Preach can't make the knowledge checks, hopefully one of you can!
I don't know if we should try to rust things or try for the main gun blast thing.
Knowledge (Religion) +8 here... Anyone have a heal?
Aslah has Knowledge Arcana and Nature +8
Messer has Knowledge (Arcana)+7
Yup, if the wand is near Messer he can try and work out stuff. He's just too cooked to deal with the heat himself.
Just instruct; one of us can use the "wand".
Does anyone have heals for Alex?
Ya anyone can just the rusting antenna.
Again, don't stress too much about the situation. As long as the ship doesn't explode with you and everyone on board, you'll be fine.
The rusting and breaking of pipes is a good idea. The main issue is that scalding steam is going to spay out and fill the engine room, so ideally you would want to break them remotely.
Unless someone has a healing potion, Aslah would be the only other to have a cure light wounds spell.
'Remotely' huh. I don't suppose any of us have Mage Hand?
If not then we can rust several pipes partially, choose the thickest, tie it to that and run. It'll take a little bit for the rust to compromise the pipe completely, after all.
No mage hand here.
Regarding a cure for Alexandra, I don't think there's any way for us to heal her now. I'll be taking CLW next level, but of course that doesn't help us now.
GM does Preach have a guestimate of how much time is left? If an explosion is imminent then we have no choice but to rust the pipework.
If there's more time then we maybe have other options. I noticed Alsah has +8 in Arcarna and Kn: Nature. Unfortunately only Alexandra has any points in Kn: Religion so we might have to rely on NPC's.
@Preach: Based on your previous engineering rolls, I'll say sure. There's about 2 minutes left before the boom. (20ish rounds)
If you're looking for a means of destroying things at range, the ship's magazine is full of explosives. (Alsah just came back from there, so it would be fresh in her mind.) Preach has a gun and even whacking it with a sword (once rusted) is fine, but PC will will take damage from the steam.
The best way to drop the heat would be to empty the burning material (fire gems, coal?) from the furnace. That creates its own problems (where you dump it, harm from the heat and so on), but might be the safest method, IMO. If we have enough time is another matter.
What is the floor of the engine room made of? Metal or wood. If metal, you could dump the burning stuff in a corner.
2 minutes. Bryn will probably spend half that bringing Alex up and finding help?
Juliet's bringing Alex up (she's already lifted Alex over her shoulder and started up already). I think Bryn could maybe just go straight for help and shave some time there?
I think Alsah has a good point about taking the heat source away. There must be a shovel or something? Of course getting close enough to do that might be harmful...
I wonder if there's time to try and soak some clothes in water?
So, I was the curator of an inland rivers collection at a library/museum/archive, and dealt a lot with steamboats as part of my job - they're wonderous machines). I've held off saying anything b/c I don't think that Juliet would know much about a ship like the Coaltongue, but since were' discussing things here in the discussion tab, I think there's a few ways we could approach things.
Assuming that the Coaltounge is relatively analagous to a real-world steamship, there should be firebox(s) with shovels. The shovels would be used to put the fuel into the fireboxes rather than take it out, but in the real world there were burly dudes (firemen) whose jobs were to add fuel to the fireboxes, so in theory it shouldn't be too hot, as the firemen would have had to get close to the fireboxes to put the fuel in. I think this is what Alex and Alsah have been messing with regarding the fire crystals?
The fuel gets put into the fire, bringing the water in the boilers to a boil, creating steam which is channeled through piping into the pistons, which lift and fall with the steam (and use a valve in the piston to release the steam when the piston gets full), which powers the machinery that gives the ship locomotion. On a steamboat, the pistons merely turn a crank that turns the paddlewheel(s), so the Coaltongue is likely much more complicated.
Assuming that the design is essentially the same, there's lots of week points. The steam could be diverted from the piping beyond the boilers. The firebox could be cooled. The valve in the pistons could be opened.
There was also usually a safety valve on the boilers themselves, though these were unreliable and often weighed down in an effort to give the boat more power (which lead to more explosions). If the Coaltongue has a safety valve perhaps it would be as simple as ensuring that was open?
It's four rounds of movement from the engine room out onto the deck.
Emptying the firebox, would cool the whole thing down. The furnace is crammed full of firegems, hot enough to melt metal. A PC can use a shovel to remove some firegems as a standard action, taking 1d6 points of fire damage per round. After a given shovel is used ten times, it slags and is no longer useful. Mage hand can also be used.
