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Welcome to my PbP game for PF2E 1-05 Traiblazer's Bounty. Hope you would have a blast!
Before we start, I would to share some of my ground rules. (In spoiler tag to not take up space.)
PbP Matters
1. This discussion thread is open for all OOC matters, so no ooc tag needed. For OOC matters in the gameplay thread, please use the [ ooc ] tag.
2. Please aim to post at least once a weekday, and at least once over the weekend. I apologise in advance though I might slip occasionally due to my work. If you would be away for extended period, please let us know in advance where possible, and we can work some botting arrangements.
3. If you have any disagreements over some of my GM calls or interpretation of the rules, please take it to the discussion thread or, even better, pm me.
4. If you have played and/or GMed this module before, please do not metagame or spoil the plot. And please let me know (if you have not done so in the sign-up sheet).
5. I would have thought this would go without mentioning until I encountered this, so… It is the responsibility of the player to keep track of the game, including referencing the map on google slides. I understand that there are times where it is inconvenient to do so. In that case, please be as specific as you can as to where you wish your character to move, what actions to take, etc. If you regularly have issues with accessing Google Slides, you might want to reconsider playing via PbP, especially for PFS as there is always combat, and thus map dependent.
Combat
6. Once initiative is determined, for the group of characters who can take actions, I would resolve actions in posting order, NOT initiative order. I used to do the latter but it doesn’t work that well in PbP, so am going with the former instead. (Game mechanics-wise, it is effectively people delaying for each other.) However, if you want your action to take place after another character’s, just indicate accordingly. Also to speed up posting rate, I group the enemies’ initiative block together.
Rolls and Skill Checks
7. I would do your initiative rolls, but generally will leave you to do other rolls unless it is critical to keep the game moving smoothly. Specifically for secret rolls, I have not worked out my system just yet. For some, I may just leave you to roll with results spoilered and trust you not to metagame. I may also roll some just to keep the suspense. We’ll see how this evolves.
8. On skill checks where there could be team effort involved, e.g. finding a hidden trail with survival, influencing attitude of NPCs with diplomacy, please be explicit when making the rolls whether you are attempting the check on your own, or whether you are assisting. (And take note of the pros and cons of either – more attempts means more chances of crit failures.) Also, note that at low levels, aid is often difficult (DC20). There might be situations where only one character is allowed to attempt the check (and the rest to assist) – I’ll state so explicitly if that’s the case.
9. On skill checks in general, if I feel you have roleplayed well, e.g. gave a good description of what your character does to search for a trail, came up with creative ways to befriend a hostile NPC, gave a very rousing speech, I would give bonuses. :)
Roleplaying Matters
10. The maps and handouts link (at the top of the page) would display all the maps, handouts, pictures, etc as the scenario progresses. The most current page would be right on top, while previous ones would be left there for your reference. (Incidentally, Android and IOS has the Google Slides app in case you work off mobile devices.)
11. Please have your full character information up on your character's profile page in case I need to check something, e.g. skills for secret checks. Also, please have your stat block updated with the key information. Minimally please have your current hp vs max hp, AC, all three saves and movement. Feel free to include others. If you have read up to here, include your ideal pet surreptitiously in your muster post.
12. Finally, playing by pbp provides many advantages compared to face-to-face games, the chief one being having the time and space to flesh out your thoughts and actions. So please make use of this and have posts that are more than simply dice rolls. :)
Getting Started
Ok with that out of the way, a few tasks before we kick off.
A. Go to the Gameplay page and dot.
B. Go to the maps and handouts page and fill out the table there. (I've transferred what you had provided in the sign-up sheet.) Paste your token picture in the Tokens box, according to your preferred marching order. (Feel free to negotiate in the Discussion thread.) Also enter your initiative bonus (usually your Perception but please flag to me attention if otherwise, e.g. Stealth).
C. In this Discussion thread, do your day job rolls (if any), and share whatever OOC information you would like the rest of the party to know about your character e.g. class, level, special abilities. We’ll leave character descriptions and introductions to the gameplay thread later when we are about to start.
I’ll start as soon as everyone is mustererd.
Fantastic!
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To add, if you are not clear what Exploration Activities there are in 2E, you can check out this site.
