PFS2: Breaking the Storm by GM Redeux (Inactive)

Game Master redeux

Really was trying to find a way to kill Pink this turn, but nothing seemed statistically likely based on what we know so we're rolling with this instead. Time to take life by the horns.

Most I could have theoretically come up with was having Necalli hit me for average 10 damage (5 to SD) then running up to the 80' elevation (Boots of Elvenkind would have allowed for it on a Success balance) and dropping 80' for 20 damage to SD. That said, since the last one survived at 88, 89 damage felt unlikely to be a killshot, so we're rolling with this.

Unfortunately, the creature can dismiss the spell :(

Oops

Unfortunately, the creature can dismiss the spell :(

I still win the action economy trade. Checkmate Shadow Demon, have fun flying up for 4 actions. :)

Greezgux - Quinoline has a snapleaf so she can be down there quicker than you can climb down, and invisibly to boot. If the GM will let that factor into your decision, you can opt to do something different. If not, she'll drop ghost charges to cover you.

GM - Unsure if Ro & Jakoby's most recent actions (flying a potion to him) is ok, but if so, it heals for 3d8+10 and Ro's Token should move accordingly - lmk!

If Greezgux wanted to change his action of climbing down since both Q and Ro seem keen to head down there, then that is fine.

Ro's actions are fine - We had Ro use an interact action when commanded in 2-20 as well. Plant the dolok seed

I'll wait to update to see if @Greezgux changes his action(s).

I wouldn't say Quinoline is keen (she doesn't have a way to get back up), I just wanted to point out that she could. I also forgot Greezgux's climb speed allows him to climb down faster than 5'/action, I thought it would take him 4 rounds to get to the bottom.

I ended up advancing to keep things moving since sounds like it would still be a good option and all things considered the party is well off at the moment, especially after Ro's delivery

sqrt(20^2+45^2) = sqrt(25*[16+81]) = sqrt(25*97) ~ 5*10

Quinoline is 50' from the shadow demon.

@Zac - BTW I don't know if you have looked at the summary page in our slides (right below the current map). I do put the AC of monsters in there as you are learning what their AC is. I do this since at a live table it is a bit easier to track what numbers are hitting/critting but over play-by-post it can be easy to lose track of that stuff and i think it is fair table knowledge since some people would be tracking that on their own anyway. Just mentioning this since you weren't sure if your 26 was a hit or a crit but the group found the AC earlier. Might be useful in other combats!

GM - the link to the slides in your Campaign Header works, but the link to the slides in your GM Alias short-circuits for me, fyi...

Thanks, had to use a link shortener when I was running a bounty but i replaced it with direct links now that i have space again. Im guessing your browser may not have liked my redirect service

I'm posting from my phone and cannot move my token. Would someone move Astrid adjacent to the bad guy for me please?

I think we need 30 min to heal if Jakoby and Ro are fully healed without Amada and Quinoline.

Quinoline: -32 (2x TW)
Amada: -20 (2x TW)
Necalli: -25 (2x TW)
Zac: -16 (1x TW)
Astrid: -48 (3x TW)
Jakoby: -8 (? self healed?)
Ro: -35 (? Jakoby posted +17 fully healed in Gameplay)

Amada (Assurance, CR, WM)
0-10 min: Astrid (-29), Amada (-1)
10-20 min: Astrid (-10), Quinoline (-13)
20-30 min: Refocus?

Quinoline (Assurance, WM)
0-10 min: Zac (-0)
10-20 min: Amada (-0)
20-30 min: Quinoline (-0), Astrid (-0)

I believe my math falsely added This Burst to Ro - I will put him back at 58/76

I think we should consider taking only 10 minutes here - including rolling instead of using Assurance

Also people can lick the goblin...

Quinoline would be fine with doing what we can in 10 minutes, but as Astrid is the most damaged and a frontliner, I think her vote should count more than Quinoline's.

