GM Doug's The Perennial Crown Parts 1 & 2 (Inactive)

Game Master Doug Hahn

If it is being applied to the same character number, that character has the boon.

Audho is an NPC and will always be speaking telepathically. I wil be using italics for that throughout the scenario unless anyone finds that too difficult to read.

Let's get our hero points all set too. I reset everyone to 1 on the slide and gave glyphed GMs a space to move theirs around to other people. I added Pip's campaign coin too.

I didn't post it in character, but Varret dreamed himself some more arrows, as well.

So, I think that all I have to do is pay the costs listed on Table 6-13 Formulas (pg. 293) and I get new alchemical formulas. It doesn’t appear to require any sort of roll or other mechanism that I can find.

If that is correct, I am going to buy the following formulas to add to my book:
Tanglefoot bag, Type moderate; Level 3
Frost Vial, Type moderate; Level 3

3 gp each for a total of 6 gp.

In addition, I will buy a crafter's eyepiece; Level 3; Price 60 gp

Total 66 gp.

GM Doug could you please confirm that copying formulas doesn’t require anything other than the money and that all the above seems correct.

All seems correct to me. I’ll get you the updated chronicle in a few, too.

Whoever takes the crown may receive some benefits on skill checks if you wear it (ask nicely). So, it may also be a tactical choice if you want to look at it that way.

More arrows for Zarindlara, too!

And more arrows for Pip too. What a surprise! All the archers found someplace in the dream to pick up arrows!

If only the dream let you have them for free! :D

I am assuming that the Dream drew on our accounts back at the Grand Lodge... With all the extraplanar ties the Society has, someone's coming to collect!

I just sort of figured that Gurmire found the spectical/eyepiece someplace and picked it up. The paperwork says he paid for it, but in my mind it is just something he found someplace.

I forgot to ask, when are we supposed to slot our boons? I will need to figure out which ones I'm taking.

Yes, please slot your boons. The infodump at the beginning was a mission briefing of sorts.

Thanks for the reminder!

Gurmire's boons:

Envoy's Alliance (Faction)
Touched by the Storm (General)
Promotional Vestments (Promotional)
Nexian Researcher

----
Pathfinder Items:
Feather Token: Chest
Feather Token: Ladder

Varret boons:

Verdant Wheel (Faction)
Promotional Vestments (Promotional)
Traveler on the Spirit Road
Sand Slide
Nexian Researcher

School items:
Lesser healing potion
Lesser eagle-eye elixir

I tried to give an in-story clue with the NPC saying there might be lost treasure down here (“There might be treasure lurking around any corner — but we always had to to do well at surviving in the first place to find it!“).

To be clear, there are bundles at stake on these skill challenges so you may want to consider using hero points (some of you already have!).

No hero pts left. Does PFS clothing offer hero points in PFS 2e? (note, my stuff is all 1e)

The shirts or bags give a +1 bonus when using a Hero Point to reroll.

——

I don’t know how this skill challenge works, but most require you get a number of successes equal to or exceeding half the number of players. A crit fail removes a success, a crit success usually gives two successes.

It only offers a +1 if you slot the Promotional Vestments boon (available to everyone) using one of your boon slots.

Since it's a new scenario, would those of us with glyphs get to give out a new hero point?

Zarindlara Boons!
Horizon Hunters Champion
Promotional Vestments
One-Who-Waits
Sand Slide

Yep! I noted on the slides. Feel free to move yours wherever, Zarindlara. However, it looks like even with rerolls this round might not be meant to be.

Yeah, that's why I didn't use one. I'm guessing this round is beyond saving, and I may need it for the next round.

Packet’s boons:

Vigilant Seal (Faction)
Team Player
Cryptid Scholar

Pathfinder items:
Minor Healing Potion
Feather Step Stone

If you can't tell I don't like the healing portion of 2e and the time factor it adds both in-game and at the table. If there's one thing I most miss from 1e it's CLW wand spam :)

Yeah, thanks for rolling it out for us! Since Zarindlara is healed all the way, I'll defer to other folks for whether to proceed.

Agreed, thanks for rolling through all that.

The names and skill bonuses look wrong in a few cases, not sure what happened there. I suspect the healer’s name in a few cases was copied wrong.

In any case, Gurmire has two minor life elixirs that could most likely finish healing Pip and maybe Antonella. He created two this morning, d6 each.

I think we need at least one more attempt at the healing. Varret and Gurmire are still hurt badly enough that moving on seems ill advised. If the person treating Varret gets a success but not enough to finish healing him, perhaps we have them continue treatment for the full hour so as to finish healing him.

Not sure what to do in my own character’s case. He hasn’t received a successful treatment yet.

By the way, I preferred the CLW wand as well.

Yeah, Gurmire had bad luck. I think I messed up the names but got each player's HP correct in the end.

