[SFS_Aerondor] 03-20 Fleeting Truth: Everchanging revelation (11-14) (Inactive)

Game Master Aerondor

You still have your own reflex save to make as well...

Round about now, I'm guessing you are all glad you took a rest.

The mechanics of this Kelria is incredible.
I am really surprised. Even after Scaranis

Yeap. From my reading they effectively get a normal round and then ten intiative points later get (effectively) an AOE attack. But wait... there is worse to come.

This is a CR16 encounter (its CR18 in high tier).

The way it is written, it also looks like there is supposed to be a forth hellknight in support of her. But the scenario in another place says three, so I've opted for the lower amount.

Not gonna lie, this scenario feels maddeningly unfair. I get that this is the first Level 11-14 scenario, but all those earlier encounters amounting to just mounds of automatic damage and stacking conditions with no opportunity to rest just feels impossible. Any place where we even could feasibly pick up some help has obnoxiously high DCs with added penalties for failure, and even success doesn't yield the most useful resources. There's a fine line between challenging and frustrating, but this doesn't even feel like it's in the same zip code as that line. Scaranis was super tough, but never felt punitive like this does. I mean, we got super lucky against the troll and the ice devils and we're still getting the snot kicked out of us.

Did we get any intel that would have informed decisions that we missed, or just didn't make? Did we have a meaningful bout of terrible luck? I feel like we're doing pretty much everything as right as is feasible and still getting clobbered.

My guess is that in levels 11-14, Starfinder expects you to stack your character with expensive consumables, considering you have tons of credits to do so right now. So high level potions of all kinds, high level grenades, maybe even a missile launcher at this point with missiles level 10 or 13.

I totally get your thoughts Id. I thought the previous one was pretty brutal. After reading through the scenario I have to admit to being kind of glad to not actually be playing it.

To be fair to the scenario, the first troll I think is mostly to give you a warning that fights will be tough. It rolled badly and you guys rolled well, and it ended up being an easy fight for you. could have been bad if you didn't have the right stuff to stop its regeneration though. Given it happens before the tower, it doesn't even really tax your resources for the rest of the scenario, so I kind of like it. For a pick-up table it gives a group a chance to work out how to work together without being terribly punitive.

The mob-attack you could have avoided if everyone could fly. I've heard of at least one table that did that (although they were not far enough away to avoid the vomit attack :-) I suspect they assume most parties can manage that by this level. Kind of like assuming in PF1 that everyone in a high level game has a potion of fly available. And yes, I was the person at a con with my level 12 fighter who didn't... ugh.

Overall the scenario is pretty gnarly though. Thus Dridapex using some of his own powers to help heal you.

I think some of the higher tier scenarios are balanced as if everyone is an operative.

I take solace in the fact that I have enough AcP to get my bloody corpse dragged back to Absalom Station after this debacle.

Well, in current scenario we see junk of dmg.

I wonder how Kelria could throw 2 grenades and made Trample at the same round. Especially how he flys being large - probably expansive suite, but how so much manueverablilty in this narrow space?

And this is legal question about Kelria I believe:
Does he have more grenades? What suite is he wearing?

Anyway I made my counterstrike. Execute plan A!

Kelria doesn't *appear* to have any more grenades. She is wearing a commander’s harness and seems to have a rifle of some type ready for use if necessary. Of course, being vesk, she has claws...

And as noted, she has special abilities to act outside of her normal initiative. I've tried to flag them in advance a little (jet pack warming up).

Jet pack can not work with Powered Armor, like Commander Harness.

Sometimes scenario writers ignore rules. Sometimes to advantage, sometimes to dump someone. But as a game master I always frustrate about this...

Scaranis was an example too, but he lacked of some mystic abilities.

Tolar's heavy weapon fire is a 60 foot cone. Hard to do without hitting party members. Also a lot less damage then the sword.

Poors of ichor - are these difficlut terrain or like a wall?
How can we navigate through?

In this situation I thought TOlar could destroy soldiers who place runes. But after so many move were made another way - I do not know already...

Now would be a great time for whatever influence we exerted with those skill checks to show up and help us. Not sure how much more I can do except get scraps of data and save some or all of us the cost of body recovery.

The jet pack is a special ability. In this case it is effectively also fluff as she can choose to walk through all your squares (apart from Joe) as part of her trample. She does have a jet pack, but the special ability refers to a different item that isn't actually listed.

The scenario editing is dire. Different number of the assistants, and quite different stats for them (at the same tier) in different places. I'm generally picking the smaller numbers. I can't help feel this one was rushed and someone made changes but they were only half implemented.

The pools of ichor are of unknown depth, so may be difficult to get out of if you get in. And they are on fire. So that might hurt a bit too. Those close to them can feel the heat is quite extreme.

Sadly the influence you exerted with the skill checks was insufficient to get the kings aid. I can't help but think the encounter was balanced with that aid in mind.

Glad to see you are doing something about those targetting runes.

There are no obvious computers in the room to connect to (apart from maybe on the hellknights). So whatever information store has what you are looking for will need to wait until after the battle.

I have to wonder about one other thing given how bad you say the editing is. I think you said that the Hellknights are also affected by the increased gravity. But is that actually reflected in their stats, or did they just publish generic stats and expect you to adjust them for the gravity? Cause I've seen them do that in other scenarios, and it wasn't obvious.

