Adventures in Otari

Game Master nilesr

Yes. Sorry if I jumped ahead for 'part two' Just didn't want to leave folks in a lurch waiting for my actions. :o

Okay. I wasn't sure if you were going in order or what. Kromnir is actually after the bad guys, so, do you still want him going?

Question: There is no 5' step in this one, is there?

The bad guys went. The action you post would technically be a Round 1 action.

There is, but it's mostly useless.

Step

Any movement takes an action.

So seeing how the action I posted would be a round 1 action, that leaves me with 2 actions left for round 1, do I have that right?

Nope, all 3 actions. Once we started in "Encounter Mode" I made sure to track actions. I adjudicated the "let the rogue get ahead" before I went into it.

Okay so I'm just rolling for round 2 then, correct?

No, you're still in Round 1..

Think of the initative order as a tape

Round 1

ABC
DEF
GHI
Enemies
JKL <------
MNO

Round 2
ABC
DEF
GHI <-------
Enemies
JKL
MNO

Between the two arrows, its all "Good Guys go" so in that case I just tell you guys to post out of turn and I do my best to match intent with adjudication. Ex: You wanted to target Mob A, but someone kills it before you, so I have you target Mob B.

If you give me qualifiers, I go with those "Kromnir swings at Mob A, but if its dead he'll go for C or whichever mob threatens the cleric"

Gotcha! Thanks! And the info on that last bit you wrote is perfect. Will keep that in mind.

A perfect example of this is probably going to happen.

Staryth posts an action backstabbing a rat, but that rat might already be dead when initiative actually gets to him, but he rolled well and posted some intent for me to work with, so if it is I'll have him stride and stab. He's already hidden from the rats, so they're still flatfooted to him for now.

Staryth: Backstab is now a weapon trait.

When you hit a flat-footed creature, this weapon deals 1 precision damage in addition to its normal damage. The precision damage increases to 2 if the weapon is a +3 weapon.

How do we handle shield block?

@Kromnir: Reach weapons now can attack adjacent tiles. You could move up to Amunet-Ra and attack from there.

That's preferable yes. I can just default to "most dangerous attack" or "first attack" if you want.

Healers tools. Don't you have to have a free hand to use those?

Ah yes, you do.
That means i would have to sheathe the scimitar and draw it again, that's already 3 actions with the healing.
You can wear the healers tools on the bandoleer, so they are freely available at least.
Have to bear that in mind then and look out for Quick Draw or something!

@inspire courage:
-first round of combat first action lingering composition, then inspire courage. Highly efficient because inspire courage will then last for 3-4 rounds most likely.

@Kromnir: Reach weapons now can attack adjacent tiles. You could move up to Amunet-Ra and attack from there.

Really? That is interesting and good to know. If that's the case then if I can retcon Kromnir's movement, Niles, to directly behind Amunet-Ra then that would be cool.

But no worries if not.

Edit: Hey, thanks for the move, Niles! That's perfectly done.

Thank heavens you can edit rolls. My dumb butt forgot to add the inspire courage bonuses on.

Lol! Well... as long as you get there within an hour.

Ok, so our first encounter is over.

Things I noticed

1) Action economy is different, keep in mind that you have 3 actions. They can be divided up any way you choose.
2) Monsters can get a LOT of attacks if you stand still and they can just wail on you.
3) The same is true for PC's though, you saw what Kromnir can do with a reach weapon.

However, it was a relatively short fight, I'm hoping to see how a fight can go when it lasts longer than 2 rounds.

Yeah, the action economy takes some getting used to. It definitely looks like strategy and tactics plays a bit more into things, especially positioning.

Yes! The action economy is VERY involved. There's more "micro-managing", if you will, in this edition of PF rather than simply moving and attacking as in the first edition.

And Niles is right, you DO NOT want to be standing still and going toe to toe every round. Imagine those rats being something like zombies. If Amunet was surrounded by 3 or 4 zombies... man that could get real ugly real fast. That's 9 to 12 attacks every round. Odds are one of them is going to crit much less hit. And you've seen what a crit does(22 damage from 1 swing from Kromnir). That kind of damage probably drops half of us in one fell swoop.

@Charyx: You are absolutely right, my friend. Absolutely right.

I disagree a bit. The rats have a relatively high attack bonus and GM Niles rolled 2 19s, a 20 and a 17 on me...
Yes standing still can be difficult, but a high AC still goes a long way.

In the games i ran i often had a hard time hitting the high AC players.

Oh, absolutely. I was rolling amazingly. Average rolls wouldn't have touched Amunet.

So you can heal HP with a skill now? :O

You can and you should :D
There's some feats building on that.
That was possible in first edition as well.

Ok. So this is a major difference between the two editions, but dungeon exploration is supposed to be quicker due to exploration activities.

There's no more "wait for the rogue to scout it out" its just "take the scout activity" and "search for traps" its "search". And anyone can do them.

Ofc there's skill checks at some point so it's best to pick an exploration activity that fits what you're good at. But everyone has decent perception at this point, and scouting doesn't even require a roll.

I'll give an example based on this party

Staryth could "Search"
Charyx could "Track" (look for tracks)
Amunet already decided that discretion is the better part of valor and is "Defending" (benefit, she has her shield raised at the beginning of any encounter)
Reknar could "repeat a spell" and keep inspire up the entire time. (benefit everyone has inspire up at the start of any encounter)
Daxur has already indicated he will "Investigate" which means I'll roll recall knowledge for anything we come across (including enemies) for him.
Kromnir could assist someone, or "scout" and provide everyone with a bonus to initiative if an encounter occurs.

