared everything up for me.

Also, I updated my last in-game post to include my dice roll for Sense Motive.

** spoiler omitted **

Fixed!

Raini Riversong wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

Fixed!

Many thanks!!!! :D

I have the scarf, but I'm not about to wave it around in her face. Just trying to get her to leave so I can tell you I have it.

We are wrapping up here. These characters will have today (6/18/20) marked as Scenario complete. A couple more posts to close out our story.

Also; please put your info in this Sign-In Sheet. To protect your security, I will delate email addresses after I scribe the emails.

Optionally, I'd like to solicit your feedback using this Rubric.