GM Blazej's - Lodge of the Living God Gameplay (Inactive)

Game Master Zynete

I agree that we should use PCs for the additional ritualists. Given that it basically means indoctrinating them in a new religion, I don't think it would be a good idea to involve any of the other locals. With Jayma and Brekovi working on Day 11, that leaves two out of Meadow, Shagrat, and Zabu, to fill the extra spots for the ritual. Any volunteers?

Not it! Meadow has a party to plan.

Once the lodge is complete, I think we can guard it ourselves while we wait for Narsen to return and for Smine to send the more permanent Pathfinders to relieve us. We can worry about hiring guards if it proves necessary.

I kinda feel like we're supposed to hire guards and staff from amongst the villagers.

@Jayma, It depends on the results of Meadow’s attempt to talk to Lumley. I would wait until we know that before working on anything.

I kinda feel like we're supposed to hire guards and staff from amongst the villagers.

Smine’s letter said:

Help secure the location for the Lodge, make any necessary repairs, and hire some locals to help you hold it for the next month or so while I organize a more permanent staff.

I am sending you with a significant sum of cash to pay local workers, buy any construction materials, and grease a few palms if need be.

So we are supposed to hold it for about a month. I do not know how much is charged for staffing the place, but we can’t pay them at 3 gp / day for much more than a week at this point. I would say we figure out who to hire but wait to hire them. In the meantime, we probably should stay at the lodge once it is complete.

When we move to the lodge, we may want to ask the Manaro family if they want to as well.

I don’t know if they will want to stay in the villages, but if they do working from the lodge would probably be more pleasant than in the town.

Waiting to hear who wants to be part of the cleansing. Brekovi is willing, but if he isn’t doing that he would work on the scaffolding.

When we move to the lodge, we may want to ask the Manaro family if they want to as well.

Good idea. The parents can be support staff for the lodge, and the children will no doubt get a rather interesting education from all the different Pathfinders that will go through the place.

Only possible problem is that it is a long way to the village and back for services every day.

Waiting to hear who wants to be part of the cleansing. Brekovi is willing, but if he isn’t doing that he would work on the scaffolding.

Kornel apparently did well and completed 4pd of work on the ritual. That means that there were 4 people involved, which means that two of Brekovi, Shagrat, and Zabu must have been involved.

If the remaining PC puts a team together to work on Rebuild Scaffolding I believe we'll finish it today.

When we move to the lodge, we may want to ask the Manaro family if they want to as well.

Just a note in case it's not entirely clear. Meadow has spent every night in Fort Agate in order to be near the geckos, although lately the cages and her bedroll are as far away from the scary room as possible.

Zabu has also been spending the nights there, but pretty much only to sleep. He's been carousing in town until then.

Although it is part of the Pathfinder motto that we report, thankfully we the players never have to do the actual paperwork. In general those details are not fun.

I am guessing there is a group report and any agent is allowed to provide supplemental reports as they see fit.

I ask because in this case there is information that shouldn’t be given in the normal report. Right now I am thinking there should be three reports: a glowing report to Mask Narsen that makes it sound like everything is wonderful and would mislead the reader into thinking we were able to deconsecrate the shrine without outside help, a second ‘official’ report that focuses on the money and the historical details we found out about the shrine and the treasure caches, and a third secret report that contains the details that would put people’s lives in danger if they got out.

I know there has to be a procedure for such things because there are secret missions where the report itself must be kept secure. This mission is weird because there are definitely secrets that should be reported, but there is also information that should be relatively easy for normal Pathfinder Agents to access.

I think the report to the Pathfinder Society should be full and complete.

We can tell Mask Narsen whatever we decide he needs to know.

Unless it gets into a Chronicle, I believe the Society reports are only available to Pathfinders and, even then, I don't think they're all available to everyone.

#1-00 Origin of the Open Road indicates that a lot of reports just get shelved and forgotten. One can argue that this might not be a general case, but it does suggest a certain sloppiness in record keeping.

