NostalgiaCon Fate GM Thread (Inactive)

Game Master Dennis Muldoon

I don't think my table will accomplish any aid mission... unless I did *all* the dice rolling for them.

With a slow moving table I would be tempted to put out all three missions at once, and have them do 2 rolls on each.

With a slow moving table I would be tempted to put out all three missions at once, and have them do 2 rolls on each.

That is what I had to do.

GM Hmm wrote:

With a slow moving table I would be tempted to put out all three missions at once, and have them do 2 rolls on each.

That is what I had to do.

Done that now. Fingers crossed.

I don't know if this applies to everyone, but we might be having another case of people not being able to login. My main browser isn't letting me login, but the secondary one stayed logged in so it may/may not be an issue.

I had that for a while today too. Seems stable now.

We just got the 3rd success and are holding.

Doesn’t seem consistent and may be related to the browser used,

I stayed logged in on my iPad using Safari, HMM had problems on her iPad using Chrome.

Clear browser data and it works again.

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I have also completed all the aid missions and am in a holding pattern.

I took it as an opportunity to allow the players to put themselves in the chamber as set up for the next part.

Yep, clearing browser data fixed it for me.

Sorry for the delay with getting the 1-day warning posted. You should see it in your tables now. I plan to post sometime between 5:30pm and 6:00pm US Pacific time tomorrow (which I *think* maps to ~1:30am UTC) moving us to Part 4, unless we trigger the success condition earlier in the day.

We're at 82% of the success condition right now, so I am hopeful for an early transition. Sometimes you can get an aid success with only three posts if the right people in your party post!

Has anyone allowed tier 5-8 players a chance to ID the hounds, either from the image in the library or asking Heraxia for a description of them? (she probably can't remember everything but might help with a clue). I was thinking DC 30 Occultism (28+2 for the description and carving being vague as not having seen the creature).

Also, I am assuming the sarcophagus has 90º angles but nothing else in the chamber. Edit: from the artwork it looks like even the pod isn't angled (makes sense from a design standpoint).

So I guess all Hounds are automatically Sickened 1 for the entire fight?

I missed that there was an image in the library.

As for asking Heraxia, my players didn’t think of it. I would allow if at the slightly more difficult value but then allow a new check once they actually see one.

I hadn’t considered it, but it makes sense that a room with the eternity arch wouldn’t have any right angles precisely because of the hounds. That should be applied uniformly, since the Pups have the same vulnerability.

Yeah. The library has an image of the PCs fighting “bug eyed hounds” or something similar. No one asked, so I didn’t roll at the time but they are asking Heraxia now. Seems fair to give it to them.

The ovoid vault is specifically called out as “completely curved with no angles or hard edges.” The stasis pod, less clear but I assume it too is not angled.

I had problems logging in. Thought it was the site, but I needed to clear cache and cookies. Table is 2 for 2, and starting the perimeter defense now. Will roll for anyone who can't make their own attempt before part 3 clsoes.

The floor is at a 90º to the walls, for example. Think in 3 dimensions.

Or at least that is how I've always ran it.

So, they'll to get the hounds away from the walls, else there will be a 90º angle for the hounds (and pups).

Maybe? They are fighting in the Ovoid Chamber though (Heraxia says "The oval-shaped chamber at the back of the area should work"), which has the following description:

The red stone chamber is completely curved, with no angles or hard edges anywhere.

I read this as specifically telling the GM there are absolutely no angles. It's confusing because the description for the chamber is up in Part One, and Heraxia references the Ovoid Chamber without saying its proper noun. But that is my interpretation.

How can we be certain that the floor is 90º where it meets the walls? There might be curving baseboards and moulding for all we know. I think that the curving walls are being called out in the text for a reason. That map was certainly drawn deliberately to show no right angles, and as someone who has had to draw maps for freelanced adventures, curves are way more difficult to draw than straight lines.

★ --- ★ --- ★ --- ★

Also, 32/34 successes. Go, team!

@GM blake - i think Griss's hero point moved a crit fail from defense so it went from 5/6 to 6/6.

This should be enough successes to trigger the condition.

@GM blake - i think Griss's hero point moved a crit fail from defense so it went from 5/6 to 6/6.

This should be enough successes to trigger the condition.

I had my totals backwards. Transport was 5/6 and Defense was 4/6. Now both are 5/6. I'll bot Johnny's second rolls, though.

EDIT: Johnny's bot finished Transport and got us to 34/34.

Looks like we hit our target! I'll post the transition when I'm done with my meeting in about 30min.

Transition posted. Great job coming in under the wire to hit that threshold, folks. That's one more positive condition we can pass on to the SFS special! The final one is hitting the waves success threshold in Part 4.

Hey all GMs!

We just had a lot of skill challenges, but don't forget that two conditions kick in on the next combat encounter:

Time Rift Sealed: The party is filled with residual temporal energy from the time rift. During the next encounter, they are quickened 1.

Local Alliance: New allies share their knowledge of the region with the Pathfinders, allowing the Pathfinders to get the jump on their enemies. At the beginning of the next encounter, all enemies are flat-footed to the Pathfinders for 1 round.

Use this to quickly finish off enemies for a first Wave Success!

Hmm

And now a question of my own. For each wave, we get a choice of encounters. If we finish all three waves can we go back and tackle the encounters we did not do to earn more wave successes for the group as a whole?

