[Gameday IX] GM Dinketry's Bounties: (#1) The Whitefang Wyrm (Inactive)

Game Master dinketry

Fjorn is wise.

Have had GM's play Concealment & Stealth wrong in the past so just trying to make sure it is not happening again. Whatever actions & Lair abilities this thing has, going from being Observed to Hidden to Undetected all in the same round it completed the other actions seems wrong, especially for being a Level 1 mod.

GM.

Meeting you here, because I anticipate "PC being able to act again before the dragon that downed them despite being swiftly healed up by other PCs" to present a possible point of disagreement?

I am prepared to defend my position!

You’ve jumped to just before the wyrm in initiative order as a result of being dropped by it. You’ll be able to act (as I’ve seen that you’ve already done) before it acts, but not until after Fanya. Is there a problem with that?

Clarify - I am assuming that being "felled" causes Fjorn to drop his Battleaxe but not his Buckler:

Correct, though I think since you’re both on the ground, I’m not going to have you spend an action in grabbing your axe.

Does my ready action go off?

It would be easy to be able to determine that if your character’s movement speed was either in your stat bar or in your character info under your profile.

It is in neither place, so the answer is no.

I have found your speed (25 feet) Emoubu, and it confirms what I had thought - the answer to your readied action question is firmly 'no'.

Readied actions in 2e require a two action move: Emoubu did not have the actions remaining in his round to do so. He had to stride at least once (and probably twice) to keep pace with Darel and then spend another action to Seek.

Here's more on 'Ready' as a basic action. Happy to discuss.

To peel back the GM curtain just a bit (and prevent - or maybe stoke - any player rage), this creature has the ability to use Stealth at its full movement speed. (It also gets a bonus to its Stealth for being on its home turf.)

Hee hee! I'm having fun!

Emoubu had Magic weapon up so that strike should have done an extra D6 damage ^^.

As we're on round 10 now this will be the last round of that so if EMoubu attacks this turn it will be 2d6 again

You know, I had completely forgotten about that.

Bonus Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 1

Bonus damage noted.

Fjorn, I'm sorry about your character. I loved the 'gung ho' nature of Fjorn; I think he died as his character lived...with GUSTO!

RIP Fjorn of the Kolkind Clan

GM, you are gravely mistaken!

It's: RIP Dragon!

GM Dinketry, please do explain it.

Wild Darel took 10 ft movement then jumped over 15 ft (DC:15) for a maximum of 25 ft as per his movement. Since he did not know the area of the ice he went the maximum distance which would have been 15 ft to land just behind where Athelsted's token is currently located. From there he should have been able to move another 25 ft & get behind the Wyrm pending any other hazard or obstacle. If there was, then just let me know. If I am not understanding this correctly please let me know.

In fact, you didn’t have 10 feet of unimpeded space to stride as part of your long jump because Emoubu was in front of you on the map. You rolled a 17 which means you would have made a long jump of 17 feet (which rounds down to 15 feet). A long jump is a two-action movement.

You would’ve indeed landed just to the east of Athelsted, but with one action remaining and a speed of 25 - ah, I can see a way that you’d make it. Well, there ya go. You’ve got me. Apologies.

And then the sprite would’ve got the critical hit. Well played and well argued. Give yourself a Hero Point, Darel.

Just trying to understand the rules as sometimes GMs will have a different interpretation. I didn't read anything about being unimpeded, (Thought Allies do not impede movement like 3.5E used to.) just 10 ft movement before the attempt then clear for the jump. All's good.
I am a bit confused about the Basic Leap though. It states "You can
Leap up to 10 feet horizontally if your Speed is at least 15 feet, or up to 15 feet horizontally if your Speed is at least 30 feet." Does this mean that you have to Stride at least 15 feet before you can do a Basic Leap of 10 feet? Or you just have to have a total movement of 15 feet. If so then why even have the Athletics check to complete a Long Jump unless you only have a 10 foot Stride.