On the other hand, first edition we had #6-15 The Overflow Archives that indicate the society does have some vaults where they store things not open to everyone. I believe there are other scenarios that also give this impression that certain areas are not available to all.

I’m guessing each VC makes decisions about how they handle things, with important findings still copied and sent on to the Grand Lodge.

Meadow's posts are already encroaching onto the next section so I'll start presenting the general guidelines of what you will be able to do to prepare for the attack.

This is a lot like the prior section where you will be spending long periods of time doing downtime tasks to prepare for the undead.

This time, you don't need to hire anyone to help you, but you can if you wish to and certain NPCs are specialists that can help with tasks where they are mentioned in the requirements (They let you add your level to the check as a proficiency bonus if you are non-proficient, and they grant a +2 circumstance bonus to the check).

Narsen has commanded everyone of town toward this effort and will be doing so without compensation.

Each of these tasks takes 8 hours, so you each have time for three battle preparation tasks in the 24 hours before the task. However, you will be fatigued if you are awake for more than 16 hours in a row without resting. You should spend one of those three tasks to sleep.

The actions Meadow has specifically mentioned are examples of tasks you can perform in this period.

Create Pit Traps
[Downtime] [Manipulate]
Check Crafting
Requirements You're trained in Crafting or hired a stonemason or a trapmaker.
Creates and hides pit traps to detain or slow the advance of the undead.

Craft Snares
[Downtime] [Manipulate]
Check Crafting
Requirements You're trained in Crafting and snare crafting feat, or hired a trapmaker.
Create and hide snares in an area to entangle undead and allow them to be easily dispatched.

In addition, most of the town aren't proficient warriors. Aside Plisken and the guards, most don't regularly wield weapons. It would be a task in itself to...

Train the Villagers
[Downtime] [Manipulate]
Check Diplomacy
Requirements You're trained in simple weapons and light armor.
You train 8 noncombatants of Prophet's Rest in the basic use of weapons, shields and armor. This won't make them proficient fighters, but is better than nothing.

As before, these aren't an exhaustive list of preparation tasks you can perform (for example you also have that nice scrapyard to improvise new weapons out of and some of you might be able to teach others about the threat you face).

Those listed tasks don't present an exhaustive list of skills you can use on the tasks either. Any Lore skill focused on combat might be useful to Train Villagers (although it might use Cha instead of Int depending on how you go about it). For some other traps and tasks, Shagrat has an exceptional lay of the land from the last week that will help him use Scouting Lore very well (but that doesn't mean other people can't use it as well) or there aren't a lot of options.

If you have an idea for a defense that isn't here, post it and what skill you hope to use and I'll work out if it is a viable option.

Feel free to place markers on the map where you will be placing this traps as well as your general strategies for how you will fight them.

These defenses and long ranged volleys will be unlikely to stop an army of fifty or more undead at your gates, but will likely effect them when they are able to break into your fort.

One part about this is that, unless you struggle for ideas, you should do what you want. This isn't something that will benefit from maximize the coordination of the party.

Does this all make sense? Does anyone have any questions?

As before, these aren't an exhaustive list of preparation tasks you can perform (for example you also have that nice scrapyard to improvise new weapons out of and some of you might be able to teach others about the threat you face).

Those listed tasks don't present an exhaustive list of skills you can use on the tasks either. Any Lore skill focused on combat might be useful to Train Villagers (although it might use Cha instead of Int depending on how you go about it). For some other traps and tasks, Shagrat has an exceptional lay of the land from the last week that will help him use Scouting Lore very well (but that doesn't mean other people can't use it as well) or there aren't a lot of options.

If you have an idea for a defense that isn't here, post it and what skill you hope to use and I'll work out if it is a viable option.

There wouldn't happen to be any way to utilize Undead Lore in the preparation against an undead horde, would there?

If not, I'll probably just hire a stonemason and make pitfalls.

There wouldn't happen to be any way to utilize Undead Lore in the preparation against an undead horde, would there?

If not, I'll probably just hire a stonemason and make pitfalls.