Well I suppose if we're truly concerned with time I could drink one lesser healing potion and spend 10 minutes treating wounds. My aeon stone get me 10 points and the treat wounds and potion will get me 4d8+15. If I roll average I'll just be down 5 points. If rolls go poorly I can use another potion or use it on someone else if necessary.

I think we also need to consider how we will spend our Aspiration points. I think we need to spend 2 points to reduce the spirit's defense 1 point to reduce its offence and 1 to allow Dolok to return to this plane.

@GM Redeux
I am unclear on how we get Dolok back. Do we have to do it at the end of the adventure or is it assumed that we can call him to assist in the final fight?

If Amada is down by 1hp I won't care that much, so if it speeds things up he'll accept 1 treat wounds. Amada hilariously enough never got around to using his Focus Point last combat since he immediately got possessed, so no need to refocus.

Quinoline: -32 (2x TW)
Amada: -20 (1x TW)
Necalli: -25 (2x TW)
Zac: -16 (1x TW)
Astrid: -48 (3x TW)
Jakoby: -8 (? self healed?)
Ro: -35 (? Jakoby posted +17 fully healed in Gameplay)

Amada (Assurance, CR, WM)
0-10 min: Astrid (-29), Quinoline (-13)
10-20 min: Astrid (-10), Ro (0)

Quinoline (Assurance, WM)
0-10 min: Zac (-0), Amada (-1)
20-30 min: Quinoline (-0), Necalli (-6) (should be okay at that point unless the roll is massively below average)

That gets most of us in respectable HP ranges with only 20 minutes assuming respectable dice. Any faster than 20 would likely require resource expenditure.

I'm assuming Dolok is going to be an "after the fight" expenditure by the sound of it, as an aside; I believe it was mentioned we'd be using the energy to call him back once the job had been finished on our end.

Wouldn't it take 30 minutes rather than 20 to heal someone twice with continual recovery since they would be immune for 10 minutes?

I am unclear on how we get Dolok back. Do we have to do it at the end of the adventure or is it assumed that we can call him to assist in the final fight?

Dolok will be assisting you in his aspirational state during the final fight-- primarily forcing the spirit to present itself to the party and then provide any additional benefits from the points you spend to make him stronger (representing how much energy he is using). Then at the end of the fight, if you have enough points left, he would be able spend the last of his energy to return to the material plane. He's asked that the party do their best to allow him to return, but said that he is willing to take the consequence if it means saving the party.

Wouldn't it take 30 minutes rather than 20 to heal someone twice with continual recovery since they would be immune for 10 minutes?

It takes reading the Treat Wounds action which specifies that the immunity interval overlaps with time spent treating. So with Continual recovery you start treating and your 10 minute cooldown starts while you treat for 10 minutes. Letting you start again once the first 10 minutes pass.

Continual Recovery, not Slightly Less Intermittent Recovery. :D

Just a heads up- Thursday through Sunday I will be running virtual tabletop sessions for Paizocon Europe every morning in my timezone. My regular update posts will likely be more in the afternoon or evening of my time (GMT-4). Come Monday I'll be back to posting regularly in the morning and sporadically throughout the day as needed.

As for the Aspiration Point, I'm not against using one here if everyone's interested, but I am somewhat nervous about what we might be missing out on if we chose to use it on the Spirit instead. That said, I think Astrid should have the greatest say in the matter since they are currently Slowed 1; Drained 1 doesn't really compare to that. That in mind, I'll defer my vote to whatever Astrid chooses to give her vote more weight since I'm otherwise on the fence.

Frankly I think that we probably should not spend any points. With only 4 points we'll need 1 for Dolok, 2 to reduce defenses and I think it would be quite useful to use the last to reduce offence. Astrid will still be able to shield block after spending 2 actions to move and attack or double slice since she can use reactive shield to bring her shield up and quick block to block so my options are not as limited as it might seem.

Should the group use cleansing? current votes -
Astrid - skip
Amada - skip (via Astrid's vote)
Quinoline - yes to cleansing
Jakoby - yes to cleansing
Greezgux - ??
Zac - ??

would need majority (4+) to use the points for cleansing

Quinoline flip-flops and suddenly opposes using the cleansing.