Fjorn didn't have a dying condition as Vex Stabilized them first, the spell gets rid of the Dying condition.

Stabilize

Well the sprite getting a critical is just 2 more point of damage…

That creature is really dangerous. I knew that when I saw it was doing a max of 14 damage, which means on a critical hit with maximum damage means killing from massive damage any character with 14 hp max or less.
As bounties seems to be targetted at new players, I don’t think that’s really wise…

Vexacion, if you got rid of the Dying condition via Stabilise, it reverts to the Wounded condition unless you heal them via Treat Wounds (Medicine) or heal them completely and allow them a 10 minute rest. Neither of those things have happened.

Darel, you need to move 15 feet to be guaranteed a 10 foot horizontal leap. You did not have 15 feet of lead up to your leap, Darel (I can remind you where you were to start your turn if needed), so you needed to make the Athletics check for a Long Jump.

Per the Long Jump rules, the DC of the Athletics check is the total number of feet that you would jump. You rolled a 17, so your long jump was 17 feet. We round down to 15 feet.

Fanya, there are many ways that this encounter could've gone differently (and much easier), but there is one problem in the text for you. Or rather, two. I'm peeling back the GM curtain a bit here with this direct quote from the text.

If the PCs fail to improve the tatzlwyrm’s attitude to friendly, no one in the group speaks Draconic, they insult the tatzlwyrm in any way, or any of the PCs is a kobold, Ssalarn immediately attacks and fights to the death.

This bounty is anti-kobold.

I understand Darel did not have 15 feet of movement thus the reason why the Athletics check was rolled to make the jump. But if he had 15 feet of movement then he would not have been required to make an Athletics check to jump 10 feet? To jump more than 10 feet an Athletics check needs to be made. That was my confusion. Thx.

Correct, Darel. Without telling you the extent of where the iced snare is on the map, you would've needed 10 feet of a horizontal leap to clear it, based on the size of the previous iced snare that you yourself disabled.

If you had 15 feet of land movement before the leap attempt, then you wouldn't have even needed to have made the Athletics check attempt.

We've been through this before with the patch of ice snare. It's a trap. I have been rolling for it to see if people have noticed it, and no one has. Some people (Athelsted, Emoubu) seem to have forgotten about it completely and strode headlong across it.

I won't be outlining it on the map. It's a trap. Once someone succeeds at a GM-rolled Perception check, or takes the time to post a Perception check, then it could be spotted and deactivated just like Darel did before.

I have been told that Hero Points can only be used by the character or their familiar/animal companion. The rules seem to indicate this as well. If your ruling is Darel could have given Fjorn a hero Point then he would give him one as he has 3. If not, then why the delay waiting to see if Fjorn would use something he did not have?

This has been one of the longest "1 hr" (1 week) PBP quests I have ever heard of! :)

There are group hero points that could be used, such as those offered by a Promotional Service Item, like a Campaign Coin.

I’m sorry that this Bounty has been too long, Darel.

Part of this is because of miserable rolls.

Since you have to use a roll to even spot the wyrm, one bad roll can destroy your whole turn.

Then of course you have to roll to hit the wyrm, which I have been particularly bad at.

(And of course the Swashbuckler is supposed to spend one roll a turn to build panache to increase their damage, but I cannot even do that because I need to actions every turn to reach it.)

Yeah, this just seems way beyond a 1st level party. When 1 party member has to take an Action & succeed at a Perception check then take an Action to Point Out a Hidden creature, completely removes any combat ability of that character. Not to mention that they have to keep moving to keep it in sight to attempt the check. A normal new party of 4 would get TPKed especially with the damage it has been dealing.

Attacking a Hidden creature you have to make a flat DC:11 check before you can even attempt to hit it. Only 50% chance. Then you have to hit it's high AC which we have been consistently missing. I don't mind a challenge but this seems to be out of balance and stacked against the party the way it is going.

But how heroic will it be if you pull it off?