Since they are unintelligent undead, I would think you could at least suggest some simple ways to channel their forces. Especially if done in combination with a trap, being able to channel them where we want would be useful. Things like will they always take the most direct path, or would they walk around a simple fence when there is an obvious path around.

If we could do something as simple as set up a weak fence that channels them into a trap, I would say that is very useful.

Jayma is not trained in Crafting. Based on the rebuild, it appears that only Brekovi +8, Shagrat +3, and Avan are officially trained in Crafting. We have a stonemason, Junissa, and trapmakers, Plisken, Martin and Edgar. Don't know about anyone with the Snare Crafting feat; maybe Plisken has it.

I'll leave it to the more crafty/woodsy PCs to manage the Create Pit Traps and Craft Snares tasks.

Jayma has Diplomacy and is trained in simple weapons, but not in light armor. Presumably one or more of Meadow, Shagrat, Zabu, Rakka, Petres, and Aasif are so trained. So Train the Villagers is pretty much all she can do, and she's going to need help in the form of someone trained in at least light armor.

Each Train the Villagers brings 8 noncombatants up to snuff, so we'll need two sessions to cover everyone not already trained in combat (3 Mayars, Bessama, Junissa, Braderock, Lumley, Narsen, Sylvina, Edgar, Martin, 2 Horgats, Matthild).

How about we team Jayma & Rakka together to lead two consecutive Train the Villagers sessions, then rest them 8 hours to avoid fatigue?

Question for GM Blazej. For the purpose of ranged attacks, how many feet should we add when targeting people on the ground outside the fort from the battlements?

@Kornel, can we assume you brief us on what you know of the undead?

@GM Blazej
Slings, staves and clubs generally have a cost of 0. Assuming someone trains the villagers, can we assume everyone would have at least these weapons? With the people we train, would they have other weapons?

How about sling bullets? It seems 2nd edition doesn't allow you to just use rocks for free in your sling.

Telekinetic Projectile says "you deal bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage—as appropriate for the object you hurled". Does it require a project to gather stacks of appropriate blunt and slashing objects along the walls that Jayma and Brekovi could use?

@Kornel, can we assume you brief us on what you know of the undead?

Yes of course.

Kornel:

What Brekovi said seems reasonable. I would say there are a few ways including that to use Undead Lore as your battle preparation action. Using it to better position the traps and make them more effective against undead seems like a reasonable use of the skill.

It would be something like this.

Prepare for Undead
[Downtime] [Manipulate]
Check Undead Lore
Requirements Trained in Undead Lore or hired a sage
Use your particular set of knowledge to help prepare the fortress for an undead attack. Optimize the traps against unintelligent undead.

*****

Jayma:

Trapmakers

Snare Crafting refers to any PCs attempting it without aid from an NPC. You trapmakers is almost complete. It does omit Matthild who was a tracker before being captured. It would be reasonable to say that Matthild and Plisken as trackers and hunters would be better equipped to set up the snares though.

For ease, here is a review of the general skills the trained NPCs have in relation to the current battle preparation tasks.

Carpenter: Braderock Brumn, Wilfred Mayar
Sage: Sylvina Norritch
Stonemason: Junissa Yovitch
Trapmaker: Edgar Hengus, Martin Hengus, Matthild, Plisken the Brown

Train the Villagers

For Train the Villagers, is Jayma trained in light armor? It would be much harder to teach the villagers how to fight in armor without meeting that requirement.

Q: For the purpose of ranged attacks, how many feet should we add when targeting people on the ground outside the fort from the battlements?

The battlements are 10 feet off of the ground.

The roof of the keep is 45 feet up.

*****

Brekovi:

Q: Slings, staves and clubs generally have a cost of 0. Assuming someone trains the villagers, can we assume everyone would have at least these weapons?

Yes.

Q: With the people we train, would they have other weapons?

There is a smattering of other weapons and armor among the villagers. Gear that the Henguses made but not sold, heirlooms, tools like sickles from the farmhouse or knives. The church also has some excess weapons to help equip others.