If this were the declared actions I could figure out a marching order fairly easily based on who's scouting (50% chance of being ahead or behind the group), who's Searching (front) vs someone casting a spell (middle) vs someone defending (rear)

Remember, there's no such thing as "surprise" anymore. It's just perception vs perception (or stealth) and then actions. So, if you have a scout, you get a bonus to perception so you on average go quicker.

WOW. I'm sorry, I am way behind.

I ROLLED A ONE ON STEALTH!!

*Facepalm*

:)
I'm just gonna chalk up Staryth's screw ups (and his player's mistakes as well) On him being young for an elf.

Actually Staryth using the avoid notice action is pretty good, since he then most times would get his surprise attack feature and be able to deal sneak attack in the first round, potentially taking a foe out directly.

Yeah I really like that idea of Kromnir being a "scout". That is going to be his default going forward. Unless I actually mention something else, I am totally sticking with that.

Man that's a good call.

Hey gang. Just a heads up, I'm gonna be down for a day or two. My router died and I don't have many alternatives until we get a new one Saturday afternoon. So just presume Charyx is Hunting Prey and using Flurry every chance he gets until I can regain web stability. Sorry.

Got it, thank you.

I'll definitely have to look all those up lol.

Okay, the ranger class looks pretty durn cool. I'm gonna have to run one of those at some point.

You know, it just amazes me how intricate EVERYTHING is in this game. Per weapons: You don't JUST have a weapon. You have a weapon with a trait or multitude of traits that do specific things. You actually have to search for whatever weapon you're using and find out what it does! That's so crazy wild! I'm so use to them just slashing, smashing, or stabbing and that's it.

So cool.

There don't seem to be many/any 2E games going on these forums, which is a shame really.

I agree, it is a shame. There really aren't many at all. Truly few and far between.

Yeah 2E needs to gain a lot more traction!
Many of the PbP gamers i know have tons of 1E stuff though, even going back to 3.5 and 3PP things, which they still want to use.
2E is a new and not immediately compatible system for them, so they don't want to play it.

I think it's a general issue. The 3.5->4.->Pathfinder, then D&D5 shift isn't that long ago. Then came Starfinder. And now PF2.
Most fans bought so much stuff they are ages away from playing all of it, so they seem to be saturated.

That's what's keeping me from exploring yet completely different systems like LR5 or Star Wars etc.

Wow, another combat that ended in 1 round. And I gave this guy more HP so he'd be tough.

Beginners Box was made for 4 players using the pregens i think, or at least the BB rules. We are 6 and use the full rules.

GM Niles wrote:

Wow, another combat that ended in 1 round. And I gave this guy more HP so he'd be tough.

Beginners Box was made for 4 players using the pregens i think, or at least the BB rules. We are 6 and use the full rules.

Don't hesitate to beef that up^^
+1 or 2 mooks, double hp with single monsters or even something like the advanced template can go a long way.
Else we probably mop the floor here.

I'm beginning to realize that. I actually added 2 rats to the first encounter, and then I was gonna make the spider "elite" but then realized if it got the jump on you that poison at Dc 19 fort was gonna give someone a bad day.

The main difference for me so far between 1E and 2E is the medicine skill and the fact that you can do that 1/hour on anyone.
Which means, ingame a lot more breaks - when possible - are going to happen, so things might progress slower, but there is also a lot more healing available.
Unless you put timestrain into the game, you can count that as often as possible PCs are going to refocus and heal up with medicine.

And yes, there are some effects that are pretty harsh and can still down a PC in one round. Like attacks with poison or other tags, but also traps etc., especially if you fail or worse critically fail the save.
Same for a critical hit.
No risk no fun though^^

the 15 minute adventuring day is what turned me off of 1E for the most part.

2-3 encounters and back to town, ugh.

I like focus/refocus and healing in 10 minutes, then move on.

I'm very sorry folks, some real life troubles are slowing my posting down a lot. I'll try to get back into things a bit more regularly but please bot as you need

Staryth, you could actually move to the zombie, attack and then move back. That would give you one attack with sneak attack, since everyone is flat-footed to you because you successfully used "avoid notice".
Next round you could go into flanking to get sneak attack.

Not sure what your plan is at the moment or why you are moving out of sight to sneak?

Stealth does usualy not work within line of sight, or at least when you stop in line of sight, but that needs to be decided by the GM.

Thank you, Aumnuet, sorry, getting used to things. I'll stick with what I've got for now. But yeah, I keep forgetting I can do things AFTER attacking :o

Don't be sorry^^
I already feel like giving unsolicited advice here :P

Don't forget you have that class feature though, which is expressively for this kind of situation.
From the "avoid notice" exploration activity you are already hidden, since your stealth check was better than their perception.
So there's no need to hide again, at least this round.

Question: Is it possible to trip a guy who has another guy grappled? And if so - and if you succeed - would they then BOTH be tripped or would it just be the guy you intended to trip initially?

You know, like, the one guy falls but he's hanging on to the other guy because he's got him grappled so they both fall. Would it work like that or no?

So, I'd still have Charyx being held, but the DC to escape would drop by 2 since the prone condition drops attack by 2. But, no Charyx wouldn't trip.

So, I'd still have Charyx being held, but the DC to escape would drop by 2 since the prone condition drops attack by 2. But, no Charyx wouldn't trip.

Oooohhh okay. Well that's interesting. Cool. Thanks!

Edit: Not going to go that route but the thought obviously crossed my mind so that's why I was curious.

Sorry for the late post. A stomach bug has ripped it's way through my family and it's been pretty gross.

Ouch! Sorry to hear about it GM Niles - wishing you and your family a speedy recovery!

Get well soon!

Yeah... a real unpleasant situation when everyone gets it!!!