If a table completes all three waves and there is time remaining, they can encounter the waves additional times to earn additional successes for the House. Each time they do, they must attempt the mission they didn't encounter the first time playing through the waves.

The PCs can take time to Treat Wounds, Refocus, or Repair equipment in between encounters.

They can’t repeat a mission they have done, but they can do the other option.

Perfect. That will help us make our 51 successes.

For Wave 1 Mission 2 (rescue mission), I made a new flattened map with the rift on it and a dotted line to fence in the area where PCs need to make fort saves. I also added 8 numbered Kyras.

It is on slide 42.

Probably a bit late for some but if you have a second time through, it might help you set up a complex skill challenge more quickly.

That will be awesome when we go back through again.

My table has rescued the requisite 4, so I'm going to submit the success.

I'm not sure how terrible the party make-up would need to be to go a full 8+ rounds without rescuing everyone except maybe the pillar guy.

“Sorry, no time to rescue you!”

When my table gets there, I will probably tell them they can continue making rolls for that if desired {then/now type posts) but start the second wave.

Fi is back and taking her table over once again.

Best of luck closing this out everyone!

GM Hmm wrote:

That is kind of why I did not go into a third round -- that and I don't want my table continuing to take damage and spend hero points. So that sounds like we have 4 successes coming in soon, since Bret was close the last time I checked. I'll wait.

Yes I have players spending hero points on the second time through the event. I am honestly going to be a little extra generous re-upping them this part, as they are using valuable resources to do extra work thanks to the site outage.

I would like guidance on this. Can a GM offer more than one Hero Point per player if the party is continually doing more wave challenges than normal? I feel that in a longer run with more encounters players should get the option for another Hero Point, expecially if they are tackling more encounters to help the special make its targets.

Thoughts?

Who you give hero points to and when is entirely at your own discretion. The one/hour is a guideline, not a fast rule, and even that doesn't stop you from awarding more than one to the same player. I think it's definitely reasonable to award more than 4 hero points over the course of a busy special, especially for a table that's moving quick and doing extra work.

Excellent!

Awesome!

Everyone at my table cheers as the barbarian draws first blood with a natural 20 for MAX-1 (56) damage from his war flail against the stegosaurus.

Then the stegosaurus stands back up and proceeds to crit twice in a row with its tail...

FYI, I will be mostly offline this weekend. Feel free to email me or ping me on Discord if you need my attention for something in the meantime.

Second Wave Skill Challenge gives the clumsy condition. Does that stay for the duration or go away after the challenge due to a chance for 10 minutes of rest?

AT my 1-2 table, a character got critted by the big bug down to 4 HP, then took 6 attacks from little bugs for 0, 0, 0, 1 nonlethal, 1 nonlethal and 1 nonlethal.

Second Wave Skill Challenge gives the clumsy condition. Does that stay for the duration or go away after the challenge due to a chance for 10 minutes of rest?

Given that the text says "...as the arch temporarily ages it", I think it's fair to have the condition go away at the end of that mission.

AT my 1-2 table, a character got critted by the big bug down to 4 HP, then took 6 attacks from little bugs for 0, 0, 0, 1 nonlethal, 1 nonlethal and 1 nonlethal.

Possible those 0s were from resistance (from champion reactions, etc), but do remember that the minimum damage from an attack is 1 (even if you roll a 1 on 1d4-1 or something).

If the combined penalties on an attack would reduce the damage to 0 or below, you still deal 1 damage.

Possible those 0s were from resistance (from champion reactions, etc), but do remember that the minimum damage from an attack is 1 (even if you roll a 1 on 1d4-1 or something).

Three misses and three rolled 1s on 1d4-1.

Just wanted to give a shout out of thanks to GM Sedoriku for keeping my table going while I was at an in person convention this past weekend. It really helped me knowing I didn’t have to update my group while at con.

As an FYI - the "Ovoid Vault" is only the room where the stasis chamber is in, as described on the last paragraph of page 8. That

red stone chamber is completely curved, with no angles or hard edges anywhere.

cmlobue wrote:

AT my 1-2 table, a character got critted by the big bug down to 4 HP, then took 6 attacks from little bugs for 0, 0, 0, 1 nonlethal, 1 nonlethal and 1 nonlethal.

Possible those 0s were from resistance (from champion reactions, etc), but do remember that the minimum damage from an attack is 1 (even if you roll a 1 on 1d4-1 or something).

Damage wrote:

If the combined penalties on an attack would reduce the damage to 0 or below, you still deal 1 damage.

Got it, I misunderstood what you were saying. Unless the attacks normally do nonlethal, I don't think the default 1 min damage is nonlethal, though. That was a PF1 thing.

Man, these hounds ripping gazes are tearing my group apart. I even took the away from 90 degree corners to give them a fighting chance as they don't have a lot of healing. It is going to be a close call.

Yup.

Do they know/remember they can avert gaze? I often have to remind players about that when they are dealing with Visual effects.

Also, those dogs have no resistances when away from ninety degree angles. But I think the main reason that my group came out okay is that Blake's druid was dropping healing left and right throughout the battle. It's the kind of battle where a dedicated healer shines.

I am going to remind them on Avery gaze. Yup I quickly pulled them away from 90 degree angles as they are mostly melee doing around 10 damage to begin with.