Let's make a decision here folks, if we were playing in person, the AP recommends using a timer, with 30 seconds per round to simulate the stress of the situation. It doesn't really matter what you do, but you need to decide on something. If you're stuck, then would recommend calling for an evacuation of the ship.
This ship is one of a kind and none of your PCs have ever seen a real steam engine before.
It sounds like the firebox and boiler are already damaged beyond hope of salvage, so we might as well cause as much damage as we need to stop things going plooey. And someone with a decent diplomacy should head upstairs to convince people to head for the life boats, in case we don't break the right thing.
Ok, Bryn doesn't have the social skills at level 1 to do anything top deck if that's a concern, so he'll empty the firebox. He may get 1-2 extra rounds, if lucky, due to being a d10 class.
Time to go Captain Kirk/Spock, depending on which version comes to mind...
I assume the firewards are am bringing will protect us from the heat. Only a couple of rounds out
For what it is worth as Alexandra cannot really 'say' anything: get her up to 1 hp and go the knowledge, fire weapon route.
The reason Alex grabbed the one gem out over all the others was because it was different, as we saw, would have summoned a fire elemental in the furnace, so it was good to get out. If I had to do it again, maybe would have gone with a shovel route (i thought someone might have had healing too), but descison made and moving on. As the Gm has said, we are on a time clock.
We have some of the knowledges overlaped as well:
Alex: nature/religion
Aslah nature/arcana
Messer arcana
With no healing and a good diplomacy, Juliet will continue with getting Alex to safety and then assist with evacuating everyone.
when I level, I will get cure light wounds, that should help.
skill overlap isn't a bad thing, as it allows aid rolls. that +2 is handy
I'm thinking of going Gunchymist at lvl 2 (the flavour of that has grown on me and it seems to fit the vibe of the setting) and I think that stacks with churgeon so can help a bit with the healing.
I assume the firewards are am bringing will protect us from the heat. Only a couple of rounds out
......
Round 14
As written, the firewards do not provide people with fire resistance, but I will rule that they provide fire resistance 1 when worn.
Bryn and Preach are going to shovel and eat some fire damage, and Juliet is moving topside with Alex.
What are Alsah and Messer doing during round 14?
First, alsah catch her breath. then she will apply the fireward to the furnace to see if that helps to reduce the heat. Hang it on something, or even just push it against it (holding on to the others in case of damage. If that doesn't work, give one to each of the shovellers. a little protection is better than none.
And a thought...
What effect would these wards have if we threw them into the fire? she asks
Just checking in...
Here and waiting...
oops, posted in the wrong spot.
Ok folks, I don't want to get stuck on this fairly minor encounter in the campaign so I'm just going to lay out the options available to you:
You can:
1. Evacuate the ship and watch it go boom.
2. Remove enough fire gems from the fire box. Each round someone shovels increases the boom timer by 1. It takes 20 rounds of firegem removal to stop the explosion (each round of shoveling deals 1d6 points of fire damage).
3. Damage the pipeworks enough to release the excess steam pressure. (Your rusting + smashing plan falls under this.)
4. Flood the engine room to cool down the furnace.
5. The energy siphoning skill check plan (With Alex unconscious that's not really possible).
6. Going to get Geoff Massarde, the Danoran tiefling who helped Risur design the Coaltongue, for help.
7. Going to get sailors for help.
6. Some other crazy plan you come up with or a combo of the above.
@Alsah: Knowledge(arcana) would cover the effect that the fire wards would have, if any.
I think we should do a combination of 1, 6 & 7. I'm hoping we can avoid damaging the ship too much.
Honestly, the boiler's scrap, I think. The kind of heat and pressure it's under already will have deformed the metal. If the boiler isn't halfway to slag then targeting the piping will leave the ship dead in the water but easily repairable.
If 4 is an option without Create Water, then it might work, but we'll have to deal with steam again. Rusting the boiler open and dumping the firestones on the deck will cause damage, but at least the ship will be whole and salvageable.
Evacuating people just makes sense regardless of what else we do, in case of failure - if no one else wants to Messer is so badly cooked he'll go do that. The smell of charred skin will give him a big modifier to convincing people to flee, I feel.
Sorry all. I guess a not so selfless action as I thought it was, kinda fubared the options in this.
