Wednesday is almost here (in some parts of the world it is already Wednesday).
I am giving Hero Point to Emdi - His movement to stand next to Avonatha was a good call (given the crit). If it was his conscious choice since Mirtha had Shield up to soak some of the damage, so he provided the same for Avanatha it was a good one!
Next hero point should be given around Monday 24th of May (roughly)
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At home, I play with my kids, and for my home game, I create all sorts of stupid offbeat characters (even more offbeat, if you consider my PFS characters offbeat already). Half of it is just me being a dork, but half of it is demonstrating the absurd versatility of the game system.
Most recently, I created a pair of characters (we all play two characters when we play), a barbarian and a cloistered cleric - but with the traditional roles reversed. The cleric is harm font and has all offensive spells, and the barbarian is an unarmed pacifist who refuses to rage and uses Spirit Link (via witch dedication) and 17 hp/level to heal the party.
So very coincidentally, I have had some recent experience in playing a character who doesn't attack in combat. Delaying like crazy to get the preferred turn order is really useful - I wish I had posted faster over the weekend so that Avonatha could have run behind me (and given up one of her magic missiles for protection).
As to Avonatha's question ... there is a way to break calm emotions - if they take a hostile action against the affected, the spell is broken. Use it to your advantage - if Hornbori or Emdi is blocking the corridor, run behind them and they either have to run all the way around, or break the spell.
DM, does she know of another way to get rid of the calm emotions spells?
Feel free to challenge me on that. But I don't think so.
Now let me elaborate:
I foolishly mentioned that the spell cast was Calm Emotions. I should not have, to actually let you decide if you want to identify the spell or not. I stripped you from that option so you all knew the spell but your PC's did not.
Your PC did notice that the diggers are not attacking your frontline so you could suspect that the spell would end if they do.
Your PC saw that bard was sustaining a spell, which means that if hr can't sustain it the effect would be lost.
Rules specify Counteracting as a way to fight that kind of situation, but I am not sure if you have anything to counteract this situation. I am not a specialist nor even a knowledgable person on that topic, but I am aware of the focus spell:
Soothing Words that allows you to counter emotion effects.
On top of the above, I have one more idea but I will share it after the combat.
Avonatha you're magic missile is target at whom?
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Its meta gamy, but we could end the effect by damaging our own allies. I was going to do that but decided against it in my last turn, since Mirtha didn't ID the spell.
PFS has long established that a PC can make inferences regardless of dice rolls. While you don't recognize the spell as it was cast, you could still figure it out from observable facts. If you critically fail an ID check on a fireball, it's not like you can't figure out what you just saw was a fireball. So it's not meta-gamey for PCs o figure things out.
I would argue that the only question is would your PC know a spell like Calm Emotions exists? PF1 had Spellcraft and if you had ranks in spellcraft then you arguably knew about spells. I don't know what the analog is here. Maybe Knowledge in the spell's discipline? Occult/Nature/Arcana/Religion? Of course this isn't spelled out in the rules, so its more of GM discretion.
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Identifying the spell requires the spells tradition; and Mirtha isn't trained in Occultism, which is the tradition a bard uses.
Its pretty obvious when somebody casts fireball. It is a giant, explosive ball of fire. Even if you don't identify it, it is pretty obvious what it does. Calm emotions is a lot more subtle and it might not be clear how their mind has been affected.
Perception could maybe be used to discern why Hornbori and Emdi are acting the way they do, since that can be used like Sense Motive in 1st edition.
This spell is in both Occultic and Divine groups which means that you need Occultism or Religion to identify it. The spell of lvl 2 I think has a DC18 (or something around it)
I think as someone wrote in this thread: the rules are created to introduce balance. Meaning: characters that are trained in Occultism & Religion can actually recognize the spell and either have tools to counter it, or can shine with a creative solution and slap poor Emdi until he cooperates. So this is one of the advantage of having educated PC.