I've been reducing movement for them. But things like the trample let her go up to 120 feet, so even with reduction for heavy gravity that is 60'. For me, that was 30' there and 30' back.

The grenade penalty she had was from throwing the grenades in heavy gravity, with ranges reduced.

TLDR; I'm assuming stats don't have heavy gravity penalty built in, and adding it.

Thanks for the explanation.

The microlab is a move action, and Inspiring Boost is a Standard.

Next round, likely Inspiring Boost either Joe or Kait'lax assuming one of them gets hurt this round.

I messed up the action tracker. Joe did have a rune on him. He now has two. If Kait wanted to try and remove the first rune he could have earlier.

If he wants to try to get both runes I can do that now. If he wants to wait for the third rune... we can stick with that easily.

So, options for Kait
Acting on his initial initiative (24) when Joe has the rune from the red knight already.
Acting now (initiative 12) with two runes
Waiting for the third rune to appear, best guess would be initiative 25 next round.

I’d get both runes now if I were you, waiting until next round means we’ll get creamed again.

I also realized I didn’t add in the bonus stamina from the dragon enhancement. Id’s HP and remaining SP should be 22 higher than they are from that.

Burned through my SP? I spent an RP to regain all SP before this fight. On the tracker you have me at 132/132 SP, ie full, but 64/83 HP as if that last grenade I saved against took away 19 HP instead of 19 SP. Leaves me more confused.

Sorry, mudding up you an Id who took a load of damage.

The grenade should have taken sp not hp off you. I'll try to fix up the tracker.

Right, it looks like I took it off HP rather than SP. Fixed.

3 items to address before I post:

1st is easiest: I'm having a little trouble telling who was damaged since Jaqweh's last turn, meaning who could he do an Inspiring boost on? Obviously not Tolar since I already boosted him, but I don't know if Joe will try to save or take the AO, and can't really tell who else might have been injured. Sorry,.

Alternatively he could try to give Kelria vulnerability. What's the (29) next to her name: HP remaining or damage taken?

Lastly, how do you want to handle the recent FAQ/errata to Biohacker? Per the Season 3 Guide, if an errata occurred "during an event" you played with the old rule until you could adjust afterwards. I presume that applies here in PBP also. (FWIW, he's just gonna retrain out of Biohacker afterwards with a mnenomic editor.)

The brackets next to everyones name is their initiative counter. I don't normally bother with that, but this is a doozie and I didn't want to run a block initiative for it which might kill everyone real fast. Also it makes things like delaying and readying an action more specific. But it does slow matters down a little.

Since Jaq's last turn there was only Kelria actually hurting people, so just Tolar and Jackojare this round.

What was substance of the rule change for biohacker? I'm happy to keep with the more generous interpretation as we are mid battle.

What was substance of the rule change for biohacker? I'm happy to keep with the more generous interpretation as we are mid battle.

They nerfed the genetics field of study ability, which is what Jaqweh is. The ability used to say that it imparts "vulnerability" but that turned out to be flavor text. They reduced it to just doing damage based on level, which is now terrible for a dip.

Thanks for understanding.

Well done everyone. While I guess I could have done another rampage to make things tighter for you, at that stage Kelria was still kind of in stamina (well, less than half damaged) and rolling very well, while you were all... not.

The real change was I think the mindspike grenade that the knight failed its save against, resulting in being dazed, so Joe escaped another missile, which would have done a lot of damage to him, those around him, and caused yet another devil to appear.

Still a little wrap up to finish in gameplay, but you are almost done now.

@all, please check your details over at rpgchronicles are correct. I should get results to you this weekend.

edit: And wow, almost 500 posts over two months. That was quite an intense game. Anyone keep track of how many grenades got tossed?

Phew, that was a doozy. Thanks for running, Aerondor! Terrific job as always.

Great game and amazing arc! I will looking forward to this plot.

Will post in the main thread today later...

In case it wasn't clear, voting to release the data to the public in a controlled manner.

I have to admit that after round one, I thought I was onto a TPK in that last encounter.

If you want me to add a day-job for you, post it here. Otherwise your chronicles are ready.

Thanks very much for playing.

Day Job (electrician): 1d20 + 15 ⇒ (2) + 15 = 17

Chronicle updated.

Profession (Vidgamer): 1d20 + 25 ⇒ (16) + 25 = 41

No need to update chronicle. I'll add it myself. Everything else looks good.

Thanks to everyone who played and ran this series. That was intense, and this was just the group I wanted to do it with.

No day job. Thanks all. Was dicey there a few times.

I am really glad we went through this Arc!

Would be happy to continue someday!

I have no idea how many grenades we spent but with Jackojare every fight was followed with grenade throwing...

Jackojare used 7 grenades himself, 2 of them he made the other 5 he bought. He made the 1st one at the beginning of the scenario during briefing and the 2nd one at during the 10 minute rest as he can only have one made grenade at a time. All grenades were loaded into grenade launcher, otherwise, he'd have to draw them as a move action.

Chronicle updated.

Received! Thanks!

I'm going to mark this as inactive now. Any final questions, please send me a PM.