^ There's nothing to apologize for, Alexandra! It was the right call given what we knew at the time (and still may have been the right call - that stone you removed may have hastened our demise).
Once Juliet is topside she can look for Massarde, gather some sailors, and/or start evacuating folks. With any luck someone topside will have some healing for Alexandra as well.
Just in case, I'm hoping this is a typo:
2. Remove enough fire gems from the fire box. Each round someone shovels increases the boom timer by 1. It takes 20 rounds of firegem removal to stop the explosion (each round of shoveling deals 1d6 points of fire damage).
Or rather, increasing the boom timer means adding time to the clock?
Sorry all. I guess a not so selfless action as I thought it was, kinda fubared the options in this.
Not that the PCs know, but removing the gem effectively doubled the amount of time you have, so a panicked grabbing of it was a great in character response.
Or rather, increasing the boom timer means adding time to the clock?
Yes it adds time to the clock/ delays the explosion.
Curious to see how this pans out. Guess we have a chance of buying enough time for Massarde come down and save the day.
Think of the heroic scars you are getting.
Yay!? ;)
Here and all. Just waiting to get back in there.
Getting walloped at work. Hope to be dug out tomorrow.
So, I am thinking of re-memorizing a cure light spell instead of sleep. I think it may be more useful. I could do two if I also replaced mage armour. Any thoughts?
Also, how are we doing levelling and experience? I can't remember if it was mentioned.
Can we see the supplies before casters memorize spells? That might help Alsah's planning.
Also, are there any good non-lethal weapons? Perhaps something setting specific that might help our encounters?
Aslah. scrolls for you are cheaper than the potions (ie 1st level CLW is 25 gp scroll or a 50 gp potion. It would be good to have both. Alex is unable to use scrolls (spell completion item), but wands she can (spell triggered item).
I am sure we will be able to outfit ourselves after the briefing.
@ Bryn - Sap 1d6 dmg, x2 crit, 2 lbs, costs 1 gp
Police of such an era would have used them
Will try and post tomorrow morning before work. It has been really hot out 35C with humidity and I am exhausted from work today.
good point about the scrolls.
I believe the way we're doing it is we can fight non-lethally with normal weapons, but can't crit with them while fighting non-lethally. I assume we can crit non-lethally if fighting with a non-lethal weapon, though.
If we're at a point in the story where we can requisition supplies again Messer has 67gp I never got around to spending, so I could grab us some healing. We'll probably want stuff to help with moving through the water, climbing and sneaking too, however, before we spend all the shinies on healing.
@ Messer from the Recruitment thread: "Max gold to start, but you don't keep unspent gold."
@ Bryn - Sap 1d6 dmg, x2 crit, 2 lbs, costs 1 gp
Police of such an era would have used them
A little lack luster, but maybe we can reskin the stats for a billy club or something a little more fitting :)
Also, how are we doing levelling and experience? I can't remember if it was mentioned.
It's milestone leveling. Assuming you're successful, you'll hit level 2 at the end of this mission.
Can we see the supplies before casters memorize spells? That might help Alsah's planning.
I'll post it in the gameplay thread with my next update, but yes you'll know the mission critical items you're being given as well you load out stipend before you set out and can plan your spell slots accordingly.
I believe the way we're doing it is we can fight non-lethally with normal weapons, but can't crit with them while fighting non-lethally. I assume we can crit non-lethally if fighting with a non-lethal weapon, though.
That is correct.
I was looking over some Investigator and Alchemy items and in those rabbit holes I went down came across some info that states an Investigator cannot use wands/spell triggered items like an Alchemist. The wording of the same was left out on purpose, but no reason why. So there goes that option for Alex to help with wands. I will have to change gears a little and go into UMD and wait a bit.
I was looking over some Investigator and Alchemy items and in those rabbit holes I went down came across some info that states an Investigator cannot use wands/spell triggered items like an Alchemist. The wording of the same was left out on purpose, but no reason why. So there goes that option for Alex to help with wands. I will have to change gears a little and go into UMD and wait a bit.
I'm going to disagree with that design decision. I see no reason that an investigator wouldn't be able to use spell trigger items the same way an alchemist would. Consider it house ruled.
Alsah has cure light wounds on her spell list, so I'll get a wand of cure light wounds.
And a few scrolls. I'll work out a wishlist.
And a healing kit, methinks