Nevertheless, I think there's a couple of things that have gone completely against the party, not the least of which is the fact that the two kobolds in your party GUARANTEE that this wyrm is going to fight you to the end.

Also, four players would result in me not applying the elite template to this wyrm, and would also decrease the DCs for the ice slick traps, so there's that as well.

I will share my thoughts after we win!

"Reminder GM says we can use (◆) to both Retrieve Weapon and Stand!"

WHOA whoa whoa, Fjorn. I said that you could use this combination in the specific instance that occurred before. Let's not globalise a one-off rule that I provided at your benefit. I'll make rulings on this on the fly.

Of note, however, Emoubu CAN stand and retrieve his weapon as one action.

Thanks. I will as soon as the next round starts.

Fjorn, I want to congratulate you on surviving this bounty. You did EVERYTHING you could to kill your character, and yet still survived. I love your spirited play. BRAVO!

Thank you, GM.
I will say that before this Bounty, I wasn't sure I liked Fjorn, but as he nearly died again and again, he really came to grow on me, and seeing him survive against those odds, I have decided to keep him and build on his themes more.

As for the difficulty of the adventure being "appropriate" for a Bounty, I can respectfully disagree with those above. Yes, this was a difficult monster played to it's maximum strategy by GM, and I'd rather that than an "easy win" situation any day - even as we risk losing our (level one) characters.

It is also worth noting that the next time a monster uses "Hide and Seek" tactics, my bet is that everyone here will be better prepared rules-wise for understanding how best to fight back.

Thank you for running - this was a great group!

Thanks again, all, for playing. A bit more than some of you bargained for, but you all survived with a harrowing story to tell.

With respect to Pathfinder Society rewards, you will all get your chronicles showing 4gp earned, 1XP, and 1 Reputation. In between the time that we started this Bounty and now, the Organised Play team made the decision to do away with Fame as a construct, so there will be no Fame reward.

Happy to discuss the ins and outs of this game with y'all. It was a pleasure.

Yes, thank you for running!

One last thing: a recent source book has been released that contains snowshoes as equipment that can be purchased - and they are expensive!

We 'hand-waved' the fact that the winter clothing that you purchased in Aaminiut included snowshoes. That was flavour only; please be aware that the winter clothing that you all purchased in this scenario does NOT contain snowshoes.

Cheers!

Your chronicles are complete and ready for download. Of note, there's no downtime attached to Bounties, so you won't see that on your chronicles.

I'm known for putting "a little something extra" on my player's chronicle sheets. It is - again - flavour only, and designed to have you think about the effect that this adventure might have on your character in the future. It has no in-game effect otherwise.

Hope you find it enjoyable! The chronicles should be available now at this link.

Cheers,
Dink

Thanks a lot for running. You definitely made it challenging and memorable! I think Darel ran around almost the whole time just Seeking the darn thing. Was definitely frustrating because of the actions of doing that while moving to keep up and not being able to utilize the animal companion. With the high AC (guessing AC:20) and the Hiding abilities while moving makes for a 50% miss chance unless someone Seeks then Points Out it's location and the one hit critical (+11 to hit against 1st lvls who would have a max of AC:19 with a shield) seemed a bit much. I'm sure it would have been a different fight if it was out in the open.

That combined with the way the dice bot treated us until the very end.

It attacked 12 times not including it's breath weapon with only 2 misses but 3 Crits. We attacked it 10 times (it made several saves not taking dmg) before Fjorn was able to get a hit & dmg in but we only damaged it a total 5 of 22 times with only 1 being a Crit. Dice bot was definitely against us. :)

Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Seek > Scythe!

Thanks for running this. CS looks good to me.

@GM Chronicle looks good! Thanks for running!

@All - This was a lot of fun. I look forward to sharing a table with each of you in the future!

Sorry if this betrays my ignorance, but 'download'?

Your chronicle is at this link.

Click on your name and download the PDF of your chronicle for this adventure.

Cheers,
Dink