Happy to bot another hour or let you guys roll it. I'll probably go ahead and bot do that unless I hear otherwise by midafternoon.

Bot it, if there is a success then continue treatment for the hour. That is a guaranteed extra 2d8 healing, which we could use. I would need to unwind the sequence to see whom can heal who currently.

Worse than doing guard shifts, tracking the one hour cooldowns. :(

I like a lot about the new healing system, especially that there are some interesting ways for non-casters to be primary healers, but it does get annoying in a situation like this.

Pip's Boons

Envoy's Alliance (Faction)
Service Award: Campaign Coin (Promotional)
Traveler on the Spirit Road
Sand Slide
Team Player

Two Minor Healing Potions

For future reference, Varret's Assurance feat is in medicine, so no need to roll checks when he's treating wounds. I'll update my bio to make that more clear.

Thanks. I saw Assurance on your profile but wasn’t sure what skill it was on.

Yeah, I hadn't done a good job of editing the rather lackluster stat block that HeroLab spits out. I've tried to make it more clear now.

Side note but things get kind of intense/grim for a bit here; the stakes in this scenario are quite high. Feel free to post something or PM me with a "veil please" if any descriptions make you uncomfortable or go over a line. Especially with enchantment magic-like effects.

Usually, that's not my personal style as a GM but I always want to have safety tools readily available!



Sorry for the posting delay. Work landed a nat20 grab + constrict, but day off tomorrow!

No prob!

Nonlethal rules in case anyone needs: https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=348 (tl;dr: -2 on attack rolls if using a lethal weapon nonlethally; no penalty for weapons with the nonlethal trait like the fist)

Knocked out and dying: https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=373 (tl;dr: only the last, knockout blow matters whether a creature gets killed at 0; GMs have the right to say an important NPC is treated as a PC and is dying instead, in special cases.)

My understanding of 2E's nonlethal rules is that ONLY the last strike matters when it comes to nonlethal. Until then, you're only penalizing yourself as there's fundamentally no difference between nonlethal and lethal.

Better to be safe than sorry but if you are dealing with enemies that aren't very hurt it's worth considering avoiding the -2 penalty.

The problems with that is you never know when you might crit and we don’t know how many hit points the guards have until one goes down. Even then we are guessing.

At the next status update, Gurmire has one more damage than shown. He came in slightly damaged,

We hereby knight you!

Looking to the mad king, Gurmire asks “Can you do that during day?”

Will Save: 1d20 - 2 ⇒ (16) - 2 = 14

GM Doug is Stupefied 1! :p

GMing tonight. Old 1E season 2 scenario so it might be done super fast but if not, I might not be able to post enemy actions till tomorrow morning.

“Yousir, are limping from non-lethal injuries, and are thus fair game!”

As GM Doug described above, that's not how nonlethal works in 2nd edition. Similar to Starfinder, only the final attack that takes them down matters. If a creature had 50 hp, and you did 49 points of nonlethal damage followed by 2 points of lethal, the creature would be dead.

I'd prefer Antonella not to have killed the guard, but if the rules say otherwise so be it. Happy for you to make the call, GM Doug.

Antonella may lose sleep over the decision, but her player is unlikely to, given his friends' PCs are being threatened by unreasonable folk with big swords ;)

We hereby knight you!

Looking to the mad king, Gurmire asks “Can you do that during day?”

I must have been having a rough day yesterday, I only just got this.

Bravo, Gurmire!

I'd prefer Antonella not to have killed the guard, but if the rules say otherwise so be it. Happy for you to make the call, GM Doug.

Antonella may lose sleep over the decision, but her player is unlikely to, given his friends' PCs are being threatened by unreasonable folk with big swords ;)

Fair enough, but given that our success or failure in this mission may be impacted by whether or not we kill the king, it would be great to keep in mind going forward.

So I’ve been assuming that my Alchemical Bombs are always lethal damage. Is this an incorrect assumption?

I’ll admit I have trouble imagining doing non-lethal with what is basically Greek Fire / napalm.

So I’ve been assuming that my Alchemical Bombs are always lethal damage. Is this an incorrect assumption?

I’ll admit I have trouble imagining doing non-lethal with what is basically Greek Fire / napalm.

My understanding of the rules is that nonlethal attacks are always possible with weapons; alchemical bombs are martial thrown weapons. Therefore, it seems you can do nonlethal with bombs.

Maybe I'm wrong about that; I agree it's weird. But perhaps not as weird as shooting someone nonlethally with an arrow.

I am happy to do non-lethal with arrows!

Hmm

I put Zarindlara back in initiative; with Guard 1 down we can roll back around to the top.

I am happy to do non-lethal with arrows

Though... With the damage I have been doing, I don't think my lethal would have killed them. I think I am shooting cottonballs rather than arrows here.