Q: How about sling bullets? It seems 2nd edition doesn't allow you to just use rocks for free in your sling.

While sling bullets aren't free, given the minor cost of sling bullets and the number of villagers available, I would say it would be a reasonable action to allow an expedited crafting of sling bullets and other ammunition for the villagers.

That would be likely another crafting task.

Q: Does it require a project to gather stacks of appropriate blunt and slashing objects along the walls that Jayma and Brekovi could use?

I think that, especially with the scrap yard, it is safe to say that you can set up varying projectiles along the walls without any additional action.

For Train the Villagers, is Jayma trained in light armor? It would be much harder to teach the villagers how to fight in armor without meeting that requirement.

No, she's only trained in Unarmored Defense.

That is why I suggested that she team up with Rakka to do the training. I'm assuming that Rakka is trained in light armor, otherwise someone else who is will do just as well. That way, Jayma provides the simple weapons training and Rakka supports Jayma by providing the missing light armor training.

Does the one person doing the training have to be both trained in simple weapons and light armor?

If so, then Jayma is out of luck on doing Train the Villagers tasks. The only PCs who are both trained in simple weapons and light armor are Meadow, Shagrat, and Zabu. Of the three, only Meadow is trained +4 in Diplomacy; Shagrat is untrained at +2, and Zabu at +1.

What if all we want is villagers to be able to use a sling and retreat before any undead are in melee?

If she can’t train villagers, can she perhaps do some sort of planning activity?

If this were a wargame I would say Diplomacy to give villagers a bonus to morale. I don’t think there is anything like a morale attribute here, but I could be wrong. Anything that could get the villagers to act more cohesively. Maybe act as lookouts and runners?

——

Open to suggestions on my last action. I am inclined towards creating a pit since that provides battlefield control. Skeletons are faster, so I would expect them to be the ones hit by traps.

Jayma, the training is a rare task that can't be mitigated with the aid of a skilled NPC. The person training villagers needs to be proficient with both simple weapons and light armor.

While I would be open to Brekovi's suggestion of offering an inspiring speech, it would be more difficult. Also, it should be noted that even though traps or other things you might make (snares, pit traps, deadfalls, barricades, ammunition, weapons, etc.) those only required trained Crafting without the aid of an ally.

With an specialist NPC, Jayma would still get her level, Int mod, and a +2 circumstance bonus to the check. It would be more likely to provide an advantage in the defense than inspiring the villagers in this case.

For the others training villagers, I am still open to combat lore skills if anyone has them (using Int or Cha at your preference).

Jayma if you're have trouble coming up with tasks to do you could maybe grab one of the crafters and do something useful like set up pit traps, reinforce the front gate using the gecko cages, or possibly set up some way to drop stuff on the attackers.

Meadow needs to sleep.

Hopefully either Zabu or Shagrat will be able to train some of the villagers. Having slingers focusing fire on the skeletons could really help.

Looking at the fortress, I can’t find where the main gate is.

When we are positioning ourselves, Brekovi will be next to Meadow so he can enchant her bow. Her bow should be effective against the Zombies.

Zabu has Gladiatorial Lore. Probably not the most efficient way to fight undead but at least he'll be able to teach the villagers which end of club to swing at a skeleton.

And may be appropriate given their improvised weapons. I'm sure that people would pay to see people fight each other with clubs for the novelty factor.

Do we think that either of the Masks can consecrate holy water? Might be useful to have.

Do we think that either of the Masks can consecrate holy water? Might be useful to have.

Doubtful. I think Mask Narsen would have mentioned it here if they could.

Looking at the fortress, I can’t find where the main gate is.

Based on the beaten path in the map, I was assuming it was between the front towers. Makes the most sense from a defensive point of view. Forces your attackers to run a gauntlet across the front of the fort and then take flanking fire from the towers trying to breach the gates.

Thanks, Jayma. That makes sense.

——

I made a quick spreadsheet to track when NPCs were busy. I figure it should at least be useful for our GM, even if no one else looks at it.