Common ones include:
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Earn Income roll (peddling dewormers for your favorite cat and other alchemical wares):
Something to note (mainly for the DM) is that i have the Dubious Knowledge skill feat from my background.
I'm also not quite sure what is meant by Normal/Slow.
At the moment, some of my stuff (my cantrips in particular) is touch-only (have to wait till 2nd level for sweet, sweet Reach Spell), so I wouldn't like to be too far back, even though I am a bit squishy.
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I'm also not quite sure what is meant by Normal/Slow.
Well, you can elect to go on a different Advancement Speed. At slow, you gain half of the XP, gp, Downtime, Fame, and Reputation rewards earned in the adventure.
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Player The Fox
Character Name Reev Ranzak
OPF Number 75958-2002
Faction Horizon Hunters
Downtime Earn Income
Current XP 1
Current Fame 1
Reputation with current faction 1
Training Swords 3
Free Items: minor healing potion (×2)
My fellow adventurers! Reev is a standard TWF Rogue. He likes to flank in combat whenever possible. Nothing really out of the ordinary.
@GM: Reev will attempt to use Stealth as much as possible for Initiative.
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Hi all!
I'll take a Minor healing potion and a Potency Crystal from the Society
For Day Job I've got - a few more rolls like that and Arun'll be able to afford a hedgehog or something else as prickly as he is to be his friend :-p
In the meantime, he'll very much enjoy being a flanking partner for Reev!
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Alright, most of us have checked in. The last player told me he needs a bit more time to get his character ready, but I think we can go ahead to get going just to introduce ourselves, etc.
By the way, it is not clear in the Society guide, but my practice is that but you don't have to decide what Pathfinder training items to get until after the scenario briefing, i.e. same time as when you slot your boons. Makes sense to me since that is your last contact with the Society to collect the consumables. By the way, seeing that we have a wizard here, you can scribe the scroll you get from Pathfinder training into your spellbook, assuming you can find the time (which usually isn't an issue). I believe not all GMs rule that way, but it makes sense to me.
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Sorry for the delay. With the help of an app I was able to get a character put together. Still need to create a sheet as I just copied the statblock output to get something up. Thanks for your continued patience as this will be my first 2e game. Feel free to make suggestions or comments as I learn the new rules.
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Welcome, welcome! For character sheet formatting, look at our character profiles, as it's easiest to copy/paste the information after applying your changes. You'll see in our Class/Race/Sex portion of the character sheets are filled out a bit odd, but that's to have the most used info avaliable without need to click on the character's profile. While play by post games do take longer, I feel that more RP can happen, which is always good in my opinion!
Again, welcome, and I do hope you have fun!
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Not sure where you want me in marching order. If the rogues want point, I can follow them. I can also be point or rear guard.
I don't mind if you take point. I want to be close to the front, and I'm happy to scout ahead when needed. Feel free to adjust my "mini" in the google sheets as you see fit. :)
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Still waiting for Reeve and Arun's boons and Pathfinder training items but will continue in the gameplay thread.
Sorry, I included them in my post above and thought that would be sufficient.
Reev is taking two minor healing potions, and he doesn't have any boons other than the basic faction dedication for Horizon Hunters.
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One rope would be sufficient, since it is 50ft. The cliff is 25ft, so if you're belaying from below, the rope would be long enough to go up, loop around a large boulder and come down. (Will handwave the extra length to tie around someone, go round the boulder, etc.) So we can just assume that Arun set up the rope that way.
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You only fall if you get a crit fail, i.e. roll a 1 or 2 (since the DC with the rope is 12). A fail just means you make no progress for that check.
I understand that. I have a +0 to Athletics. I need five successes (12 or higher on the dice) before rolling a 1 or 2.
The probability of doing that is 36.66%.
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Honestly, I'm glad I decided to have Athletics as a wizard. I've been making most of the skills by the skin of my teeth.
I can relate. I picked it on my alchemist and it already paid off (he is a follower of Irori so it makes sense). I guess it would have made *some* sense on this character as well, but for her I had some more pressing priorites.
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You only fall if you get a crit fail, i.e. roll a 1 or 2 (since the DC with the rope is 12). A fail just means you make no progress for that check.I understand that. I have a +0 to Athletics. I need five successes (12 or higher on the dice) before rolling a 1 or 2.