Otherwise, fighters dumb like a pile of rocks act like clerics/sorcerers because they know what is the spell and act upon the knowledge that the player has. It is the same with people not recalling knowledge about monsters as everyone knows that Skeleton should be smashed or cut and not pierced. Or like everyone assuming that the enemy has no attack of opportunity, so they act like there is no tomorrow :D. But in one of the repeatable when everyone knows that the enemy has an AOO their PC behavior change slightly and no one is recklessly casting spells in melee range :D The list goes on.
The reality is that it is not easy to separate what you know vs what your PC knows, what is pure deduction vs meta-gaming etc.
Given the above, slapping a non-cooperating ally is not unheard of...
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Or like everyone assuming that the enemy has no attack of opportunity, so they act like there is no tomorrow :D. But in one of the repeatable when everyone knows that the enemy has an AOO their PC behavior change slightly and no one is recklessly casting spells in melee range :D The list goes on.
The reality is that it is not easy to separate what you know vs what your PC knows, what is pure deduction vs meta-gaming etc.
I'll just point out that in my 10+ years of PFS and way more than that in general RPS, GMs are guilty of way more of meta-gaming you're describing than players. Mainly because they aren't even aware that they are doing it.
How often have you seen a GM have an NPC make a Recall Knowledge check?
How often do GMs have NPCs talk out lout and coordinate their actions?
I once had very good GM use an NPC to cast confusion on my Barbarian. My Barbarian failed the save, but made the confusion roll to act normally one round and pounded a NPC that was in melee against my Barbarian. Amazing that NPC avoided attacking me....lol....because the GM knew if it did, my Barbarian would no longer have to make confusion rolls. When I poked ever so slightly at this development, the GM had insisted the actions were totally rationale for the NPC. LOL.
Stuff like this becomes more prevalent when the GM is familiar with the PCs and their abilities. I've even seen a few GMs pull shenanigan with marked prey.
The reality is that it is not easy to separate what you know vs what your PC knows, what is pure deduction vs meta-gaming etc.
Agreed. That's why GMs have to be careful about revealing metadata.
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I don't think I'm immune to meta gaming as a GM but I try to watch for it and be as fair as possible. And I think having enemies chat is actually a good idea, not just for fairness but because it can add a lot of characterization to the NPCs.
I remember once I was playing a scenario with a pregen brawler and as soon as my character used martial flexibility to get Deflect Arrows, suddenly the enemy ranged attacker decided to stop shooting at him. Not after the brawler successfully blocked a shot; the enemy just started ignoring him and firing at other PCs, despite the fact that the brawler was the only one actually engaging them in melee. It ended up being one of the more unpleasant sessions I've ever played, because the GM seemed to really want to kill some players and used every tool at his disposal, including metagaming and retconning actions if they weren't effective, in order to achieve this end. I think only two players ended up surviving and I was not one of them.
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I once had very good GM use an NPC to cast confusion on my Barbarian. My Barbarian failed the save, but made the confusion roll to act normally one round and pounded a NPC that was in melee against my Barbarian. Amazing that NPC avoided attacking me....lol....because the GM knew if it did, my Barbarian would no longer have to make confusion rolls. When I poked ever so slightly at this development, the GM had insisted the actions were totally rationale for the NPC. LOL.
I don't know if things are different in PFS2, but in PFS1, casters are supposed to know if their spells worked - and there are magic items that allow targets to pretend otherwise. I think you and I just played together in a PFS1 scenario in which I got access to the Seducer's Bane bracelet; one of its functions is to mask whether an enchantment spell worked. It's 10k gp, so it affects a pretty fundamental property of spellcasting.
"Leave the two fighters alone, I think it is working!" yells troubadour as he sustains the spell and grabs the crossbow.
Just FYI, he did yell, might not be too precise about it. But my posts were already long so I tried to sell the idea rather than narrate everything. Also, their team consisted of a bard and shovel swingers. Besides, inspire courage which was lingering their only card was calm emotions.
The other spells were: Charm, Magic Mouth, ventriloquism, illusionary disguise, and Soothe which were not very helpful in a fight.So I could imagine that they would at least discuss the spell before the fight => that was my train of thought.
Either way, we are into Influence engagement, the rules are linked below the slides.
What about regaining spell slots?
I don't think I understand the question ;) So I will try to respond as best as I can and you will let me know if this covers it.