I assumed that since the lessons didn’t get through the first time, Zabu continued to drill the same people. Although he mentioned Junissa, she was busy with Jayma creating the pit traps at that time.

Zabu could have trained two more people. Plisken and the guards do no need training.

Meadow spent shift 2 training people as well. I don’t have a list of people she trained.

Given that Junissa had been up for two shifts, Brekovi must have done snares. He would not cause someone to work when tired. Since he doesn’t need training in weapons, I have assumed Plisken helped him with the snares.

Because you know what this game needed? One more spreadsheet. Right?

I find it easier to do columns of text in a spreadsheet than a Google doc. I didn’t actually do any math or fancy spreadsheet stuff, just used it to organize things on a grid.

I will that I am fine with a bit more flexibility in this section so that there isn't a need for people to plan out around the sleep schedules of the NPCs in addition to your own. The only hard limit I would put in this section are the trained NPCs and you are well below that limit.

Similar to training, the training is purely beneficial and there shouldn't be a worry about making certain that the NPCs are equally trained.

Just to make sure it isn't lost in my post, I wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to place themselves within the fort as the battle starts.

I also wanted to confirm your exploration actions as this will be more narrative and less turn by turn combat until if or when the undead are able to get past your defenses.

@GM:

As it starts I want to hear how well your defenses, attacks, and training pay off.

This is a bit puzzling. The questions are asking about the results of our actions. We already did the actions, rolled the dice, and roleplayed them; what more is there to say about these questions? What kind of answers are you looking for?

Your latest post here seems to indicate that the battle is more narrative-focused than combat-crunchy, but is it really the case that we can just roleplay the siege battle however we wish?

Good question.

I would describe the prior descriptions as the immediate results of your actions (e.g. you successfully created a deadfall of logs on the side of the fort). What I'm looking for now is how your preparations pay off (e.g. Holding for the moment as the undead march up the pass I release the logs cutting straight through the mass of the undead shattering a handful of the attacking skeletons).

There are certainly limits to how far this will go, but as your keep is very well defended, this opening will involve a lot going very well for the party as you start this with a major positional advantage in addition to your wealth of traps. Once it comes to the point where undead can negate some of those advantages then you will need to prove your successes in combat and dice rolls.

Your initial defense is not going to wipe out all of the undead, but by a long shot, but it will be certain to cut their numbers in half at least before we head into combat.

You have free reign on what you post and how you are winning at the start of the battle. I will be treating your posts as what you put in your own report to the Venture-Captain so if someone goes a bit out of bounds with their own success that is perfectly fine.

If someone does step out far from the bounds (like killing all the undead or describing characters getting killed off by undead at this phase of the fight) I'll step in to explain "what really happened...", but there isn't a punishment even if your character would report an outlandish and unreasonable success on their part as that also shows some character and can be fun.

I would ask that these be kept relatively concise though (no longer than this post. Preferably no longer than half this post).

Q: Are these kinds of (Dungeon World -esque) questions where the answers are used in setting up the scene? "Whatever you say is the truth, at least from your perspective"?

Yes, your descriptions will be what I use to set the scene and how and where your defenses are breached to the point where you will be put into combat.

And you are correct that there are limits to what you can do within the context of the game and especially PFS. You are not going to win this battle exclusively through the power of narrative at the very least.

As an addendum, feel free to ask any questions you want as well if anything is unclear or you need more information.

Also the questions I posed in the gameplay post are necessarily anything you need to answer if you don't want to, they are just jumping off points if you felt any lack of direction.

I wanted to post a reminder that I'll be looking for your exploration actions for I switch to combat turns.

Thanks for the reminder.

Had it at Detect Magic, but changed to Scout since it really didn’t make any sense to be detecting magic under the current situation.

Edit: Seems we had two people doing scout, switched to Search.

I wanted to post a reminder that I'll be looking for your exploration actions for I switch to combat turns.

Jayma will go with Avoid Notice at Stealth +5.

Sorry for the slow posting. Thanksgiving and all.