The probability of doing that is 36.66%.
This is veering a bit off-topic, but I am curious. I guess there's an easy way to approximate the result (success takes 10-ish rolls on average, probability of none of those being a crit failure is about one third), but I don't see how to easily calculate the exact chances. Care to help out? If it's not too much effort. :D
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Happy to help:
For this particular task, a success is achieved by rolling any of:
12, 13, 14, ... , 20.
(I am going to make one small adjustment here, in that I am not going to count 20 — which would normally result in two successes — as a critical success, though we could recalculate with that assumption in as well. So, my results will be lower than the actual probability of succeeding.)
A critical failure occurs on a roll of a 1 or 2.
For all other rolls, it is a regular failure and there is no effect (other than time wasted, both in game and out). So, basically, for these results we simply reroll.
Therefore, we can simplify this problem by considering instead that we are rolling 1d11, with two sides marked FAIL and nine sides marked SUCCESS.
So, the probability of rolling a success is 9 in 11, or about 81.818% (as a decimal, it is 0.81818).
However, we need to roll FIVE successes in a row, without rolling a failure. The probability of that happening is
(0.81818)^5 = 0.36665.
So, there is about a 36.7% chance of successfully climbing the cliff.
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As I said, there is the matter of rolling a natural 20 counting as two successes. The calculation for that is a bit more complicated, but we can easily come up with an upper estimate by just assuming that one of the successes we roll is actually a critical success.*
This is equivalent to requiring only FOUR successes in a row before a FAIL result. In this case, the probabilty is
(0.81818)^4 = 0.448,
or about 44.8%. (Note: as I said, this is an upper estimate for the probability of successfully climbing the cliff.)
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* By the way, the probability of rolling a 20 somewhere in the first four rolls (not counting the rerolls from results of 3 - 11), in case you were wondering, is 31.7%.
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Ah, got it. You did MATH! :)
But of course, it is complicated by the fact that because of the bush (which reduces falling distance by 10ft), a crit fail in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd leg (0ft, 5ft, 10ft) would lead to no damage (except for bruised ego).
(By the way, could it be possible to count 20s as 2 success, so that would be 10 out of 12, rather than 9 out of 11?)
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(By the way, could it be possible to count 20s as 2 success, so that would be 10 out of 12, rather than 9 out of 11?)
Not quite.
Rolling a 20 doubles the effect.
Adding another side to the die increases the probability that the effect happens.
Those are two different outcomes.
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And I want to apologize. I strongly dislike game mechanics like this where you have to roll repeatedly until you fail. Stealth is another place where this commonly crops up in RPGs. I didn't mean to let that derail things here, and I'm sorry that it did.
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For the hell of it (and because that is the flavor of nerd that I am), I calculated the exact value for the probability that Reev could make that climb (DC 12, five successes), without assistance and without falling, using the normal rules that a nat 20 yields two successes.
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Before the rope was lowered, the DC was 15. Reev's chances of making that climb are...
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What if he had a +13 bonus to Athletics. Then what are the chances of him making the DC 15 climb without falling?
Take a guess before you peek.
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I don't mind multiple rolling if it makes sense, and in case of climb checks I think it does. With a single roll you run into two issues: first, you could have a supremely unathletic character get a lucky roll and scale a 100ft cliff (which you might find desirable, but in my opinion it makes much less sense than, say, remembering a convenient factoid with a lucky Recall Knowledge roll even if you normally know nothing about the skill). Second, if you do roll a critical failure, determining *where* you fall would be a bit weird. And of course in combat it's done for action economy purposes.
I think the Stealth example you mention doesn't exist in that way in PF2. You normally just roll one Stealth check and compare to multiple Perception DCs along your route. The other example I can think of that needs multiple successes is Disable Device, where it's also highly undesirable to have an amateur pick your incredibly expensive and highly sophisticated lock in a single attempt because of a lucky roll.
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By the way, are you sure your number for the +13 Athletics is correct? I didn't bother to calculate the exact value, but the chance for 5 successes, of any kind, in a row is already above 77%, and the chance for 4 successes, of any kind, in a row is above 81%. Keep in mind that this character has almost a 50% chance of a critical success.