The whole scenario will take place during one day. As a result, used spells per day will not come back.
You regain spell slots after daily preparations (so the next day).
I know that there are scenarios that happen over a longer period of time but this is not one of them.
Does it cover it?
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"Leave the two fighters alone, I think it is working!" yells troubadour as he sustains the spell and grabs the crossbow.
Just to be clear, I have no problem with GMs metagaming this aspect of the game. As a GM, I make it clear that all PCs are aware of everything that other PCs are doing and all the NPCs know what the other NPCs are doing.
1. It's a game, not meant to be real life.
2. It works both ways.
3. It's impossible for players/GMs to compartmentalize this type of information and it puts undo burden on the GM to try and manage this in every encounter.
I only brought up my situation because the GM was convinced he wasn't metagaming.
Yes, you can. However, you risk that your assumption is off. On top of that discovery can tell you weakness (which when used lowers the DC) and resistance (when used increase the DC), as well as skills discovered using discovery, are revealed from lowest to highest DC so it gives you a sense of how hard could be a skill check.
But yes, you can.
Regarding Coyote Cloak, sure
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He believes that even that he might learn something he would have to leave his team to their doings. She will carry the message a considerable distance away, sorry for cutting a good initiative
I interpreted this as the GM letting me know that pursing the urchin is a dead end for this scenario, and Anjo returns. The GM also indicated I had 1st and 2nd round actions, so I am not being penalized because the scenario didn't' anticipate this as an option and viable way to gather information.
Yeah, I assumed that Anjo went after the kid when the others were healing (as that was immediately after the fight). And came back for the Influence session.
With regards to Influence, the purpose of it is to get influence points. Based on them, that given NPC will make certain decisions during the scenario. So the rolls themselves do not reveal anything (unless you do discovery). I am responding to questions to actually share some of the backstories with you
So to sum up: roll along, as Emdi success will not tell you much with regards to your check.
So no ;)
You can do discovery with one of the three checks :
- Heraldry Lore ;) (low DC)
- Society
- Perception (high DC)
You can do influence with more than one skill and Diplomacy is always one of them. But there are others that could be easier to use.
Is it more clear now?
This is the first time I have any contact with this system so you know, it can be bumpy ;)
I try to keep it updated on the 3rd slide
I am sorry to hear that Avonatha. Hold on there!
So the roof is 15 ft above. Climb rules states that success gives you 5ft of movement with the normal movement. That would mean you need 3 successes to climb the roof. The roofs will be difficult terrain in terms of movement on them.
With regards to vision and line of sight, I don't want to go into geometry with this. Unless someone is hiding behind the corner or is next to your roof (while you are on the opposite end0 lets say that you can see them.
Which are connected (up is north)
The western line of the building has a whole (visible on the map) 4 squares North and 3 west from the enemy
The eastern line is fully connected with the buildings, you can walk to the enemy
Does it make sense?
Can I use the prep round to climb with the starting box?
Sure
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With regards to vision and line of sight, I don't want to go into geometry with this.
a^2+b^2-2*a*b*cos θ=c^2
When θ = π/2, cos θ = 0, ergo, a^2+b^2=c^2.
What's so hard about that?
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Sorry, I havent been on, this week is Finals week at school and I had to deal with 2 students who cheated yesterday. On the otherhand I found out that I had been teaching the French Revolution all wrong. The French Revolution took place because Marie Antoinette wanted to spend all of France's money and lead a coup so she could.
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When I was a TA, we used to put the most ridiculous answers on the board and have a vote for our favorite at the end of a grading session. If any of you know organic chemistry, my all-time favorite was 8 bonds to carbon.
Now that I write it out it sounds a little mean, but really it was just a low key way to blow off steam during those 4+ hour grading sessions.
:D Funny stories.
@Team - you all made the check to spot the first trap. Hornbori was the only one to also spot the second trap, so I shared it via spoiler, but I can't imagine him not sharing this information. So I just made the trap visible on the map (two red crosses on the map).
@Avonatha - yeah Mirtha is right, summon animal spell has 30 ft range. Which means just before the traps ;)
You can use our wise-ass, Pythagoras, to help you calculate the triangles :P