I'll go ahead and rest with one action, and train villagers with the second.

I've got the same modifier in diplomacy and intimidate, but thought it might be funnier to "reskin" my training from diplomacy to intimidate, just since it seemed more in character.

That is perfectly fine, I expected that might be the reason.

I feel using Intimidate in place of Diplomacy is perfectly reasonable.

Zabu will Seek.

I'm still a little confused by the elevations. The two western towers on either side of the main doors appear to have a lower larger hexagonal section, that I assume is the same 10 feet off the ground as the rest of the battlements. But there is a smaller hexagonal tower section rising from the center of each of the lower larger hexagonal sections that I presume are both 45 feet high. Is that correct?

If so, then Jayma's view of the action is completely blocked by the smaller tower section rising above the keep. I've placed a couple of green lines to indicate this fact. Even if she gets herself around to the other side of the keep's upper tower, the northwestern upper tower will then block her view of the action, but to a lesser extent. Is that correct?

Correct. A position just on either side of the tower will have some vision of the enemies, but Jayma's original position didn't have any clear view of them.

The arrow from Meadow's bow would have similar issues similar issue, but it is just barely able to connect with the side of the skeleton and send it careening backward over the crenulations.

-2 to the attack because of range. 4 damage to skeleton blue. It is destroyed.

Hunt Prey Single Action

ConcentrateRanger
Source Core Rulebook pg. 168 2.0
You designate a single creature as your prey and focus your attacks against that creature. You must be able to see or hear the prey, or you must be tracking the prey during exploration.

You gain a +2 circumstance bonus to Perception checks when you Seek your prey and a +2 circumstance bonus to Survival checks when you Track your prey. You also ignore the penalty for making ranged attacks within your second range increment against the prey you’re hunting.

You can have only one creature designated as your prey at a time. If you use Hunt Prey against a creature when you already have a creature designated, the prior creature loses the designation and the new prey gains the designation. Your designation lasts until your next daily preparations.

A lot of people don't know this. A ranger shooting at hunted prey ignores the penalty for ranged attacks within the second range increment. The third range increment would apply normally. So Meadow firing with her shortbow at hunted prey has no range penalty at up to 120 feet. At 125 ft to 180 ft she would suffer -4 and more for 4th and 5th range increment as normal. If she fires at a target that is not hunted prey then the -2 for the second range increment would apply normally.

Thank you for the reminder. I recall reading that a while back, but I haven't worked that into my memory yet! Thank you!

Should someone bot Shagrat?

There he goes.

Brekovi, since you're here: would you like delay so that the entire party moves in one initiative group, rather than be sandwiched between the two enemy groups in initiative? Might speed up the combat a good bit.

I am somewhat concerned about Zabu being overwhelmed, especially if all the undead move together.

For this round, I will go to the top of the stairs and cast Magic Weapon on Meadow’s bow. Looking at my options, that seems the best way for me to do damage given where I am.

If the GM just wants to move me as part of his update, that is fine. After I see that update, I’ll have a much better sense of how the battle will flow. I may very well delay after that in order to keep things moving.

Kornel hurries along the fort's battlement, towards the brutal melee. At the paraphet on top of the main gate, he spellcasts a glowing lance of antinecrotic energy, launching it at the skeleton invaders.

◆ Stride, ◆◆ Cast a Spell: Disrupt Undead, targeting red.

[dice=Spell attack]d20+7
[dice=Positive damage]d6+4
(Basic Fort save, DC 17.)

I do not see anything to indicate that Disrupt Undead requires an attack roll.

*whistles like nothing happened*

I understand Brekovi is in an unusual place in initiative and that could cause issues. I'm not worried about the pace of the combat, but if there is a concern and I can do what I'm able to provide any information to Brekovi that might help in planning out a turn.

Well shoot. I'm sorry guys. I thought for certain pink was doomed after Jayma's barrage so I picked a different target. I totally should have focused fire on one of the damaged ones. Hopefully Shagrat and Zabu can capitalize on our attacks and finish one or more off.