Actually, she just votes however Astrid votes; if Astrid's okay with her condition, we shouldn't use a Point - we essentially only have 1, since the other 3 seem to be mission critical.

Sooo ... It turns out Quinoline has Continual Recovery. I just straight up forgot she had it.

whoopsie

Just to confirm with the group - How many points are you intending to spend starting out?

I see on the slide we have 1 spirit offense, 2 spirit defense, and 1 for dolok to return all highlighted.

or is there another plan? I ask since recent discussions seem like the group might be doing 2 spirit defense, 1 for dolok, and 1 for ???

Spending them is a free action, but essentially asking now since combat is starting!!

Feel free give your reaction IC if you wish but we are basically in initiative.

Went ahead and posted what our tentative but previously-discussed plan was - GM go ahead and change the exact specifics if we end up with another plan here in discussion.

Sounds good, thats what i assume what the plan is, but just want to make sure we're all on board, or the majority.

ran out of time today with back to back sessions at paizocon EU, will update in morning to get this combat rolling (GMT-4)

To be clear, Quinoline is on board with the in-game plan, and I'm okay with the IRL plan of picking up tomorrow. If you need a mental health break, I'm good with a (small) pause, too - we've got no external forces pushing us forward.

^^this^^

Also back from my death march into sleep deprivation that was the combo of Paizocon Europe and Local Gameday GM'ing; should be back to more regular posting moving forward.

Fun fact, the next item I was planning on purchasing with this character were Eyes of the Eagle, but then I learned literally yesterday that apparently Goggles of Night also give an Item Bonus to Perception Checks this edition, so I might as well purchase those instead to kill two birds with one stone as someone lacking Darkvision.

A while back, I went through and made a list of every worn item that granted an item bonus to a skill. I'm pretty sure it's out of date now because new items got added since then, but this is what I have for Perception:

Skill Bonus Type Name Level Cost Activation
Perception +1 closeup Detective's Kit 3 40 -
Perception +1 distance Spyglass 4 80 -
Perception +1 sight Goggles of Night 5 150 darkvision
Perception +2 sight Eyes of the Eagle 9 700 -
Perception +2 sight Goggles of Night (Greater) 11 1250 darkvision
Perception +3 sight Goggles of Night (Major) 18 20000 darkvision

@All We're winding down on the conclusion of 2-22 within next day or two.

First off, well done! Crit failing the ritual was a bit worrying at first though you managed to handle it all in stride and still "kill" the BBEG quicker than my group that critically succeeded the ritual! Impressive!

Secondly, downtime!
Everyone gets 8 days of downtime. or 12 days if you're field-commissioned. If you're doing an earn income then i need the following:

Skill being used // proficiency (Trained/Expert/Master) // your roll

If you have anything unique like something that lets you do a higher task level than normal, an alternate skill, field comission, etc then make sure to note that.

Third, if you are buying/selling anything make sure it is on this slide otherwise I will assume you're not purchasing/selling anything or that you are filling it out yourself

Quinoline is crafting a batch of 2 moderate elixirs of life.
Raw materials: -150 gp
Lead time: 4 days
Crafting, Impeccable, DC 26: 1d20 + 20 + 2 ⇒ (17) + 20 + 2 = 39 => Critical Success
Crafting: 8 days @ 6 gp/day
Begin: 150/300
End: 198/300

Storied talent and fielded agent. snakes lore: 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (17) + 15 = 32
snakes lore: 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (15) + 15 = 30
Also, I'll be spending the 50 ACP to rewrite him, as soon as this one is over. I have feats and choices I don't need.

Legal Lore, Storied Talent Master Prof, vs Task Level 8: 1d20 + 16 ⇒ (3) + 16 = 19
rip, going to be purchasing at least Goggles of Night, not sure if I'll have the cash for anything else offhand.

will get this reported this weekend and chronicles also out this weekend (i'll try tomorrow for those who have already provided the downtime)

@Zac, just so you're not blind-sided, the full text of Career Change can be read here - It is essentially a mass retraining at the cost of 85% of the total gold your character has earned over their career.

Curse Lore (Expert): 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (13) + 12 = 25

This is more of a general PFS2 question, but since it came up here ...

You earned all 10 treasure bundles. Many of these were tied to combat

I haven't GMed very much of Season 2, but from what I have GMed, I've noticed two trends: (a) that Treasure Bundles are increasingly simply given out for defeating enemies, and (b) there are fewer "blocks" of Treasure Bundles - whereas in Season 1 there may have been 5-6 blocks of 1-2 TBs each, Season 2 tended to have 3-4 blocks of 2-4 TBs each.

Do any of you who are more involved with PFS leadership/authorship know if it's intentional?

So 7 blocks, though you'd have to try to miss more than 2-3 of those blocks.

Though there is an uncommon item on this chronicle sheet - They don't introduce it in-character and I didn't think to do so until now-- but drandle wore a ring of sustenance which supposedly you get first dibs on now that's he's back but still unwell? Let's say Nelket had one and offered it as a token of appreciation for returning Dolok safely.

I have a very limited set of data, so I won't overdraw conclusions. It's just something I noticed when I was prepping my GDX scenarios.

** spoiler omitted **

So 7 blocks, though you'd have to try to miss more than 2-3 of those blocks.

** spoiler omitted **

Though there is an uncommon item on this chronicle sheet - They don't introduce it in-character and I didn't think to do so until now-- but drandle wore a ring of sustenance which supposedly you get first dibs on now that's he's back but still unwell? Let's say Nelket had one and offered it as a token of appreciation for returning Dolok safely.

Maybe the Ring of Sustenance came from the cyclops spirit so he wouldn't have to take breaks to feed his host, in which case it wasn't Drandles to begin with? Just a thought.

That said, there were a lot of really stupid treasure bundle placements in Season 1, so I like the move towards less explicit treasure bundle schenaniganry, but I would appreciate it if moving forward there were at least more Uncommon items and options included on Chronicle Sheets, like, idk, maybe literally anything from the Edgewatch AP since it was confirmed the AP itself wouldn't be sanctioned? Just a thought.

EDIT: Forgot to include my favorite stupid treasure bundle from season 1 as an example.

Other honorable mentions from other scenarios:
-The time you had to crit-succeed a Perception Check to get the tenth treasure bundle of a scenario.
-The time where you succeed a chase and manage to make it just in time to find a relic before it just happens to sink completely into quicksand, a process that has been underway for an imperceptible amount of time prior to this scenario that you will miss if you just happen to show up to the location a few minutes late.
-The time when you're fleeing a civilization actively undergoing a catastrophe that could end the way of life for an entire culture and you find time to loot what you can on the way out.

Yeah, all of those options considered, I'd rather the scenario just rank us at the end with arbitrary treasure based on how well we did.

I wouldn't mind weird Treasure Bundles if there were more than 10 total (with a cap at 10), e.g., 6 TBs linked to Primary/Secondaries, 3 that have a 1/2 chance of being found, and 3 with a 1/4 chance of being found, 12 total, 10 max, 8 expected.

Thanks for the heads up, without even going through all the chronicles or even my inventory sheet and adding everything up, I'd be losing at least 200 gold as I'm sure I've earned more than 1500 over my career. Possibly even 300 gold if I've earned 2000 over my career.
Level 1=42 gold max not including day job (14 gold for each 4 XP. 14X3=42, then another level starts at 2)
Level 2=66 gold max not including day job
level 3=114 gold
level 4=192 gold
level 5=300 gold
level 6=450 gold
level 7=660 gold
and I just hit level 8. Now I don't have a perfect treasure bundle score and things like bounties and quests mess with those numbers a little, but that adds up to 1782 gold before day jobs.

Legal Lore-Earn Income-lvl 6 DC 22: 1d20 + 12 ⇒ (19) + 12 = 31

So that's 12 gold for Astrid. I will add her purchases later, although I'll most likely just replace consumables.